We’ve read the books. We know how to recover from a bad quarter, a hard conversation, a plan that fell apart. Failure hurts, but it’s honest. It drives you to your knees. It’s hard to forget you need God when everything is coming down around you.

Waiting is different.

Waiting is quiet. It’s the prayer you’ve prayed for a year. The door you were sure God opened that still hasn’t swung. The season where you did everything you knew to do, and heaven seems to have stepped out of the room.

Nothing is collapsing. Nothing is forcing you to your knees. And that’s exactly what makes it dangerous.

Scripture has a story that shows how it happens.

In Exodus 32, Israel builds a golden calf. Most of us know the story the way we know a cautionary tale. The people turned on God, made an idol, partied around it, and got in serious trouble. It’s easy to read from a safe distance. They were faithless. We’re not like that.

But read the first verse slowly. “When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain...”

Delayed.

That’s the hinge of the whole chapter. Not rebellion. Not boredom. Delay.

Moses had gone up the mountain to meet with God, and he’d been gone forty days (Exodus 24:18). No updates. No timeline. These people had just watched God split a sea, and now the one man who heard from God had vanished into a cloud. “As for this Moses,” they told Aaron, “we do not know what has become of him.”

So they did what people do when the gap feels unbearable. They filled it.

“Up, make us gods who shall go before us.”

Notice what they’re asking for. Not a new religion. Something to go before them. Something they could see, something that would move when they moved. Guidance they could hold in their hands.

Here’s the detail most of us skip. When the calf is finished, Aaron doesn’t announce a new god. He builds an altar in front of it and says, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD” (Exodus 32:5). The covenant name. The name of the God who brought them out of Egypt.

They didn’t think they were leaving God.

They thought they were making him available.

That’s what makes this story so uncomfortable for people like us. Israel’s idol didn’t feel like idolatry. It felt like solving a problem. God was taking too long, so they built a version of him that would show up on schedule.

And look at what they built it from. Aaron asks for their gold earrings. Where does a nation of former slaves get gold? From Egypt, on the way out the door. The Egyptians handed it over the night God set them free (Exodus 12:35–36). The calf was made out of the spoils of their deliverance.

The gifts of God, melted down into something that would spare them the wait for God.

I don’t know many leaders who are tempted to bow down to a statue. But I know a lot of us, myself included, who are tempted to take the gifts God already gave us and pour them into something we can control.

Your gifting. Your strategy. Your work ethic. Your network. Your savings. The plan B you’ve been quietly building in case God doesn’t come through. Lately, maybe, a machine that will answer any question instantly and never make you wait.

None of those things are evil. Most of them are gifts. But hand them a silence they were never made to fill, and they start becoming the thing you trust to go before you.

And we’ll still call it God. We’ll still pray over it. We’ll still say “the Lord provided.” The name stays the same. Only the object of our trust changes.

There’s a line later in the chapter that would be funny if it weren’t so honest. When Moses comes down and confronts Aaron, Aaron says, “I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf” (Exodus 32:24).

Out came this calf. As if it built itself.

That’s usually how it feels from the inside. Nobody decides to replace God. You just make one reasonable move after another in a season where he feels far away, and one day you look up and realize the thing you’re leaning on is something you made.

That’s why I think waiting is more dangerous than failure. Failure reminds you that you need God. Waiting tempts you to believe you can manage without him for a while, and keep his name on whatever you build in the meantime.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe. Idolatry rarely starts with a decision to leave God. It starts with a refusal to wait for him.

The calf doesn’t get built in rebellion. It gets built in the delay.

Which means the delay isn’t wasted time. It’s the actual test. Not whether you believe God exists, but whether you’ll let him be someone you have to wait on. A God who moves on your timeline isn’t God. He’s a tool with God’s name on it.

And here’s the part that gets me. Moses was coming down the mountain the whole time. He was carrying the very words the people needed. They just couldn’t stand the forty days.

If you’re in a delay right now, the most faithful thing you can do might not be to build anything. It might be to stay at the foot of the mountain, empty-handed, and keep your gold.

Questions to sit with:

Where in your life is God taking longer than you expected?

What have you started building to fill that gap?

Which of God’s gifts are you tempted to melt down into a backup plan?

What would it look like to wait this week without building anything?

— Phil

You were made for goodness

I’ve been in the middle of a project at work that’s so complex, I get stressed just thinking about it.

Not busy-hard. Complex-hard. The kind where every piece depends on three other pieces, and every decision reshapes the ones you already made. The whole team is feeling it. Everyone’s under pressure. And for me it got to the point where I didn’t have to be working on it to feel it. I’d just start to think about it, and the stress showed up before the thinking did.

If you carry real responsibility, you probably know this kind of stress. It’s different from having too much to do. Too much to do, you can grind through. This is the stress of a problem that’s bigger than your head, and the harder you think, the tighter it gets.

In the middle of that, the Lord gave me a prayer. It’s short enough to say in one breath:

This is so simple for you, Holy Spirit.

It hasn’t made the project any less complex. But it’s changed how I walk into it. And I think I finally understand why.

He’s never been intimidated by a mess

Look at how the Bible opens. Before light, before land, before anything had a shape: “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2).

Formless. Void. Dark. Honestly, that’s not a bad description of some projects I’ve worked on.

But notice what the Spirit is doing. Not pacing. Not scrambling. Hovering. The chaos wasn’t a threat to him. It was his starting point.

Then God spoke, and everything we know came out of that darkness. “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host” (Psalm 33:6). Every atom. Every molecule. Every law of physics we’re still trying to describe.

So when I pray this is so simple for you, I’m not being poetic. I’m being accurate.

Where that Spirit lives now

But if the prayer stopped there, it would be true and still feel far away. A brilliant God somewhere out there doesn’t do much for me in the middle of a hard meeting.

Here’s what changed my day. Paul writes, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).

The same Spirit who hovered over the dark waters, with an entire universe still unformed in front of him, lives in me. Not near me. In me. By his very presence.

And there’s something fitting about praying this in a single breath. The Hebrew word for Spirit, ruach, is the same word for breath. It’s the word in Genesis 1:2 and in Psalm 33:6. The Spirit who made everything with a breath, prayed to in a breath.

What the prayer actually does

I want to be careful here, because this could sound like a stress-management technique. It isn’t.

The point of the prayer isn’t to make me less stressed. The point is to keep me conscious of who is with me. When I pray it, I’m turning toward the One who lives in me and opening a channel to his wisdom right in the middle of the problem. The lower stress comes after that. It’s the byproduct, not the goal.

And it doesn’t get me out of the work. I still have to show up, think hard, ask good questions, and make decisions. But I’m not doing it alone. I’m partnering with the Holy Spirit through the whole stressful day: asking what I’m missing, listening for the next step, trusting that he sees the whole system when I can only see pieces of it.

Here’s the simplest way I can put it: if the Holy Spirit were in my shoes, whatever problem I’m facing would be easy for him. It would be child’s play.

And he is in my shoes. He lives in me.

It was never just the size of the problem

It’s easy to believe stress is telling you how hard the problem is. I’ve started to think it’s telling me something else.

It’s telling me how alone I think I am in it.

This project is still complex. It may well be too complex for me. It is not too complex for the One who lives in me. And staying connected to him, one breath at a time, is the most practical thing I can do on a hard day.

This is so simple for you, Holy Spirit.

For reflection

• What problem are you carrying right now as if it all depends on you figuring it out?

• When the stress hits, is it really the size of the problem, or the feeling that you’re facing it alone?

• What would change if you walked into your hardest moment this week praying, “This is so simple for you”?

— Phil

You were made for goodness, Phil

Most of the leadership decisions I regret weren’t made by the person I thought I was.

They were made by a part of me I hadn’t met yet.

That’s the uncomfortable thing about leading people. Every day you make calls that land on real lives. What you say yes to. What you push on. How you respond when the plan falls apart. How you talk to the volunteer who dropped the ball. We like to believe those actions come from our values and convictions, and some of them do.

But a lot of them come from somewhere lower. Somewhere we don’t look.

Where it actually came from

For years, I worked for the approval of the people around me at my day job. I didn’t call it that. I called it being responsive. Being a team player. Doing excellent work. And some of it was. But underneath it was a need to be told I was doing well.

It took me a long time to trace where that came from. When I finally did, it didn’t lead to my boss or my coworkers. It led home. To a much younger version of me, looking for approval from my parents.

The meeting was happening in the present. The motive was decades old.

Once you start looking, you find this everywhere. Small, ordinary behaviors that go all the way down to your family system. The way you handle conflict. The way you overprepare. The way you can’t let a project go until it’s perfect, or the way you quietly disappear when things get hard. None of it is random. All of it has roots.

What’s under the waterline

Here’s the picture I keep coming back to. What people see from us is the tip of an iceberg: the decisions, the reactions, the tone of the email. Below the waterline is everything actually driving it. Fears. Old wounds. Needs we’d never say out loud. Vows we made as kids and forgot we made.

And here’s what should unsettle every leader: the part underwater is bigger. And it’s steering.

Deep water

So what do you do with something you can’t see?

Scripture has an answer, and it’s older than any leadership book.

“The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.” (Proverbs 20:5, ESV)

Notice what the proverb doesn’t say. It doesn’t say the wise man has a shallow heart. It doesn’t say mature people have figured themselves out so there’s nothing left beneath the surface. Everyone’s heart is deep water. The difference is whether you’ve ever lowered the bucket.

Understanding, in this proverb, isn’t a trait you’re born with. It’s a practice. It’s the ongoing, unglamorous work of drawing up what’s down there so you can actually look at it.

Why mature leaders journal

This is why mature leaders journal.

Not because it’s another discipline to feel behind on. Because it’s one of the few places where the drawing out actually happens.

I’ll be honest. It can feel mundane. It can even feel a little strange to sit down and let your thoughts run onto a page, stream of consciousness, with no idea where it’s going. But I’ve come to believe there’s something holy in it. When you journal honestly, you’re taking a trip down into the depths of your own heart. You start by writing about the meeting that frustrated you, and a few sentences later you’re writing about something much older.

The page lets you see what you couldn’t Jeremiah says the heart is deceitful above all things, and then asks the honest question: who can understand it? God’s answer is, “I the LORD search the heart” (Jeremiah 17:9–10). You were never meant to do this excavation alone. Self-awareness on its own can quietly turn into self-absorption. You can dig all day and just end up standing in a deeper hole.

Transformation happens when you bring what you find to God. When the journal turns into prayer, and “Search me, O God, and know my heart” (Psalm 139:23) stops being a verse and becomes your actual posture. And when you bring it into spiritual community, to the people who can help you carry it and name what you still can’t see.

Knowing where my need for approval came from didn’t change it on its own. What it gave me was something honest to bring to God, instead of a vague sense that something was off.

Two versions of you

Here’s what I’ve come to believe. Your people are always being led by two versions of you: the one you see and the one you don’t. And unexamined motives don’t stay private. They become the weather everyone around you has to work in.

Spiritual journaling isn’t navel-gazing. It’s how you make sure the one leading your people is the one you’ve actually brought to God.

Why I built Dayspring

I built Dayspring for exactly this. It’s a journal built for spiritual growth, with Scripture, prayer, and old practices like the Examen right inside the page you’re writing. It also keeps everything you write and helps you look back across months and years. That matters more than it sounds. What’s under the waterline rarely shows up in a single entry. It shows up the fifth time you catch yourself writing about the same thing. If you’ve been meaning to start a journaling practice, or restart one that slipped, I’d love for you to try it.

Questions to sit with

What’s one reaction you had this week that felt bigger than the moment called for?

If you followed it down, where do you think it would lead?

Who in your life is allowed to see below your waterline?

— Phil

You were made for goodness

P.S. Dayspring is live on Mac now with a 14-day trial, and the iPhone app is on its way. You can check it out here: https://www.usedayspring.app/

I’ve been in a hard season.

A project I’ve been building isn’t working the way I hoped. The financial pressure hasn’t let up. I keep grinding, waiting for the breakthrough — the moment this effort finally pays off. It hasn’t come. Not yet.

Somewhere in the grind, “Promised Land” stopped being a Bible phrase and became a personal one. To me it meant getting over the hump. Getting out of the hole. Arriving.

I’ve led long enough to know this feeling isn’t new. Every driven person I know is grinding toward some version of their own Promised Land.

A few weeks into this stretch, I found myself back in Exodus 33. Israel hadn’t arrived yet either. Still in the wilderness. Still short of what was promised. And in the middle of that, Moses makes a strange request. He asks God not to send them anywhere unless God’s presence goes with them.

Don’t send us unless you go with us — because what else would distinguish us from everyone else around us?

That’s the line I couldn’t get past. Moses isn’t negotiating for the land. He’s negotiating for God himself.

I remember one particular morning in the middle of all this. Nothing about my circumstances had changed. The project was still stuck. The pressure was still there. But I felt God’s presence unusually strong that morning — his joy, his delight, a peace I couldn’t explain given what was still unresolved.

I hadn’t gotten the promise. I’d gotten him. And it was enough.

Here’s what I think God was teaching me: a promise without presence is useless. If I can’t learn to enjoy his presence now, I’ll never enjoy his promises later — because there’s no version of this where the promise is better than the presence. He is the Promised Land. The plot of land Israel was walking toward was never really the point. Being chosen by him, belonging to him, worshipping Him — that was.

Some of the people who wrote our Scriptures never saw their promise fulfilled. Moses never set foot in that land. But he had the presence. The company. The voice. The partnership on the way there.

That’s what makes the in-between bearable. Not the certainty that the promise is coming. The certainty that he’s already here.

So if you’re in a grind right now — building something, waiting on something, still short of what you were promised — I don’t know when your promise arrives. I don’t even know if it will, this side of eternity. But I know this: his presence isn’t the consolation prize while you wait for the real gift. It is the real gift.

Where are you anchoring your peace right now — in the promise you’re waiting on, or the presence you already have?

What would change if you believed his presence was the reward, and not just the means to get one?

— Phil

You were made for goodness.

The longer you do good work, the easier it becomes to think highly of yourself.

This is a problem that most spiritual leaders have to eventually face.

Not arrogant, exactly. Just confident in the wrong direction. You start to believe the results are proof of something — proof that you’re the one making this work.

There’s a little voice that creeps up that says, “Hey, maybe you’re pretty awesome”

I remember going on a “hot streak” of excelling. (Anyone else experience this?) A great conversation. Crushed a great project. People thinking my ideas are really good. And those thoughts come creeping up.

Here’s what makes it tricky: this isn’t a flaw for undisciplined people. It’s actually what’s supposed to happen when you’re faithful. You grow. You get better. Your gifts sharpen. Paul tells the Corinthians they’ve been enriched in every way — real gifts, real strength, real capacity. That part is normal. Expected, even.

But there’s a second thing that tends to happen right alongside it, and it’s quieter. You start crediting yourself.

There’s a passage in Ezekiel — chapter 16 — that names this exact pattern, and it doesn’t flatter anyone.

God is speaking to Israel, and he starts the story further back than she’d like: a newborn, abandoned in an open field. No one cut the cord. No one washed the blood off. Left to die (vv. 4–5).

Then: “I said to you in your blood, Live” (v. 6). No conditions. No reason given.

Keep reading. Everything changes. God washes her, clothes her in fine linen and silk, adorns her with jewelry, a crown. Her food is the finest flour, honey, oil. Her fame spreads among the nations because of her beauty (vv. 9–14).

She’s not surviving anymore. She’s a queen. Genuinely admired. Genuinely gifted — and every bit of it traces back to what God did for her.

Then verse 15: she trusted in her own beauty.

Not the nations’ beauty. Not a gift she stole. Her own beauty — the very thing God gave her. She looked at what he’d done and started calling it hers.

That’s the part that convicts me. The failure wasn’t becoming impressive. She was supposed to become impressive — that was always the plan.

The failure was forgetting who did it.

Here’s what I think we get wrong about pride: we treat it like a switch that flips when you get arrogant enough. But most of the time it’s not loud. It’s just forgetting. Slow, ordinary forgetting.

The discipline isn’t becoming less gifted. It’s remembering your blood — going back to where you actually started, not the résumé version. I’d guess you weren’t that impressive either. I’d guess it wasn’t your strength that got you here.

It was mercy. It was a God who found you discarded and said live anyway.

Where did you start? Not the polished version — the honest one.

What’s one part of your story you’ve stopped telling because it doesn’t make you look capable?

If you told it again this week, who would need to hear it?

Phil
You were made for goodness.

I was sitting at my desk preparing for our men’s retreat when I came across a statistic that stopped me cold.

“Before age 15, boys and girls take their lives at roughly the same rate. By their late teens it’s 3 to 1. By their mid-twenties it’s 4 and a half to 1.”

I read it twice. Then I just sat there.

I wasn’t expecting that. I wasn’t researching crisis intervention or writing about mental health. I was trying to put together a weekend for the men of my church — good men, healthy men, men who show up and lead and provide and serve. And somehow this number found me anyway.

So I decided to share it with them.

On the first night of the retreat, before I said anything else, I asked the room a simple question: What’s hard about being a man?

The answers came slowly at first. Then faster.

The weight of the world on your shoulders. Being the first to take care of everyone around you and the last to be taken care of. Not knowing if you’ll ever actually live up to your potential.

Then I read them the stat.

Nobody in that room was close to that edge. These weren’t men in crisis. But something shifted when I read it out loud. I watched faces change. Not with shock — with recognition.

Because they understood the weight that produces that number, even if they’d never come close to it themselves. They had felt some version of it. The pressure. The proving. The quiet suspicion that no matter how much you do, it might never be enough.

That recognition told me everything I needed to know.

Masculinity is genuinely hard.

Not because men are weak. Not because this generation is uniquely broken. But because we have been handed a framework for manhood that was never going to hold.

Here’s what I mean.

Research on masculinity consistently shows something that most men already feel but have never heard named: manhood, unlike womanhood, is seen as a precarious state. Something earned, not given. Something that can be lost. Womanhood is treated culturally as more permanent — you become a woman and stay one. But manhood must be continually demonstrated. Proven. Re-proven.

You don’t arrive at manhood. You perform it. Constantly.

And if that’s the game — the performing never stops.

So what does culture hand us to perform with? The answers haven’t changed much in decades.

Power. Money. Sex. Achievement. Appearance.

James Bond was a cultural phenomenon for a reason. He had all of it — simultaneously. He never doubted himself. He was never uncertain. He never needed anyone. He was the idealized end state of works-based masculinity: complete, self-sufficient, unassailable.

And somewhere in the back of our minds, a lot of us were handed that image as a target.

The problem isn’t just that it’s unrealistic. The problem is that even when men get those things — the title, the income, the status — the ache doesn’t go away. You already know this. You’ve watched men who have everything the framework promised still feel like they’re falling short. Still feel like they haven’t quite made it.

Because the framework was broken from the beginning.

The world tries to solve manhood with what you do.

That’s the core issue. And it will drain you every time.

Spend your strength on achievement — the goalpost moves. Anchor your identity in provision — one hard season and you’re in crisis. Build your sense of self on status — it’s always one bad quarter away from collapse.

These aren’t just inadequate solutions. They are actively harmful ones. They take the ache that every man carries — that legitimate, real hunger to matter, to be enough, to leave something behind — and they redirect it toward things that will never satisfy it.

The Bible has a different prescription entirely.

Not what you do. Who you are.

Moving Towards Identity-Based Masculinity

Identity-based masculinity isn’t a soft alternative to hard work. It doesn’t mean you stop striving or leading or providing. It means you stop trying to earn what God has already declared over you.

This is what I took the men through all weekend. Three identities — not roles to perform, but truths to anchor in.

Son. You are already known. Already chosen. The Father’s voice over you is not conditional on your output.

Brother. You are not alone in this. The isolation men carry — and it is epidemic; the data on male friendship collapse over the last thirty years is staggering — is not strength. It is a wound. And it is one the church is uniquely positioned to heal.

Father. Your life means something. Not because of what you produce, but because of what you carry and give away. Legacy isn’t built in boardrooms. It’s built in presence.

These three aren’t a self-help framework. They’re a description of who Jesus was — and by extension, who we are in him.

Jesus the Son. Jesus the Brother. Jesus who poured himself out as a Father to those who had none.

If you want to know what biblical masculinity looks like, you don’t need a new definition. You need a new mirror.

I don’t know who needed to read that stat today.

Maybe you’re nowhere near that edge and you read it the way my men did — with recognition, not alarm. You’ve felt the weight. You know what it costs to keep performing.

Or maybe you’re closer to it than you let on. Maybe you’ve been doing the math on your own life — measuring yourself against a standard that keeps moving — and coming up short more often than anyone knows.

Either way, I want to say this plainly:

The framework you were handed was broken. The ache you carry is real. And the answer was never going to be more achievement, more power, more proof.

You were made to be a son before you were made to be a provider. You were made to be a brother before you were made to be a leader. You were made to be a father in the deepest sense — present, giving, legacy-minded — before you were made to be successful.

That’s not a lesser version of manhood.

You were made for goodness.

Phil

Reflection questions:

• Where are you currently trying to earn something that God has already given you?

• What would change in your life if your identity came before your output?

• Who in your life knows the weight you’re actually carrying?

It started with a YouTube video.

I was watching some talk — perfectly reasonable, totally fine — and I had it running at 2x speed. Normal for me. Get the content, skip the filler, move on.

But when I was done, I forgot to reset the setting.

So later that day, I pulled up one of my favorite worship songs. And something was… off. The melody sounded strange. The words were blurring together. I couldn't track with it at all.

It took me a second.

*Oh. I'm still on 2x.*

I laughed out loud. Because honestly — this is a real joke I have with myself. I'm so wired for efficiency that somewhere in the back of my brain lives a version of me that would absolutely listen to worship at 2x speed if it meant getting the spiritual benefit faster.

Get the presence of God. Maximize the impact. Move on.

And standing there with that distorted, incomprehensible worship song playing in my ears — I realized: that's actually not funny. That's a diagnosis.

---

Here's the thing. Listening to worship at 2x speed doesn't impact your soul twice as fast. It doesn't give glory to God at double the rate. The notes become gibberish. The melody turns into noise. The whole thing collapses into something unrecognizable.

Which is exactly the point.

There are things in life that categorically cannot be rushed. Spiritual formation is one of them.

I'm not here to demonize moving fast — there's real value in efficiency and focus. But here's what I keep coming back to: God does something different at different paces of life. And if we're always at 2x, we will miss entire categories of what He wants to say and give to us.

A different pace reveals a different perspective.

And a different perspective lends your ear to a completely different angle of what God is doing right now.

---

Think about the major turning points in Scripture. Elijah in the wilderness. John the Baptist in the wilderness. David in the wilderness.

There's a pattern. When God had something significant to say, He almost always slowed His people way down first. Stripped away the noise. Got them somewhere quiet.

Not faster revelation. Deeper revelation.

The wilderness isn't a delay. It's a different frequency. And you can only pick it up when you slow down enough to hear it.

---

So here's the honest question for those of us who live at high speed:

Do we actually have rhythms where we deliberately turn down the pace?

Not "I'll slow down when things calm down." Things don't calm down. You have to create the slower pace.

Or are we — and I'm including myself — still trying to squeeze God into our efficiency frameworks? Still running the spiritual life at 2x and wondering why we feel distant or dry or like something's missing?

A few questions worth sitting with:

When was the last time you did something spiritual at half speed — not multitasking, not rushing through it?

What does "slow" even look like in your week right now? Do you have a single moment that isn't optimized?

Is there a pace-change you've been avoiding because you're afraid of what you might hear in the quiet?

The 2x version of your spiritual life isn't more productive.

It's just louder.

You were made for goodness,

Phil

I was on vacation when I felt it.

Not the relaxed, disconnected kind of vacation where your mind finally goes quiet. The kind where the quiet gets loud — where God starts saying things you’ve been too busy to hear.

What I heard wasn’t comfortable. It was something like this: You move without asking. You plan without consulting me. You carry things I never asked you to carry — and you call it faithfulness.

I knew it was true before I could argue with it. I am wired to move. I see the goal, I build the plan, I go. That drive has produced a lot of good things. It has also, more than I’d like to admit, produced a version of me that treats God like a blessing station rather than a Lord.

The challenge that came out of that vacation was simple and strange: Make kneeling a regular part of your life.

Not more Bible reading. Not a new prayer framework. Kneeling.

I sat with that for a while. And then I started doing it. And then I started to understand why.

Jesus knelt.

Before we talk about the practice, we have to start here. Not with a discipline book. Not with a church tradition. With Jesus in the garden, the night before the crucifixion.

Luke 22:41: He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed.

The weight of the entire mission — the cross, the suffering, the sin of the world — is hours away. And what does Jesus do with his body in that moment?

He gets low.

Not standing, projecting strength. Not sitting in quiet reflection. He kneels. And from that posture, he prays one of the most honest, fully surrendered prayers in all of Scripture: Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done.

Total honesty. Total surrender. Total submission.

That prayer came out of a body on its knees.

If Jesus — fully God, fully man, who had every reason to stand — chose to kneel in his most desperate moment, we should probably stop treating posture like it doesn’t matter.

Here’s what I think is happening.

We’ve been taught that the spirit leads and the body follows. You feel convicted, so you bow your head. You feel moved, so you raise your hands. The inner state produces the outward expression.

That’s true. But it’s not the whole picture.

The relationship between body and spirit flows both directions. Sometimes you put yourself in a posture first — and your inner world catches up to what your body is already declaring. Sometimes the body leads. Sometimes the flesh gets low and the spirit follows.

This isn’t mysticism. It’s theology. Paul says it plainly in Romans 12:1: offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. Not just your thoughts. Not your good intentions. Your body. The physical self is part of the offering.

We are not souls trapped in bodies. We are embodied souls. Formation happens through the body, not just in spite of it.

Kneeling is an act of worship that engages the whole person.

What kneeling actually does — at least for me.

It makes a declaration my mouth was still arguing.

When I get on my knees, something in me that wants to stay in charge gets interrupted. My body says what my ambition hasn’t caught up to yet: I am not the source. I cannot carry this. Today belongs to God, not to me.

For leaders wired to produce — to solve, to execute, to push through — surrender doesn’t come naturally. We dress it up in spiritual language. We call our drive stewardship. We call our hustle faithfulness. And sometimes it is. But underneath, the ambition keeps running the show, and we stay standing before God in our hearts even when our lips are asking for help.

Kneeling interrupts that. Physically, concretely, daily.

It subsumes my ambitions under the Lordship of Christ in a way that a quiet thought or a quick prayer often doesn’t. There’s something about the floor — something about being genuinely low — that cuts through the noise faster than almost anything else I’ve tried.

It’s not earning anything. It’s not magic. It’s just my whole self — body included — agreeing with what I already believe:

God is God. I am not. This day is his.

A practice worth trying.

Start your morning on your knees before you open anything else. No phone. No plan. No agenda. Just two or three minutes on the floor, letting your body say what your soul needs to keep learning.

You don’t need the right words. Jesus in Gethsemane had six words that covered it: not my will, but yours be done.

Your posture will say the rest.

The floor is a good place to start.

— Phil

You were made for goodness.

Someone is looking for Jesus.

They always are. And almost every time — He’s not there.

I started noticing this pattern in the Gospels and I couldn’t shake it. The crowds need Him. The disciples need Him. Someone’s sick, someone’s confused, someone needs an answer. And Jesus is… gone. Off somewhere. Unreachable. Inconveniently unavailable.

Where is He?

In the presence of His Father.

That hit me hard.

Here is the most important person in human history — and He built a practice of being unfindable. Not by accident. Not because He was tired. But intentionally. Strategically. Almost as if the moment He was needed most was precisely the moment He chose to disappear.

I think that’s not a coincidence. I think it’s a lesson.

Because here’s the tension most spiritual leaders live in: we quietly believe that our presence holds things together. And if we’re honest — really honest — some of us place our ever-presentness as a sign of our value. Being needed feels like being important. Being reachable feels like being faithful.

But Jesus didn’t operate that way.

He retreated to lonely places. He slipped away before dawn. He left the crowd on the hillside and climbed the mountain alone. In Luke 5, right after performing miracles, right when the buzz was the loudest — He withdrew to the wilderness to pray.

The withdrawing wasn’t despite the need. It was because of it.

Our church just finished a big move. New space, new season — and it was worth every bit of it. But for about six weeks, my Saturday mornings — my Sabbath time, my solitude time — got absorbed into move logistics. Setup crews, walk-throughs, last-minute decisions. One Saturday after another, gone.

I didn’t realize how much I was running on fumes until I finally had one back.

That first Saturday morning of real Sabbath — nobody calling, nowhere to be, nothing to manage — I felt something in me exhale that I didn’t even know was holding its breath. I was reminded: I’m not the most important thing to the people I serve. My ministry belongs to Him. The organizations I lead are in His hands, not mine.

That’s what those moments of hiddenness do. They’re not just rest. They’re identity work. Jesus wasn’t just recovering energy in those withdrawn moments — He was rooting Himself back in who He actually was. A Son. Beloved. Not defined by the crowd’s demands or the disciples’ expectations.

And if He needed that — how much more do we?

I’ve had to learn to carve this out — real solitude, real Sabbath, real unavailability. Not the kind where you’re still checking your phone, still half-present. But the kind where you make yourself genuinely unfindable. Where you give God what Jesus gave His Father.

Your full, undivided presence.

Some questions I’ve been sitting with — and I’d love to hear where you land:

• Do you have rhythms in your life where you are genuinely not findable?

• Have you ever considered your unavailability as a gift — to yourself, to your people, to God?

• Is your “always being there” rooted in faith — or in something that looks like faithfulness but is really fear?

• What would it look like to build regular withdrawal into your leadership rhythm — not as escape, but as formation?

You were made for goodness, Phil

Saturday came, and I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I’d committed to the Sabbath. I’d cleared my calendar, closed my laptop, stepped away from ministry work. But my mind? Still running. Still chasing. Still stressing about the thing I couldn’t fix and the thing I didn’t have yet.

I realized I wasn’t resting. I’d just moved the busyness inside my head.

That’s when I heard something that finally gave me a framework for what Sabbath is actually supposed to be. Not just “stop working.” But a rest from three specific things — what I now call the 3 W’s.

1. Rest from Work

This one is foundational. In the garden, God modeled it. He ceased. Not because He was tired — but because ceasing itself is sacred.

When I practice Sabbath, I do everything I can to avoid work. Not just doing work — but the gravitational pull of it. The checking in. The quick email. The “just one thing.” Sabbath is the day I refuse to let work take me back.

This gives my mind, heart, and spirit the space to decompress and reset. And reset they need to.

2. Rest from Worry

Here’s where it gets harder. And more important.

Work and worry are close cousins. We work partly to silence worry — to feel like we’re making progress on the things that scare us. But if we stop the work without releasing the worry, we haven’t really stopped anything. We’ve just traded activity for anxiety.

In the wilderness, Israel was told not to gather manna on the seventh day. That command wasn’t just logistical — it was an invitation. Trust me. I’ve already handled it. The Sabbath was God saying: you don’t have to worry about this one day. I’ve got it.

I know my stressors. And on Sabbath, I make a choice: I either don’t actively dwell on them — or I convert them. I take each worry and consciously turn it into trust. God, I’m handing this to You.

That’s the spirit of the rest.

3. Rest from Wanting

This one might be the most countercultural of all — especially as Americans.

We are wired for acquisition. The next thing. The upgrade. The goal. The purchase. Even the “good” kind of wanting — wanting to grow, to build, to become — can quietly become an exhaust that never turns off.

Sabbath is the one day I practice contentment. Not as a feeling I fall into, but as a posture I choose. What I have right now is enough. I am more than provided for. My Shepherd has not forgotten me.

There’s something about resting from want that reconnects me to the goodness of what already exists. My kids. My wife Esther. The life God has put in front of me. That’s a gift — and I miss it when I’m always grasping for the next one.

These 3 W’s — Work, Worry, and Wanting — aren’t just a nice framework. They’re a diagnosis. If your Sabbath is feeling hollow or frustrating, it might be because you’ve only addressed one of them.

Try all three. Let them shape your Saturday (or whatever day you practice rest).

• Which of the 3 W’s is hardest for you to set down?

• Are you someone who stops the work — but never stops the worry?

• What would it look like to convert your stressors into trust, just for one day?

• What would it feel like to spend one full day resting from want?

You were made for goodness,
Phil

What a weird thing to be—to be Christian famous.

When you zoom out and look at the landscape of Christianity over the last five or ten years, it’s honestly sobering. Across multiple streams—charismatic, evangelical, mainline—you see story after story of moral failure, exposure, and collapse.

And yet, one thing almost no one talks about is how strange the system itself has become.

Christian fame is a bizarre mix of American celebrity culture and the Christian faith. Pastors. Evangelists. Worship leaders. “Influencers.” People who are genuinely famous within Christian circles. And I can’t help but wonder if this environment produces side effects we never meant to create.

Recently, a major charismatic leader was exposed for giving fake prophetic words—looking people up online beforehand and then claiming he heard from God. And while that’s disturbing, the deeper question is this: how do we even get there? What kind of ecosystem makes that feel tempting—or even justifiable?

It would never cross my mind to do something like that. But clearly, it crossed someone’s. And that only makes sense if there’s perceived value in being Christian famous—likes, followers, invitations, platforms. Metrics that feel meaningful, but mean almost nothing in the kingdom of God.

Here are a few things that actively discourage me from ever pursuing Christian fame.

First, even if you were Christian famous… you’re not really that famous.
The Christian world is tiny. Compared to real celebrity culture—where influence is measured in millions—we’re fighting over crumbs. And that perspective alone is strangely freeing.

Second, celebrity culture runs opposite to gospel culture.
This is the perfect syncretism of American celebrity values layered onto Christianity—and it’s dangerous. Paul said, “I consider myself nothing. I’m just a servant of the gospel.” Somewhere along the way, we forgot that posture.

Chasing clout doesn’t help us know Jesus more.
It doesn’t help others love Him better.
It’s a lose-lose game.

Third, I don’t have a problem with being known—as long as it’s necessary for the calling.
The call isn’t to be obscure or invisible. It’s to never chase visibility for its own sake. I’ve always admired Reinhard Bonnke. He was well known—but his platform existed to reach millions. Being known was part of the assignment, not the point of it.

That distinction matters.

So here’s the encouragement—especially if you feel that subtle pull toward recognition, influence, or visibility.

That stuff doesn’t matter.

The goal was never to make ourselves famous.
It was always to make Jesus famous.

You were made for goodness,
Phil

Leadership doesn’t drift into fruitfulness—it chooses it.

As we head into 2026, I shared something simple with our pastoral staff team.

Just three things I asked every leader to focus on.

I call them the 3 G’s.

1. Goals that Make an Impact

One of the great challenges of ministry—and honestly, leadership in general—is that we’re busy all the time.
Meetings. Needs. Fires. Requests.

It’s easy to become reactionary instead of actually making a difference.

Goals are one of the primary ways we resist that drift.
They help us stop reacting to life and instead put our foot in the ground and say, This is where God is leading us.

I asked our leaders three questions:

• Domino Effect: If one thing changed in your ministry, what would impact everything else?

• Key Leaders: Who are the few people you need to invest in deeply this year?

• Upgrades: What systems or culture shifts need to happen for real growth?

Those questions aren’t just for pastors.
They’re for anyone leading anything.

2. Growth as a Leader

Here’s a principle I really believe:
Your impact will never exceed your growth.

Spiritual leadership requires something crucial—
Your input must be greater than your output.

The moment your output exceeds your input, you begin relying on your own strength.
And that’s where burnout quietly begins.

So I asked them:

1. What are you feeding your soul with this year?

2. What are you reading?

3. Where do you sense God asking you to level up?

There are assignments in every season that require growth before fruit.

I actually believe God is more interested in who we’re becoming than how effective we appear.
When we stop growing, we stop being useful in the way He intends.

3. God, and His Still Small Voice

This is the most obvious one—and the most important.

Goals matter.
Growth matters.

But the governing reality underneath it all is this:
How is God leading you?

Are you practicing listening?
Are you slowing down enough to hear what the Holy Spirit is prioritizing—not just what feels urgent?

Vision without discernment becomes noise.
Activity without His presence becomes empty.

So let me reflect this back to you:

What are your goals for this year—not just practically, but spiritually?
Where is God inviting you to grow so you can carry your assignment well?
And what is He speaking to you so that you don’t just do His work—but carry His heart?

You were made for goodness,
Phil

When I was younger, I was always drawn to visionaries.

I loved being around people who could dream big, speak with passion, and cast ideas that made others want to follow. In one season, I was actually second-in-command to a visionary like that.

I’ll be honest—there was some jealousy in me. He would speak these lofty visions and people would lean in, completely inspired. And I remember thinking, I don’t have that gift. I wasn’t the one with the big ideas or the grand vision.

Then God took me through a completely different kind of season. I started working in the secular world. I started filling out spreadsheets, managing projects, leading teams. And instead of dreaming, I was learning how to work—really work.

Project management. Execution. Frameworks. Following through.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but God was teaching me something incredibly valuable: how to execute.

Fast forward ten years later, and I’ve developed such a deep respect for people who know how to get things done. Because here’s the truth—dreams that aren’t executed never become reality.

I’ve come to believe that a person with a little bit of vision and a strong ability to execute will always go further than someone with big dreams and no follow-through.

Execution > Vision.

Every day of the week.

I no longer really care for people that tell me grand visions, their ideas, their fantasies of what they’re going to do for God and what they would like to see built.

DO IT. Dreaming is easy. Execution is where faithfulness is.

At the end of the day we’re not judged by the dreams we dreamt but by the actions we took.

When I read Leviticus now, I see it differently. Most people find it boring because it’s full of instructions—curtain lengths, temple dimensions, sacrifice details. But I see something powerful in it. God was teaching His people not just what to dream about, but how to make that dream real. He was teaching them how to execute.

So if you’re in a season where you’re not the one with the big ideas—but you’re faithfully showing up, doing the work, learning the details—don’t despise it. That’s holy ground too.

Dreamers may start things, but executors finish them.

You were made for goodness,
Phil

When I was younger, I wanted the platform for myself.
I wanted people to see me shine.
I wanted to show how impressive I was.

But the longer I lead, the more I realize—real leadership isn’t about standing on the platform. It’s about building platforms for others.

This isn’t just a spiritual principle, it’s a deeply practical one.

Not long ago, I had this idea as a family pastor: I wanted to reach families and marriages by writing a newsletter. Simple enough. I could’ve written it all myself. But God gave me an idea—why not invite others in? Why not create a platform?

So I asked some people in our church community whose voices I respected to join me. They would be the writers I would just setup the systems.

They said yes!

Suddenly, I wasn’t just writing—I had a small team of writers speaking life and wisdom into marriages and families. And they’re writing right now!

Here’s what I learned:

1. They got to develop and exercise their gifts.

2. I didn’t have to carry all the weight.

3. And the platform started taking care of itself.

All I had to do was set the vision, shape the culture, set expectations, and keep the ball rolling. And the joy of it was seeing others flourish.

Isn’t this what God Himself does? He gives us platforms—opportunities, gifts, callings—not so He can hog the spotlight, but so His people can shine. The local church is full of these platforms just waiting to be built.

So here’s my new passion: not “what can I do to stand out?” but “what can I build so others can stand up?”

Because when others grow, the Kingdom flourishes.

You were made for goodness,
Phil

I just finished a huge ministry project.

It was excellent—organized, creative, impactful. I walked away proud of what was accomplished. But in the quiet afterward, I wrestled: Was this the result of my skill and effort? Or was this the Spirit of God moving through me?

That tension is real. Especially for high-capacity people who have gifts, abilities, and drive—and yet also know that apart from God, we can do nothing.

Jesus’ words in Matthew 11 have given me clarity: “Take my yoke upon you…for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

A yoke is a harness for two oxen. The older, stronger ox does the heavy pulling. The younger ox still works, still walks, but clearly benefits from the strength of the greater one.

That’s the picture of our partnership with God. Both are working. But one is doing infinitely more.

This keeps me grounded:

• I’m not meant to sit back in passivity and call it “faith.” That’s just laziness in disguise.

• I’m not meant to exhaust myself trying to carry everything. That’s pride masquerading as responsibility.

Instead, I step into the beautiful tension. I work hard, because I’m called to. And I give thanks, because He’s carrying more than I ever could. I rejoice in the fruit, but I’m humbled knowing it’s His Spirit that makes it all possible.

I think this is why Paul talks about how he works hard with “all of God’s energy within me.”

That’s the easy yoke.
That’s the partnership of grace and effort.

So how about you? When you finish something you’re proud of, how do you hold the tension between your effort and His Spirit?

You were made for goodness,
Phil

How do you know if you’re actually being a good parent?

That question can be laced with guilt, shame, or self-doubt. But it doesn’t have to be.

On one of my micro retreats—a rhythm I highly recommend and talk about in my book—the Lord gave me a question that’s been surprisingly clarifying.

You can only improve what you measure.

That principle comes straight from the world of business and leadership. But it’s helped me think deeply about my parenting—not as a form of self-condemnation, but as a form of growth.

So instead of asking vaguely, “Am I a good parent?”—ask this instead:

What categories would I actually use to measure good parenting?

Here are a few of mine. Maybe they’ll inspire your own.

1. Love – Am I showing affection, encouragement, joy? Do my kids feel safe and seen?

2. Discipleship – Am I intentionally teaching them? Forming their hearts? Giving them age-appropriate tools to navigate life?

3. Family Culture – What kind of home am I shaping? What rhythms do we keep? What values do we live out, especially in how I treat my spouse?

4. Friendship – Am I building a real relationship with each child—not just managing them, but knowing them?

It’s not about scoring perfectly in each category. It’s about identifying what matters to you—so that you can be intentional about growing in it.

If you never define what you’re aiming for, how will you know if you’re actually becoming the parent you want to be?

So what are your categories?

Think about them. Write them down. And let them guide you—not to guilt, but to grace-driven growth.

You were made for goodness,
Phil

The Cost Is the Point

Have you ever tried to disciple someone who seemed interested at first… but faded over time?

I’ve had many of those. At first, it’s hopeful. But somewhere down the line, the hunger disappears. And I find myself wondering: Were they ever really serious about following Jesus?

What if our job wasn’t to convince people to follow Jesus—but to give them a reason not to?

It made me rethink the whole idea of successful discipleship.

I’m reminded of Jesus’ invitation to follow him, “Whoever wants to follow me has to take up his cross..”

I’ve realized much of my approach has been deeply American—persuasive, appealing, even salesy.

But Jesus?

Jesus doesn’t beg people to follow him.

He warns them.

When someone asked to follow him, Jesus said, Are you sure?

Because a king counts his army before going to war.
Because this will cost you more than you think.

It’s not that he was trying to push them away.

It’s that he was testing their hunger.

He knew: the ones who really want it—will want it more when they hear the cost.

The casual will always walk away.

That’s shifted how I think about mentorship and discipleship.

Maybe my role isn’t to convince.
Maybe it’s to clarify the cost.

Not to make following Jesus unattractive—he still promises that you’ll become a fisher of men.

But to give people a way out… and see who still stays.

Because those are the ones ready to go deeper.

Have you ever tried this?

Have you ever led with the cost, not the reward?

You were made for goodness,
Phil

You don’t know how dull you are until you hold a sharper knife.

I have this weird habit.
Every time I go to a friend’s house, I grab one of their kitchen knives and test it.
It’s strange, I know. But if you love cooking like I do, you realize quickly: a sharp knife changes everything.
It makes cooking a joy, not a chore. It even makes it safer.

Here’s what’s fascinating.
Most of my friends have no idea how dull their knives are — until I show up.
When I bring over my sharpener and give their knives a quick tune-up, they’re shocked.
They cut a tomato, they slice through a carrot, and they say the same thing every time:
“I had no idea how bad it was.”

And that’s exactly what happens in the spiritual life too.

You don’t know how spiritually sharp — or spiritually dead — you are until you’re in the presence of something sharper.
Spiritual dullness doesn’t happen overnight.
It happens slowly, invisibly, with every compromise, every distracted day, every forgotten prayer.

You only realize you’re dull when you stand next to someone who is burning for God.
Someone whose hunger for Jesus, whose devotion, whose love — slices cleanly through the noise of this world.

This is why community matters.

This is why the Bible says, “Don’t give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.” (Hebrews 10:25)
You will never know how far you’ve drifted if you’re only measuring yourself against… yourself.

Who’s in your life today?
Do you have friends who are on fire?
Do you have anyone who makes you realize, “Wow, I’ve gotten dull without even noticing it”?

Find them.
Stick close to them.
And get sharp.

You were made for goodness,
Phil

Discipline is easy.

People often comment on my life and say, “Phil, you’re so disciplined.”

They see the 5 a.m. wakeups. The prayer rhythms. The dates with my wife. The daily habits carved into my life like deep riverbeds.
And honestly? I don’t boast in it at all.
Because I don’t even think of myself as disciplined.

Discipline isn’t the engine behind my actions.
It’s not even in my subconscious vocabulary.

What drives me is the end goal.

When your reward is greater than your pain, discipline flows naturally.

This is why world-class athletes, entrepreneurs, and spiritual leaders seem superhuman. It’s not because they’re freakishly disciplined. It’s because they found a vision worth sacrificing for.

The problem isn’t your lack of discipline.
The problem is you haven’t articulated a goal worthy of your discipline.

A vision worthy of your pain.

Paul understood this when he wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:
“Run in such a way as to win the prize.”
He wasn’t running aimlessly. He had his eyes locked on a crown that would never fade.

If you’re struggling with discipline, I can almost guarantee this:
You don’t have a goal yet that’s big enough, beautiful enough, burning enough.

What’s your goal for your spiritual life?
What’s your goal for your family?
What’s your goal for your ministry?

Do you want to hear the words “Well done, good and faithful servant”?
Do you want to see your children transformed by the love of God?
Do you want to live out a ministry that actually matters?

Find a goal worth bleeding for, worth sacrificing for.
Once you do, the habits, the practices, the rhythms — they will become easy.
Because you’re not thinking about discipline anymore.
You’re thinking about the goal.

You were made for goodness,
Phil

God doesn’t waste any season.

The other day, I was talking with someone who was walking through something hard. And while their situation wasn’t the same as mine, it was close enough that I felt the Holy Spirit prompt me to share a story—one I hadn’t spoken about in years.

It was from a rough chapter of my life. One I didn’t fully understand at the time. Honestly? I’m not sure I even trusted God all the way through it.

But here I was, years later, watching God take that old pain and turn it into present-day encouragement for someone else.

That conversation got me thinking: What if that whole difficult season was for this one moment?

Would it still be worth it?

I think it would.

Jesus is the Lord of our lives. He knows every chapter, every detour, every struggle. Scripture says He knows the number of hairs on our heads. Which means He hasn’t lost track of a single second of your story.

He’s the master tactician. The gentle shepherd. The wise architect. And if there’s one thing I know—He doesn’t waste seasons.

He’ll use the joyful ones. He’ll use the dark ones. He’ll use the waiting ones. Sometimes you don’t even see the purpose until decades later.

So if you’re in a tough season right now, be encouraged. God is not done with this part of your story. He may be digging out something now that will bless someone else twenty years from today.

You may not feel it yet—but your life is in His hands.

And He doesn’t waste a thing.

You were made for goodness,
Phil