Abide

by Hannah Miller

“Abide. Draw near. Stay still.” This is what I heard God tell me at the beginning of this year. I shared this with a small prayer group a few months ago, and to our surprise, all of us were on the same journey!

“Abiding,” “drawing near,” and “staying still” are ridiculously hard to do when you are someone like me who is driven to “do, do, do” and “work, work, work.”  I found myself asking God, “Why couldn’t you have asked me to do something rather than be still? You made me this way…”

“But let me tell you, being still is where the sweetness of God’s presence resides.”

I had planned to go through Sole Pursuit this winter, and to my surprise (and disappointment),  it was canceled. At the same time, I was asked to join the Brazil team. Brazil! Wow, that sounds exciting… But if I’m being honest, I was immediately scared. I felt intimidated by the people on my team, and was afraid that I had nothing to offer the people in Brazil. I prayed about it and thankfully, my love for travel kicked in. I said “yes” to Brazil!

Before I left, I felt anxious about going because I wasn’t “qualified.”  However, deep down I knew God had something special planned. I could feel it! That was confirmed Sunday before we left for our trip. Doran prayed over us and got a word for me. “You are the one.”  he said. “You feel like Paul when he said ‘I am the least of these.’” Did he hear my thoughts? How did he know that was exactly how I felt?

So we hopped on a plane, scared and anticipating what God had in store. The worry quickly disappeared as I chatted with my wonderful team and met the beautiful people of Brazil. Prayer was constant on this trip. Abiding was constant on this trip. The animated, spirit-filled church in Brazil  introduced us to new ways of praying. The energy in the church we were serving was electric, inspiring, and contagious!

Their conference ran from Friday evening and all day Saturday. Some of my favorite times on the trip were the worship times. You could find our team dancing and singing as loud as we could. It became the norm for us. It was also the best time to pray and abide. God spoke, and I listened. 

Once, during worship, I asked God how he wanted me to worship as I went to my knees. Minutes later, someone came up and told me that God doesn’t care how I worship, he just wants my heart. From that moment on, I felt free and knew that God was right beside me, smiling at all of us as we worshipped.

The conference ended and Tuesday morning rolled around. During the conference, I felt the desire to ask the Lord for my prayer language. It’s something that I haven’t received before, but desired. After our daily team time, I knew I was supposed to ask the other two girls to pray for me. Little did I know, Mary Beth had gotten a picture of all three of us sitting on her bed, praying. That’s exactly what happened! As they started praying, the girls saw an image of a man in white sitting in the room with us. When we asked for the gift of tongues, he stood up right in front of me, reached out his hands, and waited for me to take them. This prayer time was so much more than asking for the gift of tongues. I received pictures for my future and ideas that I didn’t know I could ask for!

“The feeling of sitting in his presence, knowing he was in the room, and receiving what he had for me was everything. It's the same sweetness of God I referred to earlier, and I never want to live without it again.”

I can’t fully put into words what those few hours of prayer did for me. I have never been able to hear him as clearly as I do now. I have never been able to speak words of life over people as easily as I do now. All I want to do is give that to people! I want to give away the feeling of Jesus being right here beside me, beside us!

This all started with abiding. This year isn’t anywhere close to the end yet, and God has blown me away with what he is doing in my heart. 

All He desires is for you to sit with Him, to listen to Him, and to abide. I challenge you to take fifteen minutes out of your day for the next week, doing nothing but sitting in his presence and listening to what he has to say. He speaks! We just have to be more like Mary and less like Martha.

John 15:4: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”