ABIDE
Somewhere between the Wall, the prayers, and the old man I left behind, abiding became covenant.
I am standing at the Western Wall in Israel with my right hand pressed against the ancient stone and my left hand holding a small plastic baggie filled with prayers I carried from Bakersfield, California. Marty took this photo without me knowing it. I was in tears — praying for her, praying for friends, feeling the weight of a place saturated with prayer.
I never thought I would write about abide.
I thought I was carrying prayers to a wall.
God was teaching me how to remain.
DEDICATION
To the Holy Spirit — for continuing to move me, grow me, correct me, and show me new understandings I could not have reached on my own. Thank You for not just teaching me about abiding, but patiently leading me into it.
To my wife, Marty — for walking this Journey with me, abiding with me, taking up the sword beside me, and carrying the torch together. When one of us grows weary, the other lifts it. Under Christ we are not two separate flames trying to survive. We are one body, one yoke, one covenant, one shared calling.
To Rocky Fleming, Influencers, and the men who helped shape this path — for the Holy Spirit-inspired Journey material that has changed the course of so many lives. To Rocky, a man of God, whose surrendered life has helped many of us see that the greatest influence is not found in being seen, but in becoming yielded enough for Christ to be seen through us. To Les Pearsey, Bryan Craig, David Dobbs, and the men who have walked with me, challenged me, sharpened me, and helped me understand what an abiding life can become.
To the readers, the seekers, and the men still standing near the edge — especially those who are tired, unsure, or not yet certain what abiding really looks like. Be assured of this: when you find Him there, you will know. And when you truly begin to abide, your life will not stay the same.
SCRIPTURE
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” — John 15:4 (NKJV)
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” — John 15:5 (NKJV)
“He must increase, but I must decrease.” — John 3:30 (NKJV)
THE HOOK
I know there are books and teachings and sermons on the word abide.
This is not one of those.
This is not me trying to explain the word from a distance.
This is me trying to tell you what it has come to mean after sixty-seven years of living, resisting, surrendering, writing, praying, walking with my wife, guiding men — and learning that Jesus was never asking me to visit Him.
He was calling me to remain.
Truth is, I never thought I would write much of anything.
I was not the kid in school imagining English would become some sacred tool in my life. I had no long, formal training in language. I did not come into this with a writer’s background.
And yet here I am.
Writing.
Reflecting.
Sitting with the Word of God and asking Him where it covers me. Where it corrects me. Where it explains what I have lived.
Somewhere along the way, writing became more than writing.
It became therapy.
It became prayer.
It became one of the places God taught me to abide.
Not perform.
Not impress.
Not make myself visible.
Just stay close enough to listen.
THE STORY
In 2015, Marty and I traveled to Israel.
That trip changed something in me.
I had read Scripture. I believed Scripture. I had heard it taught for years. But walking the Holy Land brought something alive in me I cannot fully explain.
It was not that God became more real there.
God was already real.
But the Word took on ground. Dust. Stone. Footsteps. History.
I walked places Jesus walked.
I stood in places where prayer had soaked the stones for generations.
And one of those places was the Western Wall.
In the photo, my right hand is pressed against the ancient stone.
My left hand is holding a small plastic baggie filled with rolled-up prayers I had carried all the way from Bakersfield, California.
Names. Friends. Burdens. Hopes.
People had trusted me with those prayers, and I carried them there.
A rabbi was beside me. Around me, men were praying with a depth and devotion that moved me to the core. The women had their own side of the Wall, and somewhere nearby Marty was there too.
I remember thinking about her.
Praying for her.
Wondering where she was and what she was experiencing.
What I did not know in that moment was that she was the one taking the picture.
I was in tears.
Not a few quiet tears I could hide.
Real tears.
I felt the weight of such enormous prayer around me. As if the heaviness of the world had gathered into that one place. So many people praying. So many lives. So many whispered cries pressed into stone.
I felt gratitude.
I felt unworthy.
I felt small.
Not worthless.
Small.
There is a difference.
Worthless forgets who God made you to be.
Small remembers who God is.
Standing there with my hand on that Wall and those prayers in my other hand, I felt the magnitude of worship, history, longing, faith, and need all at once.
One by one, I placed those prayers into the Wall.
One by one, I lifted those people to God.
I did not have fancy words.
I did not need them.
I just carried them there.
THE MOMENT
Looking back now, I think God was teaching me something about abiding before I had language for it.
Abiding is not just standing close to God for yourself.
It is becoming the kind of man who carries others into His presence.
That moment was in 2015.
Now it is 2026.
Around the same time of year, I look back at that photo and it still brings tears to my eyes.
Because I can see more now than I could see then.
I can see that many of those prayers were answered in ways beyond what I could have imagined.
Not always exactly the way we would have written the story.
God is too holy and too wise to be reduced to our preferred outcomes.
But He answered.
He moved.
He covered.
He carried.
And in some places, He did far beyond what I thought to ask.
But the deepest answer was not what happened to the prayers in that bag.
The deepest answer was what happened to me.
I did not just leave prayers in that Wall.
I left a version of myself there too.
THE TURN
Somewhere in that season, something settled in me.
I had spent much of my life accepting and objecting.
Accepting certain parts of God.
Objecting to others.
Accepting His comfort. Objecting to His authority.
Accepting His help. Objecting to His timing.
Accepting His forgiveness. Objecting to the surrender He was asking of me.
But I cannot object to the Word of God anymore.
I have seen too much.
I have lived through too much.
I have walked too close to the places where Jesus walked to treat His Word like theory.
At some point, a man has to decide whether Jesus is an addition to his life or the authority over it.
That is where abiding begins.
For me, abiding has become very simple.
Not easy.
Simple.
It is time. It is proximity. It is remaining.
It is putting Jesus before everything and into everything.
It is waking up grateful that I am still here after all I have been through.
It is opening the Word not just to read it, but to let it read me.
It is praying while I am driving.
It is asking God what He is showing me in the middle of something that frustrates me.
It is standing at the foot of the Cross in my heart — not once in a while, but as the posture of my life.
And yes, I still slip.
There are still moments when my mind drifts.
There are still times when I put Him on the back burner longer than I should.
But not like before.
Not with the same distance.
Not with the same resistance.
The old bridge has been burned.
I crossed the Bridge, and by the grace of God, I do not want a bridge back to the old man.
That does not mean I am finished.
It means I know where home is.
THE DRIFT
The drift says you can love Jesus and still keep one hand on the old life.
The drift says you can follow Him closely enough to be comforted, but not closely enough to be changed.
The drift says you can visit the Word when you need something, then return to your own reasoning when life gets loud.
The drift says a man should be strong enough to carry it all himself.
The drift says surrender is weakness.
The drift says abiding is for softer men, slower men, quieter men.
The drift says visibility is proof of value.
The drift says if nobody sees it, honors it, applauds it, or names it, then it must not matter.
That is a lie.
Abiding is not weakness.
Abiding is a man finally coming under the right authority.
It is a man laying down the illusion that he can carry what only Christ was meant to carry.
It is a man learning that leadership without surrender becomes pressure.
Strength without intimacy becomes performance.
Prayer without obedience becomes noise.
Influence without abiding becomes self dressed up in spiritual language.
And visibility without surrender can quietly become another altar.
I know that ground.
I stood on it longer than I care to admit.
There is something in a man that wants to be seen.
Recognized.
Affirmed.
Respected.
Applauded.
And some of that desire is understandable. We all want our lives to matter. We all want to know that what we have carried, built, endured, and poured out was not wasted.
But the abiding life begins correcting even that.
Because Jesus does not invite a man into intimacy so the man can become impressive.
He invites a man into intimacy so the man can become surrendered.
And sometimes the most powerful servant in the room is the one who has stopped needing the room to know his name.
I know that hunger. I have felt the pull to be seen, named, and affirmed for what I carried. But the longer I walk with Jesus, the more He keeps showing me that the servant does not need to become the story. Christ does.
That is the version of me Jesus keeps asking me to leave behind.
THE REFLECTION
Much of the language God used to shape this in me came through Rocky Fleming and the Journey material he was Holy Spirit-inspired to write.
Rocky is a man of God, and those materials have changed the course of life for many.
Marty and I are two of them.
That process did not just give us information.
It gave us a path.
A way to understand what Jesus was inviting us into.
Not religious appearance.
Not performance.
Not just being a better version of ourselves.
Intimacy. Self-feeding. Personal abandonment. Absolute trust.
Abiding relationship with Christ.
The Journey helped me see that a man cannot keep living on someone else’s spiritual food forever. At some point, he has to learn how to feed himself from the Word of God.
He has to stop being spoon-fed only on Sundays.
He has to sit down with Scripture.
He has to wrestle.
He has to listen.
He has to ask, Lord, what are You saying to me?
A man who does not know how to feed himself spiritually will eventually grow weak, even if he looks strong everywhere else.
That is one of the great deceptions a man can fall into.
We can appear strong and still be starving.
We can lead businesses, families, ministries, teams, and conversations, and still be spiritually malnourished.
We can know how to provide, protect, fix, build, manage, and push through — and not know how to remain.
And Jesus did not say, produce fruit by trying harder.
He said abide.
Remain. Stay connected. Stay under My authority. Stay in My love. Stay close.
As men, we sometimes miss that target.
We want the plan. We want the assignment. We want the fix. We want the weight room, the strategy board, the next play, the thing we can do with our hands.
But abiding starts before the doing.
It starts in the staying.
It starts in the hidden place.
There Jesus forms a man away from the noise. Away from the applause. Away from the pressure to be seen. Away from the need to have every act noticed and every sacrifice named.
But abiding was never meant to stay locked away in a private room with Jesus.
If it is truly abiding, it does not stay there.
It walks back into the world with us.
It walks into our marriage.
It walks into our family.
It walks into our conversations.
It walks into our work.
It walks into our friendships.
It walks into our ministry.
It walks into our pain.
It walks into our calling.
That is where abiding becomes visible.
Not because we are trying to prove something.
Because Christ is now going with us into everything.
A good friend of mine, Dan Bartel, once shared a concept that has stayed with me.
He said it is like a quarterback in a football game calling out, Hut one. Hut two. Hut three.
But in this picture, the quarterback is Jesus.
And instead of calling hut, He calls:
Abide.
Abide.
Abide.
I love that.
Life is always shifting at the line of scrimmage.
The defense moves. Pressure comes. Noise rises. The clock is running.
The temptation is to panic, force the play, or rely on our own read of the field.
But the call remains the same.
Abide.
Abide.
Abide.
Stay connected before you move.
Stay surrendered before you speak.
Stay under His authority before you try to carry authority.
Stay close before you try to lead others close.
That is not weakness.
That is the strongest place a man can live.
Because a man who abides is not drawing from ego.
Not drawing from fear.
Not drawing from old wounds, old appetites, old proving grounds, or old identities.
He is drawing from Christ.
And when a man draws from Christ, his influence changes.
His marriage feels it.
His children feel it.
His friends feel it.
His words change. His silence changes. His decisions change. His patience changes. His prayers change.
Even his presence changes.
Maybe that is part of what it means to become invisible.
Not because your life does not matter.
Because it has finally stopped trying to be the main thing.
Because the applause no longer governs your obedience.
Because Christ is becoming more visible than you are.
That kind of invisibility is not absence.
It is surrender.
It is the posture John the Baptist lived — less of him, more of Christ.
It is a man who no longer needs to be the headline because he has finally found the King.
It is a servant who can walk into the room, carry the burden, pray the prayer, speak the truth, wash the feet, make the call, show up again — and never need to make himself the story.
That is not a small life.
That may be the largest life a man can live.
And that is one of the things I have seen through the Journey groups over the years.
When one man truly begins to abide, it does not stop with him.
Marty is helping lead women through that same process. Rocky, even in the later years of his life, still flies across the country to sit with women and men, pouring into lives that are still being shaped by the Journey.
That alone says something about the abiding life.
It keeps giving.
It keeps showing up.
It keeps carrying the torch.
And there is a picture I keep coming back to.
Picture a man clipping a carabiner to a cord.
In this picture, the cord is Christ.
That moment — when the carabiner closes around the cord — is the moment a man stops trying to live near Jesus and starts living connected to Him.
Then he carries Jesus into the next place.
His marriage.
His kitchen table.
His drive home.
His conversation with another man who is hurting.
And in that place, another man clips in to the same cord.
Then he carries Jesus into the next place he goes.
And another connection forms.
Before long, what looked like one man’s private walk with Christ becomes a web of abiding influence.
One man abides.
A wife feels it.
A son watches.
A daughter remembers.
A friend gets carried.
A stranger gets reached.
A prayer gets placed in a Wall.
And maybe that web is not only there to show who influenced whom.
Maybe it is also there to catch a man when he falls.
A web of abiding under God’s grace.
Held by the hands of His mercy.
Covered by His love.
That is abiding love.
Not sentimental love.
Not soft religious language.
Not words we say because they sound spiritual.
Abiding love is covenant love.
It stays.
It remains.
It keeps showing up.
It carries names in a bag from Bakersfield to Jerusalem.
It prays with tears against ancient stone.
It walks back home and keeps praying when the photo is over.
It sits with the Word.
It leads men.
It honors a wife.
It changes a family.
It burns the bridge back to the old life.
It keeps saying yes to Jesus when the old self wants an exit.
And slowly, if we let Him, Jesus makes us less obsessed with being seen and more willing to be sent.
Less hungry for applause and more hungry for obedience.
Less controlled by affirmation and more anchored in His affection.
Less interested in being impressive and more willing to be faithful.
There are many ways to explain the word abide.
But for me, at sixty-seven years old — after all these miles, all these prayers, all these failures, all these rescues, and all this mercy — I think I would say it this way:
Abiding is learning to live so close to Jesus that leaving Him no longer feels like an option.
Not because I am strong.
Because He is home.
WALKAWAY LINE
Abiding is not becoming invisible because you do not matter; it is remaining so close to Jesus that He becomes what others see.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
Where is Jesus asking you to become less visible so He can become more visible through you?
MY PRAYER
Heavenly Father,
Teach me to abide.
Not as a concept. Not as a word I admire. Not as something I teach, quote, or write about from a safe distance.
Teach me to remain in You when life gets loud.
Teach me to stay close when my flesh wants control.
Teach me to listen before I move, surrender before I speak, and trust before I try to fix what only You can carry.
Teach me to stop chasing the places where I am seen, and help me become faithful in the places where only You see.
Make me less hungry for applause and more hungry for obedience.
Make me content to grow smaller, so that You grow clearer through my life.
Thank You for the prayers You allowed me to carry.
Thank You for the people You placed in my life.
Thank You for Marty, for the Journey, for the men and women who have walked beside us, and for every quiet place where You have taught me that Your presence is not something to visit.
It is where I am meant to live.
For the one reading this who is still looking, still uncertain, still standing near the edge — let them see that You are not calling them into religious performance.
You are calling them home.
Let them know that when they find You there, they will know.
And once they truly begin to abide, nothing will ever be the same.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
ABOUT G~
G~ writes from lived experience — exploring identity, authority, and time through the lens of faith, trial, leadership, and surrender. His reflections are not meant to condemn or hype, but to steady. Rooted in covenant, forged through adversity, and anchored under the authority of Jesus Christ, his work invites readers to examine who governs their lives — and to live intentionally under truth.
If what you’ve read resonates with your journey, feel free to reach out.
G~