When Abiding with God Feels Hard
When abiding with God feels hard, most of us assume we’re doing something wrong.
We try harder. Pray longer. Fix ourselves. Perform better.
For years, I thought following God meant striving harder to get everything “right.” But through heartbreak, disappointment, shame, and seasons where I felt spiritually exhausted, I slowly realized something:
God was never asking me to perform for Him.
He was inviting me to remain with Him.
In John 15, Jesus invites us to abide in Him like branches connected to a vine. Not occasionally visit Him. Not earn His love. Remain with Him.
But let’s be honest, abiding is hard sometimes.
When pain, confusion, or disappointment enter our lives, many of us pull away from the very Presence we need most. We try to control outcomes. We search for answers. We exhaust ourselves trying to become “good enough” for God instead of resting in the love He already offers us.
Recently, while crying in my living room because I felt like I couldn’t do anything “right” enough, I sensed Him whisper:
“I’m not asking you to be responsible for the outcome. I’m inviting you to obedience.”
This article is for the weary believers, over-thinkers, and strivers who love God deeply but feel exhausted trying to stay close to Him. I’ll share what it means to me to abide with God, why it often feels difficult, and practical ways to remain connected to Him even in painful seasons.
Because abiding isn’t about perfection.
It’s about staying connected to the One who already loves you.
What Does it Mean to Abide with God?
Abiding with God means remaining spiritually connected to Him through trust, surrender, obedience, and relationship rather than striving or performance. In John 15, Jesus describes abiding like branches staying connected to a vine, receiving life, nourishment, strength, and fruit naturally through connection with Him.
Abiding isn’t about earning God’s love. It’s about staying close to Him even in difficult seasons.
A Biblical Definition of Abiding
“Abide” isn’t a word we use every day, but it carries depth and strength. According to Dictionary.com, it means:
“To endure, sustain, or withstand without yielding or submitting.”
BlueLetterBible.com offers Strong’s Concordance definition for the word used in John 15:4–5. In Greek, μένω (menō) means:
“To stay… abide, continue, dwell, endure, remain.”
It’s a word rich with stability and presence. It’s not just about staying in one place physically, but about remaining relationally, emotionally, and spiritually connected.
Heart Check: Where in your life have you been striving instead of simply staying connected to the Vine?
What Abiding with God Looks Like Practically
In John 15, Yeshua uses the example of a vine and branches.
When we abide in Him, it allows the Vinedresser to cultivate us in the best way possible, producing the kind of fruit that brings glory to God and nourishment to others. Yes, that includes pruning, watering, and daily care. But it also includes protection, guidance, and nourishment.
A few years ago, I came to a powerful understanding: fruit is the natural byproduct of abiding.
I don’t have to “make” myself fruitful. I don’t have to push or manufacture fruit. I simply need to stay connected to the true Vine.
As a hardcore doer, that was incredibly good news to me.
In Him we live and move and have our being.
Acts 17:28
When we truly abide, we stop trying to earn love or prove our worth. Instead, we live in relationship with God, and that relationship transforms us into the image of His Son.
And life feels much lighter when we’re fueled by His joy and peace instead of trying to generate our own.
Heart Check: What would change if you believed fruit naturally flows from abiding, not from effort?
Abiding with God Is About Dwelling, Not Visiting
Abiding isn’t just visiting with God during a devotional time or on Sunday mornings. It’s dwelling with Him.
In my first book, Friendship with God, I talked a lot about inviting Him into every part of our lives, not just church services or prayer closets. Growing up, my “God times” mostly happened on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. But God isn’t looking for a visitation schedule; He’s inviting us into a relationship that stays.
That’s difficult to fathom in today’s world where relationships often feel temporary. But there’s something sacred and powerful about relationships that remain.
And here’s the beautiful part: not only do we abide in Him, but He also abides in us.
He chooses to dwell in us.
When we abide, we are freed from the pressure to be perfect, because abiding isn’t about perfection; it’s about relationship.
Heart Check: Are there areas of your life where you invite God in occasionally but not consistently?
Why We Struggle to Abide with God
We Struggle to Abide Because We Want to Understand
One of the biggest reasons we struggle to abide with God is because we’re human. What makes sense to God often makes little sense to us.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.
Isaiah 55:8–9
We want answers. We want clarity. We want to figure everything out before we trust Him.
But often, there isn’t actually anything to figure out. And when we insist on understanding everything, we sacrifice our peace in the process.
Bill Johnson says it well:
If you want peace that surpasses understanding, you must give up your need to understand.
That’s where trust comes in.
As I’ve reread the New Testament recently, I’ve been struck by how often Jesus says some version of: “Your faith has made you well.” There’s something powerful about trust, belief, and faith.
In the beginning, we walk by faith before we have experience. Then, as we witness God’s goodness, our beliefs deepen. Over time, those beliefs grow into trust.
When God asks us to trust Him, it’s never blind. He has already proven Himself faithful. We just have to remember what we know to be true about His character.
It’s simple, but definitely not easy.
Heart Check: What are you trying to understand that God may simply be asking you to trust Him with?
Shame Makes Us Pull Away from God
Another reason we struggle to abide with God is shame.
The enemy loves to convince us that our failures disqualify us from closeness with God. Instead of running toward Him, we hide.
I remember the first time I truly understood shame.
I was backpacking solo across Europe in my late 20s. One night at a hostel, I joined a drinking game with other travelers. I had no idea what I was doing. I remember laughing, feeling connected, and feeling like I belonged.
I also remember waking up covered in vomit, feeling absolutely horrible.
More than the physical consequences, I felt overwhelming shame. I had recently started dating someone back home and felt like I had failed, not just morally, but personally.
Lying in that hostel bed, I heard the Holy Spirit whisper Romans 8:1 into my heart:
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
I had memorized that verse years before, but in that moment, it became real.
That experience taught me something powerful about the Father: shame may accuse us, but grace invites us to remain.
When we abide in Yeshua, the Father does not define us by our failures. He sees us through the finished work of the Vine.
I don’t have to prove myself.
And neither do you.
Heart Check: Is there any part of your story you’ve been hiding in shame instead of bringing into God’s healing presence?
Pain and Disappointment Can Make Abiding Feel Difficult
Pain has a way of making us pull away from God.
When we feel wounded, disappointed, or confused, we often stop abiding because we no longer feel safe.
Maybe you have experienced:
- a miscarriage
- a breakup
- a diagnosis
- or a thousand smaller disappointments that slowly wear you down
One book I’ve reread nearly every year for the last 10 years is Disappointment with God by Philip Yancey. It taught me the difference between expectation and expectancy.
Expectations focus on the outcome we want God to deliver.
Expectancy keeps our eyes on the Promise Giver instead.
For years, I held tightly to a promise I believed God gave me about marriage. I became attached to a specific outcome and specific person. And when things unfolded differently than I expected, it caused deep pain.
Looking back, I can see that God was still faithful. He truly did the things He said He was going to do in that season. My pain came from clinging more tightly to the outcome with this specific person than to God Himself and the truth of who He is to me.
That’s often what pain exposes.
Abiding requires surrender, a holy openness to God even when we don’t understand His process or His timing.
St. Ignatius described this as holy indifference: the freedom to trust God without demanding a specific outcome.
When I first learned about holy indifference, I struggled with it deeply. I didn’t want to lose parts of myself that I thought surrender would require. But the Lord never invites us into surrender arbitrarily. He is always working things together for our good and His glory.
That kind of surrender is difficult.
But it’s also where peace begins.
Heart Check: Has disappointment caused you to pull away from God? What would it look like to trust Him again, even without answers?
How to Abide with God in Daily Life
Let’s talk practicals.
If you know me well, you know one of my favorite questions is: “How?”
I’m generally ready to follow God, but often I ask for handles. I want to know how to do what He’s inviting me into, and honestly, I usually want to do it well.
But over time, I’ve realized that instinct often comes from trusting my ability to “do it right” instead of trusting God Himself.
God seems far more concerned with my heart and my willingness to stay connected to Him than with whether I execute everything perfectly.
So here are a few practices that have helped me cultivate a life of abiding and remain connected to God when I’m tempted to turn to performance instead of abiding.
Awareness Helps Us Stay Connected to God
You can’t change what you’re unaware of.
Many of us move through life completely disconnected from our thoughts, emotions, and reactions. But abiding starts with noticing.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind…
Romans 12:2
A lot of our thoughts happen automatically and subconsciously. That means we often drift away from peace before we even realize it’s happening.
Awareness helps us slow down and reconnect with God in the middle of our everyday lives.
Here are a few practices that help me become more aware:
- Breath prayers: Set an alarm during the day. Pause, breathe deeply, and simply notice what’s happening internally.
- Box breathing: Inhale, hold, exhale, hold for four seconds each. Then ask yourself: What was I just thinking about?
- Welcoming prayer: Acknowledge the emotion you’re feeling without judgment, then bring it honestly into God’s presence. Make space for it.
- Practicing presence: Notice what thoughts arise before frustration, fear, anxiety, or shame take over.
Surrendering Control Helps Us Abide
Surrender is one of the hardest parts of abiding with God because we naturally want control.
We want certainty. Timelines. Outcomes. Explanations.
But abiding invites us to loosen our grip.
When I was training as a spiritual director, I encountered St. Ignatius’s idea of holy indifference. I didn’t like it at first, but over time I began to understand its beauty.
It isn’t apathy or emotional detachment. It’s freedom.
A freedom that says: “I trust God enough to release my demand for a specific outcome.”
That doesn’t mean we stop caring. It means we stop clinging.
Here are some practical ways I practice surrender:
- Bring your honest emotions and questions to God instead of hiding them.
- Name the thing you’re trying to control.
- Practice releasing outcomes daily in prayer.
- Choosing to let go of an emotion or event. I often do this by setting my intention to do so as I breath in and on the breath out, I think in my mind of letting it go.
- Use breath prayer:
Inhale: I release control.
Exhale: I trust You.
Abiding becomes much easier when we stop trying to carry what was never ours to hold.
Heart Check: What are you afraid would happen if you fully surrendered the situation or emotion to God?
Scripture and Stillness Help Us Remain in God’s Presence
Stillness used to feel incredibly uncomfortable to me.
As an extrovert, silence felt unproductive. But over time, I realized stillness creates space for me to actually notice God’s presence instead of constantly filling the silence with noise. Stillness helps truth rise to the surface.
It also creates room for God to renew our minds, comfort our hearts, and gently expose the lies we’ve been believing.
Some practices that have helped me grow in this are:
- Lectio Divina: Read a short passage slowly. Sit with it. Let a word or phrase stand out to you. Go slow, repeating the passage 4 separate times with a pause each time.
- Silent prayer: Ask God a question, then simply listen instead of rushing to fill the space. It is okay if you never get an answer. Trust that He will respond to it when it is the appropriate time to do so.
- Scripture saturation: Replace fearful or condemning thoughts with truth from God’s Word. This is quintessential “taking thoughts captive.”
Abiding isn’t about mastering spiritual disciplines perfectly. It’s about creating space to remain connected to God throughout your everyday life.
Heart Check: When was the last time you sat quietly with God, not to get something from Him, but simply to be with Him?
The Benefit of Abiding with God
One of the most beautiful things about abiding with God is that we stop carrying the pressure to transform ourselves; that’s His job.
Fruit becomes the natural byproduct of staying connected to Him.
As we abide, God slowly shapes us:
- He renews our minds
- softens our hearts
- heals what’s wounded
- exposes what’s false
- and produces fruit we could never manufacture on our own
That doesn’t mean life suddenly becomes easy.
But it does mean we no longer walk through it alone.
Jesus never promised a life free from suffering. But He did promise His presence. And, I think that changes everything.
The more I abide, the more I realize God is not asking me to become impressive. He’s asking me to remain connected.
To trust Him.
To return when I wander.
To stay when I want to run.
To let His love reshape me slowly over time.
Ultimately, abiding is not about striving harder for God. It’s about learning to live from the reality that He is already near. From that place, anything is possible.
Heart Check: Which fruit of abiding—peace, identity, joy, guidance, or love—do you feel God wants to grow in you next?
The Invitation to Remain
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
John 16:33
No matter what you’re carrying right now, Jesus is still inviting you to remain.
Not once you figure everything out.
Not once your faith feels stronger.
Not once you finally “get it right.”
Right now.
You don’t have to chase God down or earn your way back into His presence. He is already with you.
And maybe abiding begins more simply than we think.
Maybe it starts with slowing down long enough to notice Him again.
Heart Check: What would change if you believed God is inviting you to remain with Him exactly as you are today?
