Living Sent: Presence

When life feels like you’re bailing water out of a sinking boat, what if faith isn’t about controlling the storm, but learning to trust the God who is present in it?

Fruit is God’s responsibility. Faithfulness is ours. In this episode, we explore the spiritual discipline of presence, why we make terrible gods, and how learning to trust God with the outcome brings freedom in seasons of uncertainty.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hi, friend, welcome back to Women Under Construction. I'm your host, Katie Wood. If you're new here, this is a space for women who want to follow Jesus honestly and deeply. Not just in the visible moments of ministry or leadership, but in the quiet, ordinary places where real discipleship happens. Because the truth is, most of life isn't lived on stages. It's lived in kitchens, in offices, in carpools, in long prayer walks, and in conversations that no one else will ever see. And yet those are the places where God does his deepest work. Today I want to talk about something that has been reshaping the way I think about calling, about leadership, and about discipleship. It is this idea of faithful presence, the quiet discipline of showing up with God in the ordinary spaces of life, not striving or performing or trying to manufacture spiritual outcomes, but just learning how to be with him and to walk faithfully where he has placed us. Because the more I walk with Jesus, the more I'm realizing something surprising. Calling is rarely dramatic. Most of it is practiced in invisible rooms. So I'm going to open us with a prayer. Lord, would you open our ears to hear from you? Would you allow our hearts to trust you and our wills to boldly and courageously obey, not based on what we see, but on who you are and who you have called us to be. Amen. So grab your Bible, journal a good cup of coffee, and let's get started. I think many of us were unintentionally discipled about calling by a certain story. And the story may be different for you, but I think it could like generally follow this guideline that the calling is big, it's obvious, it's public, that calling oftentimes looks like a stage, a microphone, or a position in ministry, that it can be something like a mission trip, writing a book, or starting something that is visible. And here's the thing those can absolutely be part of God's calling. But what scripture shows us over and over again is that the kingdom of God is almost always beginning in hidden places. Moses spends 40 years in the wilderness before God leads him to lead Israel. David spends years tending sheep before he ever sat on a throne. And Jesus himself spent 30 years in ordinary obscurity before his public ministry began. 30 years. That's like my entire lifetime. That means that the vast majority of Jesus' earthly life was spent in and on what we would probably call like ordinary things. Working, walking, living quietly in community. And yet we know that those years mattered because they formed him. They were not this idea of wasted time. Instead, they were preparation. And I think sometimes we can misunderstand the nature of calling because we only focus on the public moments of someone's story. But God often does his most important work before anyone else is watching. Let's talk about the spiritual discipline of presence. See, recently I was on a prayer walk and I had this quiet realization: not everything has to have a measurable outcome. Not everything has to produce something. Sometimes the holiest thing we can do is simply be with God. See, on this prayer walk, I had started out, and in my mind, I was like, okay, here's my list of things that I want to pray for. Where do I start? Like, who is the Lord placing on my heart? What's heavy right now? And in that moment, I just felt this pressure of like, why do I have to have a to-do list? Why can I not just go on a walk and experience nature and the creation that the Lord has made and just simply rest in his presence? To just look around and say, Lord, the world that you made is so beautiful. Thank you for the sun. Thank you for these flowers that are springing up. Thank you for the birds. Thank you for the way that you have just created the world around us. See, I went on this prayer walk, and in my community, there is this like little walking trail that surrounds a pond. And I've walked around this trail probably since we moved here, like 50, 60 times. And on this walk, it's gotten warmer. Um, and it wasn't until my walk where I had nothing on my plate, no to-do list, except to simply sit with the Lord, that I noticed the sheer amount of turtles in this pond. There were between like 20 and 30 turtles that I counted in this pond. And I just kept looking and saying, like, wow, Lord, like you really have a thing for turtles in this pond. Um, but in that moment, I had walked the same path and I had never seen them before. See, I think we are so used to approaching God with lists. Hear me out. We approach God with prayer lists, with requests, with problems, with next steps. And the thing is, is that he absolutely invites us to bring those things to him. See, scripture tells us, cast your cares on him because he cares for you. But I think we miss out on another kind of prayer, another kind of communion, the kind where we come with nothing but our presence, where we simply sit with him, walk with him, we breathe and we listen and remember that he is near. See, sometimes I think discipleship looks a lot less like striving and more like abiding. John, Jesus says in John 15, um, abide in me and I in you. And I just want us to take a minute and look at that language. It doesn't say perform and abide in me. It doesn't say achieve and I will be in you. It doesn't say produce and I in you. It says abide. Abide means to remain, to stay connected. And then Jesus says something that is very fascinating to me. He says that fruit will come from that connection, which means that fruit is the result of abiding. It's not the result of striving. And see, this is countercultural to what we hear in our world today. We live in a culture that is obsessed with results. Everything is measured: productivity, efficiency, impact, our bodies. And I think sometimes in Christian spaces, we even ask questions that have metrics to them. How many people attended? How many followers did it reach? How big did it grow? And we need the reminder that the kingdom of God if uh it operates differently, it runs in obedience, not outcomes. See, when we look at Jesus as he sends out the disciples, we never hear him say, control the fruit, count the fruit. He told them, Follow me. Our only assignment is faithfulness. Fruit and the product of it is God's responsibility. I love what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3 when he says, I planted, Apollo's watered, but God gave the growth. And isn't that so freeing? We walk, we plant, we show up. But the growth has always been the miracle that God performs. So let's make this practical, right? Because faithful presence is not just this like theological idea, it is a daily practice. And for me, I think that this looks so simply like being attentive. Being attentive to the spirit while you wash your dishes, choosing patience with your children, sending the encouraging text, showing up fully in conversations, doing your work with integrity when no one is watching. See, these are the ordinary moments of life that are not interruptions to our spiritual life. This is where our spiritual life actually happens. I love Paul's writing in Colossians when he says, Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord. Whatever you do. This is not just your ministry tasks. This is everything. Your carpool lines, your emails, the laundry, meetings, meals. These are things that are not spiritual distractions. In fact, they're places where we practice faithful presence. Because we don't walk into our days empty. We arrive inhabited. We know the Holy Spirit lives within us. And so that means every room that we enter becomes a place where the presence of God is carried. Before we talk about the freedom of letting God be God, I want to share honestly about a season I'm walking through right now. Because the truth of the matter is that this episode on presence is not theoretical for me. See, this is something that the Lord is actively teaching me. Right now, I'm in a season that requires me to release control in ways that I would not naturally choose. It's a season where I can't fix everything. I can't control the outcomes. I cannot engineer the healing. And believe me, my first instinct is always to try. My instinct is to solve the problem, to find the strategy, to fix the solution. But God, in all of his grace and mercy, has been gently inviting me into something different. He has been inviting me to open my hands, to stop gripping so tightly, to stop trying to manage everything that feels broken. And instead to pray something so incredibly simple. Lord, thank you for what you are going to do. Not what I can do, but what he will do. My prayers are littered with the idea. Thank you for how you will heal. Thank you for how you will restore. Thank you for how you will lead us through this season. Recently, I used an analogy with a friend that I think it's the best way that I can describe how this season has felt. I'm in a boat and it's not smooth sailing. It feels like someone keeps shooting cannonballs into the boat. And the problem is that they think they're helping. But every time one lands, another hole just opens up. And I'm inside that boat with a bucket, just trying to keep the water from filling up faster than I can scoop it out. Just trying to keep that boat from sinking bucket after bucket. And for a while, that's honestly how it felt. Like I was alone in that boat. Just me and my bucket trying to keep things afloat. But recently the Lord has gently shifted my perspective because I'm starting to realize something. I'm not actually alone in that boat. God is there. Right in the midst of the chaos, right in the middle of the water, in the middle of the questions and the uncertainty. And not only that, he has surrounded me with people, with community, with friends who are praying, people who are holding space for the hard season. People who are reminding me of truth when I begin to forget. And suddenly the picture changes because instead of just one exhausted girl with a bucket trying to save a boat, it becomes a place where God is present, where community shows up, where I don't have to carry the whole weight of the situation. And that realization has been so incredibly humbling for me. See, the interesting thing about boats and storms in scripture is that they show up more often than we realize. There's a moment in Mark 4 where the disciples are on a boat in the middle of this violent storm, and the waves are crashing, and the boat is filling with water. And Jesus is there with him. And he stands up and he says to the wind and the waves, peace, be still. And the storm stops. I know that story. And as long as his eyes are on Jesus, he's okay. But the moment he notices the wind and the waves, he starts to sink. And what does Peter cry out? Not a long prayer, not a polished prayer. Three words Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus reaches out his hand and he catches Peter. And that moment has been so comforting to me. Because sometimes it faith doesn't look like commanding the storm to stop. Sometimes faith is reaching out and saying, Jesus, hold me while we walk through this. And I think what comforts me so much about that passage of scripture is that Jesus didn't shame Peter for sinking. He reached for him. And I think sometimes when we imagine that strong faith, it means never feeling overwhelmed by the storm. But scripture, it shows us something different. Faith, it often looks like calling out for Jesus in the middle of it. And in this season, that's what I'm learning. Not how to control the storm, not how to fix every hole in the boat, but how to trust that even here, in this hard season, Jesus is present. And that realization, it leads us to something so freeing. Because when we stop trying to play God in our lives, we finally discover the freedom of letting God be God. And there's something that my pastor has said that has stayed with me for years. He will say it jokingly in a sermon, but the truth of it lands every single time. He says, you make a really bad God. And every time he says it in a sermon, people laugh. But I think the reason that it lands is because we all recognize the truth behind it. We were never meant to carry the responsibilities that belong to God. And yet, so often in our lives, that's exactly what we try to do. We try to control outcomes, to orchestrate results. We try to manage other people's growth, their responses, their transformation. We try to guarantee that the seeds we plant will produce something measurable. But scripture reminds us again and again that those responsibilities, they were never ours. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3, 6 through 7, I planted, Apollo's watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. And that verse, it reframes everything. Our role, it's participation. God's role is transformation. We show up, we plant, we water. But growth is always the miracle that God performs. And I think when we forget that, something subtle happens in our souls. We begin to live as though everything depends on us. We begin to carry this pressure that was never ours to hold. I love what Dallas Willard says. He says, grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. And that distinction, it matters. Because following Jesus, it does require effort. It's going to require obedience and faithfulness. But what it doesn't involve is earning outcomes. It doesn't involve forcing fruit. See, Jesus gives us a completely different image in John 15 when he says, abide in me. He doesn't say produce fruit. He says remain. Stay connected to me. Live from the relationship. And when we do, we bear much fruit. The fruit here is the natural result of connection, not the product of spiritual striving. Theologian Eugene Peterson once wrote something that I think captures this so beautifully. He said, the kingdom of God is subversive, it undermines quietly the kingdoms of this world that are built on control, efficiency, and power. And friend, sometimes I think that includes the little kingdoms we try to build in our own lives. Don't worry, that one hurt me too. Where we try to control timing, where we try to control influence, where we control the way that God works. But God, He invites us into something far more freeing. He invites us to release control and practice trust. Because here's the truth. When we try to be God in our own lives, the weight becomes unbearable. But when we allow God to be God, something shifts. We stop striving, we stop gripping so tightly, and we begin to walk in a kind of spiritual freedom. Because the pressure, it lifts. Faithfulness, that's now the goal. Presence is the way that we practice. And the fruit becomes the gift that God gives in his timing. And this is why the practice of presence matters so much. Because when we learn to simply walk with God moment by moment, we remember something important. We're not the source, we're the participants. We are the ones invited to walk faithfully through the fields. But God is the one who makes things grow. So today I want to invite you into something simple. What if the goal of your life this week wasn't productivity? What if the goal was presence? Walking with God in the ordinary, not rushing past moments, not measuring everything, just being aware. Because the truth is, God is already present in your life. The question isn't whether God is near, the question is whether we are aware. So let's end this together in the way that we often do in this space. If you're somewhere where you can, take a slow breath. Let your shoulders relax and let the noise of the day just settle for a moment. And repeat after me. I do not have to rush. I do not have to strive. God is already here. His presence surrounds me. This moment is not ordinary. It is holy ground. I do not have to manufacture fruit. I simply remain. I walk with God and his presence goes with me. Amen, friends. If this conversation encouraged you, grounded you, or helped you slow down and become more aware of God's presence in your everyday life, I would love for you to stay connected with what we're building here at Women Under Construction. Make sure you follow or subscribe so you don't miss any upcoming episodes in the Living Sense series. If this episode spoke to you, would you mind taking a moment to leave a review? Those reviews really do help more women find the space of steady, grace-filled formation. And finally, if someone came to mind while you were listening today, go ahead and share this episode with her. You never know how God might use one small moment of awareness to shift someone's whole season. I am so grateful that you're here, and I can't wait to see you back here next week.