This is because a middle class life is often manageable. We have stable housing, a job, a spouse etc. We are the picture of the white picket fence and some realized version of the American dream. This gives you the illusion of control. As if you have built this and can maintain it.

For me this led to the kind of faith that was all menu and no meal. I had a head knowledge of the Trinity - Father, Son, Spirit - but not I living breathing every day dependency.

When my son started getting one diagnosis after another, and when he wouldn’t sleep through the night but 1 or 2 nights out of 10, the wheels of my self-sufficiency started to come off. I came to the end of myself and I was terrified.

I found out that what I actually worshipped was my own competency and effective problem solving skills. I had an image of myself that, no matter what, had to be maintained. But the facade was crumbling.

It reminds me of that beautiful promise that Jesus shares; The person who hears my words and does them is like someone who builds their house on the rock. When the storm comes, it is not shaken. I had built my life on the shaky sand of my own ability, and the storm had come.

But when the storm comes, we have a tremendous moment of clarity. The storm does not destroy our foundation so much as reveal it. And then we have a choice. Do I double down and try to muscle through under my own strength - this leads to cycles of burnout, manic action followed by crushing despair - OR - do I real build my life with true dependence on the Lord for all that I need?

What does this true dependence look like? Here are the three keys to joyful dependence that have reshaped my life:

1. I embrace the gifts of limitation

I have a body that requires rest, exercise, and good nutrition. I require a sabbath rhythm where I put my own doing fully away for a time of restoration. I cannot rescue everyone around me, nor is it my job. The Lord has called me to a limited number of things and I will seek his wisdom and guidance as I take purposeful action where he has called me. I can’t till all the fields, just those he has called me to.

2. I live from His energy and not mine

Every day I will start the day connected into the life giving Holy Spirit for my sustenance, energy, and direction. Quite literally I will get still, seek the presence of the Lord, and learn to move and have my being caught up in his Divine love and energy. I know that this requires a daily practice. I will find my practice and practice it (as Thomas Merton used to encourage).

3. I trust that the outcomes are in his hands not mine

I will do my utmost, and be a full co-laborer with the Lord in the fields he has called me to. But I will not measure my self worth or my value by the outcomes. He told me to plant the seeds and to trust him with the growth.

Living this way reframed my life and revealed a living, breathing Savior; Not one who merely meets me at death, but one who is present with me every day of my life.

Losing teeth is only supposed to happen in anxiety nightmares.

I rushed to the dentist where I learned I had been clenching my teeth at night. Apparently so hard that I created a fault line down to the root. I knew our life was demanding, but I had no idea how it was affecting me physically until my body gave the clearest possible signal.

Sometimes our bodies tell the truth before we are ready to listen.

I was about 6 years into my journey of raising my son with disabilities at this point, and to say I had lost a sense of control in my life would be to undersell the free fall.

My dentist recommended I live a less stressful life. I thought of my son and laughed around a a mouthful of gauze. How can I stay engaged with my son, loving and serving him well, and not be stressed out all the time? That felt impossible. His needs were so profound.

But my body could not keep going like this. Maybe you can relate? Maybe you are pouring out your life for your child with disabilities in a way that keeps demanding more and more of your body. Maybe for you it is your shoulders, your back, or your hands. Maybe that fantom pain is becoming a bit too real? There are studies that indicate that caregivers can shorten their life spans living this way.

At this point most of us look at the impossible choice and decide that we either need to fully sacrifice ourselves - hence we continue to ignore our bodies until they simply stop working altogether. Or we decide that we need to disengage. Mom or Dad checks out because they just can’t take it anymore. But are those the only choices?

Up until this moment I had quietly accepted the lie that caring for my son meant losing myself.

But loving your child well should not include losing the body, mind, and soul that the Lord also entrusted to you.

I started looking for a third way. I chose to find myself while also loving my son deeply.

I started with a simple 5 minute practice.

I’d pray: Jesus, give me your promised Helper, the Holy Spirit today to sustain me and guide me in all things.

Then I would name what I was feeling, feel it in my body, and get curious about the story that I was telling about the feeling. I wrote it down. I guess you could call it journaling but it felt more like self-discovery.

Lastly, I would hand that story and that feeling to Jesus “Cast all your fears on the Lord because he cares for you.”

The challenges didn’t diminish in size or frequency. I still know doctors on every floor of our local kids hospital. But finding myself allowed me to meet the challenges with far more energy and presence.

I don’t know the nuances of your hard story. But I do know that you are worth paying attention to. You are worth slowing down for, even for just a few minutes. If your body has been trying to tell you something for a long time, maybe it’s time to listen?

.

They’re so familiar, so expected, that you start to tune them out. You don’t notice them on your drive. Occasionally you might get hungry and pull over. Then they become temporarily useful. But 20 minutes later, you’re back on the road—and they fade into the background.

I think for most of my life I approached Jesus a bit like this. I had a Frontage Road Jesus. He was there, but relatively basic, expected, and mostly in the background. If I needed something, I would pull over, grab a quick bite of comfort—but then it was back to the highway and back to the road trip of my life.

This Jesus was so small, so typical, that I could easily tune him out. I recently drove eight hours with my daughter from Nashville to Charlottesville, and I couldn’t tell you how many Burger Kings we passed. They simply weren’t worth noticing.

Is Jesus so small, so insignificant, that I can ignore him 95% of the time in order to just go about my life?

He is—if he stays a frontage-road Jesus.

But the Gospel of John challenges this low-wattage image when it says Jesus was the Christ, a cosmic figure clothed in mystery—present at the dawn of creation:

“All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” —John 1:3–5

There is not a blade of grass, a soaring falcon, a jumping dolphin, or a multicolored sunset that was not made through him. Jesus is not roadside fast food. He is the Source.

He is the Life.

And his light shines in the deepest dark—and the darkness cannot overcome it.

An Invitation to the Cosmic Christ

1. Let Go of a Small Jesus
   Where in your life does it feel like Jesus can’t reach? Where does he seem too small? That’s where you’re invited to expand your view. The hand that crafted galaxies is the same hand holding your heart.

2. Get Outside
   Go witness something bigger than your daily worries. The stars, the sunrise, the open road. Ask the Holy Spirit to reawaken your sense of wonder. Ask to see not the frontage road Jesus, but the Cosmic Christ—radiant with mercy and alive with love.

When I wake up this way, the first thing I do is sit patiently with myself—with a bit of curiosity. I practice the Trailhead exercise from No Elevator to Everest, helping me understand why this anxiety feels so big and so present.

But sometimes, mere understanding doesn’t lead to transformation. As a wise person once said: what we don’t transform, we transmit. And I’m trying not to give my wife, my kids, or my colleagues my anxiety.

On those days, I’ll often go for a slow jog. I run at a conversational pace. Along the way, I’ll pick up a small rock and hold it in my hand. I let the rock represent my anxiety—this thing I’m struggling with—and I seek a different relationship with it.

If it’s something that isn’t mine to carry, I name it and let the rock go.

But if it’s something important—an anxiousness about a relationship or a necessary tension—I simply open my hand and jog with the rock bouncing around on my palm.

I notice that it shifts from one side of my palm to the other. I notice that I don’t have to grip it tightly. I can just be. I can just notice.

And often, that’s when peace begins to settle in.

That’s when I remember: the God of the universe holds all things—including this anxiety that felt so huge when I first woke up—under His loving care.

Without even realizing it, I slip into prayer.

One morning, while doing this, I was so focused on trying to get my body and mind to release my anxiety, I hadn’t noticed the real shift: I was the rock. I was being held in the open palm of God.

Firmly and loosely. Lovingly.

As soon as I realized this—spiritually and bodily—my whole being relaxed. I was good. I was whole. I was loved.

This kind of peace is ours, every day.

You are beloved beyond your wildest imagination.

My prayer for you is this: that whatever road you’re walking (or jogging), you would experience a touch of that love and peace that passes all understanding.

There were a laughable amount of apples. The branches were being pulled lower to the ground with the weight of them. You didn’t have to hunt for apples—you simply reached up and grabbed them. We filled bags with ease. Eventually they got so heavy that two of us had to carry them.

This kind of ridiculous abundance of fruit is what Paul is talking about in Galatians (Galatians 5:22–23). When we are abiding in the Spirit of God, we simply can’t help but burst at the seams with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc. I think this “fruit abundance” is the normal pattern. It’s what we should expect.

So why don’t we experience that all the time?

Some theological systems would tell you it’s because you are still so sinful—post-conversion—that you should get used to a life of drips and drabs. As if the language of the prophet, that says it will become a stream of living water that ever increases, is not actually talking about what is possible in your life (Ezekiel 47:1–12; John 7:38). Or that when Jesus said, “I have come that you may have life and have it to the full,” He was pointing to someday way off in the distant future when you’re dead (John 10:10).

This belief system is really a commitment to the idea that God isn’t powerful enough to actually bear lots of fruit in your life—today.

This could not be more wrong.

The Author of Life broke into the world to reintroduce you to full-throated, heart-pumping, dancing-in-worship-because-the-gift-is-so-good LIFE (Acts 3:15; Psalm 16:11).

Right now—and forever. (John 17:3)

Others might argue that you’re not doing enough or believing enough. That if your faith was just a bit stronger, you’d experience this right now. So we blame ourselves, spiral into shame, and heap on the accusations.

But that can’t be right either, can it?

Satan is the Accuser (Revelation 12:10). The Spirit is the Helper. The Comforter. The ever-present One who teaches us all things (John 14:16–17, 26).

So then, back to the primary question:

How does our life become abundant with the fruit of the Spirit?

We simply abide.

“Abide” is such an aggressively non-aggressive word to the Western mind. Give me a 10-step action plan NOW, please. I want an Instagram carousel I can follow, thank you very much.

But over and against our desire to add steps to our life—Can we track this on our Apple Watch, please?—we get the simple instruction:

“Abide in me, and I will abide in you.” (John 15:4–5)
When? Now.
For how long? Forever.
Where should I go to do this? Nowhere. The Spirit is in you. (Romans 8:11; 1 Corinthians 3:16)

Jesus tells His best friends this repeatedly, the night before He is crucified. I can’t imagine how frustrating it would be to want a clear strategic plan—

“Jesus, what are we going to do in the face of the Romans and the Pharisees? What’s the plan!?”

Abide. (John 15:1–11)

If we want our branches weighed down by the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, this is the only way. The one way. There is no other.

So the call is about subtraction more than addition.

Let go and let God. Find your heart’s rest and contentment in the Spirit of God who abides in you now as a free gift of grace (Romans 8:6; 2 Corinthians 3:17–18; Ephesians 2:8).

Journal Prompts to Go Deeper

1. Where do I notice the quiet presence of God’s Spirit bearing fruit in me—perhaps in ways the world does not see?
   What small movements of love, peace, or patience have emerged that I might have overlooked in the noise of daily life?

2. What am I clinging to that hinders my soul from resting in God’s abiding presence?
   Is there a striving, a fear, or a false self that I need to let go of in order to dwell more freely in grace?

3. In the silence of my life, where do I sense the invitation to abide?
   What simple practices might draw me back to the Center—where God waits, not with demands, but with delight?

It feels endless, doesn’t it?
The horizon stretches beyond your sight, the waves roll on without end, and something in you whispers: this is too vast for me to comprehend.

And yet—compared to the Sun, that ocean is just a drop.

The Sun could swallow 1.3 million Earths.

One. Point. Three. Million.

The sea that feels infinite to you is nothing compared to that star.
And even the Sun? It’s just one among billions in our galaxy.
And our galaxy? Just one among billions more.

Here’s where my mind breaks open:

The God I believe in—who spoke all of this into being—knows my name.

Yours too.

“He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.”
— Psalm 147:4

The scale is staggering. His power and might are beyond imagination.

But the miracle is this:
The God of galaxies bends low enough to care for your Tuesday morning stress,
your child’s tears,
your hidden fears,
your daily bread.

The Creator of the Sun and sea is also the Shepherd of your soul.

A Practice of Vastness and Presence

Get still.
Breathe.
Imagine yourself standing on the shore. See how endless the waters stretch out before you.

Now, picture the Earth itself—a speck in front of the size of the Sun. Imagine how infinite God’s power is, that He could create something so tremendous.

Now, simply pray:
“Lord, are you with me?”

What do you sense?
What do you feel?
What do you hear?

Stay there.
Let the vastness of creation and the nearness of God meet in you.

Join Me at No Elevator To Everest - BASECAMP

If your life feels full but your soul feels tired, this day is for you.

October 25 – The Center for Contemplative Justice, West Nashville
$125 · Only 15 spots available - sign up now!

BASECAMP is designed to help you establish a grounded daily practice, one that can carry you through the real challenges of leadership, parenting, marriage, and spiritual growth.

You’ll get:

• A full day of guided teaching + reflection

• A signed copy of No Elevator to Everest

• Nourishing food + drinks

• A 1-on-1 coaching session with me.

• And most importantly—a spiritual rhythm you can actually sustain

We’re gathering in a sacred space—The Center for Contemplative Justice—a quiet retreat tucked away in the heart of West Nashville. You’ll feel it the moment you walk in. This isn’t another event. It’s a reset.

Join Us

Because in perfect love we are perfectly accepted. We are at peace. There is no need to strive to change or become something else. There is no worry that we are not what we should be or could be. There is no must any longer. We simply abide in perfect love. We dwell there. It is our home.

Fear says we haven’t found it yet—whatever it might be in your life. So we set out to find it. We go wandering, driven by the winds of our anxiety, chasing the thing that might finally make it all okay.

The lie is that we don’t already have perfect love. But we do. We have it now. It is our birthright—given by the very one who caused us to be born. The Creator’s love is the only love that can be perfect, and it is the love with which He greets those He made. You. Me.

The love the prodigal son finds is not conditional love. It is unconditional and perfect. The kind of love that reminds the lost son that he was always the son.

Maybe it’s better to say you don’t find it, but it finds you. It’s there the moment you take your first breath. The world just tries very hard to convince you otherwise. It tells you to seek something that’s already yours—as if every breath weren’t already a gift from Yahweh.

Fear convinces us that life is not a reflection of love, but of hardship and suffering. Fear twists the grace of Jesus into something we think we need to earn. It makes a gift feel like a transaction. It turns heaven into something we work for, rather than something we wake up to.

Fear will make a hell of heaven.

But perfect love doesn’t argue with fear it outlasts it. It drives fear away like light pushing back the dark. Slowly. Gently. But completely.

A Prayer

My prayer for you today is that you would taste this perfect love, even just a touch.

That the dawn would rise in your soul and in mine.

Amazon is running a massive sale right now, and my book No Elevator to Everest is available for less than $3, that’s less than a latte! If you’ve been meaning to grab a copy (or want to gift a few), this is the time. Four books for the price of one.
Grab Your Copy!

To have a close friend die unexpectedly is one of the greatest tragedies in this life. And yet it’s one that so many of us will experience.

But to have them murdered —
That’s a shock that sometimes we never recover from.
Like a black hole has opened up in your chest and will eventually swallow the entirety of your being.

That morning, when the women came to the tomb, they carried with them that yawning void of overwhelm.
They were being swallowed alive by their grief and sorrow.
Their friend Jesus had been murdered.

And it was in this emotional state, utter free fall, that they met the two angels.

Can you imagine hearing these words?

“Why do you seek the living among the dead?”
— Luke 24:5 (ESV)

In the weeks that followed, Jesus spent time with each of them.

• Sometimes in long walks on dusty roads.

• Sometimes on the shore, starting a little campfire and roasting fresh fish.

• He physically touched them, embraced them, laughed with them, and encouraged them about what was to come.

The black hole of grief was reversed.
A new dawning light of hope was born in each one of their hearts.
Grief was conquered by a supernova of joy.
Death had been defeated.

They knew beyond a shadow of doubt that the story goes on.
That God’s love transcends even our darkest days.

The Great Reversal had begun.
And they would be the witnesses sent to share this good news with the world.

My prayer for you:

Wherever you may be in your life,
I pray you experience the love of the risen Lord Jesus.
That you taste and see that the Lord is good.
That you physically, spiritually, and emotionally encounter the power of this Great Reversal.

God is for you, friend.
His love never ends.

But here’s the paradox:
To love well, we can’t just absorb all that pain until we collapse.
The way of Jesus is to hold equanimity and empathy together.

🌿 Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582)

In Interior Castle, Teresa describes the soul resting in deep stillness in God — a kind of equanimity. But she insists this serenity isn’t detachment from others:

“The surest sign of prayer being genuine is growth in love of neighbor.”

Peace in prayer, for Teresa, isn’t withdrawal from the world; it steadies you so you can pour yourself out in compassion.

🌑 Julian of Norwich (1342–1416)

Julian’s visions show Christ holding both realities — trouble and peace:

“He did not say: ‘You shall not be troubled, you shall not be distressed,’ but he said: ‘You shall not be overcome.’”

That’s equanimity in Christ — a groundedness that makes space to feel with others, because God wants us to know we are “equally safe in woe as in well-being.”

✍️ Thomas Merton (1915–1968)

In New Seeds of Contemplation, Merton warns against false detachment and points us toward compassionate solidarity:

“The contemplative has no need to escape into some ivory tower of detachment… His solitude teaches him to cherish the world with reverence and love.”

For him, inner equanimity doesn’t numb us — it frees us from being tossed by every storm. And that freedom makes empathy possible.

🌌 Henri Nouwen (1932–1996)

Nouwen may hold this tension most directly in The Wounded Healer:

“When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find it is those who, instead of giving advice or solutions, have chosen rather to share our pain.”

But he’s clear: we need “a heart at rest in God” in order to enter into others’ pain without being consumed by it.

🌅 The Desert Fathers & Mothers (3rd–5th century)

These early Christians counseled a calm, prayerful steadiness (apatheia, close to equanimity) alongside mercy.
Abba Poemen once said:

“Teach your mouth to say what is in your heart.”

Equanimity, for them, wasn’t indifference but gentleness — a steadiness that made compassion possible.

✨ The Synthesis

Put together, these voices point us to a way of being:

• Equanimity = rootedness in God, freedom from being ruled by emotion or circumstance.

• Empathy = the fruit of that rootedness, allowing us to enter suffering without being destroyed by it.

Equanimity without empathy becomes cold detachment.
Empathy without equanimity collapses into burnout.

But together — steadiness and tenderness — we begin to mirror Christ,
who holds the world’s pain without being overcome by it.

And maybe this is the gift we most need right now.
Not frantic outrage.
Not numb withdrawal.
But a steady compassion that points to a Love stronger than despair.

Let’s be honest.

Most entrepreneurs don’t just live with fear.

They run on it.

We tell ourselves that fear is what keeps us sharp. It’s what gets us up early, pushes us to work late, makes us grind harder than the person next to us.

But here’s the truth I had to learn the hard way:

Fear doesn’t sharpen you.

It shrinks you.

Fear floods your body with cortisol.

It narrows your focus.

It dulls your creativity.

It drives you to control instead of create.

Your nervous system doesn’t know the difference between a board meeting and a bear attack. It just reacts. And when we let fear run the show, we slowly lose access to our best self — the one that sees clearly, leads boldly, and loves deeply.

So what do we do?

We don’t shame fear.

We listen to it.

We learn from it.

We just stop letting it drive the car.

Here’s something that’s helped me:

This week, try keeping a “Fear Journal.”

Just notice.

Name the moments.

Ask what fear is pointing to — and whether it’s true.

Then let it go.

It’s a small practice, but it might just change the way you show up.

If you want more on this journey — the kind where your life doesn’t have to collapse in order to change — I wrote No Elevator to Everest for you.

It’s not a book about climbing higher.

It’s a book about going deeper.

Because what we need isn’t more hustle.

It’s a holy rhythm.

Thanks for reading. If this hit home, consider forwarding to a friend or subscribing for more soul-centered reflections on entrepreneurship, faith, and formation.

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Manna fell every morning.

And the people had to show up to gather it.

“Give us this day our daily bread…”
— Matthew 6:11

A daily practice is how we learn to receive again.

One day at a time.
No hoarding.
Just trusting.

You don’t need to stockpile grace.
You just need to be present to it.

This is the rhythm of the Kingdom—
daily showing up,
daily trusting,
daily receiving what only God can give.

That’s the heartbeat of No Elevator to Everest—
my upcoming book about slow formation, daily practice, and rediscovering the sacred in the ordinary.

God still provides.
But the manna falls daily.

Let’s learn to gather again.

Your value is what you output.

But the Bible doesn’t begin in a factory.
It begins in a garden.

And before God gives Adam a task,
He gives him His presence.

“He walks with me and He talks with me…”
— Genesis 3 (paraphrased)

A daily practice is how we return to that garden.
Even if just for 15 minutes.

If you’ve been running on output, performance, and pressure—
maybe it’s time to pause.

Before there was purpose, there was presence.
Before there was calling, there was communion.

This is the deeper rhythm I’m writing about in my new book, No Elevator to Everest—
a daily invitation to walk again in the cool of the day with the God who knows you, loves you, and is not in a hurry.

Even a few minutes in the garden can change how we live the rest of the day.

Let’s return together.

It’s a place of identity recovery.

“Come to me, all who are weary… and I will give you rest.”
— Matthew 11:28

A daily practice isn’t about getting more done.
It’s about becoming more you.

The version of you that God already loves.

If your soul is tired of feeling like a project…
If your time with God feels like another thing to “check off”…
It may be time to return to the place of rest.

That’s where No Elevator to Everest was born. Not from ambition, but from exhaustion.
From the slow realization that you don’t hustle your way into wholeness.

You rest your way there.

I’m writing this book for people who are tired of trying to earn what’s already theirs—
and who are ready to reclaim identity as beloved, not busy.

If that’s you, I’d love to walk with you.

The enemy doesn’t need you to rebel—he just needs you to scroll.

But God still whispers in the quiet.

“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up… and prayed.”
— Mark 1:35

If Jesus needed time away, so do we.

A daily practice is how we tune our hearts to the only voice that matters.

The Invitation

If you’re feeling the weight of the noise…
If your soul is tired of scrolling…
If you’re craving a deeper rhythm…

You’re not alone.

This is exactly why I’m writing my new book, No Elevator to Everest—for those of us trying to follow God not with performance, but with presence.
It’s about becoming. Slowly. Daily. Quietly.

If you want to walk that path with me, I’d love to have you along.

More soon—
and until then,
tune your heart.

But most of us are sprinting through our days like we’re paid by the minute.

What we need isn’t more hustle.
It’s a holy rhythm.

“Be still, and know that I am God.”
— Psalm 46:10

A daily practice is not self-care.
It’s soul rescue.

If your soul feels overclocked…
If stillness feels foreign…
If something in you whispers “there has to be more than this”—

You’re right.

That’s what I’m exploring in my new book, No Elevator to Everest—an invitation to return to presence, to practice, to a life shaped by the Spirit instead of speed.

If you’re craving space to breathe again, I’d love to walk that path with you.

We begin with one simple truth:
You are not a machine.
You are a beloved soul, and it’s time to live like it.

But a few years ago—burned out and barely holding things together—I began to realize something:

I had built a life that could win awards…but not a life I could live from. What I needed wasn’t more productivity. What I needed was presence. That’s where the idea of a daily practice was born. Not a checklist. Not another self-improvement trick, but a way of remembering what’s already true.

Here are three reasons I believe everyone—especially those of us carrying big responsibilities—should start a daily practice:

1. Because You Are Not Your Outcomes

“We are not what we do.
We are not what we have.
We are not what people think of us.”
— Thomas Merton

In a world where worth is too often tied to output, a daily practice becomes an act of resistance.

When you light a candle, sit in silence, read a Psalm, or simply breathe and listen—
you’re reminding your soul:

• You are not a machine.

• You are not your inbox.

• You are not your bank account or your to-do list.

Thomas Merton—Trappist monk, social critic, and mystic—once wrote that “to be contemplative is to be free.” Free from illusions. Free from the false self.

That kind of freedom doesn’t come from striving. It comes from stopping. A daily practice isn’t about becoming something. It’s about remembering who you already are.

2. Because the Soul Doesn’t Shout

“There is nothing so much like God in all the universe as silence.”
— Meister Eckhart

The voice of God is often described as a whisper, and most of us live in a world too loud to hear it.

Meister Eckhart, the medieval mystic, insisted that God is found in the depths of the soul, and our job is to become quiet enough to listen.

That takes intention. That takes space.

A daily practice gives your soul:

• A landing pad

• A quiet room

• A stillness the Spirit can speak into

It might look like journaling, or breath prayer, or sitting with a single line of scripture until it opens up inside you. Whatever it looks like, the truth remains:

You can’t hear the truth if you don’t create space for it.

3. Because Love Takes Practice

“The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of His love.”
— Julian of Norwich

Julian of Norwich, a 14th-century anchorite who lived through war and plague, wrote with unshakable conviction that “all shall be well.” Her writings are full of divine tenderness—of the sense that God isn’t watching from a distance, but holding us from within.

That kind of awareness doesn’t just appear. It’s cultivated.

A daily practice becomes a way of:

• Practicing love

• Staying in relationship with the God who loves you

• Learning to love yourself, your neighbor, and your life with that same gentleness

Teresa of Ávila put it this way:

“Prayer is nothing more than spending time with someone who loves you.”

Isn’t that what we’re all aching for?

The Invitation

Start small.
Light a candle.
Read one line of scripture.
Write down one thing that moved your heart.
Breathe.

Let it be simple.
Let it be messy.
Let it be yours.

But begin.

Because God is not waiting for you at the finish line.
God is with you in the stillness.

And the more you practice showing up,
the more you’ll realize:

You were never alone.

P.S.
I’m writing more about this in my upcoming book No Elevator to Everest, and I’d love to walk this path with you. If you’ve started a practice or want to drop a comment below, What helps you return to yourself?

Some of us might want that steadiness. A commuter rail has a pretty tight schedule. All the stops are laid out in front of you. In fact, the timing is even printed. You know exactly what time you’ll get there.

And for sure, I’ve had commuter rail seasons. After all, it’s a great way to get from stable point A to stable point B:

High school → college degree → entry-level job at an upwardly mobile company.

Sometimes we want—and need—that. But over time, that rhythm can go stale. What once felt like momentum now feels like monotony. The commuter rail becomes a greyed-out path with no vitality.

I had a friend who worked for a wildly successful company. It’s a household name kind of company. He was there before they went public, and after their IPO on Wall Street, he led their efforts at international expansion. It was an incredibly fun adventure.

But every Thanksgiving, the company would give staff a frozen turkey.
Eventually, the team started using it as a metric of tenure,“I’ve got 9 turkeys until retirement.” My friend came home and said to his wife, “If I ever start counting turkeys, it’s time to go.” He knew the adventure had shifted. As soon as he was “counting turkeys,” the mission had turned into maintenance. The white-water rapids had turned into tracks.

Interrupt Your Day.

Today do something unscheduled. Unplanned. It could be as small as eating lunch outside. It could be as big as booking a “Gotta Get Away” fare on Southwest and just going.

But whatever it is–Interrupt the pattern. Break the rhythm. Create space.

And while you’re doing it, ask yourself
“What wants to be created in my life right now?”

There’s no right answer. Don’t try to manage it. Don’t over-spiritualize it or make it practical. Just ask the question with curiosity.

Let your spirit speak.

And when I say spirit, I mean your innermost self,That wild-child part of you that still knows how to draw, how to dance, how to jump in puddles.

If you take the interrupt-your-day challenge, I’d love to hear from you. Just reply back to this email.
What did you try?
What did you learn?

Let’s stop counting turkeys—and start living again.

Coarse brown grass softens to myriad shades of green. Ants, nowhere to be found moments ago are suddenly everywhere. My car is covered in a dusty pollen haze, and in the morning, the calls of birds become so loud that my daughter wakes at 5:30 a.m.

Life bursts forth. It cannot be stopped. It cannot be managed. The unrelenting gift of new life finds us. It always finds us.

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.”
— Psalm 19:1–2 (NIV)

This seasonal wonder, dormant winter giving way to life so abundant, is a physical reminder of the grand story playing itself out over and over again.

In fact, the unrelenting gift of life, from the God who spoke all things into being, is always available, in our hearts and in our minds.

But just like we can miss the dawning of spring, living so focused on our own goals, fears, hopes, and worries that we don’t notice the shifting of the seasons—we can also ignore the unrelenting gift of God’s love.

It sings to us, as loudly as the birds outside my daughter’s window, but does it wake us up?

I wonder today, What would it look like for you to pause and hear the call of God’s unrelenting love on your life?

His mercy, His tenderness, His unending pursuit of all that He has made and loves—
is right there. His love of you, His beloved, is just right there. The unrelenting gift.

Get curious. Stay compassionate.
What would it look like for you to create enough space to listen?

The spring around you is speaking.

It was 3 a.m. when I heard my son screaming for me.

My heart rate skyrocketed. Behind my eyes, a strange hollow sensation pulsed—like my face had gone paper thin.

My son’s multiple disability diagnoses included a severe sleep disorder. I had grown used to torture-level sleep deprivation. So I shuffled into his room, knowing: this was not a middle-of-the-night wake-up.

This was the start of my day.

And I felt shattered. Hopeless.

I had been trying to keep it all together for ten years—through sheer force of will.

I grew up believing that when life gets hard, you just work harder.

Focus more. Try again. Try harder.

That mindset worked well at the office.

But at home, in the sacred and broken spaces of parenting a child with complex needs, it failed me completely.

No matter how hard I tried, nothing changed.

And I was exhausted.

Caught in a loop where life demanded more and more… and I had less and less to give.

There are so many of us leading from this place of lack.

We’re leading companies. Churches. Nonprofits. Families.

We’re still functioning, so we don’t call it burnout. But we know:

we’re losing ourselves.

One day at a time.

We’ve become good robots—still doing the work, but numb inside.

Hollowed out.

On autopilot.

Back then, I was still trying to fix the problem the only way I knew how—externally. Just do more. Apply more energy. Hustle my way through.

But finally, I hit the wall.

And by the grace of God, into that darkest season came a sliver of light—an invitation into trauma healing and soul restoration.

A place where I reconnected with myself.

And where I encountered the transformative love of God—not in a textbook way, but in a bone-deep, soul-rearranging way.

It was a mountaintop experience.

But I couldn’t stay there. I had to return to the same exhausting context—same child, same sleepless nights, same hard climb.

If my context couldn’t change, then I had to.

So I turned my life into a joy lab.

A sacred experiment.

What daily practices could help me experience real joy—no matter what happened that day?

What rhythms would reconnect me with God and help me endure this climb with grace and hope?

No Elevator to Everest is the story of that journey.

And it’s a companion for yours.

Because I know I’m not the only one climbing something hard.

There are other leaders, other parents, other exhausted world-changers out there who need to reconnect with their joy—without waiting for the mountain to move.

I wrote this book for you.

If this resonates, would you forward it to two people who are climbing their own Everest right now?

You can also grab a copy of the book as a companion for the journey.

Let’s climb together.

—Will

His slide deck would have 1 image:
people walking.
That was the plan. One phase.

You can almost see the hand shooting up from the back of the crowd—the proto-accountant asking:

“So, how long do we walk?
How far are we going?
What is our defensive plan against the Egyptian army should they change their mind?
Have you located a proper crossing point for the Red Sea?”

These are rational questions—but questions asked from the belief that we must plan out all our steps before making the first.

From every story I’ve ever read in the Bible, this appears to not be how God operates.

Abraham is called to leave his homeland and set out for the Promised Land.
No details offered. David is anointed as King with no political playbook to follow.
All this while Saul still rules.

Jesus calls his disciples by simply saying:

“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

That is a vague and open-ended invitation—void of any comfort of a strategic plan.

I think this is still the way that God works. He appears to value faithful obedience far above careful execution and strategy.

Don’t believe me?
Tell me how many details Jesus gave his followers about the execution strategy to spread the gospel after he ascended into heaven?

The answer is one step.

“You will receive power to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
— Acts 1:8

Those are the details. That is the plan. We might summarize it as Follow the Spirit where it leads.

I believe we now live in an age where we’ve become a bit obsessed with our own knowledge and understanding. We’ve traded faith for something we think is wisdom.
Nowadays we call it good stewardship. We would rather follow a wonderfully crafted plan—outlined in a 12-step pitch deck—than the simple call of the Spirit.

And yet the Spirit whispers to us still. We hear it in our innermost selves.
Not just calling us toward a life of love, joy, peace, patience, and joy. But toward a life of wild and free obedience. A life that hears and follows the call of the Life-Giver.

But we don’t know how to cultivate this listening. How to be still enough and silent enough to hear. How to do this every single day. Every moment of every day.

So instead of Spirit-led, we have become plan-based.

“You can pitch me on the plan to cross the Red Sea, and maybe I will go.
But if you haven’t thought of everything, Moses,
I will stay here in bondage—thank you very much.”