Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
Home and Religion
The Sacred Art of Missing Out

The Sacred Art of Missing Out

Last updated on: July 31, 2026 at 12:37 pm by Jordan Hathcock

0 Comments

The Sacred Art of Missing Out 2026-07-31T12:37:03-07:00 Jordan Hathcock

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Part III: Finding God in What You Didn’t Click On

Let’s talk about a spiritual discipline nobody is promoting. Not fasting. Not silence. Not waking up at 4:30 a.m. to journal beside a candle while a guy named River softly plays acoustic guitar on YouTube.

I’m talking about missing out.

Just… not being there. Not seeing the post. Not reading the article. Not watching the breakdown explaining why civilization is apparently collapsing because a billionaire tweeted something weird at 2 a.m. Because somewhere along the way, we were trained to believe that if we didn’t see something, we missed something important. Every notification now arrives dressed like an emergency. Every headline acts like your immediate emotional reaction is required for democracy to survive. Meanwhile, you’re standing in your kitchen stress-eating tortilla chips while reading an article titled: “Ten Signs Society Is Crumbling (Experts Alarmed).”

The experts are always alarmed.

Nobody ever publishes articles called: “Things Mostly Fine. Local Guy Took a Walk. More at 11.”

The Exhaustion of Trying to Know Everything

The reality is we are attempting something no human being was ever designed to do.

We are trying to emotionally process the entire world in real time.

Wars, politics, celebrity drama, conspiracy theories, social media outrage, and a guy on TikTok explaining why your toothpaste is apparently destroying your hormones. We absorb all of it before lunch and then wonder why our nervous system feels like a raccoon trapped inside a trash can.

You were never meant to carry this much information.

You can barely remember why you walked into the garage. Yet somehow modern life expects you to maintain psychological awareness of every global catastrophe while simultaneously replying to emails, paying bills, and pretending to care about your HOA newsletter.

It’s too much.

Deep down, I think we all know it.

The Mystic Way Says the Opposite

The mystics have always known something we keep forgetting: you do not find God by adding more. You find God by finally noticing what’s already here.

That’s the scandal of the spiritual life.

We keep searching for meaning in the next thing while God keeps stubbornly showing up in this thing. This breath. This moment. This ordinary Tuesday afternoon where nothing dramatic happened except you finally looked up from your phone long enough to notice your own life.

The mystics weren’t anti-world.

They were anti-distraction.

They understood that the soul cannot wake up while constantly overstimulated.

Neither can you.

Jesus Keeps It Almost Annoyingly Simple

Jesus says things that sound beautiful framed over a sunset on Instagram but become deeply irritating when you actually try to live them.

“The Kingdom of God is within you.”

Which sounds wonderful until you realize he means right now.

Not after your breakthrough. Not after you optimize your life. Not after you become one of those suspiciously calm people who drink mushroom tea and own matching ceramic bowls.

Right now.

Which is inconvenient because most of us spend our lives trying to escape right now.

Standing in line? Scroll.

Waiting at a stoplight? Scroll.

Mildly uncomfortable for three consecutive seconds? Scroll like your emotional stability depends on it.

At this point, some of us don’t even check our phones because we need something. We check them because we briefly encountered our own thoughts and panicked.

Every escape quietly reinforces the same belief:

This moment is not enough.

That’s the addiction underneath the addiction.

Not information.

Avoidance.

But What If This Moment Is Enough?

Not amazing. Not cinematic. Not “main character energy.” Just enough. Enough to breathe in. Enough to notice. Enough to encounter God inside of. Because despite what modern culture keeps screaming at us, your life is not happening somewhere else. It’s happening here. And one of the great tragedies of our time is how often we abandon the present moment looking for something more meaningful while missing the sacredness sitting directly in front of us.

You didn’t see the post. You didn’t read the article. You didn’t watch the fourteen-minute breakdown explaining why humanity is doomed. And somehow… you’re still here. The sun still came up. Your coffee still tasted like coffee. God did not abandon creation because you missed a trending topic. Somewhere along the line we started confusing constant awareness with wisdom.

They are not the same thing.

Sometimes, wisdom looks like closing the app.

Sometimes holiness looks like touching grass.

Literally.

Go outside.

The birds are still acting like nothing happened.

Space Is Where God Shows Up

God rarely shows up in noise. He tends to show up in space. Silence. Stillness. Attention.

And we avoid those things because silence confronts us. You can ignore your soul for years through distraction, but the second things get quiet, the deeper questions come walking into the room uninvited. Who are you becoming? Why are you exhausted all the time? Why did you open Instagram four separate times in ten minutes like there was going to be breaking news about your own identity?

Silence has hands.

Your soul whispers.

Which is a problem because everything else in modern life is yelling. Notifications yell. News cycles yell. Outrage yells. Marketing yells. Everybody wants your attention because attention is currency now. No wonder we can’t hear ourselves anymore. Our interior lives are being drowned out by digital leaf blowers. Maybe missing out isn’t failure. Maybe it’s formation. Maybe every moment you resist the urge to consume everything is a moment you reclaim your attention.

And attention matters because love requires it. Jesus was never forming people who knew everything. He was forming people capable of love. Deep, grounded, attentive love. And you cannot love deeply while your mind is fragmented into a thousand tiny pieces.

The Gospel According to Youth Sports Highlights

This reminds me of youth sports…I’ve got a 15-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son who play sports, so trust me—I understand being proud of your kids. I’m not judging parents who make sports pages for them. Most are doing it out of love. But somewhere along the way, youth sports started feeling less like Little League and more like a low-budget ESPN documentary.

Kids now have highlight reels, logos, dramatic edits, and motivational graphics before they even know how to properly load a dishwasher. Some middle schoolers have better personal branding than grown adults with mortgages. And honestly, I don’t even think social media is the best way to expose talent. Coaches still care more about development, work ethic, camps, relationships, and actual gameplay than whether your 12-year-old has a fire slow-motion edit with rap music behind it.

A clean jump shot matters more than engagement metrics.

I think the bigger issue is the pressure it quietly puts on kids. Once sports become branding, every bad game suddenly feels public. Every mistake feels documented. That’s heavy for a kid whose brain still thinks Takis and Gatorade count as nutrition. Kids need space to fail privately. To grow slowly. To play because they love the game—not because everything has to become content.

Because years from now, they probably won’t remember the Instagram post.

They’ll remember the car rides, the team jokes, the post-game food stops, and the feeling of just being a kid playing a sport they loved (that is my hope at least).

The Sacred Art of Missing Out

So maybe the invitation is simpler than we think. Miss more things. Let conversations happen without immediately fact-checking them. Leave your phone in another room once in a while and experience the terrifying reality of existing with your own thoughts. Go on a walk without turning it into content. Sit in silence long enough to remember you are a person and not just a nervous system with a Wi-Fi connection.

It’s this moment. Unimpressive. Unoptimized. Slightly awkward. Still holy. Maybe that’s the whole thing. Maybe God was never hiding in the next update. Maybe God has been sitting here the entire time waiting for us to finally stop refreshing long enough to notice. So close the app for a minute. Put the phone down. Look around like you just got here.

Your life is still happening.

And despite all your attempts to outrun it… it’s been patiently waiting for you the whole time.

General Christian

Home and Religion

Family, Parenting and Religion

Uncategorized

Previous Post

April 22, 2026

Keeping Up with the A.I.-s