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After observing mounting anxiety in Christian young adults trapped between academic achievement metrics, career advancement pressure, and constant digital comparison, I reached out to Cole Douglas Claybourn with questions about his generation’s experience of hustle culture and the spiritual formation crisis it creates. His thoughtful responses reveal the sophisticated assault targeting Millennials and Gen Z through systems that commodify attention, manufacture urgency, and replace rest with perpetual connectivity.
Cole has graciously shared his insights and personal journey for this collaborative piece. His honest acknowledgment of struggling with digital overwhelm, his recognition that productivity metrics have replaced genuine rest, and his commitment to creating spaces for authentic community rather than performative platform building provides crucial wisdom for Christians navigating these challenges. He humbly acknowledges that his experience represents one man’s perspective among many, and that the burnout epidemic affects different people in contextually unique ways. What makes his voice valuable isn’t complete expertise but his commitment to examining cultural systems through biblical principles and his authentic testimony of seeking stillness amid algorithmic noise. I’m grateful for his transparency and the biblical clarity he brings to these vital questions.
Faith, creativity, and sports. Journalist. Host of the In No Hurry Podcast. Writing mostly for Millennials and Gen Z about rest, identity, and fighting against hustle culture.
The notification arrives at 6:47 AM. Before your feet touch the floor, you’ve already checked three apps. Email reveals fourteen unread messages overnight: none urgent, all demanding mental processing. LinkedIn shows three connection requests and a post from that classmate who just got promoted. Again. Instagram serves you a productivity influencer’s morning routine: gym at 5 AM, cold shower, meditation, journaling, side hustle check-in, all before 7 AM.
You feel behind before the day starts.
Your calendar shows back-to-back meetings until 6 PM. Lunch is a working lunch. The productivity app you installed to “optimize your time” sends its fourth reminder of the morning: “You’re 23% behind your daily goals. Push harder.” Your Fitbit buzzes: “Only 847 steps so far. Get moving!”
Between meetings, you scroll Twitter. Everyone seems to be crushing it. Launching businesses. Writing books. Getting engaged. Buying houses. Your college debt remains crushing. Your starter job feels stagnant. Your promotion seems perpetually delayed while inflation makes your paycheck feel smaller each month.
Evening arrives. Too exhausted to do anything productive but too wired to truly rest. You collapse on the couch, phone in hand. TikTok promises a “quick mental break.” Two hours later, you’ve consumed 247 videos about other people’s success, productivity hacks you’ll never implement, and travel destinations you can’t afford.
You finally put the phone down around midnight. Tomorrow’s alarm is set for 6:30 AM. The cycle begins again. You lie in darkness, mind racing with everything you didn’t accomplish today and everything demanding attention tomorrow. Rest feels like failure. Stillness feels like falling behind. Silence feels like wasting precious time.
When did being human become inadequate? When did rest become rebellion against productivity? When did the gentle whisper of God’s voice become impossible to hear above the manufactured urgency of constant connectivity?
If you’ve felt crushed under metrics that measure your worth by output, comparison, and perpetual availability, you’re experiencing what an entire generation faces: systematic spiritual warfare disguised as career development, self-improvement, and staying informed.
Real biblical living operates through menucha (settled rest) rooted in divine sufficiency rather than human striving. Messy, requiring daily surrender, sustained by trust in God’s sovereignty rather than optimized performance. When that foundation crumbles under cultural pressure, everything becomes vulnerable.
Christian Futurism offers Frameworks grounded in Biblical Scripture to address AI, Technology, and Digital Discipleship to build a Christian Future.Find me on Substack at: rockefellerkennedy.substack.
Cole’s Response:
“I think any app that encourages or plays into a short attention span, such as TikTok or Snapchat, eventually leads people to expect things instantaneously. Our social media platforms encourage instant gratification and constant hits of dopamine, but that’s not how the real world works. So when we sit down for a meal or get a coffee and it takes longer than we’re used to, we often feel irritated or even experience anxiety. We no longer know how to wait well.”
Cole identifies the core mechanism: platforms designed for instant gratification systematically destroy the human capacity for patient endurance that Scripture commands. The Hebrew word qavah (to wait, hope, expect) appears throughout Scripture as essential spiritual discipline.
They who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. Isaiah 40:31 (KJV)
Biblical formation requires qavah: the ability to remain in stillness without resolution, trusting divine timing over manufactured urgency.
TikTok and similar platforms function as anti-qavah training systems. Every swipe promises immediate satisfaction. Every algorithm curates instant entertainment. Users become conditioned to expect resolution within seconds, making the patient waiting that prayer, Scripture meditation, and spiritual formation require feel unbearable.
Cole’s observation about everyday experiences reveals how deeply this conditioning penetrates: “when we sit down for a meal or get a coffee and it takes longer than we’re used to, we often feel irritated or even experience anxiety.” The inability to wait for coffee without anxiety demonstrates catastrophic erosion of human capacity for presence and patience.
This isn’t mere inconvenience; it’s spiritual catastrophe. When Christians lose the ability to qavah: to wait patiently for God’s timing, to sit in silence without resolution, to endure seasons without immediate answers, they become incapable of the very formation processes Scripture describes. The psalmist’s declaration “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10) becomes practically impossible for minds trained to expect instant gratification every few seconds.
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Cole’s Response:
“I think it goes back to some of the points above. We can quickly scroll through videos or Reels to find the content we want. If we can’t find it there, it’s readily available through a quick search. Then our algorithms get trained to know the content we like so we don’t even have to go searching for it. In college I loved the process of researching information. It was slow and methodical. Even when I go to the store, I often prefer to search and find items on my own rather than immediately asking a worker to point me to them. There’s something satisfying about taking the time to discover knowledge or information on our own, but I think we are losing that sense of wonder and replacing it with immediacy.”
Cole mourns something profound: the “sense of wonder” that comes from methodical discovery. The Hebrew word pala’ (to be marvelous, wonderful) describes encounters with mystery that demand contemplation rather than immediate resolution. God designed humans to experience pala’: to marvel at creation, to wrestle with difficult questions, to discover truth through patient seeking.
His college research experience reveals what’s been lost. Libraries required physical presence, sequential searching, unexpected discoveries. You’d seek one book and find three others that changed your understanding entirely. The process itself formed character: teaching persistence, rewarding curiosity, building capacity for sustained focus without immediate payoff.
Algorithms eliminate pala’ by optimizing for convenience. They predict what you want before you articulate it. They serve answers before you formulate questions. They remove the formative friction that builds character through effort.
Consider Jesus’ teaching method. He spoke in parables precisely because immediate comprehension wasn’t the goal.
To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. Matthew 13:11 (ESV)
Understanding required meditation, discussion, wrestling with mystery. The disciples had to sit with confusion before clarity emerged.
Modern algorithms provide the opposite formation. Every question receives instant answers. Every search yields optimized results. Every curiosity gets satisfied within seconds. The mental muscles required for biblical formation: patience, contemplation, wrestling with complexity, atrophy from disuse.
Cole’s instinct to “search and find items on my own rather than immediately asking a worker” reflects something deeply human: the satisfaction of discovery through effort. This isn’t mere preference; it’s how God designed formation to work. The easy path produces shallow roots. The difficult path builds character that endures.
When convenience replaces effort, wonder dies. When algorithms anticipate desires, discovery becomes obsolete. When instant answers eliminate seeking, formation becomes impossible.
Cole’s Response:
“Constant connectivity feeds the illusion that we always need to be available, productive, or ‘on.’ In hustle culture, that connectivity becomes a badge of honor. The quicker you respond, the more committed you appear. But beneath the surface, it creates a subtle but relentless pressure where rest starts to feel like negligence, and silence feels like absence.
The problem is that constant connectivity keeps our souls in motion even when our bodies stop. We scroll instead of just sitting still. We fill every quiet space with noise and every pause with updates. I think we genuinely have forgotten how to be bored anymore. Over time, that kind of living erodes our ability to truly rest, both physically and spiritually. We need to know how to just log off sometimes.”
Cole identifies the insidious lie at hustle culture’s core: “rest starts to feel like negligence.” This represents complete inversion of biblical anthropology. God commands Sabbath rest not as suggestion but as covenant requirement embedded in creation itself.
Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. Exodus 20:9-10 (ESV)
Rest isn’t reward for productivity; it’s theological statement about God’s sovereignty.
The Hebrew menucha (settled rest, dwelling place) describes more than physical cessation. It represents the deep, settled peace that comes from trusting God’s provision rather than self-sufficient striving. When Cole observes “rest starts to feel like negligence,” he’s describing spiritual crisis where menucha becomes impossible because constant availability functions as false god demanding perpetual service.
His phrase “keeps our souls in motion even when our bodies stop” captures the fragmentation hustle culture creates. Biblical rest requires integrated cessation: body, mind, and soul together trusting God’s sovereignty by ceasing human effort. Modern connectivity fragments this by demanding mental and spiritual activity even during physical rest. Your body sits on the couch while your mind races through email, social media, news, entertainment. True menucha becomes unreachable.
The “badge of honor” dynamic reveals how hustle culture transforms vices into virtues. Biblical wisdom treats perpetual busyness as spiritual failure demonstrating distrust in God’s provision.
It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep. Psalm 127:2 (ESV)
God mocks anxiety-driven productivity as futile precisely because it reveals functional atheism: living as if the world’s continuation depends on your constant effort.
Cole’s honest admission “we genuinely have forgotten how to be bored anymore” identifies the formation catastrophe. Boredom isn’t character flaw requiring immediate remedy; it’s opportunity for creativity, contemplation, and encounter with God that constant stimulation prevents. The psalmist’s declaration “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10) requires exactly the boredom modern Christians systematically avoid through perpetual connectivity.
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Cole’s Response:
“Digital overwhelm has always played a big role in my anxiety. I notice that when I feel anxious, my instinct is often to reach for my phone. But that constant intake didn’t calm me. Instead, it just amplifies the noise already in my head. The more I try to distract myself digitally, the more restless and disconnected I feel.
Over time, I’ve realized my phone has become both a coping mechanism and a source of the very anxiety I was trying to escape. The endless stream of news, opinions, and comparisons keep my mind spinning and my soul unsettled. What I really needed wasn’t more input but more stillness. I needed space to breathe, pray, and simply be present without a screen telling me who I should be or how I should feel.”
Cole’s testimony reveals the sinister circularity of digital anxiety: the device functions simultaneously as symptom trigger and attempted cure. This represents what Scripture calls walking “according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2): submitting to spiritual forces that create the very bondage they claim to relieve.
His recognition that “constant intake didn’t calm me. Instead, it just amplifies the noise already in my head” demonstrates crucial spiritual discernment. The phone promises shalom (peace, wholeness) but delivers mehumah (confusion, tumult). Users reach for devices expecting relief but experience escalation because the system is designed to create dependency rather than provide resolution.
The phrase “my phone has become both a coping mechanism and a source of the very anxiety I was trying to escape” describes perfect spiritual entrapment. This mirrors how addictive systems function: create need, provide temporary relief that exacerbates underlying problem, increase dependency. The cycle ensures users never achieve genuine resolution but remain perpetually engaged.
Cole’s realization “What I really needed wasn’t more input but more stillness” represents teshuvah (repentance, return) to biblical wisdom. The prophet declares:
In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. Isaiah 30:15 (ESV)
Digital culture offers precisely the opposite: endless input, perpetual motion, manufactured urgency. Biblical healing requires the cessation modern systems systematically prevent.
His honest admission “I needed space to breathe, pray, and simply be present without a screen telling me who I should be or how I should feel” identifies the identity crisis hustle culture creates. When external systems constantly define worth through metrics, comparison, and algorithmic curation, the biblical understanding of identity as imago Dei (image of God) becomes inaccessible. Formation requires silence where God’s voice defines identity rather than algorithms, metrics, or cultural comparison.
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Cole’s Response:
“I think those three forces have created a perfect storm for my generation. This is largely what I’m writing a book about. We were told that success depends on achievement, but the benchmarks keep moving. Social media then magnifies that pressure by turning everyone else’s highlight reel into a mirror we measure ourselves against. Meanwhile, so many of us went into deep financial debt to pay for college degrees, but many of us have yet to pay that debt off. And with rising prices, some still can’t afford to buy a home in their mid-to-late 30s.
The result is a generation that’s exhausted before life even begins. We’re always striving and rarely satisfied. We’re so busy trying to build a life that looks impressive that we forget to build one that feels peaceful. But it’s hard to rest or feel content when your worth feels tied to grades, promotions, or follower counts that never seem to be enough. And when it seems like others are crossing off items of life’s proverbial checklist before you can get to them, it just adds to the pressure and anxiety. We are truly a burnt out generation, and it feels like we’re just fighting this battle in quicksand.”
Cole’s analysis reveals coordinated assault on biblical flourishing through three simultaneous attacks: academic metrics reducing persons to performance data, economic manipulation creating artificial scarcity, and digital comparison systematically destroying contentment.
His phrase “a generation that’s exhausted before life even begins” describes catastrophic inversion of God’s design. Scripture presents youth as season of strength and vitality. “The glory of young men is their strength” (Proverbs 20:29). But systemic pressure transforms this God-given vitality into premature burnout, leaving young adults depleted precisely when they should be flourishing.
The observation that “benchmarks keep moving” reveals the spiritual mechanics of hustle culture: it functions through perpetual dissatisfaction. No achievement provides lasting satisfaction because the system requires constant striving to maintain operation. This directly contradicts biblical contentment.
Godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. 1 Timothy 6:6-7 (ESV)
When cultural systems make contentment structurally impossible, they’re conducting spiritual warfare against biblical formation.
Cole’s honesty about financial pressure “deep financial debt...still can’t afford to buy a home in their mid-to-late 30s” exposes how economic manipulation compounds spiritual assault. The cultural promise was clear: education leads to prosperity. But systematic monetary policy created inflation that destroyed purchasing power while debt remained crushing. This represents what Scripture calls “wages put into a bag with holes” (Haggai 1:6): labor that produces no lasting security because systems are rigged against flourishing.
His description of “trying to build a life that looks impressive” rather than “one that feels peaceful” identifies the core idol: appearance replaces substance, performance metrics replace shalom. The Hebrew shalom encompasses wholeness, peace, completeness, flourishing. Modern systems offer the opposite: fragmentation, anxiety, perpetual inadequacy, manufactured scarcity.
The phrase “fighting this battle in quicksand” captures the futility. Individual effort cannot overcome systemic manipulation. Personal discipline cannot defeat economic exploitation. Trying harder within broken systems only accelerates burnout. What’s required isn’t greater individual striving but collective recognition that the systems themselves violate biblical design for human flourishing.
Cole’s Response:
“One of the most helpful rhythms I’ve found is creating intentional pockets of disconnection. I try to start and end my day without my phone. I am not always successful, but I have noticed a change when I am. That small boundary helps me begin and end the day grounded rather than reactive. It allows me to turn my brain off and be present with my wife rather than being focused on what strangers are doing online.
I’ve also learned to treat silence and stillness as spiritual practices, not luxuries. Going for walks without headphones, journaling, or spending time in prayer helps me reset my mind and remember who I am apart from what I produce or post. Those simple rhythms don’t necessarily eliminate anxiety, but they create space for peace to take root. That’s often where I notice God’s presence most clearly.”
Cole’s testimony demonstrates practical implementation of biblical wisdom in hostile territory. His phrase “intentional pockets of disconnection” recognizes that default cultural patterns destroy biblical rhythms, requiring conscious resistance to create space for spiritual formation.
The morning/evening boundary “start and end my day without my phone” mirrors biblical worship patterns. Ancient Israel began and ended days with sacrifice, prayer, and Scripture. Modern equivalent requires protecting these sacred bookends from algorithmic invasion. Cole’s honesty “I am not always successful” demonstrates authentic spiritual struggle rather than performative perfection.
His observation about being “grounded rather than reactive” identifies crucial distinction. Biblical living operates from stable foundation in God’s sovereignty rather than reactive response to external stimuli. Starting the day with phone immediately places consciousness under algorithmic control, making reactive living inevitable. Protecting morning space allows grounding in divine reality before engaging cultural chaos.
The phrase “be present with my wife rather than being focused on what strangers are doing online” reveals covenant priorities. Biblical marriage establishes intimate relationship as sacred (Genesis 2:24). When devices make strangers’ lives more mentally present than your spouse’s, you’re violating covenant through attention allocation that is worship currency.
Cole’s commitment to “treat silence and stillness as spiritual practices, not luxuries” represents counter-cultural formation. Hustle culture positions rest as reward earned through productivity. Scripture positions rest as obedience to divine design and trust in God’s sovereignty. The difference is theological: one makes rest contingent on performance; the other makes rest expression of faith.
His practice of “walks without headphones, journaling, or spending time in prayer” creates the very spaces modern systems systematically eliminate. Walks without audio allow encountering creation without mediation. Journaling enables processing without performing for audience. Prayer establishes relationship with God that no algorithm can curate or optimize.
The realistic framing “don’t necessarily eliminate anxiety, but they create space for peace to take root” demonstrates mature spirituality. Biblical formation doesn’t promise instant resolution but faithful practice that enables gradual transformation. Peace isn’t consumed like product but cultivated through disciplines that create conditions for God’s presence.
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Cole’s Response:
“One of the biggest challenges is that higher education often rewards busyness more than formation. Students quickly learn that their value is tied to output through grades, internships, or leadership roles. They start to believe that constant activity equals success. The result is a culture where rest feels irresponsible and stillness feels like falling behind. I remember even when I was in college having friends who would routinely turn down social events to study. It’s obviously important to study, but I think students need to balance doing so with also allowing themselves to have a life and build community.
But some students feel immense pressure to have everything figured out early, which fuels anxiety and comparison. Add in the constant digital noise of seeing peers’ achievements online, and it becomes nearly impossible to slow down or feel content. Instead of viewing college as a season of growth and discernment, many students experience it as a race to prove themselves before they’ve even discovered who they are.”
Cole exposes how higher education functions as indoctrination into hustle culture, systematically training students that worth derives from productivity metrics rather than inherent dignity as image-bearers. This directly contradicts biblical anthropology where human value flows from Imago Dei status (Genesis 1:27) regardless of output or achievement.
His observation that “students quickly learn that their value is tied to output” describes spiritual catastrophe disguised as academic rigor. When institutional structures communicate that grades, internships, and leadership roles determine worth, they’re conducting theological formation: just toward false gods. Students internalize the doctrine that salvation comes through works, producing anxiety that no achievement can relieve because the underlying theology is heretical.
The phrase “rest feels irresponsible and stillness feels like falling behind” reveals complete inversion of biblical priorities. God commands Sabbath as moral requirement demonstrating trust in divine provision. When institutions create environments where obedience to Sabbath principles feels like failure, they’re teaching functional atheism: live as if the world’s order depends entirely on your constant effort.
Cole’s memory of friends “routinely turn down social events to study” illustrates the sacrificial logic hustle culture demands. Biblical wisdom recognizes that community formation, friendship development, and relational investment represent essential human goods that academics should serve rather than replace. When educational structures require sacrificing fundamental human needs for achievement metrics, they violate the very telos education should pursue: formation of wise, virtuous, integrated persons.
His critique that students “experience it as a race to prove themselves before they’ve even discovered who they are” identifies the temporal impossibility. Formation requires time, space, experimentation, failure, reflection. Racing through college to maximize metrics prevents the very formation college should enable. Students optimize for appearance while sacrificing substance, graduating with credentials but not character, achievements but not wisdom, metrics but not maturity.
Cole’s Response:
“Academic institutions often unintentionally reinforce anxiety and pressure by structuring success around performance rather than formation. From competitive grading curves to overloaded schedules and the glorification of overachievement, students receive a clear message: your worth is measured by output. Rest, reflection, or failure aren’t seen as part of learning. Instead, they’re seen as weaknesses to overcome.
There’s also an institutional tendency to prioritize productivity metrics such as enrollment numbers, test scores, and post-graduation outcomes over student well-being. That mindset filters down to students, who internalize the idea that their value depends on constant striving. Even the pace of academic life with endless deadlines, extracurricular expectations, and digital availability mirrors the broader hustle culture, leaving little room for stillness or genuine formation.”
Cole’s analysis reveals that institutions don’t merely fail to resist hustle culture: they actively disciple students into it through structural design. The phrase “success around performance rather than formation” exposes the fundamental category error: measuring output when the goal should be transformation.
Biblical education operates through paideia (holistic formation) that addresses intellectual, moral, spiritual, and practical dimensions. When institutions reduce this to “competitive grading curves” and “productivity metrics,” they’re not just failing at education: they’re succeeding at malformation. They’re forming students who believe worth derives from achievement rather than relationship with God, community, and truth.
His observation is that academia sees “rest, reflection, or failure aren’t seen as part of learning”, which contradicts how Scripture describes formation. Biblical wisdom literature consistently presents failure, suffering, and reflection as essential formation mechanisms.
Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word. Psalm 119:67 (ESV)
When institutions treat failure as weakness rather than learning opportunity, they prevent the very transformation education should enable.
The structural critique “endless deadlines, extracurricular expectations, and digital availability” reveals how institutional design itself creates anxiety through manufactured urgency. This isn’t accidental byproduct but logical outworking of systems optimized for metrics rather than human flourishing. When institutions prioritize “enrollment numbers, test scores, and post-graduation outcomes” over student well-being, they’re making theological claims about what matters most: appearance metrics trump actual human thriving.
Cole’s phrase “mirrors the broader hustle culture” suggests institutions aren’t victims of cultural pressure but willing participants amplifying destructive patterns. Rather than providing counter-formative spaces that resist cultural pathologies, they intensify them through competitive structures that pit students against each other in zero-sum competitions for scarce goods (grades, positions, recognition).
Cole’s Response:
“Authentic community building is rooted in presence, vulnerability, and mutual care. It’s about showing up for people, not just showing something to people. In authentic community, connection grows from shared stories, listening, and real-life investment it’s slower, quieter, and often unseen.
Performative platform building, on the other hand, tends to prioritize visibility over depth. It’s fueled by metrics, such as followers and engagement, and often trades authenticity for appearance. The danger is that it can mimic community without actually offering belonging. One connects people to one another, while the other connects people to an image of someone.”
Cole articulates the fundamental difference between biblical koinonia (fellowship, sharing, participation) and modern platform economics. His phrase “showing up for people, not just showing something to people” captures the distinction between presence and performance.
Biblical community operates through berith (covenant) relationships characterized by mutual commitment, vulnerability, and long-term investment. The New Testament ekklesia (church, assembly) describes people gathered not around content consumption but around shared life in Christ.
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Acts 2:42 (ESV)
Notice the embodied, present, relational activities that require physical proximity and temporal commitment.
Contrast with performative platform building, which Cole identifies as “fueled by metrics, such as followers and engagement.” This represents transactional relationship where value derives from audience size rather than covenant depth. The spiritual danger isn’t that platforms exist but that algorithmic optimization systematically incentivizes performance over presence, breadth over depth, appearance over authenticity.
His observation that platform building “can mimic community without actually offering belonging” describes sophisticated spiritual deception. Platforms provide simulation of connection likes, comments, shares that trigger neurological reward systems without requiring the costly, embodied, long-term investment that genuine koinonia demands. Users mistake algorithmic engagement for authentic relationship, experiencing loneliness amid thousands of followers.
The phrase “connects people to one another, while the other connects people to an image of someone” reveals the spiritual mechanics. Authentic community builds horizontal relationships among members united by vertical relationship with God. Performative platforms build hub-and-spoke networks where everyone relates to central figure (the influencer) without necessarily relating to each other. The former creates actual community; the latter creates audience.
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Cole’s Response:
“I see Millennials and Gen Z deeply craving authentic connection. They want real belonging. Many of us are tired of surface-level relationships and curated identities. We tried that for years on social media and figured out how futile it all was. Now, we seek out spaces where we can be known, not just noticed. That’s something I’ve seen firsthand in my church’s young adult ministry, which has been growing rapidly in recent years. People aren’t coming for flashy programs or perfect production. They’re coming because they’re hungry for presence. They desire honest conversations and genuine friendships.
But the tension is that we’re trapped in systems that make that kind of connection hard to sustain. Our schedules are packed, our attention is fragmented, and our digital habits keep us scrolling instead of showing up. Even institutions that mean well can unintentionally reinforce this pace. So while the desire for community is real and I think it’s one of the most hopeful signs of our generation we have to resist the systems of hurry and distraction that keep us from experiencing it. Authentic connection takes time, consistency, and a willingness to slow down together.”
Cole’s testimony provides crucial nechamah (comfort, encouragement) for those despairing about younger generations. His observation that “people aren’t coming for flashy programs or perfect production. They’re coming because they’re hungry for presence” demonstrates that biblical priorities remain operative despite cultural opposition.
The phrase “we tried that for years on social media and figured out how futile it all was” suggests collective teshuvah (repentance, return) occurring across generational cohorts. After years consuming algorithmic substitutes for authentic relationship, people recognize the emptiness and seek biblical alternatives. This represents the Holy Spirit working conviction, creating hunger for genuine koinonia that simulations cannot satisfy.
His church testimony “young adult ministry...has been growing rapidly” demonstrates that when communities offer authentic presence rather than performative excellence, people respond. This aligns with Jesus’ promise:
By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. John 13:35 (ESV)
Not by production quality, not by programming sophistication, but by authentic agape love manifested through embodied presence.
Yet Cole maintains realistic assessment: “we’re trapped in systems that make that kind of connection hard to sustain.” The word “trapped” is theologically precise. Individuals cannot simply choose to escape systemic pressures through personal discipline alone. Economic structures, institutional design, and technological architecture all conspire to prevent the very formation people desperately seek.
His identification of the core problem “our schedules are packed, our attention is fragmented, and our digital habits keep us scrolling instead of showing up” reveals how hustle culture systematically prevents koinonia. Authentic community requires time, attention, consistent physical presence. When cultural systems fragment all three, community becomes structurally difficult regardless of sincere desire.
The hopeful note “while the desire for community is real...it’s one of the most hopeful signs of our generation” suggests openness to biblical formation if the church offers genuine alternatives. But Cole’s realism “we have to resist the systems of hurry and distraction” acknowledges that individual desire isn’t sufficient. Collective resistance to destructive cultural patterns requires intentional counter-formation through church communities structured for genuine presence rather than algorithmic optimization.
Editorial Analysis by Rockefeller Kennedy
If Cole’s testimony stirred recognition in your soul, you’re not alone. His journey from digital overwhelm toward intentional stillness touches on deeper theological principles that every Christian facing hustle culture needs to understand. Let’s examine the biblical foundations that make his transformation more than personal preference but pathway to spiritual liberation for generations under siege.
The sophistication of this assault on biblical rest demands equally sophisticated biblical response. What Cole experienced represents systematic spiritual warfare that requires framework thinking rather than individual solutions.
Based on Cole’s journey and Scripture’s pattern, liberation from hustle culture operates through understanding Elijah’s breakdown and recovery:
Consider Elijah after Mount Carmel. He’d just experienced the greatest prophetic victory in Israel’s history: calling down fire from heaven, executing false prophets, ending three years of drought. Yet immediately after, Jezebel’s death threat sends him fleeing into the wilderness, collapsing under a tree, praying for death.
It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers. 1 Kings 19:4 (KJV)
The Hebrew yatsa’ (exhausted, spent, gone out) describes Elijah’s condition. Not merely physical fatigue but complete depletion: spiritual, emotional, mental exhaustion where death feels preferable to continuing. This represents what Cole’s generation experiences: burnout so profound that the prospect of perpetual striving feels worse than not existing.
Notice God’s response. He doesn’t rebuke Elijah’s weakness. He doesn’t deliver motivational speeches about perseverance. He provides exactly what exhausted bodies require: food, water, sleep. Twice an angel wakes him to eat. Forty days of journey lie ahead; Elijah needs physical restoration before spiritual renewal.
This contradicts hustle culture’s core doctrine: push through exhaustion, optimize recovery for maximum productivity, treat rest as tool for enhanced performance. God treats rest as essential human need regardless of productivity goals. Elijah’s worth doesn’t depend on his output. His value derives from God’s calling, not his achievements.
After physical restoration, Elijah encounters God at Horeb. First comes earthquake, wind, fire: the spectacular displays associated with divine presence. But God isn’t in any of these dramatic manifestations. Instead, He speaks through qol demamah daqqah (a voice of thin silence, a still small voice).
And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. 1 Kings 19:12-13 (ESV)
This passage provides crucial wisdom for Cole’s generation. God’s primary communication mode isn’t algorithmic amplification of the loudest voices, viral content, or spectacular demonstrations. It’s the gentle whisper easily drowned by manufactured urgency and constant connectivity.
The Hebrew demamah (silence, whisper, calm) describes something barely audible that requires complete attention to perceive. You cannot hear demamah while scrolling TikTok. You cannot perceive qol demamah daqqah while maintaining perpetual connectivity. God’s voice operates at frequency that demands stillness, silence, sustained attention.
Modern Christians replicate Elijah’s expectation error. They seek God in spectacular experiences, dramatic interventions, viral testimonies. Meanwhile, He speaks through demamah: the still small voice accessible only to those willing to disconnect from algorithmic noise long enough to listen.
Cole’s practice of “walks without headphones” creates space for demamah. His commitment to “silence and stillness as spiritual practices” enables perceiving qol demamah daqqah. Without these disciplines, God’s primary communication mode remains inaccessible amid cultural cacophony.
Elijah’s restoration takes forty days. Forty days of journey before encountering God. Then ongoing formation as he returns to prophetic work with realistic understanding of his limitations and God’s sufficiency.
This timeline contradicts hustle culture’s instant transformation promises. Platforms sell courses promising life change in 30 days. Influencers guarantee breakthrough in 21 days. Algorithms optimize for dramatic before/after testimonies.
Biblical formation operates differently. Forty days in wilderness. Forty years wandering. Three years of Jesus’ public ministry before crucifixion. Decades of Paul’s apostolic work. Formation requires time, failure, repetition, grace.
Cole’s honesty “I am not always successful, but I have noticed a change when I am” demonstrates mature spirituality acknowledging ongoing struggle rather than claiming permanent victory. His realistic framing “don’t necessarily eliminate anxiety, but they create space for peace to take root” recognizes that formation is process, not product.
The Hebrew concept of emunah (faithfulness, steadiness, reliability) describes this pattern. Biblical formation measures success by consistent direction rather than perfect performance. Two steps forward, one step back still represents forward progress. Gradual transformation through faithful practice beats dramatic claims followed by burnout.
Elijah’s story doesn’t end with solo recovery. God reveals 7,000 in Israel who haven’t bowed to Baal: a remnant community maintaining covenant faithfulness despite cultural pressure. Elijah needs to know he’s not alone in resistance.
Cole’s testimony about church “young adult ministry...growing rapidly” demonstrates this principle. When communities offer authentic presence rather than performative excellence, they become refuge from hustle culture’s spiritual assault. People discover they’re not alone in recognizing the futility of algorithmic substitutes for genuine relationship.
The Hebrew edah (congregation, assembly, community) describes people gathered for shared purpose transcending individual capacity. Resisting hustle culture requires edah: collective commitment to counter-cultural patterns that no individual can sustain alone.
This explains why personal discipline often fails. Individual willpower cannot overcome systemic pressure indefinitely. But when communities establish shared practices: corporate Sabbath, technology fasts, accountability structures, alternative success metrics, they create sustainable resistance through collective rather than merely individual effort.
This Week: Implement Cole’s morning/evening boundary. Protect the first 30 minutes after waking and final hour before sleep from all screens. Notice how this simple boundary affects your sense of groundedness versus reactivity throughout the day.
This Month: Establish one regular practice of intentional disconnection. Choose: weekly 24-hour technology Sabbath, daily walks without headphones, or regular journaling without digital devices. Commit to consistency over perfection.
Ongoing: Identify one area where hustle culture has most damaged your spiritual formation: rest, relationships, silence, contentment. What would it look like to systematically resist this cultural pattern through biblical alternatives? Find one other person committed to similar resistance; mutual accountability enables sustainability that solo efforts cannot maintain.
When you examine your daily rhythms honestly, what “gods” receive more consistent attention than Yahweh: productivity apps, social media platforms, news feeds, entertainment systems? What would exclusive worship of God alone require changing in your device usage and scheduling?
Cole describes his generation as “exhausted before life even begins.” Do you recognize this pattern in yourself or those you minister to? What systemic pressures create this premature burnout, and what would collective resistance look like?
Where have you confused busyness with faithfulness, equated productivity with obedience, or treated rest as reward rather than commandment? What biblical correctives do you need to recover?
The battle against hustle culture represents spiritual warfare at its most sophisticated. When the enemy cannot prevent Christians from pursuing godliness, he corrupts their understanding of what faithfulness requires. Replacing menucha with manufactured urgency, qavah with instant gratification, and demamah with algorithmic amplification.
Cole’s testimony provides more than personal encouragement; it offers strategic intelligence about how this assault operates and how biblical wisdom provides effective resistance. His journey from digital overwhelm toward intentional stillness demonstrates that transformation is possible when Christians anchor identity in God’s sufficiency rather than cultural metrics.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. When Christian young adults measure themselves against curated content that commodifies their anxiety, they abandon the very foundation that enables authentic biblical living. But when they choose stillness over striving, presence over performance, and contentment over comparison, they discover the ancient path that leads to life.
This is why Cole’s voice matters. His willingness to share both struggle and progress, both failure and faithfulness, provides the authentic witness that his generation needs to resist algorithmic manipulation and embrace biblical calling.
The algorithm wants your attention. The culture wants your productivity. God wants your heart.
Choose menucha. Choose qavah. Choose the narrow path that leads to life.
Like what you’re reading? Subscribe to stay updated on how biblical wisdom exposes cultural deception targeting Christian young adults. And if this resonated with you, share it with someone who needs biblical encouragement over hustle culture’s relentless demands.
A year from now, when someone asks how you found peace amid perpetual productivity pressure while others remained trapped in anxiety and comparison, you’ll remember this conversation with Cole and this moment when you chose biblical rest over cultural striving.
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Isaiah 40:31 - Waiting upon the Lord renews strength (Blue Letter Bible - Hebrew study)
Psalm 46:10 - Be still and know that I am God (BibleHub - multiple translations)
Matthew 13:11 - Secrets of the kingdom given to disciples (Bible Gateway - ESV)
Exodus 20:9-10 - Sabbath commandment and covenant rest (Blue Letter Bible - Hebrew)
Psalm 127:2 - God mocks anxious toil (BibleHub - comparison)
Ephesians 2:2 - Walking according to prince of the power of the air (Bible Gateway)
Isaiah 30:15 - In returning and rest you shall be saved (Blue Letter Bible)
Biblical Frameworks:
Beyond AI Anxiety: The WISE Framework - Technology evaluation through Scripture
Biblical Digital Discipleship: The CONNECT Framework - Authentic disciple-making in digital contexts
Sacred Boundaries: Biblical Wisdom for Digital Privacy (REFUGE) - Protecting sacred communication
Biblical Digital Stewardship: The GUARD Framework - Community protection strategies
Related Topics:
The Sabbath Eliminates Your Reactionary Attitudes - Biblical rest defeating information overload
Your Platform Guilt Is Biblical Rebellion - Matthew 25 stewardship model for faithful work
Your AI Singularity Is Spiritual Idolatry - Technology replacing God’s transcendence
Haggai 1:6 - Wages in a bag with holes (Blue Letter Bible)
Proverbs 20:29 - The glory of young men is their strength (BibleHub)
Genesis 1:27 - Created in God’s image (Blue Letter Bible)
Genesis 2:24 - Marriage covenant (Blue Letter Bible)
Psalm 119:67 - Affliction as formation (Bible Gateway)
Acts 2:42 - Early church devotion to fellowship (Blue Letter Bible - Greek)
John 13:35 - Love for one another as identifying mark (Bible Gateway)
1 Kings 19:4 - Elijah’s exhaustion and death wish (Blue Letter Bible - Hebrew)
1 Kings 19:12-13 - God’s still small voice (Blue Letter Bible - Hebrew study)
Rockefeller Kennedy
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