Obey and Abide

For my waking breath, for my daily bread
I depend on You, I depend on You
For the sun to rise, for my sleep at night
I depend on You, I depend on You

You’re the way, the truth, and the life
You’re the well that never runs dry
I’m the branch, and You are the vine
Draw me close and teach me to abide

These are lyrics from the song, Abide, by Aaron Williams. Since hearing this song in church about a year ago, it has become my drive-to-school anthem. The general theme of the song is Jesus’s “I am the Vine” discourse to his disciples recorded in John 15:1-17. The cornerstone verse of this passage likely is verse 5, when Jesus tells His disciples, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

One of the reasons that this song stood out to me when I heard it was because the faculty at North Star spent the entire year last year in our weekly meetings discussing and picking apart what this passage means. Is abiding active, or passive? What does abiding look like in the life of the believer? How does abiding affect our prayer life, our interactions with the truth of the Scripture, and how we look at the Gospel, our rest, and our work? What does it mean to depend - to literally hang from something?

To understand why we devoted the year to this passage, you would have to rewind even further to the summer of 2023. I felt the Lord impressing upon me that this passage should be the staff theme for the year - and then He confirmed this in a variety of ways only He can. Since that time, the theme of obedience, abiding, and dependence has been part of the fabric of North Star.

Rewinding even further yet, the project of starting, and running a school lends itself to many situations and circumstances when these themes are not just talked about, but are lived out. One picture of how practically living in obedience, abiding, and dependence feels is painted in the book Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard.¹ In the end of the book, the author describes the experience of going to the Sesselbahn in the Swiss Alps and seeing the chair lift (presumably for the first time). Word pictures such as “fragile…unenclosed…fearsome abyss…chairs with no sides or backs - only a few bars for support…no earthly ground of support…nothing beneath except broken bones and death” are used to describe the hanging chairs.² However, she then moves to describe the “invisible power” making the chair lift work - the cable; as well as the pinnacle of the mountain with its amazing view. The author uses this visual to illustrate the spiritual reality of obedience, faith, trust, dependence, and abiding that we are called to as believers in Christ. “One had only to be willing to trust the invisible power, sit down on a chair, and abandon oneself completely…But, oh, how terrifying that choice looked to me!“³

Quite honestly, much of the school has felt this way. It became a matter of obedience to take the very first steps to start the school four years ago, and has been a story of obedience, and abiding in the power and promises of Christ and His leading since that time. Time and time again, we find ourselves in the position where “there would be nothing to do but rest in the chair and (be) carried upward…How easy to get in a panic and fall!” There have been many situations and circumstances at North Star when I feel like we are in “mid-dangle” and I think, “I don’t like this! I don’t feel safe! I want to get off this thing! I want to go where it is safe. I don’t want to think this hard, or have to pray this hard, or depend this much.” Doubts also inevitably creep in, adding to the mix of fears, worries, and panic. At those times, God confirms that this is exactly where He wants me - where He wants us. He wants us living in this level of obedience, this level of dependence, this level of abiding, and this level of resting and trusting - that is when we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is the one doing the work. Apart from Him, we can do nothing. He is the one working it out.

Hurnard sums this up by saying, “The traveler resting on and in the promise does nothing but remain in it. Having trusted the promise enough to risk everything upon it, up one goes! And no power on earth can hinder arrival at the consummation of the promise and its perfect fulfillment. Though we may seem to meet the most horrifying precipices confronting us, and abysses far below which we could never hope to ascend nor pass over in our own strength, yet in the spiritual Sesselbahn of faith and obedience, everything is triumphantly surmounted.”⁴ What a beautiful - and accurate - picture of living in obedience and abiding in Christ.

God has built North Star through situations that demand this level of obedience and abiding, but God is building more than a school. He is building our faith, our prayer life, and our dependence upon Him. God’s desire in all this is that we would see more fully the beauty, power, strength, and trustworthiness of His character, and what is possible when we abide in Him. Knowing and experiencing this is not only a lesson we have learned while being involved in this endeavor, but it is also what we desire students, families, and faculty members to walk in as they go through life, and why “Obey and Abide” were officially established as Core Values at North Star.

Ultimately, however, this obedience and abiding is not about situations nor circumstances - making budget decisions, finding teachers, or a plethora of other big and little things that have “worked out”. Situations and circumstances will fade, but are used by Christ to shape us and mold us in eternal ways. Our lives - our eternal lives - are dependent upon Christ. The Aaron Williams song continues with a line that states,

For eternal life to be raised with Christ
I depend on You, I depend on You

A declaration and a prayer from the song which I sing over myself as I make my way to school each morning is, “Lord, I depend on You, and Teach me to Abide!” And I end with a challenge: How can you depend on the Lord and what can you ask Him to use to teach you to abide as you go through your life circumstances?

¹ Hurnard, Hannah. 1987. Hinds’ Feet On High Places. Uhrichsville, OH, Barbour.

² Ibid., 252-254.

³ Ibid., 254.

⁴ Ibid., 254.