There have been seasons in my life when I showed up to work geared up to grind.

You probably know the feeling: mentally ready for overtime, braced to stay late, skip breaks, power through deadlines. I came in with that mindset more than once… and then discovered there was almost nothing to do. A project delay. A maintenance freeze. A reorg. Suddenly, the engine I had revved up had nowhere to go.

Instead of the frantic busyness many of us complain about, I found myself facing something different: idle hours. Time on my hands. Space. You’d think that would feel like a gift. But at first, it didn’t. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of me, because somewhere along the way, I had made continuous motion the proof that I was advancing and achieving.

In Father Mark’s homily, Isaiah’s words captured that tension in a way that startled me: “We conceived and writhed in pain, giving birth to wind. Salvation, we have not achieved for the earth.” Israel had been working hard, worrying a lot, trying to make something happen—and discovering that all their effort hadn’t produced salvation. They had given birth to “wind.”

For me, those quiet seasons at work were a mirror image of the same truth. Whether our days are jam‑packed or oddly empty, neither busyness nor productivity nor “high‑achiever identity” can produce what our hearts most need. Salvation is not something we manufacture. It is something we receive.

Isaiah doesn’t leave us in despair, though. He turns quickly to hope: “But your dead shall live; their corpses shall rise, awake and sing.” In other words, the life we’re aching for will come—from God’s side, not ours.

When grace walks into idle hours

In my early career, when the internet was still blossoming into what it is today, that “idle time” began to change color for me. At first, the lack of tasks at work drove me mad. But then, curiosity crept in. Those quiet hours opened up space for exploration: online classes, message boards, trying to build websites, tinkering around with new tools and creative projects.

It felt like discovering new worlds. I started to realize that these unplanned pauses were not proof that I was failing; they were invitations. In hindsight, I can see God’s grace in them: “Here,” He seemed to say, “play, learn, create. Let your soul breathe.” That time became part of how God shaped me—my love for technology, my desire to help people, even the way I now use online tools to share reflections about faith and grace.

Those seasons helped me see something I’m still learning: sometimes grace looks less like God fueling our productivity and more like God disrupting it. Not to punish us, but to free us from thinking that our worth—or our salvation—is measured in completed tasks.

Scripture puts it in very clear terms: “For by grace you have been saved through faith… it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Salvation is a gift, flowing from Christ’s love on the cross, not a reward for our spiritual or professional performance. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…”—that’s the heartbeat underneath all of this.[esv]

Grace doesn’t erase the value of good works; it changes their role. Paul goes on to say, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” We are not saved by good works; we are saved for good works. The works are fruit, not currency.

Trading yokes: from fear to love

Father Mark invited us to listen again to Jesus’ words: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest… Take my yoke upon you… For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” If I’m honest, the idea of a “yoke” can sound like just more work. But as Father Mark reminded us, we carry a yoke either way.

The world’s yoke can look like:

• Anxiety about hitting numbers and proving ourselves.
• Perfectionism—trying to look flawless and keep everyone’s opinions of us positive.
• Guilt over past mistakes, replayed again and again.

I’ve worn that yoke. My “high productivity” mindset has often been driven by fear: fear of falling behind, fear of being seen as lazy, fear of not becoming the person I thought I had to be.

Jesus offers a different yoke, one built out of love. It is “well‑fitting,” crafted for who we actually are, not who the world pressures us to be. With His yoke across our shoulders, our work—at the office, at home, in our parish—stops being a desperate attempt to earn salvation and becomes an ongoing conversation with Him: “How can I walk with You here?”

Justice in the help desk queue

This shift from fear to love has changed how I see justice in my daily work as an Infrastructure Services Technician.

Justice, in the Christian sense, means giving God and other people their due—treating others fairly and respecting their rights. In a technical support role, that often looks surprisingly small and human: an email response, a tone of voice, the patience to explain something for the third time.

I regularly receive support requests that, from my vantage point, look “obvious” or “simple.” The temptation is to respond with impatience or subtle shame: “You should know this by now.” But grace keeps nudging me to remember that every person is in a different place in their journey as a technology worker or staff member.

So I pause. I try to frame my language in a way that preserves their dignity. I gently point them in the right direction or help them discover the answer themselves, instead of making them feel small. That, to me, is where justice shows up—not only in big issues of fairness, but in small decisions about whether we will use our knowledge to serve or to intimidate.

Justice also shows up at home. In our family, we’re learning (imperfectly) to practice fairness in the way we listen to one another. When someone offers a comment or criticism, we try to see it through the lens of what that person is going through—what they’re learning “on the fly,” where they’re stretched or tired. We don’t always get it right, but grace keeps inviting us to ask, “How can I give this person space to grow, rather than shutting them down?”

These are not glamorous moments. No one is handing out holiness trophies for how you replied to an email or listened to your spouse. But in the quiet, they become part of how we “walk in” the good works God prepared for us—works that flow from grace, not from a performance checklist.

Fortitude at 2 a.m.

Then there’s fortitude: courage and inner strength to face difficulties, temptations, and hardships without giving up. In my life right now, fortitude looks less like facing external persecution and more like facing my own habits.[lifehopeandtruth]

Specifically, the habit of burying myself in endless side‑projects, staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning when I don’t actually have to. There’s always “one more” thing to tweak, optimize, build, or learn before I call it a day. It’s that old high‑productivity identity again, whispering: “Just a little more. Then you’ll be enough.”

Grace has been gently confronting me there: “You don’t have to earn My love by staying up late. You don’t have to prove your worth by never resting.” Fortitude, for me, is starting to look like learning to say “no” to that inner drive—not because work is bad, but because I want to say “yes” to healthier rhythms, deeper prayer, and more presence with the people I love.[inspiritencourage]

This is hard. It feels like stepping off a treadmill that I’ve lived on for years. But again, Jesus doesn’t just tell us to stop; He invites us to come: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest… you will find rest for your souls.” Fortitude isn’t gritting my teeth alone—it’s letting Him be with me in the moment when I close the laptop and choose sleep, or choose conversation, or choose silence with Him instead of yet another task.[bible]

Friendship with Jesus in the gaps

You’ve probably noticed that my days aren’t perfectly ordered around prayer and Scripture. Some moments are planned—Mass, set prayer times. Other moments are stolen: a few minutes in the car, a pause between tickets, a quiet corner at home.

Over time, I’ve started queuing up prayers, reflections, and spiritual content on my phone. That way, any small gap in the day can become a chance to read a psalm, whisper a prayer of gratitude, or offer a simple, “Lord, here’s what I’m thankful for right now.” Some days it’s just ten minutes for God; other days, it’s more. But it’s in those scattered, ordinary moments that my desire for friendship with Jesus finds a home.

I share that not as a model to copy perfectly, but as a way of saying: grace can meet you in the real shape of your day, whatever it looks like. You don’t have to have a monastic schedule to walk with Him. You just have to be willing to let Him into the pockets of time you already have.

You are enough—grace first, then fruit

If there’s one tone I hope you hear in all of this, it’s relief.

You are enough—not because you’ve done everything right, but because Christ on the cross says exactly that. Salvation is not something you have to earn to the very end. Through accepting Christ—through trusting that “whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16)—you’re already held, already loved, already invited into His life.[openbible]

Does that mean there will be no works for you to do? No, there will be plenty. But they will be fruits of an aligned spirit, not mandates from an earthly yoke. Justice at your desk. Fortitude at 2 a.m. Listening fairly at the dinner table. Saying “no” to the old narratives that measure your worth by productivity. Saying “yes” to rest, to grace, to a yoke that is kind and a burden that is light.[gotquestions]

All the things that might enslave us—anxiety, perfectionism, the fear of never doing enough—begin to lose their grip the moment we accept Jesus into our hearts and let His grace be the starting point, not the reward.[gotquestions]

My hope is that as you read this, you feel less pressure and more invitation. Invitation to walk with Him. To repent where you need to. To change your ways not to earn His love, but to better receive the graces He’s been offering all along. To let your good works—justice, fortitude, everyday kindness—grow naturally from a heart that knows it is already loved.

If there’s one small step you take today, maybe it’s this: pause for a moment, wherever you are, and simply say, “Jesus, thank you that I don’t have to earn salvation. Show me one place in my day where your grace is already at work, and one small good work you’re inviting me to walk in with you.”

And then trust that He’ll be right there, in the very real ground of your life, bearing fruit in His time.