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5 min read

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Mar 24, 2025

Last week, we talked about the need to relinquish our false sense of control and embrace R.E.S.T. — not just as a physical practice but as a spiritual discipline. We explored how society conditions us to chase after things that ultimately don’t satisfy, driven by cycles of ambition, scarcity, and the pressure to do rather than simply be.

But as I sat with this truth a little longer, another thought emerged:

Ecclesiastes 2:11 says: “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”

That verse hit me differently this morning as I asked Coach Maddie, one of my AI companions, to help organize my thoughts. I realized just how much of my life — of our lives — is structured around performance. We’ve been conditioned to work, work, work as if our worth is tied to our productivity, as if the only way to access abundance is through relentless toil. And even when we succeed by society’s standards, we often find ourselves wondering: Was it worth it?

I want to sit with that for a moment. Because if our efforts don’t align with God’s greater plan, if we’re exhausting ourselves in pursuit of things that will never truly fulfill us, then what are we really working for?

“God can do anything, you know — far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.” — Ephesians 3:20 (The Message)

There is no level of “work” or “doing” that will provide the abundant life we dream of — or the one He promises us. And sometimes, to truly grasp that, we need to reframe what abundance actually means.

More than half of Americans are considered high-income compared to the world population. Chew on that for a moment…