[kittn1]

Through my personal trial, God has taught me that the Christian life is not in my “doing,” but it in my “being."

In our Christian life, we often develop a mindset that it’s our responsibility to “produce” the fruit by doing instead of simply being. We plan, work, strive, labor, and commit to doing our part, instead of abiding in Christ and yielding the fruit He desires to produce in our lives. As a result, we fail to live a life that is simply directed by Christ. I am not suggesting we “will” do nothing, I am saying we “can” do nothing. When we truly comprehend “without Him I can do nothing” we “will” begin doing something genuine and yielding the fruit He desires to bring forth in our life.

It is so easy to let our service compete with our devotion, as the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42 illustrates.

I heard it said at a Ladies' Retreat that you can't abound unless you abide.

Even in the most overwhelming situations.......for example, a time of fleeing and escape as Moses and the Israelites prepared to cross the Red Sea in Exodus 14:13-14 and a time of war as the Moabites invaded Judah in 2 Chronicles 20:15, 17..... God instructed the leaders (Moses and Jehoshaphat, respectively) to tell the people a)not to fear b)to stand still and c)that the battle was the Lord's.

Those instructions run completely contrary to man's "wisdom" and it's hard for most people to do nothing in a crisis.

It becomes a faith-building exercise, to rely on our Heavenly Father to protect us.

Just a rambling response that brought previous experiences to mind as I read Forrest's post.