The Water You’re Swimming In

There’s an old story about two young fish swimming along who pass an older fish going the other way. The older fish nods and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” The two young fish swim on for a while, and eventually one turns to the other and asks, “What the heck is water?” I think about that story constantly, because most of what forms us is exactly like that water — so ambient, so constant, that we stop noticing it’s there at all.

Liturgies You Never Signed Up For

We tend to reserve the word “worship” for Sunday morning. But your phone has a liturgy. Your commute has a liturgy. The mall, the group chat, the algorithm feeding you video after video — all of it is discipling you toward a vision of the good life, whether or not you ever agreed to enroll. It teaches you what to want, what to fear, what to envy, what counts as success. And because nobody ever announces it as formation, it slips past your defenses completely.

Don’t Be Pressed Into the Mold

This is exactly what Paul was warning against in Romans — the world has a mold, and it’s pressing on you every single day, usually while you’re distracted by something else. The imagery is almost physical: pressure, applied continuously, shaping you into its image a degree at a time. You don’t wake up one morning suddenly worshiping money or image or comfort. You get there one unnoticed rep at a time.

Naming the Water

You can’t resist a current you refuse to name. So this week, try naming yours. What’s the first screen you touch in the morning, and what is it teaching you to want? What story are you absorbing about what a successful life looks like, and who’s telling it? Awareness isn’t the whole battle, but it’s the first move — you can’t swim against water you don’t know you’re in.