The article makes one resounding point, summarized in the illustration below: Being dirtbag rich means living a life driven by purpose while making just enough money to fund your dirtbag lifestyle. The dirtbag lifestyle is one in which you make great sacrifices to live with purpose and make your hobby or passion the center of your life.

I found the article to be equal parts inspiring, saddening, and convicting. I was inspired by the idea of setting aside every cultural norm to cultivate a particular lifestyle of one’s choosing. I was saddened that we all tend to build our lives around such temporal things. I was convicted by my own desire to cultivate a lifestyle of comfort, ease, and efficiency. I’m no dirtbag, and I’m certainly not a dirtbag Christian.

What is a dirtbag Christian?

When I ask, “What is a dirtbag Christian?” in light of Blake Boles article on being dirtbag rich, I have multiple questions in mind:

• What does it look like to break the status quo, swim against the current, and cultivate a lifestyle as focused on living for Jesus as the lifestyles dirtbags cultivate to make their hobbies or passions the center of their lives?”

• What would it look like for Christians to adopt lifestyles as radical as those who lovingly embrace the term dirtbag as a description of their way of life?

• What would happen if believers all started to question the status quo in the same way dirtbags do?

I have long been convinced there are aspects of the typical American lifestyle that are extremely unhealthy. I’ve been pondering and implementing lifestyle changes here and there. I’ve been highly influenced by The Quiet Ambition and Slow Productivity, and I’ve spent a lot of time reading the book of Acts and praying about how much of the early church’s radical way of living should inform our modern lifestyles.

I have more questions than answers and more ideas than proven applications.

But as is so often the case, as we attempt to discern how to live for Christ, it’s more about wrestling with the right questions than perfectly articulating the supposed right answers.

This post is part of a series gathered under the tag Becoming a Cultivator. Lord willing, I hope to publish these posts in a journal/book format. You can read the previous post here.

On a cloudy Monday morning in late March of 2024, Da’Nelle’s phone rang. It was the cancer center.

Several weeks had passed since Da’Nelle’s brain biopsy. We knew she had brain cancer, but we had spent an agonizing amount of time waiting to hear what specific type of brain cancer she had. All brain cancers have the potential to be terminal, but their prognosis varies greatly. Patients with low-grade gliomas, for example, can have a five-year survival rate of 95%. On the other hand, patients with certain types of glioblastoma have a five-year survival rate of only 5%.

We answered the phone and were greeted by our incredible radiation oncologist, Dr. Stavas. We had known him for only a short time, but he had impressed us with his compassion, knowledge, and wisdom not only in fighting the disease we were facing but also in learning to live well while doing so.

Honestly, I don’t recall much of that phone call. Somewhere early on in the conversation, he told us it was glioblastoma, but assured us we had likely caught it early, and that we needed to get right to work on fighting it, because the tumor is like a baby lion. Better to kill it now than give it time to grow into the king of the jungle.

We ended the phone call with plans to be at the cancer center later that day, and with a peace that surpasses all understanding, Da’Nelle looked at me, her eyes filled with tears, and said, “This isn’t going to shake our faith.”

I’ll never forget how unshakeable she was in that moment. There she stood, at the end of our kitchen counter, having just found out the medical probability of her living more than five more years is essentially 0%, and that 50% of patients with her disease die within the first 12-24 months after diagnosis, and somehow her faith was stronger than mine.

I never questioned God’s existence or goodness toward us. Instead, I was shaken by the realization that I had built my sense of worth in things other than Christ. As Da’Nelle’s health worsened and my ability to do all the things I had always done was limited due to my serving as her caregiver, it became apparent that I had put far too much value in the opinions of others.

God used Da’Nelle’s terminal cancer to slow me down, stripping away distractions so He could reveal what was hidden in my heart. I was far too driven by the opinions of people within our circles. I was doing a lot of good things for the wrong reasons.

Unexpectedly, so much of what I strived to achieve in life felt like vanity. All of my efforts to be a leader within our Christian community as a teacher, coach, administrator, and church elder felt like chasing after the wind. The sheer number of hours devoted to things like sports felt silly and somehow not worth the investment, because they could never provide me, or anyone else, with what I was looking for: Identity.

As our battle with glioblastoma marched forward, I quickly began to realize that walking through the valley of the shadow of death was exposing all my sinful ambitions and motivations. With each passing week, it was becoming increasingly clear that I was going to be lost on the other side of this, regardless of what the other side looked like.

Ultimately, I discovered that my answer to Tim Keller’s third identity-formation question, “Who gets to say?”, was “The people in my community.”

1 Corinthians 4:3–4: But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.

Because we all desire to be righteous before someone, the most important question we can ask ourselves is “Who gets to say?”

In other words, who have you given the power to declare you worthy, and why have you given them such immense power in your life?

Apart from Christ, whatever your life aspiration, your worth is found in how well you fulfill and live it out. If you aspire to be a police officer, you are only worthy if you are one. If you aspire to be a wife with children, you are only worthy if you are a wife with children.

Keller’s third question is the most important of the three because it reveals who you have decided gets to evaluate how well you are fulfilling your aspiration.

Does the court of public opinion get to say? Is it your parents? Friends? Boss? Spouse? The people who follow you on social media? Is there an institution you have subjected yourself to? Is your worth decided by the culture you live in? Or have you decided you are the only one who gets to say you are worthy?

Galatians 1:10: For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

When you give the power to say how worthy you are to anyone or anything other than God, you strive for an identity that must be achieved.

“Christianity gives you the only identity that is received and not achieved.” Tim Keller

The suffering of terminal cancer was making this truth crystal clear to me. For the first time in my life, I was finally understanding what it meant to rest in my identity in Christ by simply receiving it.

John 1:12–13: But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Christianity proclaims that all who believe in Christ as their Savior receive their identity as part of God’s glorious grace. In Christ, the believer cannot earn or lose their identity because it’s found in what Christ has already done.

Therefore, Christians need not submit to the judgment of anyone except God, because they know their worth and identity have been secured in Christ.

Ephesians 2:8–10: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

One final thought, it is essential to remember that we are hard-wired to seek out and find approval, purpose, and fellowship. These are good things the Lord designed us to enjoy. Our problem isn’t that we enjoy them; it’s that we enjoy them in all the wrong places for all the wrong reasons.

Cultivators are called to find their approval in God through Christ, to live for Christ, and to fellowship with the body of believers who love each other unconditionally. Therefore, your goal isn’t to kill your desire for approval, purpose, and fellowship. Instead, your goal is to ensure that you find them in the Lord and in the body of Christ in response to the Gospel.

Prayer: Lord, reveal to me who I have decided gets to say if I am worthy and why I have subjected myself to the opinion of anyone or anything other than You. Purify my aspirations and give me the wisdom to see how I am attempting to achieve my identity rather than receive it in Christ. Thank You Lord, for the gift of Salvation found through faith alone in Christ and for the indestructible and glorious identity that all believers have in Christ.

Reflection:

• When the roles, titles, or activities that once defined you are taken away, what does that loss reveal about where you’ve been finding your sense of worth and identity?

• When you do really well at something, who do you want to know about it? When you fail, who do you hope never finds out? What do your answers to those questions reveal about who gets to say in your life?

• What would change if I really believed that God’s opinion is the only one that matters?

• As you rest in your identity as a beloved child of God, how might that change the way you approach your work, your relationships, and even your suffering this week?

This post is part of a series gathered under the tag Becoming a Cultivator. Lord willing, I hope to publish these posts in a journal/book format. You can read the previous post here and the next post here.

In a fallen world, apart from Christ, everyone is chasing after the elusive feeling of being “enough.” Our definitions of enough vary as widely as our physical appearances, but we all chase after it in the hopes that we can achieve some sort of respect, admiration, or love and appreciation from others. The late Tim Keller suggested our identity is found in our answers to three questions:

• To what do I aspire?

• What am I worth?

• Who gets to say?

We all strive to find the answers to these questions, consciously or subconsciously, whether we realize it or not. Collectively, they form our sense of identity.

We strive to find answers to these questions because we all want to live justifiable lives. Each of us seeks the approval of a person, people, or an institution. You might say, “That’s not true of me. I am my judge,” to which I would reply, “You are seeking your approval. You are the person you are subjecting yourself to.”

Your answer to Keller’s first question, “To what do I aspire?” reveals what you think you need to do to be righteous. Your aspiration reveals the things you think you have to achieve or the life you need to live to be approved and finally feel as though you are enough.

How so? Everyone aspires to achieve or accomplish something because they believe that when their aspiration is fulfilled, the person, people, or institution they’ve given the power to say if they are worthy will declare them worthy, and worthiness is synonymous with righteousness.

Therefore, everyone has a sense of righteousness, even if they don’t use or fully understand the term. We all seek to be considered justified by someone.

Teenagers seek to be “cool,” and adults strive to keep up with the Joneses. Everyone has a standard they’re chasing, and they’re chasing it because they believe it will make them righteous in the eyes of someone or something.

The question you must ask yourself is not, “Do I chase after righteousness?” Instead, you must ask yourself, “Who gets to say if I am righteous?” To put it another way, who are you hoping says, “This is, [insert your name], in whom I am well pleased?”

Matthew 3:16–17: And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Jesus, the One in whom God was well pleased, lived out God’s righteousness, became sin for us, suffered the consequences of sin, and was raised from the dead, conquering sin and death so that through faith in Him, we can receive His righteousness as our righteousness before God.

Romans 3:21–26: But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

The Good News of Jesus Christ, the Gospel, teaches us that apart from faith in Christ, we are never enough. Our sins and shortcomings will never add up to being righteous before God. We can only be made right with God through faith in Christ alone. We must acknowledge our sins, repent, and believe.

When you receive Christ as your Savior, you no longer need to worry about being enough or about achieving your Salvation or identity because they are gracious gifts given to you by God. In Christ, you can stop trying to be enough because you already are enough for God.

Ironically, even the most mature brothers and sisters in Christ go through seasons of life in which they strive to find their identity in success, status, wealth, and the approval of others. That’s why the ultimate purpose of this journal is to teach you to rest in Christ.

Prayer: Lord, reveal to me who I have decided gets to say if I am righteous. I repent for all the ways I seek righteousness other than in Christ. I praise You, Father, for Your infinite grace and desire to receive me as Your beloved child through Jesus. Thank You, Lord, for the forgiveness of sin and the righteousness available to all who repent and believe Jesus died for their sins and was resurrected, conquering sin and death.

Reflection:

• What impact do Tim Keller’s three identity formation questions have on where you attempt to find your identity?

• At this point in your life, what person, people, or institution have you given the power to determine your worth? Why is the opinion and judgment of that person, people, or institution so important to you?

• How does the phrase “This is my, [insert your name], in whom I am well pleased” and the reality that God can only be pleased with you through faith in what Jesus accomplished on the cross impact your thoughts on what you should be living for?

• This week, what is one situation where you can rest in God’s approval instead of chasing someone else’s?

This post is part of a series gathered under the tag Becoming a Cultivator. Lord willing, I hope to publish these posts in a journal/book format. You can read the previous post here and the next post here.

You think you’re living the dream, but deep inside, you know it’s killing you. Sometimes you wonder if it’s all worth it. You wake up exhausted. Rush to start your day. Hustle from one event on your calendar to the next. Squeeze a meal or two in there somewhere. Doom scroll intermittently throughout the day. Arrive home after dark. Only to do it all again tomorrow.

The Standard American Lifestyle (SAL) is killing us. Not with the drama of a gunshot, but slowly, like toxins accumulating in your body in the same way the constant noise and hustle and bustle of life make it difficult to hear the still, small voice of God. It eats away at our mental, emotional, physical, and, most importantly, spiritual health.

Far too many Christians live as if they are just another cog in what Cal Newport calls the “hyperactive hive mind.” Newport coined the term ‘hyperactive hive mind’ to describe reactive workplace communication, but we can see the same frantic energy shaping how many of us live our entire lives. We might call it the hyperactive hive-of-activity lifestyle.

You know you’re living the hyperactive hive-of-activity lifestyle when:

• Your calendar is crammed to the point that there are no margins, no room for the unexpected, and no time for deep reflection.

• You rush from one place to another without any unstructured or unscheduled time.

• You have no clear understanding of why you’re doing it all…it’s just sorta what everyone is doing, and so you do it too.

• You find yourself with precious little time to consider whether or not the lifestyle you are currently living reflects your faith in Christ and facilitates growth in Christ, or is just the default mode for Americans in your stage of life and socioeconomic demographics.

• You’ve never taken the time to reflect on whether or not the dramatic changes in day-to-day living that have occurred over the last 30 or so years are good for us as humans, and if Jesus would choose to embrace or reject those changes.

Living the SAL takes its toll. It’s exhausting and relentless. It leads to burnout and despair. It’s like white knuckle driving on a mountain road in a blizzard at night. Why not experience that same road on a sunny day with beautiful weather? As believers, we need to step back, evaluate the status quo, think differently where necessary, and engage our culture with a Christ-centered lifestyle.

Breaking free from the destructive default mode way of life isn’t about learning new methods of productivity and time management. Instead, it’s about stepping back and asking yourself who you are and why you exist.

This journal is the first step in overthrowing the status quo and intentionally crafting a Christ-centered lifestyle.

To do that, this journal addresses a concept that may seem counterintuitive: identity.

If you see yourself as nothing more than a highly evolved primate, then your worth and identity depend on the culture around you. You can’t afford to break the status quo because it defines your dignity, worth, and identity. When your identity is found in the ways of this world, it is fragile, requires constant maintenance, and forces you to chase after vain glory.

But if you see yourself as a bearer of God’s image who Christ redeems, then you are free to take the risk of rejecting the status quo and reorienting your entire life because nothing of eternal value is at risk. The identity of the believer in Christ is never on the line because God has assigned the believer’s identity to the believer in Christ alone.

There are some of you reading this, however, who are thinking, “Hold on a minute, I don’t live like that at all. In fact, I’ve identified the pitfalls of the SAL, and my family is choosing to live quite differently.” If you have chosen the Slow Living Movement, or Minimalism, or Homesteading, or any other alternative to the SAL, good for you! These movements represent an important and necessary response to the SAL because they are rooted in the realization that the SAL lacks meaning and purpose.

The irony, however, is that many people who choose to live these alternative lifestyles do so in an attempt to find their identity in them rather than in the SAL. This is identity migration, not the identity transformation available in Christ.

Therefore, this journal is designed to challenge your underlying assumptions about who you are, why you matter, and how you should live out your identity. I challenge you to take the risk of breaking free from the SAL by completing this journal and making lifestyle changes in line with the convictions you develop before the Lord.

Prayer: Lord, I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made to exist for Your glory. I repent for all the ways I have fallen into the trap of finding my identity in the ways of this world. Give me the wisdom to discern the difference between finding my identity in the ways of this world and in Christ. Open my eyes to the ways my lifestyle is holding me back from experiencing true joy and contentment in You as I strive to live this life for Your glory.

Reflection:

• Look back at your last 48 hours. How much of your time was spent reacting (answering notifications, rushing to appointments, doomscrolling to decompress) versus proactively seeking God’s presence or serving others?

  • Identity Check: Is your day a response to the world’s demands or a response to God’s call?

• When was the last time you sat in total silence for 15 minutes—no music, no podcasts, no phone? When the noise stops, what is the first emotion that bubbles up?

  • Identity Check: If silence makes you feel anxious or “worthless,” it may be a sign that your identity is currently being fueled by the “noise” of productivity.

• If you have rejected the SAL (e.g., through minimalism, homesteading, or slow living), ask yourself: If I could no longer live this way, would I feel like I lost my value or my “edge” as a Christian?

  • Identity Check: Are you finding your “dignity” in your countercultural lifestyle rather than in your status as a redeemed Image Bearer?

• Identify one significant commitment on your calendar (a hobby, a kid’s activity, a career goal). Why are you doing it? Is it because you were intentionally led to it by the Holy Spirit, or because it is the “default” for people in your stage of life?

  • Identity Check: Are you a “cog” in the social machine, or a steward of the time God has given you?

• Think of your biggest “win” or “success” this week. If it were taken away or criticized tomorrow, how much of your internal peace would go with it?

  • Identity Check: A “fragile” identity requires constant maintenance; a “transformed” identity is anchored in Christ’s finished work.

• In your current schedule, what specific window do you have to hear from God? If that window doesn’t exist, what is the “toxin” or “noise” currently occupying that space?

  • Identity Check: We cannot follow a Shepherd whose voice we have drowned out with the “hyperactive hive mind.”

This post is part of a series gathered under the tag Becoming a Cultivator. Lord willing, I hope to publish these posts in a journal/book format. You can read the previous post here and the next post here.

2020 was a year that forever changed many of us. For me, it offered the time and space to think deeply about the lifestyle Da’Nelle and I had constructed, critique it, and ask ourselves, “What needs to change?”

In the years leading up to Da’Nelle’s diagnosis, we had both taken steps to change our lifestyles. One decision at a time, we opened up more space for time with each other and time with others. Little did we know that those changes would provide the exact circumstances we needed to drop everything and focus on fighting Glioblastoma.

We were incredibly blessed to have workplaces, peers, and bosses who bent over backward to allow us to reconstruct our day-to-day routines. As the weeks and months passed, we became more and more convinced that if the Lord would allow Da’Nelle to beat the odds, we wanted to cultivate a more intentional, Christ-centered lifestyle, without being afraid to break the status quo and go against the grain.

As we pondered what that would look like and what it would take to boldly reimagine our lives and have the courage to execute our plans, we realized it could only be done by resting in our identity in Christ. And so, terminal brain cancer is the genesis of this journal, designed to help you see yourself as a cultivator intentionally crafting and living out a Christ-centered lifestyle as the overflow of your heart in response to the Gospel.

Eventually, I hope to have a published version of these posts you can hold in your hands as a guide for a three-part journey. It’s a journey toward discovering your identity and purpose as a believer in Christ, with a singular aspiration: to enjoy God while living for the good of others and the glory of God.

I would argue that the journey this journal takes you on—one in which you ponder your identity—is among the most neglected aspects of modern Christianity. Too many believers receive Christ as their Lord and Savior and never take the time or invest the energy to understand their identity in Christ.

I refer to living out this identity and aspiration as being a Cultivator. You won’t find the word cultivator in the Scriptures, but you will find the concept in the Scriptures. Throughout the Bible, God teaches His people to guard their hearts, till the soil of their hearts, and ruthlessly eliminate fruitless weeds and thorns from their lives. These agricultural word pictures are metaphors for the Christian life in which the believer in Christ is seen as the cultivator of the resources God has given him.

Genesis 2:15: The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

Matthew 13:18–23: “Hear then the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

As you work your way through this journey, you’ll begin to unpack the definition of Cultivator etched on the cover of this journal.

Part 1: Learning to Reject Imaginary Identities is designed to expose your heart to the traps and pitfalls of finding your identity in anything other than Jesus.

Part 2: Learning to Receive Your True Identity in Christ will help you understand your true identity in Christ as you live this life redeemed by God’s grace through faith in Christ.

Part 3: Learning to Rest in Your True Identity in Christ teaches you the difference between striving to obtain your identity in the patterns of this world and resting in your identity in Christ.

Ultimately, the pages of this journal are designed to take you on a journey of self-discovery in which the false assumptions and pretenses of identity formation are exposed, extracted from your heart, and exchanged with your true identity in Christ.

These pages are filled with Scriptures, short explanations of the truths underlying the Scriptures, prayers, and reflection questions. At times, the concepts, prayers, and reflection questions may seem repetitive, but they have been intentionally designed to bring new aspects of the truths of God’s Word to the forefront each time they are encountered.

This journal is designed to help you see the difference between the imaginary identities of your culture and your true identity found in Christ. You cannot serve both. You must fight to resist and eliminate all forms of imaginary identity and cultivate a life in which your true identity in Christ can thrive and bear much fruit.

Prayer: Lord, thank You for the gift of Salvation and the true identity I have in You. Cause my heart to understand and my mind to discern the difference between the imaginary identities of the world and the true identity I have in You. Protect me from the temptation to find my identity, dignity, and worth in anything other than Christ.

Reflection:

• How does the term cultivator and its definition, etched on the cover of this journal, impact your thoughts on what it means to live for Christ?

• At this point in your journey, what do you think it means to cultivate a Christ-centered lifestyle?

• When you think about exposing your false assumptions and pretenses of identity formation, extracting them from your heart, and exchanging them with your true identity in Christ, what are some of the first questions that come to mind?

I leaped out of bed, and in what felt like a single step, flipped on the lights and made my way around to Da’Nelle’s side of our bed. By that time, both her arms were locked out straight up toward the ceiling as her back began to arch and twist in unnatural directions.

Then the convulsions began.

If you’ve ever witnessed a grand mal seizure, you know that watching someone go through it feels otherworldly. Something about their unconscious state and the uncontrolled and violent bodily movements feels like some sort of portal through which you can see so clearly the consequences of the Fall. It’s as if a corridor of time opens up and you look straight down it to the moment Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit.

Thankfully, because Da’Nelle was in bed, ensuring she was safe was an easy task. I knew I needed help, and so I began to yell.

“MOM! DAD!”

I paused in the hopes that my parents, who happened to be staying in our basement bedroom, had heard me and would respond.

Nothing.

“MOM! DAD!” Another silent pause.

“MOM! DAD!”

Nothing.

There I stood, a 42-year-old man, watching his wife endure a grand mal seizure, crying out for his parents like a little boy.

Alone and helpless.

I grabbed my phone and dialed 911. Within a minute, we had EMTs on the way to our house, and as the seizure stopped, I disconnected with the 911 operator and ran to our basement bedroom, waking up my parents.

“Da’Nelle has had a big seizure. I called 911, and an ambulance is on the way. When they get here, let them in and show them how to get to our bedroom.”

With that, I took what felt like a single step, covering two flights of stairs, and walked into our bedroom. As I entered, I said softly, “Da’Nelle?”

Her eyes popped open, and she looked at me with a look of confusion and trust. I said, “Da’Nelle, you had a big seizure. I called 911, and they are on their way.”

Moments later, my parents escorted the EMTs into our house and to our bedroom. I briefed them on the situation and helped them collect pertinent medical history. As they began to take over Da’Nelle’s care, I stepped back, took a deep breath, and realized that with four EMTs and my mother in the room, I was standing there in nothing but my underwear (it’s ok to laugh, that’s objectively funny).

Ironically, I had spent the last moments before the EMTs got there gathering some clothes for Da’Nelle to put on so she wouldn’t be in nothing but her underwear when the EMTs arrived. Somehow, in that moment, it never occurred to me that I should get dressed too.

I quietly and quickly stepped out of the room and got dressed. We walked Da’Nelle down the stairs. At some point in there, they put her on a stretcher and into the ambulance. They wouldn’t allow me to ride with her, so, as I always do when I say goodbye to her, I kissed her on her forehead and assured her I would be at the hospital right behind her.

When I got back into the house, my mind started processing what had happened and what I might need to survive the coming hours. I grabbed my phone charger and a banana. I know from experience that coffee and bananas are enough to keep me going for hours on end after a sleepless night. That banana felt like a way to grab the tiniest bit of control over the situation. I ate that banana in what felt like one bite and one swallow as I made my way to the garage.

I got in the car and left our home completely unaware that our life together had changed forever.

What followed were weeks filled with MRIs, various scans, over 100 minor focal seizures, a five-night stay in the hospital, and a brain biopsy. All of which led to a diagnosis you never want to receive: Glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer that is as aggressive and deadly as any form of cancer.

Chemotherapy, radiation, and the constant adjusting of seizure medications consumed the next several months. I spent more days at home than I did at my job as a teacher and coach at a Christian School. We endured, but fixed our eyes on the hope of the life to come, while striving to trust God in the here and now.

I spent countless hours by Da’Nelle’s side or in the next room while Da’Nelle rested and recovered from treatments. I struggled to sleep past 4 or 5 in the morning, often retreating to our living room couch or the desk in our spare bedroom to think, read God’s Word and other Christian books, and pray.

In those hours alone, while walking with my wife through the valley of the shadow of death, I pondered life’s deepest questions. This was not new for me. I’ve always been fascinated by life’s big questions, but this time around was different. My beautiful bride, my one flesh, my partner in this life, the love of my life, appeared to be dying. The reality of our situation shed a new light on life.

As I worked through my grief and sorrow, I began to write. I wrote and wrote and wrote. It was my therapy. My way of coping with the lonely hours before the sun came up.

As I wrote, I began to see how my reflections intertwined with ideas I’d been developing for years, ones I had been sharing with others, that I was calling Cultivators. The more I wrote, the more I realized God was using my current reality to help me shape and finalize some old, ongoing thoughts on how believers in Christ should think about crafting Christ-centered lifestyles.

Cultivator: An image-bearer who has been redeemed through faith alone in Christ alone, who humbly and intentionally cultivates a faithful, Christ-centered, Coram Deo (before the face of God) lifestyle where every decision and action flows from their identity as a Cultivator. They courageously steward their abilities, opportunities, obligations, and responsibilities for the good of others and the glory of God, while enjoying God

.

The result of all this thinking and praying is the journal you hold in your hands. I hope that the entries, prayers, and reflection questions deepen your understanding of what it means to find your identity in Christ.

Lord willing, future journals will follow that will help you figure out how to construct the unique lifestyle God is calling you to live for the good of others and His glory.

For now, enjoy the journey through this three-part journal. May the Scriptures and meditations found here teach you to rest deeply in your true identity in Christ.

This post is part of a series of posts I hope to publish someday under the title “Becoming a Cultivator.” The posts are my reflections on Christian identity, woven together with my wife’s journey with terminal brain cancer. You can view the next post here.

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It’s also important to remember that most of human history has occurred within an agrarian society. This means the weather seasons naturally shaped a lifestyle centered around different rhythms and tempos. Fast and slow seasons were an inevitable aspect of life until 150 to 200 years ago.

Modern life, however, lacks natural rhythms. Most of us live in a context devoid of any genuine concern about the four seasons and choose to live every month of the year with roughly the same rhythm and tempo. There are the occasional weeks of slowness around the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but even those are relatively short-lived. We lack naturally slow seasons where we let off the gas and prioritize rest and rejuvenation.

Therefore, believers in Christ should ask themselves if a modern life devoid of seasons is the best way to steward the responsibilities, opportunities, and obligations God has called them to for His glory. As I’ve pondered this, I've come to love Cal Newport’s concept of Slow Seasons in his most recent book, Slow Productivity.

Newport makes the case that life ought to be far more seasonal. Citing the worklife of artist Georgia O’Keefe, Newport makes the case that our modern understanding of a worklife without seasons is a relatively new way of thinking in human history (You’ll have to read the book to learn more about the details of O’Keefe’s worklife, but the general idea is that she slowed down for portions of the year to think, ponder, and paint before returning to a more busy season focused on putting on exhibits for her art):

“The fact that O’Keefe’s schedule feels exotic in our current moment, however, shouldn’t obscure the reality that it’s our unvarying approach to work that’s the outlier here. As previously argued, for most of recorded human history, the working lives of the vast majority of people on earth were intertwined with agriculture, a (literally) seasonal activity. To work without change or rest all year would have seemed unusual to most of our ancestors. Seasonality was deeply integrated into the human experience.” (p. 139 Slow Productivity)

One of Newport’s suggestions for embracing slow productivity and crafting a lifestyle more focused on seasonality is slow seasons. I’ve referenced this concept many times here on Cultivators and promised a review of my first-ever slow season several weeks back. I hope that this review helps you put your first slow season into practice.

Descriptive Not Prescriptive

Before we dive into the details of my first-ever slow season, I am not sharing the details as my prescription for slow seasons. Instead, I plan to describe my first slow season's why, what, and how and share ideas for making my next slow season even better. I aim to describe these things to help you craft your slow season, not prescribe a routine.

Mind Over Matter

The first thing I learned about slow seasons is they are a good lesson in mind over matter. I’m in my 20th year as a teacher and coach, so I have had two weeks off at Christmas my whole life. I’ve always had the “matter” of a slow season baked into my calendar.

But Newport’s concept of seasonality and his emphasis on the power of being intentionally slow during stretches of time throughout the year transformed my perspective on my annual Christmas break. Newport helped me realize that I had previously used the time away from the classroom to fill my days with other activities, most of which were relatively frivolous and not intentionally chosen for rest and rejuvenation.

So, while having two weeks off at Christmas this year was not unusual, the break was quite different for me in many ways because I intentionally designed it to be a refreshing, rejuvenating, first-ever slow season.

Location, Location, Location

The old real estate maximum applies to slow seasons, too. Where you stay for your slow season matters.

Da’Nelle and I are blessed to have grown up in Longmont, Colorado, where our parents still live. This means we can stay free of charge in a place with incredible panoramic views and easy access to Rocky Mountain National Park. We spent 13 nights in Longmont and three in Estes Park for minimal cost. It’s a privilege we don’t take for granted.

Da’Nelle and I grew up right down the street from here.

Not everyone has access to that sort of thing, and not everyone can afford to spend over two weeks away. I get that. I’m not suggesting that slow seasons must be expensive getaways to unique locations. So, what am I suggesting?

Leave town or “leave town” or create rigid boundaries for your slow season at home.

Leave Town

Be creative! Create a road trip where you stay with three or four different family members or friends, staying two to three nights with each and driving from one to the other. Most of us know people who would love to share their homes with us if we’d just ask. Every once in a while, old friends or family need a place to stay in Lincoln as they travel from one spot to another, and we love it when people ask if they can stay at our house for a night or two.

If finances limit your ability to leave town, find a way to not only do it for low cost but also invest in relationships and see people you don’t get to see as frequently as you would like.

Or “Leave Town”

It’s also possible to get all the benefits of leaving town without leaving it. Stay one or two nights at a hotel in your hometown. Da’Nelle and I always try to do some sort of two-night adventure together at the end of each football season. A couple of years ago, we decided to stay in Lincoln and enjoy a new hotel in town. It was awesome. Despite a total roundtrip drive time of roughly 30 minutes, it felt like we had left town for the weekend. We were just a few miles from home, and the total cost was minimal. It was a very short and inexpensive slow season, but a good one (if I knew what I know now about constructing slow seasons, it would have been even better).

Or Stay Home With Rigid Boundaries

There may be factors preventing you from leaving town or “leaving town,” and that’s ok. If that’s the case, create a list of rigid boundaries for your slow season to help you harness the power of getting away without actually getting away. For example:

• Do not make yourself available! Respond to inquiries for your time during your slow season as if you were 1,000 miles away.

• Better yet, don’t respond to inquiries for your time at all.

• Do all the grocery shopping and meal planning ahead of time so you don’t have to think about meals during your slow season.

• Do all the household chores, such as mowing the lawn, deep cleaning, and laundry, before the slow season starts, just as you would if you were leaving town.

• Do not schedule meetings or phone calls that might send your mind down a bunny trail you’re not enthusiastic about.

• Allow ample time for your mind to wander down the bunny trails you are enthusiastic about.

You can think of several other ways to simulate leaving town while staying home. Share your ideas in the comments.

My Priorities for My First-Ever Slow Season

Quiet Time

During my slow season, I was determined to spend simple, high-quality time in God’s Word and prayer. Although I am easily distracted, I have learned many ways to keep my mind focused. Here’s a description of how I spent twenty minutes reading the psalms and praying every morning.

• I set a 20-minute timer on my phone. I put my phone on a stand where I could see the countdown timer when I was not using my phone to read commentaries. Seeing the countdown lets me let go of all other thoughts until the timer hits zero.

• I used my Brick to block out every app on my phone except the ESV Bible app, which I use for commentaries.

• I read, thought, and prayed verse by verse and psalm by psalm. No agenda. No hurry. Just one verse at a time.

• I sat on the floor with just my Bible and my phone. Sitting on the ground for extended periods is a simple and easy way to maintain mobility, so this was the proverbial "two birds with one stone."

For the last several months, this has been my morning routine with the Lord, regardless of what I am doing that day or what season I am in.

Physical Activity

Physical activity is a key component of mental and spiritual health. I’ve always known this, but walking through my wife’s terminal cancer journey in 2024 deepened my appreciation for how therapeutic 30-60 minutes of exercise can be. I took this freshly reinforced mentality into my first slow season and determined ahead of time that I would maintain the foundational components of my physical activity while away.

Rucking

Over the past several months, I have gotten really into rucking. For years, I’ve been searching for ways to get the proper amount of Zone 2 cardio, and rucking has proven to be my favorite way (as opposed to running, ellipticals, etc.). I’ve become a rucking evangelist. If you want to become a rucker, click here. I brought my ruck pack to Colorado for the Christmas slow season and averaged about five miles per day.

And it was awesome.

I rucked from roughly 6-7:30 AM, watching the sunrise, listening to podcasts, and humming along with my favorite praise and worship songs. Staying fit never felt so easy.

Mobility

Rucking is a great foundational piece of movement and exercise, but if all you ever do is ruck, you will eventually become a lean Zone 2 cardio machine that moves like the Tinman. That’s why I also worked on mobility every day during my slow season. I brought my yoga mat, foam roller (and other self-massage tools), therapy bands, etc. These all tucked nicely into the cargo pocket of my ruck pack.

Basically, I brought a 20-pound backpack filled with various tools for maintaining mobility on the trip. It was convenient, simple, and effective. Honestly, I could probably brand the concept and sell Cultivator Packs to you guys so you can crush your slow seasons like I did, but that feels like more work than a Cultivator would put into the idea, so you’ll have to build your own.

The point I want to make is that I felt great throughout the trip. As I’ve aged past 35 and 40, I’ve often not felt great while in Colorado. I’ve typically blamed the altitude and lamented that I’ve become your typical flat lander who can’t live on a little less oxygen (No offense, flat landers). People born at the foot of the Rockies are prideful about their ability to function at a mile or two above sea level. It turns out that the real problem was that I was living more like a slug than an image-bearer regarding movement and exercise while in Colorado, and that was why I often didn’t feel my best. Prioritizing physical activity for my first-ever slow season taught me a lot about how to enjoy the vacation.

Supplements and Nutrition

Ordinarily, when Da’Nelle and I take off on a trip, I take a break from my supplement routine. Over the past few years, I’ve taken my greens supplement with us on trips but dropped all other supplements for the duration. This time, however, I brought my entire supplement routine with me. (For the record, I’m talking about protein, electrolytes, greens, and creatine. It’s not like I’m Bryan Johnson downing dozens of pills per day.)

I also dialed back my consumption of my mother-in-law's famous chocolate chip cookies. This is terrible, but traditionally, I have eaten those cookies in stacks of four—yes, four chocolate chip cookies at a time. In the past, it was also not unusual for me to eat four to five stacks per day—yes, 16-20 cookies. (Multiple chocolate chip cookie stacks + Not much exercise = I felt like garbage most days. Duh. I don’t know why I thought these simple truths didn’t apply to time in Colorado.)

They’re delicious. Don’t judge me.

Knowing I had a 0% chance of eating zero cookies, I limited my intake by limiting my stacks to two cookies. This strategy would only require willpower while I was in the kitchen grabbing another round of cookies, so I figured I could muster the discipline four or five times per day to grab only two cookies instead of four. My plan worked, and I cut my cookie consumption in half compared to past years.

This means I consumed fewer calories and burned more calories than usual, a win on several fronts.

Most importantly, cutting my cookie consumption in half and rucking five miles per day increased my enjoyment of the slow season. I felt better each day, and that was a big win.

No Agenda, No Expectations

In the past, I have entered Christmas break thinking, “I’m going to write the outline for that book idea I’ve been kicking around,” or “I’m going to revamp my Bible curriculum,” or something to that effect. In other words, I had an oversized agenda item on my mind, and in my mind, accomplishing my agenda was part of having a successful Christmas break.

Not this year.

Not having an oversized agenda was a mental battle. In the weeks leading up to Christmas break, I can’t count the number of times I thought to myself, “Stop it! No agendas this time!” It took a lot of mental discipline not to create a big goal to achieve. But not having an oversized agenda proved to be a key component to enjoying my slow season.

Over Christmas break, I probably completed as much work on projects as I have in the past, but it was fun and not stressful because I had realistic expectations for myself. I didn’t feel like I was racing against the clock, falling behind, or speeding ahead. I was just tinkering and thinking casually at a natural and fun pace.

What Will I Do Different Next Time?

Honestly, I’m not sure yet. I was pleased with the slow season. I did some casual reading and writing while watching a documentary or two. Da’Nelle and I spent a lot of quality time together.

What more could a guy want?

What are some ideas you have for your next slow season? Please share them in the comments.

In Noting is Urgent: Part 1--All urgency is a figment of our collective imagination, I made the case that all of the urgency in our lives is fictional, and we, as a society, are the authors of this great work of fiction. I won’t belabor the point here, but ultimately, we are all striving to achieve this or that and declare this or that needs to get done by this or that time, and when you pull back the proverbial curtain, all of it is a figment of our collective imagination.

You Need Permission to Live Without Urgency

How 2024 Pulled Back the Curtain and Gave Me Permission

In 2024, my wife’s terminal cancer diagnosis gave me permission to walk away from everything that wasn’t essential, focus on caring for her and helping her fight, and only engage in the deadline-inducing activities of my choice. In that first sentence, I put the words “gave me permission” in italics because the fact that I needed permission to live without urgency highlights my point: Urgency is a figment of our collective imagination, and we can remove urgency from our lives if we so choose.

As a teacher, coach, and administrator at a Christian school, I needed permission from our superintendent, principal, and activities director to set aside many of my responsibilities, delay or ignore deadlines, and live without the urgency of everyday life in my profession. Our school has policies that provide for time off, which I’m entitled to, but as our situation unfolded, I needed more time off than our policies encompassed. Thus, I needed permission beyond the policies.

I was allowed to set aside the deadlines and the urgency created by Lincoln Christian School. I came to school and taught as often as possible, but I was relieved of various duties and knew I could ask for a substitute teacher as needed. In other words, I was not held accountable in the same way as usual. For a time, I was given the flexibility I needed.

Urgency is the Byproduct of Contracts

You need to understand that I was set free from most of the urgency of being a teacher because urgency is a byproduct of the contract between myself and the school. The school creates or imagines all the deadlines that create urgency. Therefore, they can also relieve teachers of that urgency if they choose. Did some of the urgency simply get passed along to someone else? Yes, but we also put lots of things on hold.

To be clear, several aspects of my role at Lincoln Christian School could not be put on hold. Students needed to be taught. But once again, let’s pull back the curtain and see that students need to be taught because the school has agreed to teach the students every day. More specifically, the school promised to teach a specific set of students the classes I teach: sophomore and senior Bible and strength and conditioning. These classes had to continue because the school was contractually obligated to provide those courses to the students enrolled in those classes.

Not only that, but the school must also offer all of its courses for specific amounts of time each day according to various laws and accreditation standards. So, there is a degree to which the show must go on regardless of the circumstances of my personal life.

But all those things are various aspects of the game everyone has agreed to play. Lincoln Christian School has decided to meet the requirements of specific accreditation institutions. Families have chosen Lincoln Christian School for their children. Both the school and the individual families have other options. But this is what everyone has chosen.

It’s all part of the game we signed up for.

The coaching aspects of my job are where things get trickier. Because coaching involves competing against other schools, there were timetables we couldn’t control. The state association sets the first day of practice and the game schedule. Those deadlines and the sense of urgency they create are unavoidable, so navigating them was a different proposition than navigating my teaching deadlines.

However, just because the coaching deadlines were out of my control does not mean they are not a figment of our collective imagination. At some point in history, the state association was imagined into existence to govern and direct competition between schools. I am subject to their deadlines because I chose to play the game of being a coach (for more on what it means to play the game, see Part 1 of this series).

What is Behind the Curtain in Your Game?

How does all this apply to you? Your work, vocation, job, career, or whatever you want to call it, is a game. One way or another, you signed up for the game, and if you’re committed to doing so, you can change the game you're playing.

Pull back the proverbial curtain in your game and ask yourself, “Do I have to keep playing this way? Can I ditch the imaginary urgency? Can I switch games altogether?”

You might think, “I can’t afford to change games,” or “My circumstances won’t allow me to change games.” Fair enough. We all face times when we feel stuck or can’t imagine a way out of our current situation. Before I press on, I want to acknowledge that people sometimes face extremely limiting situations.

However, situations in which a person has no power to change the game are exceedingly rare. The fact that you are reading this on a device with an internet connection means you have at least some resources to start making changes. An internet connection, a desire to learn, and determination go a long way in our modern world.

If you feel stuck, I encourage you to think of your situation as one that can change one tiny decision at a time. When you stack up 1,000 tiny decisions, you’ll have a significant change and might find yourself playing a completely different game before long.

Furthermore, just because you can’t find a way to change games right now doesn’t mean the game you’re playing isn’t fictional. For reasons beyond your control or for reasons of your own doing, you’re stuck in a game that is made up. Being stuck in a game doesn’t mean it’s not a figment of our collective imagination. It means you must get more creative to find your way out.

There is also solace in simply acknowledging that it’s a game. The pressure to get things done and meet urgent deadlines is easier to manage when you realize it’s all a construct of our imagination.

How to Give Yourself Permission to Live Without Urgency

Apply the Minimum Effective Does to Everything

Years ago, I was captivated by the idea of the minimum effective dose (MED). I first encountered it in Tim Ferriss’s writings, where he describes it as “the smallest dose that will yield the desired results."

This might sound overdramatic, but thinking about the MED in every aspect of my life was transformative. When I started asking questions like, “What do I want to achieve, and what is the minimum effective dose that will get me there?” it was step #1 in realizing I was playing by the rules of games I didn’t even know I was playing.

When I first began exploring the concept of MED concerning my overall health and fitness, I realized I was always trying to do more: more reps, more healthy food, more, more, more. This mindset caused my health and fitness routines and rhythms to be best described as fits of obsession followed by neglectful mental recovery. I would go all-in for a while, get completely overwhelmed, and then crash and burn, destined to repeat the cycle again and again.

When I started defining my desired outcomes and figuring out the MED for achieving said outcomes, my mindset around health and fitness transformed. Instead of aiming my obsessive tendencies toward more and more, I focused on obsessing over the MED in workouts, nutrition, sleep, etc.

Another area of my life that was transformed by the MED concept was personal finances. When I started conversing with Da’Nelle about our financial goals and learned more about the MED for achieving those goals, it helped us see the “rules” of the economic game we were playing and how we could change it if we wanted to. When you start thinking outside the box about your finances, you realize that many of your thoughts around spending, saving, and giving are formed by the status quo rather than intentional stewardship of your finances.

I started reading blogs like Mr. Money Mustache. Years ago, he decided to play a different game than everyone else and pioneered the F.I.R.E. movement (Financial Independence Retire Early). I’m not promoting his way of thinking (though I think he has a lot of helpful things to say about the personal finance game), but if you want to read some stuff that will get you thinking differently and embrace the idea of MED in your finances, start here. (Also, Mr. Money Mustache lives in Longmont, Colorado, where Da’Nelle and I grew up. He’s a transplant Longmontian and not the real deal, born and raised there like we are, but it’s still pretty cool.)

Here’s my point: Thinking about the MED in every aspect of your life is a great way to start identifying how you’re playing a game you don’t have to play. Most people follow the status quo, and you should strive to follow the MED instead because the more you apply the MED to your life, the more freedom you will have to play the game you want for the good of others and the glory of God.

Quality Over Quantity

Quality over Quantity (QOQ) is a corollary to the MED because you can’t discover the MED without first obsessing over quality rather than quantity.

One summer in college, my buddy and I decided to work for a concrete company owned by a friend of one of our high school track and field coaches. As we traveled the Front Range of Colorado doing the finishing work on post-tension concrete slabs, we couldn’t help but notice something. Many of the subcontractors working the construction site seemed to be earning an A+ for the quantity of work while barely passing the standard for quality.

One day, while sitting on a concrete slab enjoying a quick morning snack break, my buddy said, “Whatever happened to quality?” I looked up, glazed over the scene with my eyes like a wise old sage, and replied emotionlessly, “Quantity.” Something about my response was equal parts hilarious and prophetic. We laughed at how I responded like a prophet and then sat still for a minute, pondering the truth we had stumbled on while dozens of poorly trained workers hustled to build multiple apartment buildings as quickly as possible.

The vast majority of Americans chase quantity over quality. The #1 place I see this happening is youth sports. I can’t tell you the number of youth sports practices I’ve observed in which little to no coaching occurs. Millions of American youth attend multiple hours of practice per week and receive roughly half an hour of actual coaching.

It’s infuriating to me as someone striving for the MED and QOQ.

Most young people in America would be far better served by half as much practice time led by a coach focused on coaching every rep, focusing on QOQ, and striving for the MED.

Similarly, millions of American families would be far happier and more fulfilled if they were participating in half as many youth sporting events (and if your family isn’t into sports, just insert the activity you’re overinvesting in here), and setting aside more time engage and develop in other areas of life.

In 10,000 ways, we have become a society that believes quantity trumps quality. Our desire for more and more quantity makes us single-minded, one-track creatures, neglecting the beauty of being image-bearers with diverse, well-rounded lives filled with various interests and skills.

Look at your weekly, monthly, or quarterly calendar and ask yourself, “What can be eliminated because it’s beyond the MED or lacks quality?” Do the same with your expenses. Analyze the time and money you spend on entertainment through the lens of QOQ. What does it reveal? What about your nutrition and fitness routines?

When you analyze your time and money using the MED and QOQ, you can save hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars per year, which you can reinvest in your game of choice.

MED, Quality Over Quantity, and Crafting a Christ-Centered Lifestyle

Freedom for the Good of Others and the Glory of God

When you apply the MED and focus on QOQ, you will be more free to choose what game you want to play. Again, you can gain the freedom to change the game you are playing one tiny decision at a time. One decision at a time, the amount of freedom you have will snowball and become a roaring avalanche careening down a mountain slope.

As a Cultivator, the key is to use your freedom to live out your purpose as a believer in Christ. Choose your game for the good of others and the glory of God.

Cultivator: An image-bearer who has been redeemed through faith alone in Christ alone, who is humbly and intentionally crafting a faithful, Christ-centered, Coram Deo lifestyle in which every decision and action is the overflow of their identity as a Cultivator, courageously stewarding their abilities, opportunities, obligations, and responsibilities for the good of others and the glory of God, enjoying God all the while.

When I talk about the freedom to choose what game you want to play in life, I am talking about freedom with a different meaning from the type of freedom Paul references in the Galatians passage below. Regardless, the reason for expressing your freedom is the same: for the good of others and the glory of God.

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”--Galatians 5:13–14

Believers in Christ should use the MED and focus on QOQ to gain the freedom to spend their lives loving and serving others just as they would want to be loved and served. Far too many people are obsessed over achieving financial freedom or the freedom that comes with specific jobs (like the freedom of time that comes in the summer months for teachers) so they can spend their freedom on themselves. Paul commands us to use our freedoms for the glory of God, not to indulge ourselves.

As you strive to discover the MED in all things and seek out QOQ, you must do so with a singular ambition: to glorify God!

No one should feel more free to change how they play their game or to change games entirely than the Christian because the Christian knows his identity, dignity, and worth are not tied to how well he plays the game. One of the great tragedies of the American experience is that it has convinced people that their identity is caught up in how well they play their game.

That’s simply not true.

The truth is that everyone’s identity is found entirely in their receiving or rejecting of Christ as their Savior. Everyone is either a child of God in Christ or a sinner destined for Hell.

Those are the only two identities.

Living in a fallen world devastated by the consequences of sin can make it difficult to see this truth. But once you have recognized your sinfulness and received Christ as the propitiation for your sin, concepts like the MED and QOQ can help you discover how you are making the game you are playing into an idol and letting it sinfully shape your identity.

Use the MED and QOQ to analyze your lifestyle. Make tiny changes or huge changes. Do it for the good of others and the glory of God, remembering that your identity, dignity, and worth are not up for grabs. Be bold in your security in Christ.

Adapted from Tim Ferriss’ Past Year Review and Shane Parrish’s’ Annual Reflection.

Step #1: Consider Your Calendar

• Grab a notepad and create two columns: DISCIPLINED and DEFAULT.

  • Disciplined is anything that moved the needle for you in your 4Cs of Cal Newport’s Deep Life.

    • Community

    • Craft

    • Constitution

    • Contemplation

  • In addition to the 4Cs, I’ve added Celebration and Slow Season. Celebration is anything related to hobbies or stuff you do just for fun, like golf, bowling, a day on the lake on your boat, etc. Slow Season is a concept from Newport’s book Slow Productivity in which you mark specific parts of the year as times when you commit to freeing your time to focus on community, constitution, contemplation, and celebration.

    • Celebration

    • Slow Season

  • Default is anything that did not move the needle for you in the 4Cs of the Deep life.

• Go through your calendar from last year and look at each week.

  • Most people only have their disciplined actions on their calendar, leaving lots of white space and unaccounted-for hours.

    • If this is the case for you, here are two suggestions:

      • Consider how you spent the white spaces. Ask yourself, “What was I spending most of my time doing that month?” and do your best to recreate your schedule as best you can.

      • Make it a resolution for the coming year to use the color code above to fill your calendar.

• Judge each week as either DISCIPLINED or DEFAULT. You set the criteria for judging each week, especially the white space.

  • It’s your life to steward before the Lord, and you’ll have to account for your life before the Lord, so you decide, as led by the Spirit, if each week was disciplined or default behavior.

  • Don’t overthink this. Your goal is to get a general idea of how intentional you were with your time over the past year, not give yourself an exact rating.

• Did you spend the previous year intentionally cultivating a lifestyle or defaulting to a distracted, auto-pilot life? What stood out about your year that caused you to declare it as disciplined or default?

Step #2: You’re Fired

“The simple formula for success is to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

The most successful people ruthlessly analyze what’s working and what isn’t.

Imagine you were fired as CEO of your life today, and someone exceptional was brought in to take over. What do you think they would do differently? What would they see as getting in the way of success? What would they do more of?”--Shane Parrish

The exceptional CEO of your life is none other than God Himself. You have God’s Word and His Spirit to guide you every moment of the day and make executive decisions about how to steward your time.

How would God analyze your past year?

Step #3: Eliminate Ruthlessly Anything and Everything

Make a list of all the things God would eliminate ruthlessly.

Make a list of all the things God would double down on and do more of.

Step #4: Film Crew: Audience of One

“If there were a film crew following you around all day documenting your success, you’d do all the things someone successful would do.” Shane Parrish

This concept ought to make perfect sense to the Christian who serves an omnipresent and omniscient God. There is a degree to which a film crew follows us all day, and the only audience member is the Lord Himself.

The more Biblical way to think about this is to be reminded that believers are called to live their lives coram deo. Therefore, this section is designed to help you Cultivate a Christ-centered lifestyle in the coming year by thinking about the fact that we all live our lives before the face of God.

Resolved: The coming year will be lived coram deo and be filled with disciplined pursuits in community, craft, constitution, contemplation, celebration, and slow seasons.

What does it look like to live with an audience of One 24/7 this year?

Step #5: Follow Through

Cultivating a Christ-centered lifestyle is simple. All you have to do is follow through and fill the coming year with disciplined activity coram deo.

Simple doesn’t mean easy. It means simple.

Keep the coming year simple and let the difficulty be in the execution, not the strategy.

Tips for Following Through

• Schedule your Slow Seasons in first. Slowing down to enjoy life, contemplate your purpose, reflect on the past, and plan for the future is critical to cultivating a Christ-centered lifestyle.

• Ponder your minimum effective dose for self-stewardship and make sure every week has at least your minimum effective dose worth of self-stewardship.

  • Self-Stewardship is anything related to your spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental health. Elements of self-stewardship can take place in every area of life.

    • Self-stewardship can be anything that helps you be the best you can be today while also helping ensure you’re healthy for as long as the Lord sustains your health and life.

• Focus on creating weekly rhythms. We are designed to have a particular flow to our lives.

  • Create an ideal week template and strive to make each week fit that template.

    • Anchor your weekly rhythm around attending corporate worship, a.k.a. Church.

    • Build in time for celebration each week. Spend time on your hobbies.

    • The color-coding of everything on your calendar lets you quickly analyze your week and notice any glaring disproportions.

Step #6: Do Not Set Big Goals. Do craft a Christ-Centered Lifestyle

I’m not 100% against goals. They are essential and certainly have their place in the life of the Christian. However, Cultivators focus most of their attention on fulfilling their calling and stewarding their time for the good of others and the glory of God. The purpose of this annual review is to think about the lifestyle you believe God is calling you to live. You can set goals within that lifestyle. Far too many people set goals first and then allow their lifestyle to be dictated by the goals they have set.

There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?--Ecclesiastes 2:24–25

Depending on what church tradition you grew up in, these two verses might sound almost heretical. Far too many people grew up feeling like Christians are the Fun Police, and these two sentences from the second chapter of Ecclesiastes fly in the face of that way of thinking.

In his book Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End, David Gipson points out that these two verses almost sound like a nihilistic creed: “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” It wouldn’t be a stretch for the Christian to read these two verses and justify the idea that we are simply supposed to party and enjoy life.

But Gipson points out that some say to eat, drink, and be merry because that’s all there is, while the Christian says to eat, drink, and find enjoyment in their toil because that’s what there is for now. We must eat, drink, and toil to participate in society. There is no way around the reality that we need sustenance and ought to contribute to society. At the same time, you should never expect food, drink, and toil to fulfill you.

Gispon says, “God has given us the good things of this world and they are their own reward.” So eating, drinking, and finding enjoyment in your toil should be understood in light of the reality that food and drink and toil can only provide so much pleasure and will never fulfill you. If they are their own reward, then we must never expect more from them than what they are.

Food and drink are best seen as the literal flavor and aroma that set the stage for beautiful fellowship (Surely Solomon means to imply that we should enjoy food and drink while in the company of others, right?). It’s the fellowship with one another that is truly fulfilling and enjoyable as it points you toward Christ. Similarly, and Lord willing, your toil leads to the completion of plans or the sense of a job well done. But you must always see the completion of plans or the sense of a job well done as “from the hand of God” and as a temporal status to be enjoyed temporarily.

You’d be foolish to expect food, drink, or productive toil to provide more than temporal enjoyment. And you’d be even more foolish to fail to acknowledge God’s providence in enjoying food, drink, and victorious toil. The nihilist says, “Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die” because he believes there is nothing more to life than to maximize the enjoyment of this life. The Christian says, “Eat, drink, and find enjoyment in your toil” because he knows everything about this earth is temporal and designed to increase his longing for life in the presence of God in the New Heaven and New Earth.

Christmas: An Opportunity for True Enjoyment

Christmas is one of the best opportunities we have each year to enjoy life because it is not all there is; it is what there is right now. Christmas is filled with traditions—everything from Santa Claus at the shopping mall to candle-lit church services on Christmas Eve. The world looks forward to “the most wonderful time of the year,” and the excitement builds into a crescendo of joy.

Unmet Christmas Expectations

Or not, right? Expectations almost always disappoint—your family, like everyone else’s family, borders on clinical insanity. And as the saying goes, if you think your family is normal, that’s because you’re the crazy person who everyone else thinks might need professional help.

An uncle gets drunk. Politics come up despite everyone’s promise to avoid them. Old emotional scars get exposed and erupt like a volcano. It’s rarely a white Christmas (Why is a white Christmas a gold standard for what Christmas should be like? What percentage of the world's people live somewhere with essentially zero chance of snow on Christmas Day? To start, the entire southern hemisphere because it’s summer down there. Our obsession with a white Christmas is so uniquely American. Do you think it snowed in the spring when Jesus was born?).

Enjoy Christmas in Light of Your End

The most profound beauty in Ecclesiastes, as the title of Gipson’s book points out, is that we should all be pondering our current circumstances in light of the end of life. In other words, in light of our own death.

“When we accept in a deep way that we are going to die, that reality can stop us from expecting too much from all the good things we pursue. We learn to pursue them for what they are in themselves rather than what we need them to be to make us happy…and see the hand of God in them…What if it is death that shows us that this is how we are meant to live?”

It’s early in the morning on December 22, and Da’Nelle and I are back in our hometown, staying with her parents. I’m in their basement reading, thinking, and writing. In the coming days, we will spend countless hours with family, see old friends, and enjoy great food. It’s a normal Christmas break, as we plan to eat, drink, and enjoy a break from our toil.

But 2024 has been anything but normal. The nihilist might say Da’Nelle has cheated death or that she’s living on borrowed time. But we know that according to God’s providence and His sovereign power, she’s miraculously overcoming terminal brain cancer.

December 27th marks 11 months since the disease came crashing into our lives in the form of a grand mal seizure while we were fast asleep in our bed at home. Da’Nelle has endured well over 300 seizures this year. She battled through five days in the hospital, culminating in a brain biopsy. She received 35 radiation treatments and is entering her tenth month of chemotherapy.

Her specific type of glioblastoma claims the lives of 25% of its victims within a year of diagnosis and 50% within the first two years.

And yet, everything about her current condition indicates that she will crush those odds. With each passing round of chemo and with each adjustment of her medication, she seems to be picking up steam, returning to her old self, defeating the undefeated.

It’s a slow and gradual process with many ups and downs, but she’s beating the odds.

We have no idea how long this will last. So I suppose, if there is no God, we are cheating death or living on borrowed time, and we should, therefore, eat, drink, and be merry because this is all that there is. But the truth is that an all-knowing, all-powerful God does exist, and we, therefore, do not even believe in the concepts of cheating death or borrowing time. Death comes to each of us at the precise time God ordains, and the time we have on this earth has been known to God since before He created space and time.

Steward Your Christmas for God’s Glory

None of us borrow time. We steward it for the good of others and the glory of God. Or at least that’s the God-given purpose we have all been given. Whether or not we choose to embrace that purpose is our choice.

So this Christmas, as you enjoy food, drink, and fellowship, remember you are free to enjoy it for what it is. Be careful not to set expectations that will inevitably come crashing down and ruin your enjoyment. Your uncle will drink too many drinks (But not my uncle because we won’t see my uncles. Ha). Your in-laws are going to do that thing they always do that drives you nuts (But not my in-laws because they might read this. Ha). Your parents will question how you raise your kids (But not my parents because we don’t have kids. Ha). Your sibling will drive you crazy, just like always (But not my sibling because we see each other multiple times weekly, so we’ll get along perfectly this year. Ha). And cousin Eddy might show up unexpectedly and mooch off you for several weeks (But not my cousins because none of them are named Eddy).

But don’t let your missed expectations influence your enjoyment of this Christmas. Strive to constantly be mindful that this is not all there is. This is simply what is for now, and it will soon change.

P.S. Da’Nelle will read this and remind me that I often write about how I should think so much better than I think like I should think. Give yourself grace on this because I’ll struggle to think this way as much as anyone. Just because I like to write about these things doesn’t mean they are easy for me or anyone else.

Does your lifestyle reflect your belief and trust in God’s sovereignty and providence?

Before you answer that question, let’s take a minute to ensure we’re on the same page about God’s sovereignty and providence so we can assess how those aspects of who God is should impact our lifestyle choices.

John Piper has said that God’s sovereignty is God’s ability to do all God pleases, while God’s providence is using his sovereignty to serve His wise purposes. You could think of God’s sovereignty as a motor in a vehicle, infinitely fueled and capable of any speed, towing any weight, and never meeting a challenge for which it didn’t have the capacity. God’s providence is like the tires, drivetrain, suspension system, and steering column used to direct the vehicle toward His foreknown and purposely chosen destination.

With this analogy in mind, does your lifestyle reflect your belief that the God who has the power to accomplish whatever He pleases uses said power to direct your life according to His purposes? A more tangible version of the same question might be, “Did you live yesterday like Romans 8:28 is true?”

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.--Romans 8:28

What about last week? Last month? Last year?

Does your lifestyle reflect your belief and trust in God’s sovereignty and providence?

There are a million ways you could assess yourself and come up with an answer. You could look at your calendar, banking and investment accounts, plans for the future, how much time you’ve spent with loved ones, or rate your overall happiness. These metrics provide insight as to whether or not you trust God’s sovereignty and providential leadership of your life. In their own way, each reveals what you truly believe about God’s leading and directing in your life.

Lately, however, I’ve realized there is a litmus test that reveals the level of my trust in God’s plan for my life.

The more I live as if nothing is urgent, the more I know I’m growing in my trust in God’s sovereign and providential control over my life. I know I am trusting God’s sovereignty and providence when I have the courage to do less, work at a natural pace, and obsess over quality. The more I realize nothing is urgent, the more Biblical my perspective on crafting a Christ-centered lifestyle becomes.

Nothing is Urgent When Your Identity is in Christ

*Gasp* “Did he just equate being spiritually mature with believing nothing is urgent? He’s clearly some sort of trust fund baby who never had to meet a deadline in his life. What a thing to say from his place of privilege.”

If you know me well, you may have just laughed out loud at my hypothetical response to myself. I didn’t grow up poor, but my life has no trust funds. My dad taught for decades and coaches basketball to this day, and my mom worked in various roles in the early childhood education space. Also, I’m a teacher and football coach. I face a deadline every time the school bell rings and, just for fun, I parade a group of teenage boys out in front of a couple of thousand people or so every Friday night in the fall to have my most recent deadline evaluated by lots of people who think they know more about football than I do (I’m kidding. The Lincoln Christian football family is incredible, and I am very blessed to have such supportive parents, administrators, and so on. But that is how many other coaches sometimes feel, and the pressure of the weekly deadline is high regardless of your school community).

So, before you read any further, please know that I’m not some random guy living off the cash my investments generate each year from an undisclosed location at one of my multiple properties, which I’ve perfectly designed to suit my needs as a thought leader and influencer (but if you’d like to help me afford such things, feel free to support my writing through monthly tips. Ha).

Urgency is a Figment of Our Collective Imagination

Picture the last time in your life an urgent deadline approached. Who set the deadline? Who was responsible for holding you accountable to the deadline?

It wasn’t God.

Everything that has ever felt urgent to you is the figment of our collective imagination and part of a game you signed up to play.

It can be hard to do, but when you think beyond the constructs of our society and our cultures, you can begin to see all forms of urgency are a construct of our own making.

The deadline at work, the upcoming closing on your house and moving day, or the realization that you have a 15-minute window to feed your entire family before everyone zooms off to their evening activities are all self-induced, fictional urgencies. You might say, “I don’t make the deadlines at work. I don’t set practice times. I’m not the one who says when the bill has to be paid. I didn’t create that sense of urgency.” And you’d be correct, but someone else did. Someone, somewhere, decided this or that had to get done by this or that time because this or that depends on it. If you keep peeling back the layers, you’ll eventually realize someone, somewhere, made up the whole thing, and it wasn’t God.

We serve an all-knowing, all-powerful, sovereign, and providential God who works all things together according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11). In light of these truths, the idea that we could somehow mess up His plans for ourselves, the people we know, or the lives of any human who has ever existed because we missed some sort of made-up deadline is pretty ridiculous and prideful. Our pretend tardiness cannot thwart God’s purposes.

Yet, we stress over upcoming deadlines and anxiously fret over various timetables as if everything were an emergency.

Urgency is a Product of the Game You Signed Up For

The pressure to meet a deadline or achieve a goal in a fixed amount of time is tremendous in our society, and it has caused us to conflate the words urgency and emergency.

An emergency demands immediate intervention because if the situation isn’t addressed, lives may be lost, or institutions may fall. The average person encounters very few genuine emergencies in their lives. Most situations that feel like emergencies at the moment are urgent in hindsight.

For example, I’ve called 911 several times because I was in a situation where doing so was wise. I did the right thing by calling 911 because, at the moment, with the information I had, there was a distinct possibility that I was safe but was witnessing an emergency. However, with the advantage of hindsight, only one or two of those situations were actual emergencies. The other situations proved urgent but could have been handled without calling 911.

The word "urgent" describes a situation in which immediate action is needed to respond to a pressing or critical situation. Those times when I called 911 and the situation ended up not being an emergency were, in fact, urgent situations. A life did not hang in the balance, but someone needed urgent assistance to be safe.

That said, when I say nothing is urgent, I’m referring to our pressing deadlines. The reality is that those deadlines are created by pressing or critical situations that are a product of the game we signed up for. They are certainly not emergencies, and they are only urgent because, collectively, we have decided they are urgent.

It’s a game we’re all playing.

What Game Did You Sign Up For?

I don’t know exactly what game you signed up for, but you’re playing one. You have ambitions and goals you’re striving for that will make you the winner of your game. For some of you, winning your game means being independently wealthy. For some of you, it’s getting the approval of others. Still, others believe they have won when they are happily married, living in their dream home, and have 2.5 children (Apparently, the rules to this particular game have changed a bit because a quick internet search reveals the average number of children per household in the United States has dropped below 2.0. So, if you have 5.0 kids, does that mean you are dominating the game at a Hall of Fame level, or have you epically failed? Ha)

The pressure to play your game well is so intense and ever-present that it can feel like your urgency is an emergency. My point is that this conflation of the terms urgency and emergency is rooted in believing the game you are playing supersedes God’s reign and rule over your life as the sovereign and providential King who created, sustains, and directs all things.

Perhaps you’re reading this and thinking, “I get it, and I agree, but I am genuinely not sure what game I am playing.” To which I would reply, “Exactly!”

We are all so caught up in the reality distortion field that our games create that we can’t see the proverbial trees through the forest. Expectations, deadlines, abuses of brilliant technology, and the like have warped our perception of reality so that we cannot think independently of the zeitgeist and ask ourselves, “Is this what God wants for us?”

If you’re unsure what game you’re playing, you’ve never challenged the status quo, stepped back far enough to see the entire playing field, or asked yourself if you want to keep playing.

The Game You’re Playing Defines Your Identity

Again, remember the last time you felt a sense of urgency. Who set the deadline? What was the consequence of not being on time? Why was meeting the deadline so important to you? Whether you realize it or not, it’s because you believe your dignity and worth, both products of your identity, are associated with meeting the urgent demand.

Tim Keller suggested three questions we all must answer for ourselves. The answers reveal where we find our identity and, in turn, our dignity and worth. Simultaneously, these three questions reveal what game we are playing because they reveal what we desire, why we want it, and why everything becomes urgent.

Keller’s questions are as follows:

• To what do I aspire?

• What am I worth?

• Who gets to say?

Whether or not you have consciously acknowledged it, you aspire to things you believe validate your worth. Whatever your life aspiration, your worth is found in how well you fulfill and live it out. If you aspire to be a police officer, you are only worthy if you are a police officer. If you aspire to be a wife with children, you are only worthy if you are a wife with children.

The final question is the most important of the three. Who gets to say if you are worthy? Who evaluates how well you are fulfilling your aspiration?

Does the court of public opinion get to say? Is it your parents? Friends? Boss? Spouse? The people who follow you on social media? Is there an institution you have subjected yourself to? Or have you decided only to allow you to say if you are worthy?

There is a reason we are all so prone to looking for validation through the answers to Keller’s three questions. It’s because we were designed by God to desire approval, find our identity in that approval, and live our lives as the overflow of said identity. Every image-bearer alive today is designed by God to seek His approval, recognize we can only find approval through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus, find our identity, and therefore our dignity and worth, in Jesus and the Gospel, and choose to do the good works God has prepared for us to do (Ephesians 2:8-10).

Believers in Jesus understand that the answer to Keller’s three questions encapsulates how they should think about their lives. From this train of thought, I started to develop the definition I use for being a cultivator.

Cultivator: An image-bearer who has been redeemed through faith alone in Christ alone, who is humbly and intentionally crafting a faithful, Christ-centered, Coram Deo lifestyle in which every decision and action is the overflow of their identity as a Cultivator, courageously stewarding their abilities, opportunities, obligations, and responsibilities for the good of others and the glory of God, enjoying God all the while.

Therefore, the problem isn’t that we seek approval and identity. The problem is that we strive to find approval and identity in all the wrong places. Instead of stepping back and evaluating how our society and culture are pulling us in all sorts of random, sinful directions, we simply go with the flow, inadvertently sign up for a game, and begin playing the game as if our entire identity depends on winning the game because, ultimately, that’s what we believe about ourselves.

There are more issues with this than we can unpack in this article, but to understand how it creates a false sense of urgency, let’s focus on this: When you give the power to say how worthy you are to anyone or anything other than God, you strive for an identity that must be achieved. If you have to achieve your identity, then your identity is at risk 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. The game never ends, and you must constantly strive to win because your dignity and worth are continually on the line. The next deadline, which could make or break your identity, is always just around the corner.

Stop Trying to Achieve Your Identity By Winning Your Game

“Christianity gives you the only identity that is received and not achieved.” Tim Keller

Christianity proclaims that all who believe in Christ as their Savior receive their identity as part of God’s glorious grace. In Christ, the believer cannot earn or lose their identity because it’s found in what Christ has already done.

Therefore, Christians do not subject themselves to the judgment of anyone except God because Christians know their worth and identity have been secured in Christ.

1 Corinthians 4:3–4: But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.

This realization frees the Christian from playing games and, in turn, from the endless sense of urgency that games force upon their players. When one finds one's identity in Christ because one recognizes that one is a hopeless sinner saved by grace through faith alone in Christ alone, one stops playing games and starts living for Christ.

When you combine an identity in Christ with growing your trust in God’s sovereign and providential directing of your life, you realize God ensures that everything of any eternal value or temporal significance is accomplished according to His timetables. This empowers you, as the believer in Christ, to intentionally pick and choose the game you will play and decide to play it for God’s glory rather than your own.

When you truly understand this, and you begin to craft a lifestyle focused on glorifying God rather than winning imaginary games, nothing is urgent.

Give Me Your Feedback

I plan to write a follow-up to this article, but I want it to interact with your questions, thoughts, and even direct challenges to what I have written. Leave a comment, shoot me a direct message, text me, etc. Give me your feedback so I can create a “part 2” of this article that addresses it.

I hope to have the follow-up article out before the New Year, so get your thoughts to me ASAP.

But, of course, nothing is urgent.

Over the last few years, I have developed a growing desire to go out into the wilderness and survive untethered from society and modern conveniences for a week or more. I can’t put my finger on when this urge started or why it continues to grow, but the other day, I stumbled upon B.O.S.S. Inc., read up a bit on their website, and thought, “I’m gonna do this!”

I don’t know diddley about how to survive in the wilderness. I can probably count the number of times I’ve gone camping on two hands. I’m just not that guy, but something in me wants to escape to the wilderness for a week.

I sent a few friends the link to the B.O.S.S. website and asked, “Is this interesting to you?”

Everyone said yes.

The Fear of Being Unreachable

Do you want to hear something crazy? I’m not worried about whether I could physically complete a 7-day romp in the wilderness with the help of a guide or two. I know my friends could do it too. I’m not worried about snake bites, bear attacks, or anything related to wildlife. The one thing that keeps coming to my mind is this: What if some sort of emergency happens and I can’t be reached because I’m in the backcountry of south-central Utah?

In other words, the idea of being unreachable is the most anxiety-producing aspect of the thought of being in the wilderness for a few days. Some of you who know me might think, “Kurt, this makes sense. Your wife is battling terminal cancer.” Great point. I certainly don’t plan to do this trip anytime soon. But as I’ve pondered this potential trip more and more, I realize that being unreachable for a few days would concern me regardless of Da’Nelle’s cancer.

Evidence in my life proves I’ve become increasingly anxious about being unreachable.

About once a year, Da’Nelle and I have escaped to an all-inclusive resort on a beach for four or five nights. Years ago, upon arrival, Da’Nelle and I would turn our phones off, lock them in the safe in our room, and not touch them until it was time to start the journey home. It was glorious. But over the years, I’ve slowly moved away from that tradition by checking my phone once a day. Then checking it before we left the room for meals. Now, I check it more frequently than I’d like to admit.

Why? Because I’ve slowly become less and less willing to be fully untethered, off the grid, and unreachable for any amount of time.

So, I’ve been thinking about how ridiculous it is that being unreachable is my greatest fear when considering a seven-day trip into the wilderness. How did I get this way?

Fear of Being Unreachable is a New Phenomenon

We often forget how brand new so many anxiety-causing stresses are to humanity. For example, if you were born before the turn of the century, you probably have a childhood memory of going on the classic American road trip as a family.

You set out early one morning in the family car for an adventure that was equally glorious and miserable. Looking back now, you’re not exactly sure what compelled your parents to orchestrate and lead such a paradoxical trip, but for reasons you can’t fully articulate, you’re glad they did. You’re likely excited to take your family on an equally ridiculous road trip, or perhaps you already did, and reading this forced you to reckon with the reality that you’ve become your parents.

As you reflect on your boring, action-packed, miserable, fantastic road trip, consider how unreachable you were.

In the early 1990s, my family drove from our home in Longmont, Colorado, through Yellowstone and Glacier National Park, into Canada, and back home. It must have been a 10-day trip.

There was no cell phone or car phone (remember those?). There was no way for friends or family to reach us in an emergency (I asked my parents if they had left a list of phone numbers for the places we would be staying with our grandparents or someone like that, and they said they did not). It was just the four of us, unreachable, traveling some tremendous American highways.

What if a family member had a heart attack or even passed away? How would we find out? In the 1990s, the assumption was we would find out when we returned home. In the case of an emergency, there would have likely been a voicemail waiting for us on the answering machine, spoken in a monotone, melancholy voice, saying, “Hi guys, I hope you had a great trip. Something’s happened. Call me as soon as you get a chance.”

My parents took my brother and me off the grid for 10 days, and no one thought it was weird. No one wrote a blog post about our great family adventure off the grid was and how wonderful it was being unreachable because everyone did it, and it was utterly unremarkable.

That was roughly 30 years ago, and at this point, it sounds completely insane.

But why?

Until the last 20 years, being unreachable was just part of life. We all did it all the time without much thought.

When you think about it, we were all unreachable, often for hours at a time, on a daily basis. I could tell you a thousand adventures of wandering around the neighborhood I grew up in. My friends and I roamed free and created lifelong memories. Do you know who is never included in those stories because they weren’t there? Parents, adults, and anyone over the age of about 12.

It’s hard to imagine now, but up until about 20 or 25 years ago, if you wanted to communicate at all with your friends outside of school hours, you had to muster up enough courage to pick up a landline phone and call their house, knowing full well one of their parents might answer (this was incredibly nerve-racking when calling that special someone you couldn’t stop thinking about), and communicate in real-time with no time to craft a clever, well thought out response. It took some real courage and communication skills. So, far too often, we just waited to talk with our friends until we saw them at school the next day.

Not only was the one landline per household a hindrance to being reachable but what about all the time we spent out and about in the neighborhood? We were completely unreachable if we were across the street at our friend's house. What friend of mine would dare call my friend's house looking for me? Only a fool who wanted to be told by my friend’s parents how completely rude and ridiculous it was for me to call their house looking for me (For what it’s worth, I lived across the street from Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, and imagining what they might have said to a person calling their house asking to talk to me has me cracking myself up.)

Simultaneously, your parents were unreachable as well. They didn’t take work calls at home because if you dialed their work phone number, a phone at work would ring, not your home phone. Adults didn’t call each other to talk about random stuff, either. At least not the adults I knew. Phone calls were primarily for planning upcoming get-togethers and events or catching up with people you hadn’t seen in a long time.

Life is so incredibly different now. Yesterday, on Thanksgiving, a friend and I exchanged text messages about mattresses, mattress temperature controls, measuring sleep data, etc. We’re super cool like that!

It was early in the morning before our families were up for the day, and we text about this stuff all the time. It was a great back-and-forth on a holiday. But before the turn of the century, there’s no chance my friend and I would have communicated in any way on Thanksgiving. That conversation would have happened the next time we saw each other at a local sporting event or got together for coffee (Actually, did middle-aged men get together for coffee before the Starbucks revolution changed how we live our lives?).

I could go on for hours about how much our lifestyles have changed and why we are so afraid to be unreachable, so here’s my point: The fear of being unreachable is a brand-new, fresh out-of-the-box, mint-condition fear in the history of humanity. It’s not rationale. In fact, I think you could make a pretty strong case that we were designed by God to be unreachable and that the ways we are currently using breakthroughs in communication technology go against the grain of God’s design.

Always Reachable, Yet Unreachable

Here is where the rubber meets the road: Being connected to all the people all the time leaves us unreachable by the One being to which we should always be connected. We all struggle to disconnect, sit with an actual paper Bible, and read and pray for more than five minutes without our phones distracting us, disconnecting us from God, and making us unreachable.

This type of time alone with God is critical to our spiritual health. We often forget that early in the mornings, Jesus used to escape the crowds and make Himself unreachable to pray and be with God the Father. He left the Disciples behind to be alone with the Father in the final hours before His arrest, trial, and crucifixion. We even have a record of Jesus spending all night in prayer.

In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God.--Luke 6:12

Being unreachable was part of what He knew He needed to do to fulfill His purpose in life.

Doesn’t that mean being unreachable by society should be part of the regular rhythm of our lives as well?

Your Mission Should You Choose to Accept It

When was the last time you were unreachable for a nontrivial amount of time? I haven’t turned my phone off in months, maybe even years. Have you? How do we start to strengthen and develop our ability to be unreachable?

Below are three missions of increasing unreachability. I’d be thrilled if you tried them and told the Cultivators community about your experiences in the comments so we can all learn and grow together.

Beginner Level Mission

Grab a paper Bible, start a 20-minute timer on your phone, set your phone down across the room, and do nothing but read and pray for 20 minutes.

Intermediate Level Mission

Turn your phone off for three hours. Do whatever you’d like, but refrain from connecting with someone who isn’t physically present—no using your tablet or laptop to text, email, or doom scroll. Just you and the people in your presence for three hours.

Advanced Level Mission

Schedule three days off the grid. Why three days? In his book The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self, Michael Easter outlines a three day off the grid protocol recommended by David Strayer, who Easter describes as “a hardcore nature junkie, a University of Utah neuroscientist, and the world’s foremost expert on how cell phones affect attention and the brain.” Sayer recommends three days out in the wilderness, but for our purposes, let’s go with three days of no texting, email, or doom scrolling and only receiving calls in case of a genuine emergency.

I think I have a plan in place in my life to achieve all three of these missions by the end of the first weekend of January. Lord willing, it all comes to fruition and I can report back as I achieve them in real-time over the next several weeks.

What do you get if you subscribe to Cultivstors?

Nothing.

You get nothing extra compared to a free subscription.

Yep. You read that correctly.

Allow me to explain.

I write Cultivators articles for myself. I ponder, process, and finalize my thinking through writing.

I share Cultivators articles with everyone for free in the hope that my perspective might be helpful to you as you strive to craft a Christ-centered lifestyle. I’m not trying to become a writer, whatever that even means, or turn a side hustle into a dependable income stream.

Also, I’ve tried to make my creative endeavors a dependable income stream before, and it’s not for me for two reasons:

1. When it comes to writing, I don’t like deadlines or expectations. I don't like the pressure of feeling like I need to post something because people are paying me to post.

2. Attempting to write stuff people will pay for messes with my creative process. I fall too easily into the trap of writing content that sells instead of writing about what interests me and is hopefully helpful to you.

So why offer a paid version at all? Two reasons:

1. If you believe my articles provide value in our world and you think $5 per month of your hard-earned dollars is worth tipping me for my work, then you should have that option.

2. While I can post here on Substack for free, the reality is that if 100% of Substack’s creators posted without charging, Substack would eventually go bankrupt because Substack keeps a percentage of subscription revenue to run the website. In that scenario, Substack would have to start selling ads and clutter the app (think Facebook or X) to prevent bankruptcy. Therefore, allowing you to tip me is part of how I contribute responsibly to the Substack community. If that sounds like a backdoor way to convince you to pay me couched in altruism, I suppose I am guilty as charged. However, my ambitions are altruistic. I just want to share my thoughts, and I hope to post them here on Substack in a financially sustainable way.

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Author’s note: I’ve completely overhauled this post from August because I broke two of the rules for myself mentioned in this post. I wrote an article during football season and didn’t obsess over quality. This post-football season version, in my opinion, is vastly superior and worth your time to read.

Cultivator: An image-bearer who has been redeemed through faith alone in Christ alone, who is humbly and intentionally crafting a faithful, Christ-centered, Coram Deo lifestyle in which every decision and action is the overflow of their identity as a Cultivator, courageously stewarding their abilities, opportunities, obligations, and responsibilities for the good of others and the glory of God, enjoying God all the while.

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Being a Cultivator is an Art

Human life has a story arc with scenes established by the Creator. Cultivators embrace their place in God’s masterpiece, choosing colors and placing brush strokes as the Creator empowers and enables.

Cultivating a Christ-centered lifestyle is an art.

Productivity Culture

However, a machine-like creature walks the streets in the ethos of American life. His name is Productivity Culture. He is the product of efficiency, tactics, and strategies designed to maximize everything from profit to sleep to spiritual health. He eats to-do lists for breakfast, gets high on productivity software, posts articles with titles like 101 Reasons Leisure is for Idiots, has perfect sleep hygiene, and does workouts custom-designed by the AI algorithms on his wearables.

His life lacks spontaneity, intuition, and free-flowing contemplation. He believes he wastes zero seconds per day and has reams of data to prove it. He and his followers are convinced they can live well over 100 years old and die having started and sold dozens of businesses, amassed great fortunes, given away more money than most people make in a lifetime, and left an impact felt throughout eternity.

In its worst form, even rest, relaxation, and relationships are indulged in to rejuvenate just enough to increase your productivity.

It’s not machine learning. It’s machine living.

There are elements of Productivity Culture that are good and right. The Cultivator’s desire to steward every second of his life to the glory of God can easily be conflated with Productivity Culture. Tactics to increase efficiency and strategies for streamlining and systematizing life certainly have their place in crafting a Christ-centered lifestyle, but they are tools the Cultivator uses in his art, not how he lives out Productivity Culture. We must be careful not to turn being God’s Cultivator into crafting a no-fun, uber-efficient, machine-like existence.

An Alternative: Slow Productivity

This is why I have always appreciated Cal Newport’s approach to productivity, which focuses on creating a deep lifestyle. He affectionately refers to the concept as the Deep Life. In his book Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout, Newport lays out the three keys to a productive life that never succumbs to the pressures of Productivity Culture:

• Do fewer things

• Work at a natural pace

• Obsess over quality

To my knowledge, Newport is not a believer in Christ, but when it comes to living Coram Deo (before the face of God), he has hit the nail on the head.

Picture your most recent stressed-out, burnt-out, overwhelmed moment of frustration and inability to keep up with the lifestyle you’ve crafted. Now, picture Jesus sitting next to you and you turning to Him and saying, “Lord, I’m trying so hard to steward every second of my life for Your glory. I work hard and do more and more, and it just feels like it’s never enough and that I’m not enough.”

Picture it. Feel it.

I don’t know precisely what Jesus would say. I need to be careful not to pretend I do and wrongfully speak for Him, but don’t you think there’s a better-than-average chance He would encourage you to do fewer things, work at a natural pace, obsess over quality, and trust that you will accomplish all that He has planned in the days that He has numbered for you?

The reality that being a cultivator is an art and that Productivity Culture is not equivalent to Godly stewardship struck me afresh this summer while enjoying a week in the Colorado mountains with Da’Nelle and her family. A few months into Da’Nelle’s fight against terminal glioblastoma, I finished Newport’s book while sitting on the deck of a cabin that resembled the book’s cover art.

Da’Nelle’s terminal cancer diagnosis, the isolation in the mountains with people I love, and the reality that I was just weeks away from the start of the school year and another season as the head football coach at Lincoln Christian was the perfect recipe for an honest evaluation of my lifestyle before the Lord.

Do Fewer Things

Ironically, or perhaps better stated, according to God’s providential influence, I had been cutting responsibilities from my life for about three years before Da’Nelle’s diagnosis. After much contemplation and prayer, I slowly stepped back from various roles in my life, one at a time. Newport’s book and this moment on the deck in the Colorado mountains seemed to reinforce the idea that doing fewer things was a far better way to steward my capacity.

Da’Nelle’s terminal cancer forced me to eliminate everything that was not essential or that I didn’t feel called to do in my life at the end of January 2024. As the months have passed, I’ve realized that being her caretaker has afforded me a silver lining: I have a reason to do fewer things, and the world doesn’t expect me to do more or keep up with Productivity Culture.

I have a license to eliminate. To do fewer things. And I’ve maximized it.

As I write this, it’s nearly Thanksgiving of 2024, and I haven’t been in a self-induced hurry since January.

For reasons I can’t fully explain, I had more fun as a football coach this year while helping my wife walk through terminal cancer than I’ve had in years. Maybe, just maybe, a critical factor in my having fun was that Da’Nelle and I had to do only the things we felt called to do, and doing fewer things helped us find joy even in the most challenging season of our lives.

Work at a Natural Pace

One of my favorite takeaways from Newport’s concept of work at a natural pace is the idea of seasonality or seasonal productivity. In describing what he means by work at a natural pace, Newport encourages his readers to establish sustainable timelines and allow for variations of intensity in their work as the seasons of each year ebb and flow.

Don’t rush your most important work. Allow it instead to unfold along a sustainable timeline, with variations in intensity, in settings conducive to brilliance.

Work at a natural pace has led me to two major conclusions:

• No working on any projects or new ideas during football season.

• Blocking off three weeks in December and three weeks in May as my official slow seasons.

No projects or new ideas during football season

For a high school head football coach, football season is like being the CEO of a company with about 40 employees who release a new product every week. Friday Night Lights is akin to the proverbial product launch, with the company's CEO presenting the product features to the crowd's oohs and aahs. It’s a series of short sprints, with short breaks on the weekend, and every Friday night, you put your new, improved version of your team out on the field to compete.

It’s a ton of fun. I’ve been addicted to it my whole life. During the season, it’s all-consuming.

Why on earth would I ever try to work on a project outside of my role at Lincoln Christian School or get the ball rolling on a new idea I have during football season? I have no idea but ask 35-year-old me. He had many reasons why that was a good idea. It wasn’t. He’s dumb. And any progress he did make on those projects or ideas was minimal and not worth the stress, anxiety, and exhaustion.

Slow Seasons

This concept is more readily embraced by believers with vocations with naturally busy and slow seasons, but most anyone can execute it creatively.

As a teacher and coach, I am blessed with two, three-week chunks of time when I can slow down and the world won’t judge me. Ha. In light of my new-found commitment to genuinely making those three-week timeframes slow seasons, I will protect those weeks and not allow myself to find projects and new ideas that consume my attention and energy.

(I know some of you are thinking, “Isn’t the summer a slow season?” Yes, but not really. June and July include a lot of camps, time in the weight room with athletes, etc. Yes, I do go on vacation during that time, but the end of each semester marks two seasons of the year in which I don’t have something coming up in the next several days with students.)

During my slow season, I might write a lot without expecting to finish anything or meet a self-induced deadline. I might complete several checklists and enjoy progressing on something that doesn’t need to be completed for several more weeks or months. But I am not setting any big goals or expectations for myself. I will work at a leisurely, natural pace during those slow seasons, and I will take at least a week or so in both seasons to be officially “on vacation.”

Obsess Over Quality

If you’re going to do it, you might as well do it really well, right? That’s the crux of Newport’s final paradigm-shifting recommendation for slow productivity. His book has some great insights on how to obsess over quality, but I want to use the concept differently.

Cultivators should use obsessing over quality as a critical metric for determining whether they have room in their Christ-centered lifestyle to start something new. In other words, Cultivators should say no to everything they don’t have time to obsess over the quality of. If you can’t carve out the time to obsess over quality, you either have to say no to it or restructure your entire approach to getting it done.

The creation and development of Cultivators, appearing only on Substack, are a great example of how I have chosen to apply Newport’s final principle. As mentioned earlier, I did not write at all during football season. I made that decision because, during football season, I need to obsess over being the best teacher and head football coach I can be. I simply do not have the capacity to obsess over the quality of our football program and produce quality writing. I didn't write for Cultivators during football to focus on stewarding being a head football coach well.

Now that it’s the offseason for football, I am committed to writing and creating content for Cultivators for 30-40 minutes daily. In light of obsessing over quality, I don’t make any deadlines. Instead, I set aside 30-40 minutes every morning to write, think, refine, etc. I publish an article when I feel like the article has hit my standard for quality. This approach allows me to tinker, ponder, pray, rewrite, and serendipitously stumble across great ideas without feeling like I have to publish at least once a week because that’s how you grow a following. God will increase the readership if He so chooses. I must focus on producing the best quality work possible and turn the readership numbers over to Him.

Be Intentional, Not Busy

Christians should craft Christ-centered lifestyles in which every hour is intentionally invested in craft, contemplation, community, constitution, and celebration. The goal is to live an intentional life before the Lord, not a busy one. Remember, business is Cultivator Enemy #1.

I started Cultivators as an outlet for my thoughts on crafting a Christ-centered lifestyle. The words craft and lifestyle are at the heart of what I want to create in my own life and inspire in the lives of others. My ideas, perspectives, and tips are not necessarily intended to help you increase personal productivity, become more organized, or become a minimalist. Instead, Cultivators is about crafting a lifestyle that honors God.

A Christ-centered lifestyle will probably lead to more personal productivity, organization, and decluttering. But those things must be a mere byproduct of stewarding well the opportunities, obligations, and responsibilities God has given you. 

Cultivator: An image-bearer who has been redeemed through faith alone in Christ alone, who is humbly and intentionally crafting a faithful, Christ-centered, Coram Deo lifestyle in which every decision and action is the overflow of their identity as a Cultivator, courageously stewarding their abilities, opportunities, obligations, and responsibilities for the good of others and the glory of God, enjoying God all the while.

Cultivators aren’t trying to master life. Instead, they enjoy and worship God, see themselves as living sacrifices, and think deeply and carefully about how to live, enjoying God along the way. Their goal isn’t to master life but to grow in understanding why life matters and how to live.

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For some reason, however, we all live as if we will live forever and have no reason to carefully steward every second of our lives. We jam our days full of business rather than meaningfulness and spend our spare time doom-scrolling, numbing ourselves with excessive food and drink, kicking our feet up while our 75-inch TVs entertain us, and isolating ourselves from one another.

That is, until the ultimate interrupting factor enters our lives: death.

Eventually, we all must face the reality of death. Some people have a brush with death at a young age. Others lose a loved one. Some face terminal diseases. Others are in a midlife crisis while still others are walking through the sunset years of their lives.

These situations, and many more, force us to confront the reality of our finitude. This life is temporary. As we look down the corridor of time, the length of our lives amounts to about as much time as a drop of water amounts to the mass of the ocean.

Death focuses a person’s attention on what truly matters. Death has a way of sobering our minds and whittling life down to what matters most. Acknowledging the frailty of life, embracing the unknown length of our lives, and crafting a Christ-centered lifestyle accordingly ought to be the common-sense response every believer has to the reality of death.

But we do the opposite.

In Living Life Backward, David Gipson describes our tendency to live as if death isn’t coming as a lifelong game of make-believe. We toil, indulge, and pontificate as if time isn’t consistently and rapidly marching toward death. We don’t like to think about life in light of death because, if we’re being honest, most of us are uncomfortable wrestling with what life should look like in light of the fact that Christ died for our sins, and we’re all going to be dead relatively soon.

Crafting a lifestyle that proclaims to the world that Jesus is your Lord and Savior and that you fully embrace the brevity of your life is hard work. It’s counter-culture and counter-intuitive.

Despite our resistance, as Gipson articulates, death ought to be a powerful reminder of how to live.

But preparing to die, and to die well, does not mean drawing the curtains and dressing in black and thinking morbid thoughts. Preparing to die means thinking about how to live.1

Death forces us to count the cost of every day and ponder how each day ought to be stewarded. It forces us to ask ourselves if we spend our limited time wisely. It causes us to consider if our time could be invested rather than simply spent.

Crafting a Christ-centered lifestyle means deconstructing cultural assumptions and rebuilding your life from the ground up. It means being willing to let go of this world's patterns and using God’s Word and the Spirit as the lead architects of the design of your life in Christ.

So what does that look like?

Here are some starter questions to ask yourself:

• Is your definition of a successful life rooted in achievements your culture values, or in making choices Jesus values?

• Does it make sense for a Cultivator to ever be in a self-induced hurry?

• What does how you spend, save, and give your money away say about the lifestyle you’ve created for yourself? Does the money tell of a Christ-centered life or a life centered on the ideals of your culture?

• How often do you compare yourself and your lifestyle to others? Does someone else’s lifestyle have anything to do with the lifestyle God calls you to craft?

• Most of you reading this live in a place where a 40-hour work week is considered full-time employment. Would Jesus say 40 hours is full-time? Would He say it’s more or less time? What other assumptions about your time are imposed on you by your culture and not by a Biblical perspective on time?

• What things are you striving to accomplish or aiming to provide for you and your family that have little value?

• Are you so busy you’re neglecting your health? Do you sleep at least 6-7 hours per night? Are you slowing down enough to eat meals that aren’t highly processed and are slowly killing you?

It’s shocking to hear your life described this way in God’s Word. It’s even more shocking to read that the vanity of life caused an author in God’s Word to hate life and find it grievous.

So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.--Ecclesiastes 2:17

Life under the sun or outside of the Garden of Eden, unprotected from the symbolic shade of God’s care, is a futile pursuit of vanity with little more substance than a puff of smoke fading into the atmosphere. Time ticks along. We all face the same fate. Wisdom, riches, or longevity of health can prevent it.

For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool!--Ecclesiastes 2:16

And yet, as David Gipson so beautifully points out in his book Living Life Backward, we all scurry about completely denying the vanity of life. We hustle, strive, and stress as if our life isn’t a vapor but a strong tower that will be seen and evaluated by the multitudes in future generations.

We strive for that achievement over there, hustle to this important meeting over here, and hurry our children to 32,000 practices, rehearsals, games, and performances.

We compare our lives with the lives of the people in our communities, on social media, and the ideal life we’ve crafted as if anyone is going to care in two generations.

Can you name all of your great, great grandparents? Do you have any idea whether or not they were considered successful in their day? And if you can name them and you do know a little about their lives, does any of that knowledge matter at all?

We hustle about as if it does, in complete denial of the teachings of Ecclesiastes.

We live as if life is something to be mastered, but God’s Word teaches us it isn’t.

“Life is meant to be enjoyed, not mastered.” David Gipson

As many of you know, on January 27, 2024, Da’Nelle woke up in the middle of the night to a grand mal seizure. There were no warning signs, no signals telling us something might be off about Da’Nelle’s health. Out of left field and in the dark of night, a life-altering event careened down on our existence with the force of 10,000 hurricanes.

My parents happened to be staying with us that night, so as Da’Nelle convulsed and went through the phases of a grand mal seizure, I yelled for help. In the middle of the night, I stood at our bedside, ensuring Da’Nelle was safe, calling out to my mom and dad, reduced to a helpless little boy crying for his parents.

It was awful.

Though I didn’t know it then, that was the first stage in an eight-week journey culminating in a diagnosis of glioblastoma, a terminal and highly aggressive cancer of the brain (You can read more about our journey here).

That eight-week journey and the months that followed are a bit of a blur, but somewhere in February or March, I decided to read Ecclesiastes. I’ve read it many times before, and I have always found it comforting. But this time, it felt different.

I had been hit over the head with life's vanity, and it felt like I was almost literally watching the life Da’Nelle and I had built together waft away like the smoke from a bonfire. I was grasping for purpose and meaning and hoping I’d find comfort in Ecclesiastes yet again.

And I did. But this time was different.

A few months later, a friend bought me a copy of Gipson’s book Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live Life in Light of the End. As I read it, I was transfixed by Gipson’s analysis of Ecclesiastes.

When all was said and done, [The Preacher] was left staring at the cold, hard fact of life’s brutal emptiness. And yet his conclusion is ultimately positive and profound: “The gift of God does not make this meaningless go away; the gift of God makes this vanity enjoyable.” 

What does it mean to love life and the world if it’s passing away, and if I’m meant to enjoy God and live for Christ first and foremost? Let me say that the two things go hand in hand absolutely beautifully, and this is the reason: in the created world, you can only enjoy what you do not worship.

Over time, I came to this realization: In Christ, the vanity of life is made enjoyable.

I’ve come to accept the vanity of life. I now recognize how frequently my ambitions and attitudes are formulated as attempts to deny the vanity of life or somehow fool myself into thinking I could muster up enough achievements or accolades to live the first ever unvain life in human history. I’ve realized that so much of what it means to not conform to this world and be transformed by the renewal of our minds is to embrace the reality that life is vain and can only be enjoyed in Christ.

Da’Nelle insisted that I continue as head coach of the Lincoln Christian School football team this fall. I was initially hesitant, but she explained that if I wanted her to enjoy what might be one of her final autumns, I needed to coach. So I did.

I wrestled with football's vanity all season. I often pondered how winning silly games like football or basketball has become important to Americans. I often struggled to find the motivation to be as excellent as possible as a coach and consistently pondered if all the time and effort had ever been truly worth it.

I found myself focusing more and more on enjoying the relationships, the time with team, and the American tradition of Friday night lights. But it wasn’t easy. Late in the season, I needed a reminder right in the middle of my game sheet.

Does the Christian have great purpose and meaning in this life that protects their life from being nothing but vanity? Absolutely. As the Westminster Catechism says, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” To live for God’s glory and enjoy God forever is the opposite of vanity.

But we live in a sinful, fallen world. To engage in culture to make enough money to provide subsistence, we must engage in various forms of vanity. Ecclesiastes teaches us to embrace vanity, recognize it for what it is, and realize we are called to enjoy it because this vain life is not all there is.

A day is coming when all who put their faith in Christ as Lord and Savior will live in a perfect and sinless new creation, enjoying all of our favorite aspects of this life together as acts of worship and in the presence of the Lord. And, yes, that means that someday I will enjoy every aspect of coaching football without one hint of vanity and free from the worries of this life. I’m not sure what that will look like, but I believe one aspect of Heaven is enjoying our previously vain pursuits as acts of worship that glorify God and deepen our enjoyment of Him forever.

Ecclesiastes teaches us that we are called to start figuring that out and practicing it in this life.

But walking the streets in the ethos of American life is a way of life best described as productivity culture. It’s the byproduct of efficiency, tactics, and strategies designed to maximize everything from profit to sleep to spiritual health. Rooted in our God-given desires to subdue the earth, it’s devoid of spontaneity, intuition, and stream-of-consciousness forms of contemplation.

It’s not machine learning. It’s machine living.

In its worst form, even rest, relaxation, and relationships are indulged in to rejuvenate just enough to increase your productivity. 

Efficiency, tactics, and strategies certainly have their place in crafting a Christ-centered lifestyle, but it’s an art nonetheless. We must be careful not to turn being God’s Cultivator into crafting a no-fun, uber-efficient, machine-like existence.

This is why I have always appreciated Cal Newport’s approach to productivity, which focuses on creating a deep lifestyle. He affectionately refers to the concept as the Deep Life.

With all that being said, we all have a calling that demands 40, 60, or even 80 hours of our weeks. My point is not that Christians shouldn’t “work” more than 40 hours per week. My point is that Christians should craft Christ-centered lifestyles in which every hour is intentionally invested in craft, contemplation, community, contemplation, and celebration.

To be God’s cultivator is to craft and to craft is an art.

Cultivator: An image-bearer who has been redeemed through faith alone in Christ alone, who is humbly and intentionally crafting a faithful, Christ-centered, Coram Deo lifestyle in which every decision and action is the overflow of their identity as a Cultivator, courageously stewarding their abilities, opportunities, obligations, and responsibilities for the good of others and the glory of God, enjoying God all the while.

But hidden in the challenging days has been a hidden gem of a realization: I haven’t been in a hurry for eight months, and I hope never to be hurried by my own lifestyle choices ever again.

There are 168 hours in a week. If you sleep 8 hours per night and spend 80 hours a week working, you still have 4.5 hours of time every day to do whatever you want. The reality is that most of us have plenty of time. What we don’t have is good time management. We lose a lot of “loose change” time (I referred to this as the white space in your calendar here). Little by little, it adds up, and then one day, you realize you have a huge piggy bank full of time you lost along your journey. Unlike actual loose change, however, loose change time can’t be cashed in. It’s gone forever.

But where does all the time go?

Ask almost any suburban American how they are doing, and odds are they’ll respond with some form of, “Good. Busy, but good.” We’re all busy. We all have a lot to do (or do we?). But are we really busy, or do we just like being busy?

As an adjective, the word busy means “having a great deal to do.” Raise your hand if you have a great deal to do (your hand should be up). I don’t need to make a case for how much work there is to be done in modern American life. When we use busy as an adjective, it’s probably a word that is well used. The problem is that we tend to lead busy lives, as in the verb form.

Busy (verb): keep occupied.

Far too many of us are busy in the sense that we keep ourselves occupied. We’re convinced we don’t have any free time, and we wear this busyness as a badge of honor. Being the most busy has become a social rank, almost like being voted most likely to be a millionaire in your high school yearbook.

Tim Ferris, author of The Four Hour Workweek, Tools of Titans, and Tribe of Mentors (just to name a few), isn’t a fan of busyness for the sake of busyness. In fact, Ferriss once said, “Being busy is a form of laziness - lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.”

Author and podcaster Cal Newport echoes Ferriss’ sentiment, saying, “Busyness and exhaustion should be your enemy. If you’re chronically stressed and up late working, you’re doing something wrong. Do less. But do what you do with complete, hard focus. Then when you’re done be done, and go enjoy the rest of your day.”

The world’s most successful people keep schedules that are anything but busy, at least in the verb sense of the word. They have a lot to do and lead busy lives, but they are not busy for the sake of being busy.

That being said, there will be periods when you will be extremely busy. There will be seasons when you are constantly occupied. The days will be long, and sleep will be minimal. There is no escaping the reality that modern life has a way of forcing our hands and causing us to be busy. I’m not trying to downplay that reality. I want you to see how much time is slipping away. Why is time slipping away? For the most part, time slips away because we aren’t intentional about choosing how we spend our time.

Here’s an example to get all of you are old enough to remember the 1990s thinking:

Every Sunday, Apple pushes me a notification outlining my screen time on my iPhone for the week. Each week, when it comes out, I consider the time spent on my device and ask myself, “What would I have done with that time had I been a 40-something in the 1990s instead of the 2020s?

In other words, how would I be living differently if I didn’t have a phone at all?

Similarly, when I talk with teenagers about time management, I ask them to look up their screen time for the week and say, “Every minute you’re spending on your phone during high school, I spent doing something else when I was your age.”

I’m not saying I spent my pre-cell-phone free time well as a high schooler; I’m simply pointing out that I spent my time very differently (as did many of you reading this) and that perhaps that was a good thing.

Think back to Ferris's quote: “Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.” By definition, Cultivators distaste indiscriminate action.

Cultivator: An image-bearer who has been redeemed through faith alone in Christ alone, who is humbly and intentionally crafting a faithful, Christ-centered, Coram Deo lifestyle in which every decision and action is the overflow of their identity as a Cultivator, courageously stewarding their abilities, opportunities, obligations, and responsibilities for the good of others and the glory of God, enjoying God all the while.

Living life Coram Deo or before the face of God should be anything but indiscriminate. Indiscriminate action is the byproduct of a purposeless existence without focus and intention. No one has more inherent purpose and opportunity for focus than Christ's followers.

As I pointed out here, we live in the most distracted and unintentional culture in human history, and being busy or occupied is a symptom of the problem.

Christians should live unhurried, intentional lives filled with contemplation, constitution, community, craft, and celebration.

So, yet again, it all comes back to crafting a Christ-centered lifestyle.

What are some ways you can eliminate busyness from your lifestyle?

That’s a bold statement. Allow me to explain.

Have you ever realized there are about 32,000 versions of the game where you try to invade your opponent's territory and put a ball in or through some sort of net? Here is a list of such games being played in the Paris Olympics:

• Basketball

• Basketball 3x3

• Football (Soccer)

• Handball

• Field Hockey

• Water Polo

Have you ever considered how they are all variations of the same game?

And what about all the games that involve hitting the ball over a net? Here is a list of those types of games being played in Paris:

• Badminton

• Beach Volleyball

• Table Tennis

• Tennis

• Volleyball

Somewhere in human history, we humans started to think it was really cool for people to be good at certain types of games and displays of incredible speed, power, coordination, and concentration. Our list of games and physical accomplishments has shifted and changed over the generations. In the age of the modern Olympics, both the winter and summer games, the sports contested at the Olympics are an approximation of the sports currently deemed to be the coolest to be good at according to the world’s population.

I realize the history of Olympic sports is far more complicated than that, and the addition of recent sports might be more fueled by politics or special interests than what is actually popular. However, if you look at the sports contested in the Olympics at every Olympic Games in your lifetime, you get a solid approximation of what the world collectively believes are the coolest sports to be good at.

Those of you who know Da’Nelle and I know we are lovers of track and field (or, as the rest of the English-speaking world says, athletics). Track and field is sort of the ultimate example of Olympic glory being belief in imaginary identities. Here’s what I mean.

Most of the events in track and field evolved from the appreciation of skills and abilities useful for human survival. Sprinting, running long distances, jumping far, throwing a heavy object or spear, and vaulting over a wall or river were all skills and abilities that made a person more adept in hunting and war. As the events evolved, track and field became a sport that pitted competitors against each other in events that might determine who the greatest hunter and soldier was.

A thousand years ago or even a hundred years ago, track and field events were useful proxies for discovering and developing skills and abilities crucial for individual and community survival. But is that true at all anymore? Do any track and field events serve as a proxy for discovering critical skills and abilities? Not really.

Does it matter who is the fastest, over 100 meters, 1500 meters, or 10,000 meters?

And don’t let the fact that a meter and, therefore, 100 meters, 1,500 meters, and 10,000 meters are completely made-up distances pass by your mind without consideration. The meter itself is a made-up unit of measure that, as we all know, differs from a yard. Even the distances of these races are imaginary constructs of culture.

The imaginary measurements continue in the weights of the implements in the throws events. Did you know the men’s shot weighs an even 16 lbs, but the women’s shot weighs 8.8 lbs? So, the men’s is a whole number in the English measurement system, and the women’s is a whole number in the metric system.

Why? BECAUSE IT’S ALL IMAGINARY BASED ON EVERYONE AGREEING IT MATTERS!

(Sorta like the dollars and cents we all cherish so much.)

So why do we care? Because we’ve bought into the idea that the Olympics proves something about the people who can win a medal. We all believe winning an Olympic medal and earning Olympic glory is a worthwhile endeavor. If we didn’t, the Olympics would slowly cease to exist.

This past weekend, Da’Nelle and I spent countless hours watching the Olympics with some of our best friends. We are all track and field geeks. When the 4x400 mixed relay took the track (an event featuring two men and two women on each relay team) a good discussion about whether or not we thought the event was cool broke out. Why? Because it’s relatively new and amongst the four of us, there were varying opinions on whether or not an Olympic gold medal in the mixed relay was as cool as an Olympic gold medal in one of the traditional events of track and field.

That little anecdote highlights the reality that Olympic glory only exists because we all agree it does.

The really intriguing thing about the Olympics is that the athletes representing their countries are battling for not only their individual identities but also the identities of the nations they represent.

For example, when freshly crowned 100-meter dash Olympic champion Noah Lyles steps onto the track to try and win the 200-meter dash later this week, he’s attempting to cement his place in track and field and Olympic history as one of the all-time great sprinters. His identity and worth as a sprinter are on the line. If he pulls off the 100-meter and 200-meter dash double in near Olympic record times, he will instantly become an all-time great. 

At the same time, I want Noah Lyles to win because he represents my country. US athletes compete on behalf of every American citizen, and our identity and worth as a country are at stake. In the Olympics, when American athletes win, every American wins.

For example, as a lover of track and field, I think Julien Alfred’s story is amazing. Hailing from the tiny Caribbean nation of Saint Lucia, Alfred shocked the world a few days ago, winning the women’s 100-meter dash at the Paris Olympics. As the first Olympic medal winner in Saint Lucian history, Alfred’s life has forever changed. Trust me, she will have a new identity when she gets home. Saint Lucia will celebrate her like she won the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, and the World Series.

Saint Lucia has fewer than 180,000 citizens. In terms of square miles, Rhode Island is over four times bigger than Saint Lucia. But they love their track and field. Look at the picture of their track and field stadium below.

As far as I can tell, that’s an elite track (like the kind you only find at major Division 1 universities in the United States). The fact that a country of fewer than 180,000 people built a track of that caliber tells you all you need to know about how much they have bought into the idea that track and field matters.

Julien Alfred won Olympic gold, but she also changed her identity, at least according to the people in her country, in less than 11 seconds.

But it’s all completely made up, and everyone, regardless of religious conviction, creed, race, or ethnicity, has to say to themselves, “Yeah, we made that up.”

Believers in Christ need to think critically about how to engage in made-up things like Olympic glory and invented identities like the Olympic Gold Medalist. As Jesus said, our house must be built on the rock, not on the shifting sands of make-believe and imaginary identities.

Just to get you thinking…What percentage of our weeks is spent pursuing made-up glory (a bigger house, paying off the mortgage, buying a new car, vacation somewhere special) and imaginary identities (the promotion at work, the job title, the neighborhood yard of the month, top seller)?

And this article is just scratching the surface. I’d love for you to post feedback, thoughts, questions, and ideas in the comments. If we get a fair amount of activity on this post, I’ll write a follow-up article or two that engages with your feedback.

P.S. I wrote this before men’s 1500 and women’s 200…LET’S GO! Cole Hocker and Gaby Thomas did it! (But it’s all made up. LOL)

Cultivator: An image-bearer who has been redeemed through faith alone in Christ alone, who is humbly and intentionally crafting a faithful, Christ-centered, Coram Deo lifestyle in which every decision and action is the overflow of their identity as a Cultivator, courageously stewarding their abilities, opportunities, obligations, and responsibilities for the good of others and the glory of God, enjoying God all the while.

It’s also not odd for me to not be able to let things go when I should.

My obsessive tendencies can be a strength for me. They can also be a curse, pulling me into ridiculous behavior patterns, emotions, and lifestyle choices.

(I’ve learned a lot about directing my obsession, which I wrote about here.)

For example…

It’s August of 2006. I’m 25 years old and just started my first year as a teacher and coach at Lincoln Christian School. It’s my first season on a high school football coaching staff. I’m working hard, trying to contribute however I can.

My August schedule was full.

It’s the start of my second year of teaching, I am new to Lincoln Christian School, and I’m spending roughly six hours per day on football. (That was back when you still did two-a-days, so football consumed a lot of time in mid-August.)

But was I working on things I should be working on?

No. I sat in the living room of the first house Da’Nelle and I bought together, playing NCAA Football 2003 on the original Xbox. I’ve built an incredible dynasty, playing on the Heisman level, exploiting all the nuances and glitches in the game, and winning at will.

At one point that August, I wrapped up my fifth undefeated National Championship season in a row with San Jose State (my great uncle was a QB there in the 50s, so they were my program of choice). For the fifth year in a row, we had gone undefeated and won the national championship and every major offseason award. The Heisman, the player of the year on both sides of the ball, the QB, and the DB of the year, you name it, we won it.

As I finalized the season and got ready to anchor down and dominate recruiting, the game informed me that I had been fired as the head coach of San Jose State for “not meeting program expectations.”

Moment of Clarity

I don’t know why, but suddenly, the ridiculousness of the entire situation struck me like a lightning bolt. I looked around the living room and thought, “I have so many things I should be doing, yet here I sit, obsessed with a video game that’s barely challenging anymore and just fired me despite accomplishing everything possible. WHAT AM I DOING?!”

And with that, despite not being in a rage at all, I did what the kids call rage quitting.

I stood up, walked over to the Xbox, hit the eject button, grabbed the NCAA Football 2003 disc, broke it in half, and threw it in the trash.

It was a calm, rational moment of clarity that would have looked like a rage quit if caught on a surveillance camera.

I proceeded to pull the rest of my games out of the draw below our TV and do the same, breaking each disc in half and putting it in the trash (I kept the Xbox because it was our only DVD player. Ha)

Cultivator Moments

So what? Why do you care?

My moment of clarity was one of my first Cultivator Moments.

At that time, I would have never used that terminology, but this is one of my first memories where I realized not all of my behaviors and choices were helping me craft a Christ-centered lifestyle.

I’m not anti-video games. Just last week, a couple of old friends came over; one brought his Xbox (because I still don’t own one), and we played the newly released NCAA 2025. The point of this story isn’t that video games can’t be part of the Cultivator’s life.

I share this personal anecdote as a funny and memorable way to encourage you to keep your eyes peeled for potential cultivator moments in your life. If you’re looking for them in the coming days, weeks, months, and years, you will likely experience dozens of similar cultivator moments.

Do You Need to Rage Quit Something?

The odds are good you don’t need to rage quit like I did. My obsessive tendencies had to be met with an equally powerful reaction. Ha. So what do you need to do?

Go back to Cultivating a Christ-Centered, Color-Coded Life of Purpose and Intention. You have to pay careful attention to the white space on your calendar. You need to track, ponder, and pray over the white space on your calendar, asking God to reveal to you how to use it for rest and relaxation without falling into the trap of letting your life get sucked away by vain and temporal pursuits.

Other Things I’ve Quit in the Name of Cultivating

I’ve quit social media about 19 times. Instagram is the only social media app I quit and have not returned to yet. Twitter and Facebook keep finding their way back into my life, and I don’t love them. I’ve used many tips and tricks to limit my usage, but they always seem to penetrate the forcefield.

I quit 24-hour news channels several years ago. That quit has stuck, but I did watch almost nonstop during the first several weeks of COVID-19, but I figure that’s acceptable.

(For what it’s worth, I think CNBC is the most helpful news source because they don’t care about anything but the bottom line. I watch it every once in a while, but it’s not exactly a news channel. It’s more like ESPN for stocks. Every time I watch it for a couple of hours, I feel like I know all I need to know for awhile.)

What is something you’re considering quitting after reading this article? Share your ideas in the comments.