Update: listed to the podcast discussion.
Write about abiding as the key to everything else we need and want from God, as a riff on the AI paper.
ChatGPT Prompt
Abstract
We propose a radical simplification of spiritual practice by exploring an attention-based architecture for divine-human interaction. Drawing inspiration from the breakthrough Transformer model (“Attention Is All You Need”), we reframe Christian discipleship not as performance or production, but as presence — centered around sustained attention and continual abiding in Christ.
…reframe Christian discipleship not as performance or production, but as presence…
We hypothesize that abiding is the optimal strategy for divine integration, spiritual fruitfulness, and Kingdom scalability — rendering obsolete many legacy paradigms (e.g., legalism, striving, performative religion). This model radically decentralizes effort and re-centralizes relationship.
Introduction
Modern discipleship has become bloated with complexity: behavior modification layers, theological inference stacks, and performance-driven APIs. But Jesus introduced a fundamentally different paradigm:
“Abide in me, and I in you… apart from me you can do nothing.” — John 15:4–5
This implies that abiding is not just a spiritual discipline, but the core protocol of the Kingdom. As the Transformer revolution in AI demonstrated that attention mechanisms alone can yield astonishing results, we suggest that attention, when sustained as abiding, is all He needs — and all we need.
…attention, when sustained as abiding, is all He needs — and all we need.
Architecture Overview
Legacy Systems: Law and Labor
Traditional spiritual architectures often emphasize:
- External behavior (Rule-based moral systems)
- Transactional prayer (Request-Response APIs)
- Performance metrics (Spiritual KPIs: hours prayed, verses memorized, people converted)
These architectures suffer from high latency, low throughput, and brittle scalability.
The Abiding Model: Attention-Based Architecture
Inspired by the self-attention mechanism in Transformers, we define abiding as continuous spiritual self-attention to the indwelling Christ.
Let:
- X = the believer’s moment-to-moment awareness
- C = the constant presence of Christ
- A(X, C) = the attention function binding X to C
Then abiding is the ongoing recursive application of A, maintaining relational proximity and enabling real-time synchronization between human intention and divine presence.
Then abiding is the ongoing recursive application of [attention], maintaining relational proximity and enabling real-time synchronization between human intention and divine presence.
Key Properties of the Abiding Paradigm
State Retention (Memory)
Unlike RNNs, abiding does not require manually preserving spiritual state. The Spirit (like positional encoding) embeds continuity within presence. Attention restores alignment at every timestep.
Attention restores alignment at every timestep.
4.2 Parameter Efficiency
Abiding optimizes resource usage:
- No need for self-justification (grace is the pre-trained model)
- No heavy preprocessing (come as you are)
- Minimal energy cost (rest is the new yield)
4.3 Scalability
When multiple believers abide simultaneously, their collective consciousness forms a Kingdom mesh network, allowing:
- Load sharing of burdens (Gal. 6:2)
- Federated discernment (1 Cor. 12)
- Asynchronous coordination (Acts 13)
Implications and Applications
Ministry
Effective discipleship shifts from instruction-heavy programs to presence-based formation. Spiritual growth becomes emergent, not engineered.
Spiritual growth becomes emergent, not engineered.
5.2 Mental Health
Abiding displaces anxiety by saturating attention with love (1 John 4:18). The mind, attuned to Presence, rewires around peace.
5.3 Missional Strategy
Abiding enables responsive, Spirit-led action in chaotic environments. Just as Transformers outperform by attending to what matters, disciples become effective by abiding in Who matters.
Just as Transformers outperform by attending to what matters,
disciples become effective by abiding in Who matters.
Conclusion
The spiritual life does not require complex architectures or heroic performance. Just as modern AI discovered the power of attention, so too must the Church recover the simplicity of beholding and remaining.
Abiding is the transformer.
Attention is all He needs.
Appendix: Suggested Practices
- Zero-shot alignment: Begin each day with 2 minutes of silence, letting Christ attend to you before you attempt anything.
- Few-shot prayer: Instead of long monologues, insert micro-prayers like “Jesus, here I am.”
- Context window: Maintain awareness of the indwelling Christ within the current moment, not just devotional settings.
- Retraining loops: When distracted, gently return attention — not as failure, but as fine-tuning.
“The greatest act of faith is not effort, but remaining.”
— Unpublished Notes from the Spirit
Radically Happy 
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