Abide is not a vibe. It's a verb.
John 15 doesn't ask you to feel connected. It asks you to stay. Fruit is a byproduct of remaining, not a reward for striving.
“Remain in me, as I also remain in you.”
John 15:4
The word wrecked me: remain. Not perform. Not produce. Not feel deeply enough to prove something. Just remain.
A branch does not strain to make grapes. It does not hype itself up in the off-season or attend a conference on fruitfulness. It stays attached, and fruit happens to it. That is the entire mechanism. Connection first, fruit second, always in that order.
Which means the question changes. Not 'how do I feel closer to God today?' but 'what would it look like to stay put with Him today?' Feelings fluctuate with sleep, blood sugar, and news cycles. Staying is available on your worst day.
Here is what remaining has looked like for me, unglamorously: the same chair, most mornings. A Bible open even when I have nothing to say. Naming one true thing to God before I name it to anyone else. Ending the day by asking where He was in it. None of that would make a good reel.
But it compounds. Abiding is boring in the way that a marriage is boring — which is to say, not boring at all, just unspectacular from the outside and utterly load-bearing from the inside.
Stop trying to feel like a branch. Just stay on the vine. The fruit is His job.
Randal Lee — The Abide Movement