Tracing the Root

The ache families carry today isn’t just about being too busy. It runs deeper than overscheduled calendars or overflowing to-do lists. At the core, it’s about what’s forming us.

We live in a world that doesn’t disciple us toward peace, presence, or rest. Instead, it shapes us—quietly but persistently—into anxiety, exhaustion, and fragmentation.

On the surface, many families appear to be holding it together: kids get to school, meals are made, activities are checked off. But beneath that surface, something sacred often feels lost—connection, intimacy, and spiritual presence. The home, once a sanctuary of belonging and worship, has become hurried, noisy, and distracted.

And this shift didn’t happen overnight.

Charles Taylor helps us understand the cultural backdrop. He describes how we’ve moved from a world where people lived with a sense of sacred time—Sabbath, seasons, shared worship—to a world governed by “secular time,” where time is something we manage, optimize, and race against. We used to see ourselves as part of something greater. Now, we’re taught to craft our identities alone.

The Industrial Revolution sped this up. Work left the home. Faith, once woven into the natural rhythms of planting, praying, resting, and gathering, began to unravel.

Craig Dykstra puts it plainly:“Families became increasingly privatized… and faith, institutionalized.”

Spiritual practices gave way to productivity. Rest was replaced by performance. Our homes were slowly reshaped—not just physically, but spiritually.

And today?Screens disciple our children more than Scripture.Digital life forms their imaginations, relationships, and desires.Parents scroll for peace and find more anxiety.Teens measure their worth in likes.Even toddlers absorb filtered versions of success before they can speak.

Sacred moments become content.Wonder turns into pressure.And slowly, our souls forget how to rest.

But that ache you feel? It’s not failure. It’s not weakness.It’s sacred.It’s your soul remembering what it was made for.

Mary Eberstadt writes,“The weakening of the family has led to the weakening of religion—not the other way around.”

Andrew Root echoes this in The End of Youth Ministry? when he writes:“As the family disintegrates, church life fades too. They’re intertwined.”

The crisis of faith in our time is not separate from the crisis of family—they are deeply connected.

Many parents long to pass on faith, to be present and rooted. But often, they feel dry. Like they’re holding it all together while quietly wondering, Where did God go?

So we do what the world teaches:We try harder.We strive.We stay strong.

But slowly, that self-reliance becomes a barrier to grace.

C.S. Lewis reminds us,“As long as you are proud, you cannot know God.”And then he adds:“A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”

This kind of pride isn’t about arrogance.It’s often fear in disguise—fear of being weak, fear of being seen, fear of not being enough for our families, our churches, even for God.

And when we live from that fear, we stop receiving.We stop being open.We become like dry cups, trying to pour into others with nothing left inside.

We forget how to rest in grace.How to come home to the One who calls us beloved.We forget that we don’t need to earn love—we just need to receive it.

And here’s the good news:Grace flows downward.It doesn’t rush to meet our achievements.It comes gently, in surrender.In the quiet.In the mess.In the moments we finally admit, “I can’t do this alone.”

Grace isn’t something we generate.It’s something we receive.Even when we feel far off, God is near.

The invitation to return doesn’t require perfection.Just a whisper of openness.A breath of surrender.

So when Lewis says, “You cannot see what is above you if you’re always looking down,” he’s not just pointing out a flaw.He’s giving us a lifeline.He’s inviting us to look up.To lift our gaze.To return to the One who has been waiting to hold us all along.

Back to grace.Back to presence.Back to God—who still whispers:

“Come home. No shame. No pressure. Just you and Me.”

Faith doesn’t return through pressure.It returns through presence.Not by doing more, but by making space.And even now, in all our scattered places, God is already there—waiting to meet us in what matters most.