Staying With Him When He Feels Quiet

"So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." (Colossians 2:6–7, NIV)

In the beginning, a new relationship takes up almost all of our attention. We notice everything about the other person, and even ordinary time together feels alive and a little exciting. Then the months pass, the newness quietly fades, and one ordinary afternoon we find ourselves wondering whether something has been lost. It's easy to measure closeness by how exciting it feels, and to assume that when the excitement cools, the closeness must be cooling too. Almost all of us know that quiet worry from the inside, even if we rarely say it out loud.

When we slow down to read the words of Paul, an early Christian teacher who wrote letters encouraging the first followers of Jesus, one line is easy to read too quickly. "Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him" (Colossians 2:6). We might have expected something grander, a call to go deeper, reach higher, or somehow recover the feelings of the early days. But the word that quietly stands out is smaller than all of that. Continue. Not a call to relive the beginning, but to keep walking in the life we have already begun.

Then comes another phrase, easy to pass over. "rooted and built up in him" (Colossians 2:7). Roots grow slowly, where no one can see them, and a house rises one brick at a time. Neither happens in a sudden burst of feeling. We might remember the day many followers decided the excitement was gone and walked away, and how Jesus asked those closest to Him if they wanted to leave. Peter, a fisherman who had left everything to follow Him, answered, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68). His words don't sound like excitement. They sound like a decision to stay. And maybe that is what the Lord is quietly forming in us, companions rather than seekers of excitement, shaped in the staying.

Picture an ordinary morning. We sit at the kitchen table, our Bible open beside a cup of coffee that's slowly growing cold while the rest of the house begins to wake. Nothing remarkable seems to happen. It's easy to close our Bible and wonder whether anything really happened at all. But sitting there, we slowly become aware of the opposite. Perhaps deeper companionship with Jesus isn't found in the extraordinary moments that interrupt life, but in the ordinary days He quietly shares with us. Maybe that "overflowing with thankfulness" (Colossians 2:7) never came from chasing bigger experiences, but from noticing the One who has quietly been beside us all along.

Tomorrow will probably look much like today. The same kitchen, the same drive, the same quiet. But what if those plain, unhurried hours are not empty at all? What if they are exactly where He has chosen to share His life with us? Today, look for the quiet wonders of an ordinary day shared with Jesus. We may find He was never far away, only waiting to be noticed in the ordinary hours we were tempted to overlook.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank You for the ordinary days I so easily overlook. Teach me to notice You in the quiet hours, to stay close when nothing feels new, and to walk gratefully beside You. Amen.