Abiding in Christ, seeing clearly
Abiding in Christ
Short reflections to be still with, drawn from Bible passages in Mark 10:51, John 15:5, Judges 5:9 and Luke 10:41-42.
☀ Morning moment
Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “Rabboni, that I may see again.”
Mark 10:51
Want. Not need, not lack, not problem. Jesus does not ask the obvious clinical question a blind beggar's condition would suggest. He asks what the man himself desires, as if that mattered as much as the miracle.
Bartimaeus had been sitting by the road outside Jericho, calling out while the crowd moved past him. He had already thrown off his coat and come running when he heard Jesus was near. Everyone around already knew he was blind. Jesus knew it too. And still He asks. The question does not fill in a gap in Jesus' knowledge, it opens a space in Bartimaeus' voice. He is not just healed, he is heard first.
Earlier in this same chapter Jesus asked two of His own disciples the identical words, and they answered with a request for status. Bartimaeus answers with the one thing his whole life circled around. The question is the same, but it exposes something different in each heart.
This morning, before the day's noise crowds in, that question is aimed at you. Not what should you want, not what would sound spiritual. What do you actually want Him to do for you today.
Today
Say your answer out loud, right now, in one sentence, before you check your phone or leave the house. Let it be as plain and specific as Bartimaeus' own words.
✦ Lunch moment
I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:5
Notice the small clause tucked in the middle: 'in me, and I in him.' Not just the branch clinging to the vine, but the vine's own life running the other way, into the branch. Most readers skim past it on the way to the fruit part. But that double motion is the whole point.
A grapevine is not an impressive plant. Its wood is soft, twisted, useless for building, good for almost nothing once cut. Farmers in that land trained vines low, along trellises or the ground, because the wood could not hold its own weight upright. A branch cut off does not slowly decline. In that heat it withers within hours, done, fit only for the fire.
That is why Jesus reaches for this image and not a cedar or an oak. He is not describing strength that stands on its own. He is describing a life that only exists connected. Fruit is not something a branch produces by trying harder. It is what happens when sap keeps moving.
Midday, at your desk or on your feet, this cuts against the instinct to push through on your own resources. The question is not how hard you are working this afternoon. It is what you are still attached to while you work.
Today
Stop for one minute. Put your hand flat on the table or the wheel and say out loud, quietly if you need to, 'Apart from You I can do nothing.' Then go back to the next task.
◐ Afternoon moment
My heart is toward the governors of Israel, who offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless Yahweh!
Judges 5:9
What did it cost you to show up when everyone else stayed home?
Deborah's song was not written in a study. It was sung after a battle, when the roads had been empty for years because travel meant danger, when whole villages had gone quiet under Canaanite oppression. Then Barak's army gathered, Sisera fell, and Deborah, a prophet and judge, sang what had happened. It is one of the oldest pieces of poetry in the Bible, and it does not smooth anything over.
The song names names. Some tribes came running. Others, like Reuben, sat by their sheep asking questions while the fight went on without them. Meroz gets cursed for staying home. This is not a gentle hymn. It is the sound of people who risked everything, praising the ones who stood with them and not pretending the ones who did not matter less.
That is what this song hands you: language for the ache of being left to fight alone, and language for gratitude when someone actually shows up. Not every battle today is physical, but the pattern is the same. Somebody offered themselves willingly. Somebody did not.
Today
Think of one person who showed up for you when it cost them something, and tell them so today, out loud or in a message, before this afternoon ends.
☾ Evening moment
Jesus answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:41-42
A day only counts if you finished everything on the list. That is the quiet rule most evenings run on, and it is exactly the rule Jesus breaks in Martha's kitchen.
She was not lazy or wrong to be working. There was a guest, a meal, real hospitality to give. But somewhere between the stove and the door she stopped serving and started resenting, because her sister was sitting still while she was not. Jesus does not scold her work. He names her worry, twice, gently, by name: Martha, Martha.
That repetition is worth noticing. It is not correction shouted from a distance, it is someone saying your name the way only people who know you well can say it. He is not asking her to abandon the kitchen. He is asking her to stop letting the unfinished things decide who she is tonight.
Most evenings end the way Martha's afternoon did, with tasks still undone and a mind still running the list. Tonight does not need to be different because you finally caught up. It can be different because you set the list down while it is still incomplete.
Today
Choose one thing still undone from today, small enough to name in a sentence. Say it out loud, then say, "I am leaving this with You tonight," and close your eyes for one slow breath before you go on.
Read these passages in the World English Bible (WEB)
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51Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “Rabboni, that I may see again.”
5I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
9My heart is toward the governors of Israel, who offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless Yahweh!
41Jesus answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things,
42but one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her.”
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