Read John 15:1-8 with your family.

The passage from this week has the word “abide” in it an awful lot. Abide is a ‘churchy’ word, and sometimes when we hear words like that we don’t stop to think about them for long.

Abide means to stick with someone, to wait, to endure, to put up with, to stay with someone.

In the word picture, or metaphor of the vine and the branches, Jesus was telling us how God lives with us and endures us even when we are not doing the things God asked us to do. Sometimes we have to ‘prune’ ourselves, that means to get rid of the things inside us that are not God-friendly and keep us from treating people kindly. God knew that people would fail often, but we can always do better.

When we prune roses, that means cut specific parts off the plant, the rose starts to grow better and we might get more flowers. When God ‘prunes’ us, we will grow better too and be able to show more kindness and love.

But throughout it all, we are always connected to God and God is always connected to us. We can never forget that. Even when it feels like God is very far away, God is really right beside us.