Kim McKenzie -Global

Yesterday we looked at the Greek word Jesus uses for abide in John 15:

menō — remain present, stay, continue (Strong’s G3306).

Today I want you to notice the word remain.

Because remaining matters most when you don’t know.

When something doesn’t make sense.

When a prayer hasn’t been answered.

When an uncomfortable feeling surfaces.

When something you’ve always believed is being challenged.

When you simply don’t know what God is doing.

This is often where we rush in and try to make ourselves feel safe again.

Find the answer.
Fix the feeling.
Reject the thought.
Decide whether it’s right or wrong.
Put it back in a box we understand.

We Christians can be remarkably uncomfortable with “I don’t know yet.”

But Jesus gives us another option.

Remain.

Stay connected to Him while you explore.

Stay while you question.

Stay while you listen.

Stay while you test what you’re hearing.

Stay while you notice what is happening inside you.

You do not need to manufacture certainty in order to remain secure in Christ.

And you certainly don’t need to leave His presence to investigate something difficult.

Abiding gives you somewhere to remain while you don’t yet know.

That is where discernment begins.

Not with a hurried answer.

With the security to stay long enough to discover what is true. 💛

I used to hear the word abide and think it described something I needed to achieve spiritually.

Then I began looking more closely at Jesus' words.

“Abide in Me, and I in you.”
John 15:4

The Greek word translated abide is menō.

It means to remain.

To stay.

To continue.

And suddenly Jesus' picture of the Vine became beautifully simple.

A branch doesn't produce life.

It receives life because it remains connected to its source.

It doesn't manufacture fruit.

It doesn't strain to become more fruitful.

It remains.

And from that relationship, something begins to grow.

Trust.

Peace.

Discernment.

Desire.

Joy.

Fruit.

Perhaps we've made spiritual formation more complicated than Jesus did.

The invitation isn't always:

Try harder.

Sometimes it is simply:

Stay with Me.

Over the next two weeks, I want to explore this little word ABIDE and discover just how much Jesus packed into it.

Because I increasingly believe that learning to remain may change the way we understand almost everything else. 💛

There’s something rather lovely about Sundays at home. Good food, nowhere we need to rush off to, and Basil making absolutely certain nothing edible goes unnoticed.

He may not be much help with the cooking, but enthusiasm certainly isn’t the problem.

Sometimes joy really is found in the simplest, most ordinary moments.

Good food. Good company. A slower day.

And a very hopeful dog waiting for something to fall on the floor.

Happy Sunday!

There is something about the phrase “his heart is established” that I love.

This isn't describing someone who has finally managed to control every outcome.
Bad news can still come.
Life can still be uncertain.
There are still things we won't understand.
But something has become established within them.

Their heart has learned where to rest.
Trusting in the Lord.

For me, this is a much bigger vision of trust than simply trying harder not to worry.

Trust is foundational.
It affects how we respond when we don't know.

How we make decisions.
How easily fear takes over.
Whether we can surrender control.

Whether we believe God will still be there when the outcome isn't what we hoped for.
And ultimately, whether our hearts can remain with Him when life becomes uncertain.

That's why understanding trust matters.

Not because mature Christians should never struggle with it.
But because God wants to establish something deeper within us.

A heart that increasingly knows where it is safe to remain.

That's why I wrote Trust: Faith's Foundation.

It isn't simply about telling you to trust God more.

💛It's an invitation to understand what has shaped your trust, recognise what may still be influencing it, and make room for God to establish something deeper.

👉If you're ready to explore the foundations of your own trust, download Trust: Faith's Foundation free through the link in my bio.

That’s how I sometimes approach the fact that many Christians don’t want to actually deal with the past. They would rather say, “I’ve forgiven it. Why would I dig it all up again?”

We don’t want to look at what happened anymore.

So we bury it.

We forgive.

We pray.

We move on.

And some of that is good and sincere.

But if it’s still influencing how you respond to love, authority, vulnerability, yourself. Or God. Then perhaps it hasn’t disappeared simply because you don’t look at it anymore.

Sometimes the body needs to be exhumed...

not so we can keep staring at it, but so we can finally give it a proper funeral.

There is a difference between living in your past and allowing God to help you understand what your past produced in you.

💛David actually invited God to search what was inside him.

That’s not spiritual regression.

It can be part of spiritual maturity.

Perhaps we don’t revisit the past to live there. We allow God into those places so they no longer have to remain buried.

👇Save this one. I’m going to talk much more about this distinction.

We talk a lot about trusting God.

But there's another kind of trust Christians don't talk about nearly enough.

Can you trust yourself?

Can you trust what you're hearing?

Can you make a decision without needing endless reassurance?

Can you recognise when fear is speaking without assuming every uncomfortable feeling means you've missed God?

Perhaps you've made decisions you deeply regretted.

Trusted people who weren't trustworthy.

Ignored something you later wished you'd listened to.

And somewhere along the way you stopped simply questioning a decision...

and started questioning yourself.

Yet Jesus describes relationship with Him:

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”

Maturity isn't never getting anything wrong.

It's growing in your ability to recognise His voice, understand yourself and walk with Him.

💛What if learning to trust God more deeply also involves rebuilding your capacity to trust yourself in relationship with Him?

👉Comment TRUST if this is an area you'd like me to talk about more.

It’s Sunday. Basil is busy digging holes somewhere…
And I’m just enjoying the peace in between.

There’s something grounding about the space between things.

Between one job and the next.
Between the noise and the doing.
Between whatever happened yesterday and whatever needs doing tomorrow.

Just this moment.

Hands dirty. Flowers everywhere. Basil happily occupied somewhere he probably shouldn’t be.

And absolutely nowhere else I need to be for a little while.

Sometimes the space between is a pretty wonderful place to find yourself.

Happy Sunday. 🪴

We often think our past is about what we remember. But some of its deepest effects can be found in what we have learned to expect.

Imagine growing up around an authority figure who had one rule for everyone else and another behind closed doors.

The child doesn't sit there analysing what this means psychologically.

She simply learns.
What people say and what they actually do may be two different things.

Perhaps another child repeatedly hears, “I'll be there,” but the person doesn't turn up.
She learns something too.
Don't depend too heavily on people.

Another is told, “You can tell me anything,” only to discover that honesty comes with consequences.
She learns:
Be careful what you reveal.

None of these children consciously decide to build their lives around distrust.
They are learning from experience what to expect from relationship.
And those expectations can become so familiar that years later we don't even recognise them as expectations.

They simply feel like reality.
Then we encounter God.

And He says things that can be completely contrary to what relationship has taught us to expect.
Isaiah 49:15 gives us this extraordinary picture:
“Can a woman forget her nursing child…? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you.”
Isaiah 49:15

Notice that God doesn't deny the possibility of human failure.

Because sometimes we read what God says through what people have taught us to expect.

God says:
I will not forget you.
But something inside us has learned:
People forget.

God says:
Trust Me.
And something inside responds:
Can I really let my guard down?

God says:
Follow Me.
And somewhere deeper comes:
What if I get this wrong again?

What have your experiences taught you to expect from relationship and where might you still be expecting the same thing from God?

You don't need to answer publicly.

But it may be a very important question to sit with Him and ask.