Yesterday morning, after doing some reading, I put everything away and lay down beside our grandson in bed. He had started stirring, and I thought he was about to wake up for the day, but instead he settled back down and fell asleep holding my hand. Normally, on a Monday morning, that time would have been spent going over the week ahead. My laptop would be open, my phone would be nearby, and my mind would already be moving toward everything that needed to get done.
But yesterday was different. I closed the laptop, turned off my phone, and stayed there. As I laid beside him with his little hand wrapped around my finger, I felt overwhelmed by the simplicity of the moment. There was nothing to accomplish, nothing to fix, and nothing I needed to prepare. I was simply present with my grandson while he slept, and in that quiet room I became deeply aware of God’s presence surrounding both of us.
It struck me that this may be much closer to how we are supposed to live than the way many of us actually do. We are so good at filling every available space with another responsibility, another task, or another opportunity to be productive. Yet sometimes what we need most is not another opportunity to do something meaningful. Sometimes we need enough stillness to recognize the meaning already sitting right in front of us.
I hate to admit how easily I can miss that. Our grandson is 1 year old. He will never remember holding my hand yesterday morning, but I have a feeling I will remember it for the rest of my life.
Maybe that moment affected me so deeply because I have spent much of my life believing that when something is wrong, the answer is to work harder. Fix the problem. Have the conversation. Figure out what needs to happen next and get moving. That way of thinking has served me well in many areas of life. But I am learning that one of our greatest strengths can also become one of our greatest weaknesses when doing more begins to feel like the answer to everything.
My faith has been deeply woven into my life over the last decade. I know what it means to pray, talk with God, depend on Him, and recognize His presence through both beautiful seasons and painful ones. What has driven me has not simply been a pursuit of success. It has been people. Helping people, serving people, creating opportunities for people, and being there when somebody needed me.
Those are good things, which is exactly why this can be so difficult to recognize. I have been disciplined, but I am learning that even good discipline can get us out of alignment. For me, discipline often meant saying yes to the opportunity in front of me. If I could help, I wanted to help. If there was a problem, I wanted to solve it. Somewhere along the way, I became so disciplined about carrying responsibility that I did not always recognize what it was costing beneath the surface.
Something I recently read from Oswald Chambers brought this into focus for me. He warned about becoming consumed with activity while neglecting the private life with God from which everything else is supposed to grow. His concern was not that people were doing too little. It was that we can spend ourselves doing worthwhile things and still become weaker underneath.
I wonder how many of us are doing exactly that.
Sometimes the greatest threat to what matters most is not something terrible. Sometimes it is simply too much of something good. You can love your family and become too busy to really experience them. You can care deeply about your work and allow it to occupy parts of you it was never meant to own. You can serve people faithfully and become so accustomed to being needed that stillness begins to feel uncomfortable.
Maybe you know that feeling too. Your calendar is full. People depend on you. The problems in front of you are real, and much of what you are doing genuinely matters. From the outside, everything may even look healthy. But much like the canopy of a tree, what looks good on the surface does not always tell us what is happening underneath.
Jesus did not simply tell His followers to accomplish things for Him. He told them to abide in Him. To remain. To stay connected. The work mattered, but it was supposed to grow from something deeper.
That word, abide, has really challenged me lately because abiding does not always look productive. Sometimes it looks like closing the laptop and turning off the phone. Sometimes it means reading Scripture without needing to teach someone what you learned. Sometimes it means praying without asking God to solve anything. Sometimes it may simply mean lying quietly beside a sleeping grandson and recognizing that nothing needs to be added to the moment.
I think we struggle with this because usefulness can quietly become part of our identity. We begin measuring a good day by what we accomplished and how many people we helped. Eventually slowing down can begin to feel irresponsible when it may actually be one of the healthiest and most faithful things we can do.
Life has a way of exposing the difference between activity and true presence. Loss does that. Stress does that. Disappointment does that. So do circumstances that cannot be solved by another long day, another conversation, or another act of grit. Those seasons reveal the difference between having enough discipline to keep moving and having something deeper to draw from when discipline is no longer enough.
Discipline absolutely matters. But I am starting to understand the difference between discipline and dependence. Discipline says, “I will become the person I am supposed to be.” Dependence says, “God, I cannot become that person apart from You.” We need both. The question is whether our discipline grows from our dependence or slowly begins replacing it.
Maybe some of us are not suffering from a lack of discipline at all. Maybe we have become disciplined about nearly everything except protecting what gives us life.
For me, slowing down does not happen accidentally. I may have to become just as intentional about stillness as I have been about productivity. Put the phone away. Sit with someone I love and actually be there. Take a walk without filling the silence with headphones. Pray without needing an answer. Give God enough quiet space in my life that I can recognize His presence when nothing else is happening.
This is not about becoming less responsible or less useful. Work matters. Serving people matters. Responsibility matters. But none of those things were ever meant to become the source of our life. They were supposed to grow from something deeper.
Yesterday morning, a little boy who will probably never remember the moment reminded me of something I do not want to forget. Sometimes there is nowhere else we need to be, nothing else we need to accomplish, and nothing more important waiting for us than where we already are. God is present in the moments we are so often trying to move beyond.
Maybe the question is not always, “What do I need to do next?” Maybe sometimes we need to slow down long enough to ask, “Am I holding on to the life God has already given me?”
Practice to Cultivate
Take a few quiet minutes this week and honestly sit with these questions.
- What good things in my life have become so important that they are beginning to crowd out my ability to simply be present with God and the people I love?
- Where in my life have I become disciplined about doing, helping, and accomplishing, but less disciplined about slowing down and protecting what gives me life?
- What habits have I formed that may be preventing me from recognizing God in the moments I am rushing past or failing to notice?
Maybe the goal this week is not to add one more thing to our lives. Maybe it is simply to notice what is already there.
‘Well Rooted’ is written by Jeremy Elliott. Elliott owns a lawn-care business and lives in the Great Bend area.
