PART 1
I’m obsessed with the future. Sometimes I feel like I do more work there than I do in the present, if you can call worry work, which I do. In fact, I’ve got a full-time job in the future, no wonder I can’t work one in the present. I’m spread too thin.
The future needs me. It needs me like a baby needs a mama. It can’t survive on its own. Who would feed it, protect it, help it to stay alive? “No one,” is what my anxiety says, “No one but you!” So, being a responsible adult, I do my best to care for the future as it is in its infancy today, needing all of my attention and care.
The trouble is that my present suffers. I’m so spent on the future with all of its possibilities, terrors, and failures that the present is lucky if it gets a kiss at the end of the day before being put to sleep.
Being a workaholic, when I wake up, I usually take an additional shift in the past. Just a short one, to fluff up my paycheck–rerunning old conversations, what I said, what I should have said, what I’ll never have the chance to say again. I guess I enjoy? clocking in for this early morning job that pays me in nothing but regret.
Then, once that shift is over, I pack up and head off to my real job in the future. Because the future is where the big work happens – planning, worrying, rehearsing everything that could go wrong. And it’s making me rich… rich in anxiety.
My present, on the other hand, is like a latch-key kid left to fend for itself while mommy is off to work in the future. It just does what it needs to keep alive—has a sandwich, watches a show, plays a video game—until I get home from my job in the future, exhausted from my shift in “tomorrow,” and fall into bed without giving the present as much as the time of day.
It seems to me that every human lives in one of three places.
Some of us live in the past. Where we spend our days replaying what we can’t change, regretting what we lost, and missing old versions of ourselves. Here we spend our days in a house that’s already been demolished. We can visualize the walls, but we can’t actually find shelter there.
Others live in the future. We’re always a step ahead in our minds, worrying, planning, and predicting what might go wrong. But living in the future is like living in a house that hasn’t been built yet. You can design every room in your head, but you can’t sleep there tonight, and you find no shelter from the storm, only more storm.
Then there’s the third option: living in the present. And not just existing here, but being grounded here.
Groundedness is a practice used to keep you in the present. Psychologists teach people to feel their feet on the floor, notice their breath, name what they can see and hear, and touch in the present. It calms the nervous system and pulls you out of the racing thoughts about what happened back then or what might happen next. Because your brain can time-travel, but your body can’t. So, groundedness is the practice of reuniting the two – of making sure your mind isn’t abandoning your body to live alone in the present like a neglected child.
But I think this is more than a psychological band-aid. Groundedness speaks to stability, presence, security, and an unshakable peace only found in One place.
I’m a fan of long, long sentences. I love to meander through a thought rather than clip it off prematurely, and I think Paul was often the same. In this sentence, he gives us the answer to the time conundrum we are having when he says:
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14–19).
This is a scrumptious passage to me. It’s filled with so much to feast upon. But what I specifically clung to today was the idea of being grounded in love. There is a lot of talk, and rightfully so, about being rooted in Christ, but I think this idea of being grounded in love is just as important, as it speaks directly to life in the present moment.
Groundedness is different from just existing. It’s like sitting down on the floor of a house that’s real, with walls that keep out the storm, with a roof that won’t collapse in the night. It’s a sense of stability, security, and settledness that only comes when your soul actually believes it’s safe right now.
Being grounded isn’t just about time; it’s about place. To be grounded is to stand on something solid. To have a foundation that holds your weight, so the past can’t hold you – it’s gone. And the future can’t hold you because it’s not here. Only the present can hold you when your present rests on something unmovable.
That’s what Paul was talking about in Ephesians 3 when he prayed that we would be “rooted and grounded in love.”
Rootedness is vine and branches talk. It’s about nourishment. Nourishment from God’s Word, prayer, His Spirit, community, obedience, and remembering His faithfulness. It’s what keeps us spiritually alive, growing, and flourishing, like a tree pulling water and nutrients from the soil to produce leaves and fruit.
But groundedness has a different flavor. It’s just as rich and satisfying to ponder, but it’s not about nourishment; it’s about stability. It’s an unshakable sense of being held firm, anchored in a foundation that doesn’t shift. And while rootedness keeps us alive, groundedness keeps us secure. It’s what happens when you stop clinging to the past or grasping for the future and actually let yourself rest your full weight on Him right here, right now.
So, when you wake up tomorrow, and your mind starts running to yesterday’s failures and tomorrow’s fears, your chest tightening, your to-do list screaming, instead of sprinting into the future or replaying the past, imagine trying this: Pause, breathe, and gaze.
That’s all it takes to stay grounded.
In Part 2, we will look at how gazing at His goodness, love, and sovereignty anchors us to the only place we can live: right here, right now, in Him.
I don’t know if my comment came through, but I’ll repeat it that it was so encouraging to read your post today on being grounded. It makes me feel secure and safe. Thanks for your beautiful insights Judy Benson.
Nothing feels safer than being anchored in God!