The Context: Lessons from my “Abide” Year

Let’s start with context, with the door in front of us. Just some historical perspective for those that appreciate it like I do. Within the Catholic circle, there is this practice of asking Jesus to reveal to you a “word” for the new year each January; His word to guide, encourage and strengthen you throughout the upcoming year. I love this practice and have found that Jesus has always spoken very clearly through that word each year so, yes, I am a big advocate for word of the year despite the doubters.

This year, I was a little late to start praying for my “word”. And so on January 2nd I sat down in prayer with Jesus and basically said “Okay Jesus. We are a little behind the ball here. Speak loud and clear I’m listening”. And as I opened my Bible to read the Gospel of the day, Jesus answered that prayer in record time.

John 15: “Abide in me, and I in you… I am the vine you are the branches”. Within that singular Gospel, the word “abide” was spoken by our Lord exactly 10 times. It was immediately clear to me that Jesus was speaking something very personal and intimate to my heart with incredible clarity. Suddenly, all the pieces came together of other things Jesus had been speaking to me over the last few months leading me towards this year of “abide”, including a transformative retreat day I took a month earlier on a book actually titled “Abide” (shout out to Heather Khym). So, Abide it was.

I’ve spent the last few weeks in prayer meditating on and reading through John 15 to begin to get a grasp on this concept of abiding, and already, so many new and beautiful themes have started to reveal itself to me through this simple word and parable. What seemed so straightforward to me initially about “abiding” is proving itself to be more intricate, passionate, awe inspiring and challenging then I could ever have imagined.

As the Lord teaches me to “abide” in Him this year, as He promised He would in John 15, I feel the Lord asking me to use this space to lay claim to what He is healing and working on in my heart in hopes that you too would feel called to a greater abiding in Christ's love.

I will leave you with this. The Lord is calling us to so much more than to just be law-abiding citizens of His Kingdom and His Church. He is inviting us to be LOVE - abiding children in His family. So much so that this love, His love, would consume every part of who we are. That our entire being would be defined by Love itself.

Jesus, I am crossing the threshold of the doorway you have made specifically and uniquely for me this year. The door the leads to a space of healing and intimacy that I do not yet know, yet I desire to discover and enter into. Jesus, I give You my yes. Teach me to abide in You.