Remaining is the assignment
I kept waiting to be told something new. He kept asking me to stay with what He already gave me.
“Now it is required among stewards that each be found faithful.”
1 Corinthians 4:2
The requirement for a steward is startlingly small. Not clever. Not successful. Not trending. Faithful. Paul doesn't say it is required that each be found effective, or gifted, or in demand. Faithful — which is a word only makes sense over time.
For a long while I treated faithfulness as the consolation prize for people God didn't really use. The faithful servant is what you get when the anointed one doesn't show up. Then I noticed how often Jesus praises the one who stayed: the servant at the door, the worker in the field, the friend who kept showing up.
Most of my wanderings were dressed as discernment. I called it waiting for a fresh word. It was mostly boredom with a slow assignment and a hunger for a room that would make me feel alive again. The thing I kept leaving was the thing I had been given.
Remaining is unglamorous and specific. It is teaching the same class. It is the Tuesday email nobody thanks you for. It is loving the person who already disappointed you once. Every one of those is a small refusal to trade a real assignment for an imagined one.
The emotional faith I grew up on taught me to check my feelings for a green light. Feelings are a terrible GPS for a long obedience. They report the weather and call it the destination. Abiding asks a different question: was this mine to do? Then it stays.
So the question for this week isn't 'God, what's next?' Try 'God, what's mine to keep doing?' You may find He has been saying the same thing for years, patiently, waiting for you to stop looking for a better option and start giving an account of the one in front of you.
Randal Lee — The Abide Movement