“Where Are You Staying?”: John’s Word for Abiding and the Family That Keeps Moving

Some children can recite their addresses like a list of battles. The room at Grandma’s in Spanish Town. The flat above the shop. The house in Portmore until the landlord sold. Two years with an aunt in the Bronx. A basement in Mississauga. By the time they are grown, the question “Where are you from?” needs a paragraph. For families who rent, migrate or follow work, moving is not an event. It is a way of life.

John’s Gospel has a word for such people. It is a word about staying.

The word behind “remain”

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5, NIV). Older translations say “abide”. The Greek word John uses, menō, is an ordinary household word. It means to stay, to remain, to lodge, to dwell. It is what a guest does when he does not leave after dinner. It is what a family does when it settles.

John uses it from the start. In chapter one, two disciples of John the Baptist begin following Jesus. He turns and asks what they want. Their answer is not theological. “Rabbi, where are You staying?” He replies, “Come and see.” And John tells us they came and saw where He was staying, and remained with Him that day (John 1:38-39). The first conversation between Jesus and His future disciples is, in effect, about where He lived.

A home that moves with you

By chapter fourteen, the conversation has turned around. Jesus is no longer inviting people to come to where He stays. He is promising to come and stay with them. “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23, NKJV).

For a family that has moved eleven times, this is a remarkable promise. Your address may change again next year. The lease may end, the job may relocate, the immigration papers may send you somewhere you did not choose. But the deepest home on offer does not depend on a landlord. Christ makes His home with the one who loves Him, and wherever that person goes, the home goes too.

Why the branch cannot keep moving

There is a paradox here. A family can move constantly on the outside and still be settled on the inside, and a family can stay in one house for fifty years and never abide anywhere. A branch that keeps detaching and reattaching to different vines will not bear fruit. What matters is not whether the address changes, but whether the connection holds.

Frequent movers know the temptation to live provisionally: not unpacking fully, not joining a church, not getting to know the neighbours, because “we won’t be here long”. Sometimes that is wise. Often it becomes a habit that follows us into the next place, and the next. The spiritual life can drift the same way: always about to settle, never quite staying.

Practices for abiding on the move

• Carry the rhythms, not just the boxes. The same morning Scripture reading, the same grace before meals, the same Sunday habit, whatever the house. Children remember rhythms long after they forget rooms.
• Unpack the Bible first. Literally. Put it where it will be seen on the first night in a new place.
• Find a church quickly, and stay in it. Give a congregation more than one visit before you decide.
• Pray over each new place. Walk through the rooms and ask God to make His home there with you.
• Keep one thing that travels. A picture, a tablecloth, a wall hanging with a verse. Something that says, in every kitchen: this is our household, and Christ lives here.

Apart from Him, nothing

“Apart from me you can do nothing” is not a threat. It is a description of how branches work. For people who have had to be very self-reliant, finding the next room, arranging the next move, holding everything together, it can be a relief to hear that the fruit does not depend on their effort. It depends on staying connected.

You may not know where you will be living in two years. You can know where you are staying.

For reflection

• How many places have you lived? Which habits of faith came with you, and which were left behind?
• Are you living provisionally, spiritually or practically, in the place you are now?
• What would it look like to abide in Christ this week, whatever happens with the lease or the move?

A prayer

Lord Jesus, the first disciples asked where You were staying, and You said, “Come and see.” We have moved so often that we sometimes forget where we belong. Make Your home with us, in this house and the next. Keep us connected to You, the true vine, wherever our address may be. Amen.

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