John 15:4  “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.” (NLT)

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The introverted side of my nature recoiled upon entering a crowded room on the twentieth floor of an office building in one of Texas’s priciest pieces of property. There were so many unfamiliar faces and so many people talking at the same time, and everyone seemed to have a good time. I was off-kilter. I looked for a friendly face, someone I could connect with who would help me feel a little more like I belonged.

Completely unexpectedly, my friend John appeared. He lives in Nebraska. We became acquainted a little over two years ago as he participated in a training process our team leads. The extrovert in me awakened and took John by surprise with a manly hug.

I pray for John on Mondays. When I asked him how to pray for him not long after we first met, he said he wanted an ever-deeper and abiding walk with God. I introduced John to the room full of people yesterday by saying what I know to be true. John embodies the very idea Jesus expressed here. He is a person who walks with Jesus in a deep and abiding life.

He is kind. He is gentle. He loves deeply. He sees beyond faults to the needs and the remedies of God’s grace. As far as it depends on him, he lives at peace with everyone.

John is a man familiar with deep wounds. His son stepped away from his relationship with him several years ago. The father heart John possesses would not let his son go. He was always on his mind and in his prayers. John has invited trusted others to pray with him and his wife about this relationship broken on the son’s side of the equation.

There was a minor breakthrough months ago. A visit was arranged. Breadcrumbs were offered in the months afterward. Most recently, the son lost his job and asked to come home from the far country. Luke 15:11-32 came alive as John welcomed home his estranged son. 

What does John want now? An ever-deeper and more abiding walk with God so that his son sees the face and hands of God every day he is home. 

Yesterday was a great day because John was there, because John’s life is bearing the fruit of a patient love that never gives up, and because John exudes grace, kindness, and deepest love overflowing from Our Father’s heart through his own to everyone he meets. 

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I want to be like John and Jesus.

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Our Father, build into me an ever-deeper and abiding walk with you. May your love so overflow into and through my life that it saturates all it touches and to all who need to feel and receive your everlasting kindness. May the riches of your goodness shape my soul. May your tender mercies become commonplace reactions for every deep need I perceive and each wound I receive. Amen.