Abide In Me

'Abide in me' is an understandable and beautiful enough concept in the elegant English of the King James Bible, but 'abide' is not a word we use much anymore. So I gained even more appreciation for this admonition from the Lord when I was introduced to the translation of this passage in another language. In Spanish that familiar phrase is rendered ‘permaneced en mi.’ Like the English verb 'abide,' permanecer means 'to remain, to stay,' but even gringos like me can hear the root cognate there of 'permanence.' The sense of this then is 'stay—but stay forever.' Come, but come to remain. Come with conviction and endurance. Come permanently, for your sake and the sake of all the generations who must follow you, and we will help each other be strong to the very end.
--Jeffrey R. Holland