Elijah leaned his forearms on the small table by the front window of The Shepherds Cafe, the kind of spot where you could watch the world hurry past and still feel like you had permission to slow down. The morning rush had thinned. Cups clinked softly. A barista laughed at something behind the counter. Outside, a man walked briskly with his phone pressed to his ear, talking as if the next sentence might decide his whole day.
Elijah watched him for a moment, then looked down at the worn Bible that lived in his satchel like a trusted tool. He didn’t open it right away. He sat still long enough to feel his own thoughts—how quickly they wanted to run, how easily they wanted to reach for noise. He had learned something over the years: if you don’t choose stillness on purpose, the world will choose your pace for you.
He reached for his pen and began to write, not as a performance, but as a quiet act of obedience. He imagined you—whoever you are, wherever you are—reading these words while the day tries to pull you in ten directions at once. He wrote like he was speaking across the table.
Some days, the hardest part of walking with God isn’t understanding what He wants. It’s staying steady long enough to do it.
We live in a time that rewards speed. Quick opinions. Quick purchases. Quick responses. Quick fixes. Even our spiritual life can start to feel like another tab we keep open—something we intend to return to when the real pressure eases up.
But here is the truth most of us learn the hard way: the pressure doesn’t “ease up.” We just get used to carrying it.
This morning, I want to offer you something simple and strong—something you can actually carry into your day without needing perfect conditions: the discipline of staying planted.
Scripture uses that word often. “Stand.” “Abide.” “Remain.” Not because God is impressed by stubbornness, but because the enemy loves to move us off-center. If he can’t make you deny God, he’ll try to make you distracted, drained, cynical, or spiritually numb. If he can’t destroy your faith, he’ll settle for delaying your obedience.
There’s a line in Psalm 1 that I return to whenever my heart feels noisy: “He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season” (Psalm 1:3, NASB). Notice what it does not say. It doesn’t say the tree is frantic. It doesn’t say the tree runs around hunting for water. It doesn’t say the tree produces fruit every day of the year. It simply says it is planted, and because it is planted, it bears fruit in season.
That word “season” matters.
One of the quiet lies many faithful people believe is this: If I’m not producing visible fruit right now, something must be wrong with me. That thought has pushed more Christians into shame than repentance. Shame says, “You’re failing.” God says, “Come closer.”
Jesus never invited people to perform; He invited them to follow. And following Him involves seasons—some loud, some quiet, some fruitful, some deeply formative where fruit is growing underground where nobody can clap for it.
In John 15, Jesus says something that is both comforting and demanding: “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me… for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:4–5, NASB).
“Apart from Me you can do nothing.” Not “you can do less.” Not “you can do it, but it’ll be harder.” Nothing.
That statement is not meant to embarrass you; it’s meant to free you. It means the weight of your life was never intended to rest on your own strength. And it also means you don’t have to keep pretending you can live on spiritual fumes.
So here’s the devotional question I want you to hold today—one you can revisit every few hours like a compass:
What is pulling me away from abiding in Christ right now?
Sometimes it’s obvious: a temptation you keep excusing, a bitterness you keep feeding, a secret habit you’ve dressed up as “stress relief.” Other times it’s subtler: a pace that is unsustainable, a constant stream of outrage, an anxiety that has become a personality trait, a calendar that treats prayer like a luxury.
There’s a reason Scripture ties sobriety and vigilance to spiritual warfare: “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8, NASB). Lions don’t devour the strongest in the herd. They devour the isolated, the distracted, the lagging, the wounded who wandered off.
Some of you have been wandering—not because you stopped loving God, but because you stopped guarding your attention. The devil doesn’t need you to become an atheist. He just needs you to become too busy to pray, too tired to obey, and too irritated to forgive.
Let me be direct: your spiritual life will not drift into strength. It will drift into weakness every single time. Strength is chosen. Strength is cultivated. Strength is built through ordinary faithfulness that nobody posts online.
The good news is that God does not ask you to fix your entire life today. He asks you to take the next faithful step.
Maybe your next step is simple:
Today, you decide that when you pick up your phone, you will also pick up your Bible—even if it’s just one paragraph.
Today, you decide that before you speak your frustration, you will speak a prayer.
Today, you decide that you will confess the thing you’ve been rationalizing and stop calling it “just how I cope.”
Today, you decide that you will make peace where you’ve been enjoying distance.
And if you’re thinking, I’ve tried that before. I failed. Then hear this clearly: failing is not the same as quitting. The righteous person isn’t someone who never falls; it’s someone who gets back up and turns back toward God. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, NASB).
Confession is not humiliation. Confession is oxygen.
I want to speak to the ones who are tired—not lazy, not indifferent, just tired. You’ve been carrying people. Carrying responsibilities. Carrying disappointments. Carrying your own thoughts like heavy furniture.
Jesus does not offer you a motivational quote. He offers you Himself: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28, NASB). Rest, in Christ, is not merely sleep. It is the settled confidence that you are not alone, not abandoned, and not required to be your own savior.
Here is what abiding can look like in a normal day:
You pause before your first decision and say, “Lord, lead me.”
You refuse to rehearse an offense like it’s a favorite song.
You choose truth over impulse.
You take one concrete step of obedience, even if your emotions lag behind.
That’s not flashy. It is, however, powerful.
At one point, Elijah set his pen down and looked back out the window. The man on the phone was gone now. In his place, a mother walked slowly with a little boy who kept stopping to look at things—cracks in the sidewalk, a leaf, a passing dog. She didn’t drag him. She waited, then nudged him forward, then waited again. Progress at a human pace.
Elijah smiled because it reminded him of God.
The Lord is not frantic with you. He is not pacing heaven, wringing His hands, hoping you’ll finally get it together. He calls you forward, patiently, firmly, and truthfully. He corrects because He loves. He strengthens because He is good.
So, friend—before you scroll, before you react, before you rush, before you brace for whatever the day might bring—plant yourself again.
Open the Word. Speak to your Father. Ask for strength to obey one clear thing.
And if you don’t know where to start, start here: abide.
A prayer from Elijah for you:
Father in heaven, steady the hearts of Your people today. Where we are distracted, sharpen our focus. Where we are anxious, give us faith that rests in You. Where we are tempted, provide a clear way of escape and a stronger love for righteousness. Forgive us for the ways we have lived as if we could do life apart from Christ. Teach us to abide—to remain—to stand firm. Produce in us the fruit You desire, in Your timing, for Your glory. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Elijah capped his pen, closed his Bible gently, and sat a moment longer in the quiet. Then he stood, ready to live the words he had just written—because devotionals are not meant to be admired. They’re meant to be practiced.