Those who read my books or hear me speak about God and His ways often hear about the abundant life Jesus offers to those who follow Him:

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

John 10:10, NASB

This is one of my favorite topics, and I have hope in it every day: that God is good, that His motive in creating and redeeming me is giving me life that is both satisfying and sustainable; that Jesus Christ meant what He said, that He can and will bring us to this abundant life.

The reason I’m still teaching and writing about it after 37 years? Because the Lord brings that abundant life to my heart pretty much every day. I describe this life in my book, They Will All Know Me as a quiet river of joy that is seldom disturbed:

There are major moments of joy with the Lord, but I’ve come to love the quiet river of joy that flows through my heart these days in knowing Him. This little internal river of life nurtures everything in me…

Page 257, Chapter 18: All Things Are Fulfilled In Knowing God

Sometimes life brings a season of hurt.

Still, like all people I have days which are not “abundant” in any sense of the word. Some seasons of life bring enough grief, pain or strain to test the sense of abundance I’ve come to almost take for granted. Frankly, I have been in such a season for a while now. And on any given week people I know are going through tests and trials. They are part of life, and God knew they would come.

When Jesus announced His plan to give us abundant life, He did so with full knowledge of everything that would challenge that.

Jesus would not hold out to us the hope of something unless He has the power to carry out. Yet every time I speak and teach on this, I know some in the audience walk away full of hope in this truth, and yet arrive back in their everyday lives wondering how it shall really come to pass.

They believe God; they believed me when I repeated His desire and will. They want it to be true. But they don’t know how to get there in their everyday lives, where the rubber meets the road.

The temptation: make it happen yourself.

The temptation is to make it happen; to strive to manufacture happiness and success. Or perhaps to make oneself over in a resolve to change, or try to make others change. To rework life by changing jobs, locations, or partners, even to seek divorce. To work ever harder at religious activity to earn God’s blessing of abundant life.

At best, these things only provide a temporary and limited abundance, depending as they do, upon YOU to keep them going. I know, because I have tried them all.

One day, the bright light of the Spirit lit up my understanding: if God’s promise of abundant life relied upon MY performance, then His promises would be no better than MY strength to make it happen. Allow me to re-word that last bit: my puny, unreliable strength.

That couldn’t be right. Because I know myself. And so does God, who made us. He knows our every weakness and tendency. He would never make promises that depend upon someone else to keep. Paul acknowledged this in Romans 3:3 when he said,

What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all!

Romans 3:3-4 (NIV)

We don’t have to hold up God’s plans and promises.

We don’t have to hold up God’s plans, or make them come true. Yet, we do have a part to play in how much we experience the fulfillment of God’s promises in our lives. It is obvious that God does not drop abundant life on everyone baptized into Christ. The churches we visit and years of counseling tell us otherwise. Few Christians would confess that life suddenly got abundant and stayed that way because they belong to God.

The question remains, how does abundant life come to us through Christ? I learned the answer long ago, through seasons of both grief and goodness: abundant life comes from leaning entirely upon the Holy Spirit. Believing in His constant presence, responding to Him, speaking to Him, treating Him as the Real Person He is. Living a lifestyle of trusting in and yielding to Him.

Faith in a God who is Present makes all the difference.

Genuine belief in the real presence of the Spirit leads one to stop ignoring Him. It led me to change my prayers from “Where are you, Lord?” to “I know you are with me, Lord. I need your comfort. I lean into you. I wait for your words.”

The more I learn to live and act as if the Spirit is truly present with me, the more life becomes an increasing and steady experience of abundance. Not only finding comfort and help in times of trouble, but even at times thriving in the midst of that trouble.

Your answer isn’t in a program; or trying to wrangle life or yourself or others into submission. Your answer is in a Person. Abundant life is the natural result of fully leaning into the God who lives right with you.

The Spirit of Christ — promised and delivered, is continually waiting to be acknowledged, trusted, leaned upon. Standing by with words of wisdom. Longing to be the one you lean against in your weariness. Treated as if He is real; responded to as if truly present, not up in heaven somewhere. Trusted as if His promise to love you faithfully can be relied upon without question.

The Father’s gift of the Spirit does not have to be earned. You don’t have to live perfectly to enjoy His presence. (Of course, if you live in sin, your own conscience will be a huge barrier). You don’t have to pray or read your Bible so many hours each day, or strive for perfect church attendance. Those things can help you grow, but access to the source of your abundant life depends on just two things: your faith in the Lord’s Presence, and your faithful response to His Presence.

The way back to joy.

I’ve been through seasons where I woke every morning with sorrow waiting to envelop me. Without fail, the way back to joy began with reaching for the Lord, the Spirit dwelling with my human spirit. He is always waiting for me to lay all my need at His feet.

The Lord never expects me to fix myself. He doesn’t require me to confess Scripture all day like some Christian mantra — though He often leads me to a passage of promise that fuels my hope and adds understanding. Sometimes, He unfolds such compassion before me that all I can do is weep in release, then rest with Him in an amazing blanket of peace.

In such a moment, when you think your heart could break in two, this is abundant life. At least it is for me.

This is the Lord’s way of confirming that life may hurt me, but it won’t truly harm me. I will come through, I will recover, I will reconnect with joy again. And so I have. And reaffirmed each time that this is something I could never do for myself. No amount of self-talk or Scripture memorization can bring me to rest and peace like the Spirit does. How I long for every Christian to know the Spirit this way!

In Christ, and baptized with His Holy Spirit, you live every moment with the author of your joy, strength, healing and sustenance. Simply turn to Him in your grieving, your pain; offer your starving and wounded heart to Him to satisfy, with real expectation. Say, “Here Lord, I look to you alone for the manna that keeps me alive. For the words that turn grief into peace. For whatever you will add to this moment to lead me back to the abundance you desire for me.”

Nothing outside of you, and no one apart from you, can separate you from the Lord and His offer of abundant life. This abundance is in Him, it comes through Him, it flows from Him. The Apostle Paul said as much:

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.

Romans 11:36 (NASB)

God’s process: restoration comes through relationship.

Healing from sorrow doesn’t come in a moment. It can — I have experienced this — but not usually. The path back to fullness is a process, designed by God to come through relationship with Him. It is not the guaranteed result of a discipline or formula for Christian success. It’s not even about how much faith you have, but what your faith is focused on. And that should be the Spirit Himself, and what He is doing for and with you. A tiny mustard seed of faith can become a tree of life when it brings you face-to-face with God again and again.

However, be aware He is likely to use all manner of things in your natural world to facilitate your restoring: the words of a friend, a delightful movie, an outing that gives you joy, a walk through a garden full of flowers only God could have thought to create.

Sometimes I pull back from writing and teaching to process things that seem to challenge what I believe and teach others. I never want to teach something about God or knowing Him that cannot pass the test of real life.

I’ve been through some of my toughest times this past year, which provided a fresh test of everything I teach about God’s passion to give abundant life. God let me go through heart pain greater than I’ve ever experienced; yet my history with Him has taught me not to be afraid of these times. Unpleasant as it may be, I no longer shrink back for fear of being hurt. Even that has opened me up for greater levels of healing, and therefore, more abundant life.

Before He made me better in this recent season, God opened my eyes to some painful truths about myself and past life choices. Things that not only broke my heart, but hurt the people in my life. It brought the kind of grief that rocks you to your core, releasing tears of shame and regret.

Though I felt God’s nearness and gentle comfort in the process, He didn’t shield me from the truth I needed to hear. It reminded me of a book I read years ago by Jamie Buckingham, which he titled The Truth Will Set You Free… But First It Will Make You Miserable.

Sometimes the path to abundant life involves a walk through the valley of truth.

Gradually the grief turned to peace, and resolve to change. To make amends. To not leave my loved ones behind while I chase after God. I learned much about the consequence of choices, of how they ultimately either validate or make a lie of the love I claim to have. I believe and hope I will be a better lover of the people I treasure now. So in typical God-like fashion, His way of bringing me to abundant life has the potential to spill over onto others.

I write of these things in hope that you will find both companionship and nurture for your troubled heart and your desire to keep reaching for God.

As always, my passion is to help you connect with this real God in your real life, every day. I would love to hear from you, to hear your own real questions and issues in trying to know God in real life.

As mentioned above, this topic is explored more deeply in my book, They Will All Know Me: God’s Plan and Provision For Sharing Life With You Now.