Abide Until You Know

Some truths don’t land in the mind first.
They land in the chest.

Most of us have heard that God loves us.
We can say it. Sing it. Defend it.

And still live as if we’re standing just outside the door —
close enough to hear the sounds inside,
but never quite at rest.

That’s why this passage feels so weighty.
Paul isn’t writing theology here.
He’s praying.

And not standing —
He’s on his knees.

Paul begins with posture.

Not because God is far away —
but because what he’s about to ask cannot be produced by effort.

He doesn’t pray first for behavior.
He doesn’t pray for clarity or correction.

He prays for inner strength.

Not outward resolve,
but something happening quietly inside —
so that Christ may dwell.

Not pass through.
Not visit when invited.
But be at home.

And before anything is understood, explained, or known,
he names the ground beneath it all:

That’s not a goal.
That’s a place to remain.

This is the heart of the prayer.

Paul asks that you would know
what cannot be reduced to knowing.

A love beyond dimensions.
A love you don’t stand back and analyze —
but step into.

And notice what’s required to receive it:

strength.

He prays that you would be strengthened inside
so that Christ may dwell.

It takes strength to stop managing the relationship.
Strength to stop proving.
Strength to stay present
when fear wants to explain, control, or escape.

This kind of knowing doesn’t come from effort.
It comes from abiding.

From staying close enough — long enough —
for love to stop being an idea
and become familiar.

Like roots learning the feel of soil.
Like a body learning rest.

The prayer ends not with instruction —
but with fullness.

Not with fear —
but with confidence.

Not with something to do —
but Someone already at work within.

And then worship.

Because when love like this is glimpsed —
even briefly —
the only honest response
is to stop talking…
and stay.

This prayer was never meant to be rushed.
It was meant to be entered.

It doesn’t ask you to solve anything.
It doesn’t ask you to fix yourself.
It doesn’t even ask you to feel something specific.

It simply opens a space
and invites you to remain there.

Today, you don’t need to measure the width
or map the depth
or make sense of how love like this could possibly be yours.

You don’t need to grasp anything at all.

If you’ve spent years trying to be acceptable,
trying to be certain,
trying to be faithful enough or clean enough or sincere enough —
this prayer quietly releases you from all of that.

Paul isn’t praying that you would try harder.
He’s praying for the kind of strength
that allows you to stay.

Abiding begins right there —
when you stop managing the relationship
and allow yourself to be present.

To sit long enough
for the noise to settle —
to stay even when your instinct is to move on.

And slowly — often quietly —
love shifts.

It stops sounding like a sentence you’ve heard before
and begins to feel like the ground beneath your feet.

Something you don’t have to prove.
Something you don’t have to defend.
Something that simply holds you.

This is not a moment to accomplish.
It’s a place to return to.

So today, just abide.

Not to earn anything.
Not to unlock something hidden.
But to let what is already true
become familiar.

There is a small book in Scripture that most people have never read.
Not because it isn’t important—but because it isn’t comforting in the way we often want the Bible to be.

The book is Habakkuk.

Habakkuk lived in a time when his world was coming apart. Violence was rising. Justice was twisted. Corruption was no longer hidden—it was normal. Those who tried to live righteously were often the ones who suffered most.

He looked around and saw what many of us see today, even if our circumstances look different on the surface.

We may not be living through national invasion.
Our cities may not be burning.
Our grocery stores may still be full.

And yet…

Children still die.
Godly men and women still lose everything.
Health still fails.
Finances still collapse.
Injustice still wins far too often.

If you lived in Venezuela today, Habakkuk’s words might feel painfully familiar.
But even here—in quieter, more hidden ways—many of us live inside the same ache.

Habakkuk doesn’t write like a theologian.
He writes like a man who has reached the end of his explanations.

He does what righteous people are taught to do—he cries out to God.

Not politely.
Not quietly.
Honestly.

This isn’t rebellion.
This is prayer.

Habakkuk asks for justice.
He pleads for mercy.
He begs God to intervene—to stop the bleeding, to fix what is broken, to rescue his people before it’s too late.

And God answers him.

But the answer is not what anyone hopes for.

God essentially says, I see it. I am acting. And it’s going to get worse.

Judgment is coming. Invasion. Collapse. Loss.
Everything Habakkuk fears will still happen.

This is not silence.
This is clarity without relief.

Habakkuk prays again. He questions again. He struggles openly with what God has said. He does not hide his confusion or soften his pain.

And then—without understanding, without agreement, without any promise of rescue—he waits.

Nothing changes.

There is no late miracle.
No angel at the last moment.
No explanation that makes it all make sense.

The book ends not with rescue—but with resolve.

Habakkuk speaks words that sound poetic to us, but were devastating in his world:

This is not metaphor.

This is economic collapse.
This is famine.
This is men starving, families losing everything, people taken into slavery, a nation being erased.

This is the prayer of a righteous man that goes unanswered—except for one terrible truth:

And this is where Habakkuk’s faith finally speaks:

Not because things improved.
Not because God fixed it.
Not because the story turned around.

But because God was still God.

This is what faith looks like after unanswered prayers.

It looks like crying out for a child—and losing them anyway.
It looks like begging God to heal—and waking up to the same diagnosis.
It looks like pleading for financial relief—and watching the numbers stay broken.
It looks like praying for justice—and learning you may never see it in this lifetime.

It looks like trusting God when the only honest answer you’ve received is:

The psalmist said it without dressing it up:

That is not victory language.
That is survival faith.

And long before Habakkuk, another righteous man said something just as unsettling:

Not because God explained Himself.
But because faith does not always require answers—it sometimes requires endurance.

This kind of faith is not loud.
It doesn’t preach well.
It doesn’t wrap things up neatly.

But it stays.

And sometimes, staying is the truest worship there is.