When Life Lost Its Rhythm (And How We Might Gently Find It Again)

Sometimes I wonder when life began to feel like something we have to manage instead of something we get to live.

We track our steps, our calories, our hours, our productivity. We take supplements to replace what food no longer gives us. We schedule workouts to undo the effects of sitting all day. We rush through meals, prayers, and conversations, always aware of the clock in the background, always aware of what’s next.

And then we feel tired—bone tired. Not just physically, but spiritually.

It’s hard not to ask: Was life always like this? And if it wasn’t… how did we get here?

Before Life Was Measured by the Clock

In the time of Jesus, people didn’t live by schedules the way we do now. There were no time clocks, no eight-hour shifts, no calendars packed weeks in advance. Life followed a rhythm shaped by daylight and darkness, hunger and satisfaction, work and rest, gathering and solitude.

People rose with the sun. They rested when it grew dark. They worked, but not in isolation from their families. Children were nearby. Meals were shared. Prayer wasn’t squeezed into the margins—it was woven into daily life.

Jesus Himself lived this way. He walked everywhere. He stopped when people needed Him. He withdrew when He needed rest. He prayed early, sometimes alone, sometimes in the presence of others. His life was full, but it wasn’t frantic.

“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”— Mark 1:35

That kind of life required presence. And presence required time that wasn’t constantly being accounted for.

How the Industrial Revolution Changed More Than Work and our Rhythm

When the Industrial Revolution came, it didn’t just change how we worked. It changed how we understood time—and ourselves.

Work moved out of the home and into factories. Time became something to measure, divide, and sell. Days were broken into shifts. Bells rang. Clocks ruled. Productivity became the goal, and people had to adapt to fit the system.

Families changed. Meals changed. Prayer changed.

Instead of gathering naturally throughout the day, we began scheduling everything—including rest. Instead of working with our bodies in varied, steady ways, we sat for long stretches and then tried to “fix” our bodies afterward. Instead of food grown nearby and prepared slowly, we turned to convenience and speed.

The effects didn’t show up all at once. They crept in quietly. But over time, many of us began living lives that look efficient on paper and feel exhausting in practice.

“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”— Mark 8:36

Why We Now Feel the Need to Fix Ourselves

When life is fragmented, we try to compensate.

We take vitamins because our food doesn’t nourish the way it once did. We are destroying our soil. We go to the gym because our days no longer require natural movement. We try to optimize sleep because stress keeps us wired long after our bodies are tired.

None of these things are wrong in themselves. But they are often signs that something deeper is missing.

In Jesus’ time, movement wasn’t an activity—it was life. Walking wasn’t exercise—it was how you got where you were going. Chores weren’t a burden—they were part of participating in daily provision. Food wasn’t rushed—it was received with gratitude.

“Give us this day our daily bread.”— Matthew 6:11

Daily bread assumes daily rhythms. Daily attention. Daily trust.

A Different Way of Being in the Day

Jesus didn’t live by a planner. He lived by attentiveness.

He noticed hunger and fed people. He noticed fatigue and rested. He noticed grief and stopped. His days had structure, but not rigidity. There was work, but also interruption. There was effort, but also retreat.

And there was always relationship.

When work becomes something that pulls us away from our families, our bodies, and our need for rest, it stops being life-giving. When schedules override our natural rhythms, stress becomes constant and quiet connection disappears.

It’s no surprise that so many people feel burned out now. The system was never designed with the human soul in mind.

“Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”— Matthew 11:28

Gently Taking Life Back

Reclaiming a more biblical rhythm doesn’t require abandoning modern life or rejecting all structure. It begins with awareness—and permission.

Permission to slow meals down. Permission to walk without tracking it. Permission to let chores be enough movement for the day. Permission to pray in the middle of ordinary moments. Permission to question whether constant busyness is actually faithfulness.

It looks like choosing whole foods more often, not perfectly. Like spending time outside simply because the body was made for light and air. Like guarding rest—not as laziness, but as obedience.

“In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—for He grants sleep to those He loves.”— Psalm 127:2

It also looks like reimagining work. Asking whether our lives are shaped by what produces the most, or by what nurtures the most—our health, our families, our attention, our peace.

Life Was Never Meant to Be This Tight

I will repeat time and again if necessary...We were not created to be scheduled into wholeness. We were created to live in rhythm.

Jesus showed us that a full life doesn’t have to be frantic, and a faithful life doesn’t have to be exhausted. There is another way of moving through the day—one that listens to the body, honors rest, welcomes presence, and leaves room for God.

That way is quieter. Slower. Less impressive.

And it may be (and I feel IS) exactly what we’ve been longing for.

And once we start to see what we’ve lost, the next quiet question naturally comes: What do we do instead?

For me, it hasn’t been about doing less for the sake of doing less. I still believe in being productive. I still believe in contributing, providing, creating. But I no longer believe productivity has to come at the cost of my body, my family, my peace, or my relationship with God.

I’ve lived the other way. I’ve rushed through half-hour lunch breaks that barely felt like food, let alone nourishment. I’ve eaten quickly just to get back to a desk, back to meetings, back to someone else’s clock. When you add it all up—eight hours of work, the unpaid lunch, the commute there and back, the time it takes to wind down enough to sleep—you’re lucky if you have four hours with your family before the alarm clock demands you start all over again. And that’s on a good day.

Over time, that kind of life takes something from you. Not all at once. Quietly. Slowly.

You stop eating well because you don’t have time. You grab the next processed snack available or fried fast food. You stop being outside because you’re exhausted. You start relying on supplements to make up for sunlight you don’t get and food you don’t really enjoy. You sit most of the day, then feel guilty that your body hurts. Your mind feels scattered. Your spirit feels thin. And somehow we’ve been told this is normal. Successful, even.

But it isn’t the life I want anymore.

I don’t want to spend my best hours making money for someone else, only to come home too tired to be present with the people I love or attentive to God. I don’t want to trade my health for a paycheck, or my peace for status. I don’t want a large house, a fancy car, or expensive clothes if the cost is rushed meals, fading health, and a prayer life that only fits into leftover time.

That kind of life might look impressive from the outside, but it feels hollow when you’re living it.

What I want instead is simpler—and deeper.

I want to wake when my body is ready, not when an alarm shocks me out of rest. I want to eat slowly and pray over my food, not because it’s a rule, but because food is a gift. I want my days to include movement that makes sense—walking, tending to the home, working with my hands in time increments—rather than sitting all day and trying to undo it later.

I want to work, but in a way that honors God and the body He gave me.

That’s where learning or returning to a skill matters. Not a hustle. Not a grind. A skill you can grow into, enjoy, and offer with purpose. Something creative. Something useful. Something that brings life instead of draining it. Something you can pray over as you do it.

This might look like writing, art, teaching, baking, making, repairing, tending, guiding, creating. It might be something you already know how to do, or something you learn slowly, patiently, without pressure to monetize it immediately. The point isn’t speed. The point is alignment. Maybe you want to be an electrician, a plumber, a carpenter, or enjoy paving roads. We all have certain skills or the ability to learn them. We as a community need the handiwork of all skills. It matters that you are doing what brings you joy and peace. It matters to pray over your work so that it can bless others. It matters to not have to rush through a task and instead do it with honesty and care.

When work comes from purpose rather than pressure, it doesn’t burn you out the same way. When it’s shaped around your body instead of forcing your body to conform, it feels different. When you can step away to pray, eat, walk, or rest without asking permission, work becomes part of life—not something that consumes it.

I don’t believe God intended us to live rushed, overstimulated, and constantly striving for more. It’s okay to enjoy things. It’s okay to have comforts. It’s okay to rest with a good book or a movie or music. But when the pursuit of more—more money, more status, more stuff—becomes the point, something sacred gets crowded out.

Scripture reminds us again and again that what we carry with us isn’t what we accumulate.

Jesus didn’t live impressively by the world’s standards. He lived attentively. He invested in people. He rested. He withdrew. He walked. He ate with others. He prayed often. His life was full, but it wasn’t crowded with excess.

That’s the kind of fullness I want.

I want days where prayer is woven into ordinary moments, not scheduled into exhaustion. Where walking counts as exercise because it’s movement God designed us for. Where rest isn’t earned, but received. Where family time isn’t what’s left over at the end of the day, but part of the day itself.

I want to guard my mental health and peace as something precious, not negotiable. I want to be available to help others when needed. To trade skills and services. To live in community again, not constant competition.

I want a life with room for church picnics again (seriously, what happened to those? Why did they seemingly disappear?), shared meals, days of rest, and unhurried conversations. A life that feels human.

We don’t need to reject modern life entirely to reclaim what matters—but we do need to question the pace, the pressure, and the assumptions we’ve inherited. The industrial revolution changed everything, but it doesn’t get to decide how we live forever.

For me, the answer is simple, even if it isn’t always easy: I choose rhythm over rush. Presence over prestige. Purpose over production. Peace over a fast pace.

I choose a life shaped more like Jesus’—and less like a factory clock.

And I believe, quietly and deeply, that this way of living is not only better for our bodies and minds—but closer to how we were always meant to live. How God created us to live.

XO, Marie

PS. Some people genuinely love the rhythm of a 9–5. They find purpose in it. Stability. Meaning. And if that’s you—truly—thank you. We need you. Grocery stores don’t run themselves. Neither do gas stations, restaurants, hospitals, or doctors’ offices. The work you do matters. A lot. Please hear that.

What I’m pushing back against isn’t work, and it’s definitely not laziness or rose-colored nostalgia. It’s the system itself. The industrial revolution wasn’t some neutral moment in history—it was built on economic exploitation. When the 8-hour workday showed up in the early 1900s, it wasn’t designed with human health in mind. It was damage control. A compromise. Time became a commodity, and people became output.

Biblically, rest came first. Industrially, rest was added later so people wouldn’t collapse. Some people adapt well to that system. Others—like me—don’t.

I feel boxed in by arbitrary schedules, drained by clock-watching, and honestly suffocated by constant oversight that creates urgency where there doesn’t need to be any. That’s not rebellion. It’s pattern recognition. My energy isn’t linear—it’s cyclical. My value isn’t measured in hours logged. Life works better for me when work serves life instead of replacing it. And I don’t think that’s strange. I think the system is the strange part.

I’m not talking about rejecting modern medicine, going off-grid, or pretending it’s the first century. I’m talking about reclaiming more human, pre-industrial rhythms inside a modern world. Because let’s be real—the 8–10 hour workday benefits systems, shareholders, and output metrics far more than it benefits actual human flourishing. People who question that aren’t broken. They’re awake.

And just to be clear—I still work long days. Plenty of 8–10 hour ones. Sometimes for very little pay. But I do it with peace instead of pressure, because my mental well-being depends on it. A traditional 9–5 just isn’t where I thrive. But if that’s where you thrive—truly—thank you. I appreciate you more than you know.

However this lands with you, I believe this deeply: we are all needed. We all have gifts to share. We all deserve peace of mind. And we could all stand to live a little more like Jesus.