So I’ve been grinding my teeth at night.

My dentist says it’s genetic. Could be. Personally, I think it’s my trademark anxiety that comes from too many months of half-heartedly abiding in Christ and steadily drifting from the love of His sovereign grace and prayer. I kept that diagnosis to myself while I was in the dental chair, though.

Sunday’s sermon delivered at Orlando Grace on the fifteenth chapter of John was no coincidence, and was a timely example of the Lord’s common grace in my life.

Throughout the better part of the chapter, Jesus is articulating the believer’s relationship to Himself and the Father through the lush metaphor of the vine and the branches. Much of the focus of the Lord’s words are in reference to His own role as the grace-supplying vine and the Father’s role as the loving pruner of the Christian. However, it isn’t long before we run headlong into a single commanding verb from the lips of our Savior that requires intentionality and action from the believer: “abide.”

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” (John 15:4)

Abiding may sound ethereal; I mean, how exactly do you “abide” in anybody, much less the God of the universe? Jesus elaborates further:

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will done for you.” (John 15:7)

Now, we’re getting somewhere. When it gets down to the nitty-gritty, the means of grace by which we abide are simple: being saturated in the reading and memorization of Scripture (His very “words”) on the daily, being constant in prayer (Romans 12:12), living in a covenant community with other believers, among others. Notice that I said simple — not easy. This is why we need the grace of a Romans 8:28 God undergirding our feeble wills even to perform such acts of spiritual discipline. After all, Jesus plainly tells us in regard to all matters of spiritual effectiveness: “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” (John 15:5b)

Currently, I’m recording an album, and trucking my way through a very robust online video class on sound editing and recording. One of the fundamental lessons deals with amplified sound waves. We’ve all seen what a sound wave looks like: a line that peaks and valleys in different patterns over and under a zero axis. Now, I’ll spare you the geek-talk, but one of the examples in the lesson illustrated what happens when you double (or amplify) the sound wave just milliseconds out-of-sync. The peak of the first waveform doesn’t match the peak of the next, and the resulting sound is slightly less preferable than nails on a chalkboard. The further away the sound waves spread from each other, the nastier and more distorted the sound becomes. However, when they are perfectly in sync with each other, the difference is like night and day. The doubled wave lays perfectly in line with the first wave, and the sound is amplified, pristine and clearer than ever.

This is what happens to me when I fall out of sync with the gospel of grace; when I’m not actively abiding in the vine. Like I said before, abiding is a verb that demands intentionality. You don’t wake up one morning and accidentally start abiding in the Lord. On the contrary actually, most mornings we wake up thinking about our problems, our idols, our vices and our comforts. The original rhythm Adam had with the Father in the garden has become all wonky and awkward, and must be corrected by grace-laden prayer and mind-renewing Scripture.

So, today, let’s start abiding deeply again. Let us not dare, however, attempt it upon our own flawed ability. Knowing that we are justified not by works, but by grace, let us find strength in Philippians 4:12, in God moving and working underneath all of our actions, to abide. The Son shall supply the nutrients to fight, the Father shall prune the deadness that bars, and we shall certainly bear fruit in the rhythm of the heavenly.