Abiding Life Ministries International

Abiding Life Ministries International Welcome to ALMI! We are a worldwide ministry dedicated to the simple message that there is nothing the nearness of Christ cannot overcome.

For the last 10 weeks, I've had the privilege of leading a discipleship group for young athletes ages 11–17.We've talked...
08/05/2026

For the last 10 weeks, I've had the privilege of leading a discipleship group for young athletes ages 11–17.

We've talked about identity, finding it in Christ instead of performance. We unpacked how our early experiences shape our view of God, exposed the lies we wear, replaced them with truth, and discovered how uniquely God created each one of us.

For our final assignment, I asked them to do something incredibly simple.

Go outside.
Be still.
Spend time with God.

No agenda. No checklist. Just be with Him.

Today we talked about what happened.

One by one, every athlete started the same way:

"Nothing happened... but..."

"...I felt calmer."

"...I wasn't as hard on myself."

"...I slept better."

"...I had more patience with my siblings."

One of the things I love most about working with teenagers is their honesty. Sometimes it's brutally honest. They weren't trying to sound spiritual or impress anyone. They genuinely believed God hadn't shown up.

Every single one of them believed God hadn't met them because they didn't hear a booming voice. There wasn't a dramatic experience. No lightning bolt. No overwhelming emotion.

Yet every single one of them described the evidence that He had.

He met each heart differently.

One with peace.
Another with rest.
Another with patience.
Another with gentleness toward themselves.

Not one encounter looked the same, because not one heart needed the same thing.

Then I watched their faces change as they realized what they had almost missed.

Their expectation of how God should meet them had kept them from recognizing the ways He already had.

I couldn't help but see myself in their stories.

How many times have I walked away from time with God thinking, nothing happened, simply because I had already decided what meeting Him was supposed to look like?

We often expect God to announce His presence, while all along He's been quietly transforming our hearts, knocking on the door.

His presence isn't always recognized by what we hear. Often it's revealed in what begins to grow within us—peace instead of anxiety, patience instead of frustration, gentleness instead of self-criticism.

Sometimes the evidence that God met you isn't that your circumstances changed.

It's that you did.

I think that's one of the most beautiful things about Him.

He knows exactly what each heart needs, and He meets us there—not always the way we expect, but always in the way we need.

-Shay

"God, I'm doing everything right... so why won't You fix this? Why won't You heal me?"Maybe you've prayed those prayers ...
08/03/2026

"God, I'm doing everything right... so why won't You fix this? Why won't You heal me?"

Maybe you've prayed those prayers too.

Can I tell you something as if we were chatting over a cup of coffee?

You're not a bad Christian because you've wrestled with God.
You're not failing because you've questioned Him.
You're not alone because you've wondered where He is.

Noah shared something on our latest podcast that took him years to learn:

"The biggest thing I ever learned through all of that was to thank God in the pain and suffering."

Not because pain is good.
Not because suffering is easy.
Not because God enjoys watching us hurt.

But because somewhere in the middle of the pain, Noah stopped looking for a God who would only prove His goodness by changing his circumstances... and began discovering a God who was present even when they didn't change.

That doesn't happen overnight.

It took years of unanswered prayers.
Years of disappointment.
Years of learning that God's presence is sometimes a greater gift than the answer we were asking for.

If you're in a season where nothing makes sense, maybe today isn't about pretending you're okay.

Maybe today is simply about remembering that you don't have to walk through it alone.

If you're hurting today, you're not alone. 💜

-Shay

08/03/2026

"Honestly, the biggest thing I ever learned through all of that was to thank God in the pain and suffering..." -Noah

What if becoming like Jesus doesn't mean feeling less... but trusting God more?We spend so much time focusing on Jesus' ...
07/29/2026

What if becoming like Jesus doesn't mean feeling less... but trusting God more?

We spend so much time focusing on Jesus' miracles.

His healing.
His power.
His perfection.

We strive to be like Him, and somehow turn that into striving to never feel weak.

But we forget...

Jesus wept.

He was so exhausted that He slept through a storm.

He cried out to the Father in anguish.

He flipped tables in righteous anger.

He withdrew to lonely places.

He asked His friends to stay awake with Him.

He experienced sorrow, rejection, exhaustion, loneliness, grief, and pain.

He was fully God and fully human.

He gets us.

Maybe becoming more like Jesus isn't pretending we don't feel. Maybe it's learning to bring every human emotion into the presence of the Father the way He did.

Sometimes faith looks like healing.

Sometimes it looks like weeping.

Sometimes it looks like resting.

Sometimes it looks like crying out, "Father..."

Your humanity isn't what separates you from God.

Jesus never hid His humanity from the Father.
He brought every part of it into His presence.
Maybe that's what He was inviting us to do all along.

"For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." — Hebrews 4:15–16

-Shay

For a long time, I believed every wrong decision meant I had somehow stepped outside of God's will.People told me He was...
07/26/2026

For a long time, I believed every wrong decision meant I had somehow stepped outside of God's will.

People told me He was disappointed in me. That I had chosen the wrong path. That I had missed what He had planned. So I spent years believing God was far away, and I carried shame that He never asked me to carry.

But when I look back now, I see something completely different.

I see God.

Not because every choice I made was good. Some weren't. Some brought heartache. Some were painful. But He was never absent. He was present in every moment—teaching me, pursuing me, revealing who He is, and gently exposing the lies I believed about myself.

What if we started looking at life through "God glasses"?

Instead of asking, "Where did they go wrong?" we asked, "Where is God meeting them?"

Instead of assuming someone has wandered too far, we trusted that the God who leaves the ninety-nine is already pursuing the one.

Instead of seeing failure as the end of someone's story, we looked for the places where grace is quietly doing its deepest work.

That perspective changes everything.

It makes us slower to judge and quicker to love.

It replaces fear with peace and control with trust.

Because if God is truly with us—always working, always inviting, always present—then we don't have to panic over every detour. We can trust that even in places we never would have chosen, God is still revealing Himself.

I've learned some of the deepest truths about God's character on roads I wish I had never walked.

Not because the road was good.

But because He was.

And when we begin to see God everywhere, we become the kind of people who offer others what He has always offered us: love instead of shame, patience instead of pressure, and hope instead of condemnation.

-Shay

Two weeks ago, we wrapped up our very first Abiding Life Conference.We're still hearing stories from people who encounte...
06/27/2026

Two weeks ago, we wrapped up our very first Abiding Life Conference.

We're still hearing stories from people who encountered His grace, found freedom from shame, and walked away with a deeper awareness of His nearness. Those conversations have continued long after everyone went home.

As we've reflected on what God did, we've also been looking ahead to what He's inviting us into next. More conferences. More discipleship. More resources. More opportunities to remind people that there is nothing the nearness of Christ cannot overcome.

We recently sent a letter sharing some of those stories, the vision God has placed before us, and a transparent update on where the ministry is today.

If you've been encouraged by Abiding Life Ministries, we'd love for you to take a few minutes to read it.

Thank you for praying with us, encouraging us, and walking alongside us. We truly believe this is our ministry together, and we're grateful for every person God has brought into this story.

🔗

06/24/2026

When it comes to the topic of battling sin, one rule must never be broken, and that is that we are never to battle sin! It is a misplaced focus. No, we are never to fight sin if we desire to overcome it.

Many have focused on their sin ten, twenty, thirty, and even forty years; their sin has become so much a part of their life that they are not even sure what they would do were they to be miraculously delivered. If 25% of thought life were concentrated on something consuming and immediate deliverance occurred, exactly what would replace that portion of mental energy? What would fill the vacuum?

The solution to warring against sin is to set our minds on something other than the sin. This cannot not be done by consciously avoiding the sin, but rather by making the Lord the focus of daily thought life. If our focus is not kept on the things above but is allowed to traffic in the things of the world, we as believers will be led to Christian fatalism, the belief that this life in these bodies will constantly be given over to defeat and misery. Thus we will accept continual suffering as the norm and wait for the day we will be caught up into heaven. The truth is that all suffering has a purpose and, in the end, produces abundant living today.

--Michael Wells, My Weakness for His Strength Volume I

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
— ROMANS 12:2

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Littleton, CO
80120

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+13039720859

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