Abide

Abide

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

EVERY MORNING since my college days, I have had the habit of getting up and spending a few moments reading the Bible and a simple devotional before work. A morning person by nature, it became an easy habit for me to make a cup of coffee and sit down for a few minutes with my Bible and journal before leaving for class or work.

As social media and smartphones became more prevalent, I found that although I was still getting up and reading my Bible for a few moments every morning, it wasn’t the first thing that I would do. I would often shut the alarm off on my phone and then spend a little time scrolling social media before getting up for the day.

At first I didn’t notice any change to my attitude, but over time—and especially during seasons of hard things happening in our world—I found my peace slowly leaving. I found myself disgruntled and restless as I would go through my day. As I tried to pinpoint exactly why this was, I realized it had much to do with my mind being held captive to the things I’d seen and read on social media. It was filling my thoughts to the detriment of my own peace of mind.

I started to limit my social media use and stopped scrolling first thing in the morning. I returned to my habit of spending the first moments of my day with God, and as I did, my peace returned.

Setting healthy limits affects so many areas of our lives, and maybe nowhere as much as our thought life. That is why abiding in God and his love is so important. It’s not that we stop paying attention to what is going on in the world—we certainly can and should know what is happening—but filling our minds and hearts with God’s Word first and abiding in his love sets us up to handle the rest of the day well.

Lord, help me to come to you first. Thank you for your love and the invitation to abide in it today. Amen.

-Kendra

One Good Step: Take the first few moments of your day and spend them with God, abiding in him and his love for you.