Faithfulness in the Everyday

Navigating the Tension Between Now and Not Yet While Pressing Forward in Faith

I shared in a recent (Joy)Cap that lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be faithful—not just in the big moments but in the small, daily ones too.

It’s easy to measure faithfulness by results—the answered prayers, accomplished goals, and doors that finally open. But what about when there’s no visible progress? What about the days that feel repetitive, ordinary, unseen?

Maybe you’ve been showing up for something that feels small—a job no one thanks you for, a calling that seems slow to unfold, a prayer that feels like it’s met with silence. It’s easy to wonder: Is what I’m doing even making a difference? Does this even matter?

But what if faithfulness isn’t about the outcome at all? What if it’s about the process—the act of showing up, trusting that God is at work even when we can’t see it?

Glenna Marshall puts it this way in her book, Everyday Faithfulness¹:

“Faithfulness is an everyday calling. It’s regular, it’s ordinary, it’s taking a really long view of the Christian life. It’s reshaping our desires for immediate fruit and committing to following Jesus for the long haul. It’s getting up every single day and believing that God is your treasure, that the gospel of Jesus is worth your every breath, and that he is enough. Faithfulness is doing this again tomorrow and the next day and ten years from now. Faithfulness is ordinary. It’s unremarkable. It plods. It is also precious in the sight of the God who works out lifelong sanctifying perseverance in your life for your good and his glory.”

We tend to think of faithfulness in grand terms—sticking it out through major trials, making life-altering commitments, standing firm in defining moments. But most of the time, faithfulness looks like small, quiet decisions made over and over again:

• Writing even when you wonder if anyone will read it

• Praying even when you don’t have the words

• Choosing presence with your family over distraction

• Trusting God when the answers don’t come right away

• Cherishing what’s in front of you today instead of waiting for something that feels more significant

Faithfulness isn’t about waiting for the perfect season to start being intentional. It’s about showing up where you are, with what you have, in the way you can.

If you are wrestling with waiting or struggling with the long view of faithfulness in the day-to-day, I invite you to upgrade your subscription. In today’s post for paid subscribers, we’re diving deeper into what it means to cultivate faithfulness in fallow seasons, shift our perspective beyond immediate results, and learn to recognize God's faithfulness in the mundane and daily rhythms of life. I’ll also be sharing practical ways to walk this out in your daily life.

If this is something you’re navigating, I’d love for you to join the conversation. Upgrade your subscription to dive deeper into this topic and gain access to practical ways to live this out daily.