Everybody worships something

I had coffee with a friend a few months back that quickly went deep. Conversations with good friends tend to do that. He mentioned that he still believes everything he used to believe. In God. In prayer. In the idea that his life was made for more than comfort and checking boxes. But (there’s always a but) he felt a disconnect.

"I just don't think I've actually lived like any of it is true in a long time."

Welcome to the third area of drift: Spiritual Drift. And before you skip this one because you're not the religious type, stay with me. This one's for you too.

When I say spiritual, I don't just mean church. I mean the part of you that's connected to something bigger than you. The convictions you had at 22, before life got heavy, busy, and expensive. Every man is built on something, whether he's named it or not.

Spiritual Drift looks like walking away from your faith or belief system (that’s called deconstruction). It's quieter than that. You still know the words. You'd defend the ideas if someone pushed. You just stopped living like they're true. Conviction became theory. The beliefs are still on the shelf. You just don't take them down anymore. There’s no relationship, no connection.

A fire can stay warm long after you stop feeding it. And if you're not paying attention, it's easy to mistake leftover heat for an active flame. A lot of men are living off the warmth of a fire they quit tending years ago. The faith of their childhood. A season when they were more disciplined, more awake, more alive. They're coasting on old heat and calling it a foundation.

The trouble is, what you say you believe and what you actually build your life around are two different things. A man can admire courage and live afraid. He can admire integrity and cut corners. He can admire peace and live addicted to noise. What you order your day around is your real religion.

That's the part most men miss. You're already worshipping something. Your career. Your bank account. Your comfort. The question was never whether you'd build your life on something. It's whether you chose it on purpose or just drifted into it.

And here's what I've come to believe. A man cannot be his own foundation. Building your whole life on yourself is unstable. There's something steadying about admitting you're not the biggest thing in the room, that there's something above you worth ordering your life around. The men I know who are most at peace are the ones who stopped trying to be the center of their own universe.

And the bottom does drop out eventually. A diagnosis. A layoff. A kid who goes off the rails. And you realize you must reach beyond yourself.

Here's where it comes down to for me. My anchor is my faith. The seasons I've drifted from it have been the seasons I've felt the most lost. You might land somewhere different than me. But you have to land somewhere. Drifting isn't neutral. The current is always carrying you, and rarely toward anything good. I would challenge you to reflect on a question: If you are the most dependable thing in your life, why are you so tired? Why are you drifting? Why are you even reading this email? And beyond that - really wrestle with these two - ask God (or source, creator, truth, love, whatever name you want to use doesn’t matter) these two questions: What do you want me to know about who I am? What do you want me to do about that?

The Challenge

Follow the evidence first. Look at where your time, your money, and your attention actually went last week. Not where you meant for them to go. Where they went. That's your real foundation, whatever you call yourself. Sit with what it says.

Then feed the fire. Pick one practice and do the smallest honest version this week. If you have a faith, go back to the thing you've let slide. One real prayer. A devotional. Your church. If faith isn't your thing, start simpler: ten minutes of silence, no phone, no podcast, just you and your own thoughts. Pascal wrote three hundred years ago that most of a man's problems come from his inability to sit alone in a quiet room. He had no idea what was coming. Part of my morning routine is reading a devotional. Even something as short/small as the daily verse and video in the YouVersion app. But sit and wrestle with who you actually are, what you actually believe (and why), and what that means for you.

You don't coast into conviction. You don't accidentally become a man whose inner life can carry the weight of his outer one. You return to it, on purpose, starting now.

Today is all you have. Own what's now.

Live above the line.
For you, Kevin

Thanks for reading this. Share it with anybody you think would find it useful. And as a reminder, NO DRIFT is not mine it is ours. I want to know what you think, what you want to hear about, what you are learning. All feedback is welcomed.