What Does It Mean to Abide?
“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.”
Jesus didn't say it once. He repeated the word abide throughout that passage because He wanted His disciples — then and now — to hear it clearly. This was not a suggestion. It was an invitation to the most important relationship available to us.
The heart of that invitation is this: He abides in us first. If we belong to Christ, we already have a constant connection to Him. He is not distant. He is not waiting to be earned. He lives within us even though He is no longer physically among us. Our part is simply to abide in Him in return.
What that actually looks like
For a long time I believed that without really knowing what to do with it. Abiding sounded like something that happened during a retreat or a quiet season — something that required a stillness I couldn't find and a devotion I couldn't sustain. Then I stopped trying to achieve it and started practicing it.
The moment everything changed for me was surprisingly simple. I made a decision to reach for the Holy Spirit before I reached for my phone.
That's it. That was the turning point. Not a revival. Not a dramatic breakthrough. Just a conscious decision made in the first seconds of an ordinary morning — that God would get my attention before the world did.
Now I try to give Him the first five minutes of my day. Not a performance. Just a conversation — gratitude, the people I'm carrying, my children called by name before the noise begins. An acknowledgment that I am not walking into this day alone. And then I carry that conversation with me throughout the day. A quiet checking in. A moment of returning. And at the end of the day as I'm laying down I return one more time — a few minutes of gratitude and presence before sleep.
That is abiding. Not a theological achievement. Not a spiritual state reserved for the devoted few. Just a daily practice of staying connected to the vine — morning, midday, and night — so that when life gets hard, and it will, you are not starting from zero.
You are already home.
A word about my own journey
Abiding is not something I've practiced my whole life. It's a relatively recent discovery — and an honest one. Five years ago my life fell apart. I needed God in a way I never had before — not the God of my Catholic childhood that I had drifted away from, but a God I could actually find in the middle of real pain.
I found my church. I found brothers in a small group setting. And through Rocky Fleming's Journey curriculum at Influencers Global Ministries I spent nine months — twice — learning what it actually meant to walk with Christ. I'm currently two thirds of the way through that journey a third time, this time as a co-leader.
That is the walk that produced everything on this website. I'm not teaching from a seminary. I'm teaching from the road. And if your life has fallen apart — or if you've simply drifted further from God than you ever intended — I want you to know that the road back is shorter than you think. It might start with five minutes and a decision to reach for Him before you reach for your phone.
Want to go deeper?
Much of what shaped my understanding of abiding came through Rocky Fleming's work at Influencers Global Ministries and his book Abide. If this page stirred something in you I encourage you to explore his work.