Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and you’re listening to "Joni and Friends.”
Okay, you know those days when nothing goes right? And if you’re like me, it’s often connected with a medical appointment. Last week for me was peppered with medical appointments, one of which was a chest x-ray. I had a cold that had gone down into my chest, something that can be pretty scary for a quadriplegic. So as Ken and I headed to the radiology lab, we were thinking, “Can a chest x-ray be that complicated?!”Well, let me say that for most patients it means slipping on a surgical gown, hopping on the table, breathing deeply, holding your breath and it’s done, right? Well, not for me in this wheelchair.
First, the x-ray equipment was in this little, teensy, tiny room in which Ken had to squeeze my wheelchair into a space the size of my closet. Since I couldn’t get on the table, they had to maneuver the x-ray equipment to reach me sitting up in my wheelchair. The technician shoved this big thick film down between my back and the pad of my wheelchair, then Ken had to hold one arm up in the air, and a nurse held my other arm up, but I kept falling this way and that; I couldn’t keep my balance. All at the same time I had to be very, very still, ‘Now, Joni, take a deep breath – no, Joni, you’re moving too much; okay, try again, another deep breath.’ Then it was another maneuver of the machine for another angle. It had me praying, "Oh Jesus, give me grace, give us all grace, Jesus; help us!" But you know what? All this is 'normal' for me as a quadriplegic. My wheelchair has me constantly asking God for help!
Oh, to have a constant abiding in God! I dare not separate myself from Jesus; my disability just won’t allow it. It’s none of this: “Okay, how long do I have to be plugged into God today through a quiet time or reading a devotional book to get enough of a spiritual charge to then go out and do my thing?” No, Jesus doesn't say, “I am the power cord and you are the cell phone.” He says, "I'm the vine. You're the branch.” In John chapter 15 He says, “whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."
Oh, friend, and this is why I am so very, very grateful for the inconvenience, the awful inconvenience, of my quadriplegia. It keeps me from treating Jesus as though he were the source for my spiritual charge for the day. Like: “Okay, my spiritual batteries are full, so let me disconnect here and get on with life as usual, and Jesus I’ll check in with you now and then, but I pretty much got the day in control.” That’s not the metaphor the Bible invites us to use.
If you want life in Jesus, there simply cannot be a disconnect. It doesn’t work that way. Abiding is living in this constant awareness of total dependence. That thought is so important it needs to be repeated: abiding in Jesus is a constant awareness of your total dependence on Him. And my hardships—your suffering—are God’s way of reminding you that, friend, you have no power apart from the constant dependency on Jesus. You need Jesus all the time! It’s the way desperate people approach life, people who realize that they have no life in themselves. After all, you and I we are branches and Jesus is the vine: we are connected. Branches don’t separate themselves from the Vine to go off and live apart from it; they can’t! Branches are part of the Vine and they’re supposed to act like it. So friend, today, no matter what your hardship, be the branch that relaxes in, and abides in, and draws strength from Jesus Christ, the Vine.
© Joni and Friends, 2013
Compliments of Joni and Friends
PO Box 3333 Agoura Hills, CA 91376