In a world obsessed with viral moments and overnight success stories, I find myself drawn to something far more radical: the gentle power of showing up, day after ordinary day. It's a truth that cuts against the grain of our achievement-obsessed culture, yet it has become the cornerstone of my spiritual journey.
We live in an age where everything competes for our attention through bells, badges, and bright flashing notifications. Open any app on your phone and you'll be greeted by streaks to maintain, levels to unlock, and rewards to claim. This gamification of life promises to make the mundane exciting, transforming our daily habits into epic quests worthy of celebration.
I'll admit, there's something appealing about this approach. The dopamine hit of a completed daily challenge, the satisfaction of watching progress bars fill up, the gentle ping of achievement unlocked—these things speak to something deep within us that craves recognition and progress. Yet as I've walked deeper into my faith, I've discovered something unsettling about this external motivation: it feels hollow.
The hollowness isn't immediately apparent. In fact, gamification can be quite effective at driving behavior. But there's something fundamentally different between being nudged toward growth by external rewards and being drawn forward by an internal compass. When I rely on apps and systems to motivate my spiritual practices, I risk being "forced in a direction I don't desire"—or rather, in a direction that isn't truly mine at all.
This realization feels paradoxical for someone seeking to follow Christ. After all, as a disciple, aren't my personal desires supposed to be set aside for His direction? Isn't the whole point of discipleship to surrender my will to His? The tension here has taught me something profound about the nature of spiritual growth.
His direction, I've learned, isn't revealed through grand gestures or dramatic interventions as often as we might expect. Instead, it unfolds in the quiet rhythm of day-to-day faithfulness. It's in the morning prayer before the house wakes up, the moment of gratitude while mowing the yard, the choice to respond with patience instead of frustration. These seemingly small acts of consistency are where divine direction becomes clear—not as an external force pushing us forward, but as an internal alignment that feels as natural as breathing.
Yet we consistently undervalue this day-to-day consistency precisely because it's so easy to overlook. In our Instagram-worthy world, the spectacular gets celebrated while the mundane gets dismissed. We applaud the person who runs a marathon but ignore the daily walker. We celebrate the dramatic conversion story but overlook the quiet believer who has faithfully served for decades. This overlooking of consistency is inherently risky because it causes us to miss where the real transformation happens.
When we risk the seemingly mundane by constantly reaching for the big win, we miss the joys along the journey. And these joys—the small moments of connection with the divine, the gentle sense of growth, the quiet confidence that comes from faithful practice—are a valuable commodity for any disciple of Christ.
I think about the difference between a seed that sprouts quickly in artificial light versus one that grows slowly in natural soil. The first might impress with its immediate progress, but the second develops deep roots that can weather any storm. Consistency is our spiritual soil—unglamorous perhaps, but absolutely essential for sustainable growth.
This doesn't mean I've sworn off all forms of motivation or abandoned helpful tools entirely. Rather, I've learned to distinguish between what serves my spiritual journey and what merely entertains it. The question I've started asking isn't "What will motivate me?" but "What will help me listen more closely to the voice that calls me forward?"
In the end, I've discovered that the most radical thing I can do in our instant-gratification world is to embrace the profound ordinary. To find the sacred in the repetitive. To trust that showing up faithfully, day after day, is itself a form of worship—one that transforms not just what I do, but who I become.