Tuning In

It’s a strange and special quiet at 5 a.m. on a Sunday. The world’s dark and still. The only light comes from my screen and the soft glow of the espresso machine, both of which are about to be put to solid use.

My sermon notes for The Watchful Rest are almost “there” — but still need a little prayer and polish. In a few hours, I’ll be preaching on 2 Kings 6, Elisha, and the unseen army — a message about the profound peace that comes from seeing God’s unseen protection with a new kind of spiritual awareness.

But this morning my mind keeps drifting to the other side of the coin — joy.

It’s probably because Ryan and I were prepping for the fall season of Bible Geeks this week. Our first episode back centers on our season theme of joy, and he used a phrase that got stuck in my brain ever since: “Tuning in.” He said:

“It means tuning throughout the day into what he wants for me …
It’s not fake. It’s not willful. There is a choice of will, but it’s a choice to keep tuning into God and God’s ways and then letting that fruit be produced.”

Joy, we decided, isn’t something you just stumble into — it’s a frequency you have to intentionally tune your heart to find.

Two Frequencies of Watchfulness

The more I sit with it in this pre-dawn quiet, the more I realized that ‘tuning in’ is the perfect description for watchfulness. It’s not a passive state of waiting — it's the active, spiritual discipline of adjusting the dial of our attention away from the static of fear and anxiety.

And on that spiritual radio, I’m seeing two primary frequencies we can tune into:

• The emergency frequency: It’s the one you scan for when you feel surrounded, like Elisha’s servant. It broadcasts the powerful, signal-penetrating truth of God's sovereignty and protection. Tuning in here, above all the noise, is the watchfulness that brings deep, anchoring peace.
• The local station: It’s the one we often forget to check on our daily commute through life. This one carries the smaller, quieter signals of God’s daily grace. Tuning in here, in the midst of the ordinary, is the watchfulness that produces gratitude.

Paul ties both frequencies together when he writes:

“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.”
— Colossians 4:2

It’s not two separate commands, but a single posture. Maybe watchfulness isn’t complete until it becomes a treasure hunt for things to be thankful for.

Getting ready to stand up in a few hours and talk about seeing the unseen army that protects us, my prayer is a little different today:

I’m asking God not just for protection, but for perception. To help me tune in to the signs of his grace that are just as real as those chariots of fire:

• this peacefully quiet morning
• the privilege of sharing his Word
• some small kindnesses that’ll inevitably show up in a long Sunday

The message of The Watchful Rest is that our perimeter is secure.
The message I need to hear today — the one I’m writing down for myself before anyone else — is this: when you know you’re secure, you can stop just scanning for threats and start searching for blessings.

The sky’s getting lighter now. I guess the first sermon of the day is always to yourself.

This post is a behind-the-scenes reflection on my sermon and latest article. You can read the full post here: The Watchful Rest →