Just Press Play
On January 1, 2021, weary from months of COVID isolation, I walked into my gym with a quiet resolve: to get more physically fit—and to finally read the Bible from beginning to end.
I’m a slow and easily distracted reader, so when The Bible in a Year podcast launched that very day, it felt providential. I pressed “play” and began listening as I exercised each day, letting God’s Word accompany every step.
About four months in, while counting my steps on the elliptical with that awful mask still covering half my face, I looked around at others pedaling in circles to reach their own fitness goals. And something struck me.
We are all striving for higher ground—some place “better” than where we are. We search for peace, purpose, and security. Yet cultural messages of discouragement, division, and distraction constantly pull us off course, drawing our attention away from God, in whose heart our true resting place lies.
The problem wasn’t movement.
It was direction.
As Scripture steadily formed me, I began to see how Christ is hidden throughout the Old Testament and revealed in the New. Stories I had heard since childhood suddenly carried depth and coherence. God’s design was not fragmented—it was unified, intentional, alive.
At the same time, I became more aware of how easily I had allowed the culture to shape my thinking. I wasn’t hostile to faith.
I was simply unanchored.
Spiritually adrift.
The image of spinning came to mind—not as chaos, but as motion.
What if, instead of spinning in circles, we spun toward Christ?
What if the energy of our lives revolved around Him?
That question marked a turning point.
I began writing as a way of processing what I was discovering—how Scripture illuminates suffering, how Christ is present in the fire, and how hope is rooted not in wishful thinking but in resurrection.
Again and again, I began to see that God does not wait for the storm to pass before drawing near—He meets us within it.
I didn’t begin with a grand strategy. I began with gratitude. With awe. With the desire to remain close to the Word that was reshaping me.
Spinning for Jesus grew from that place.
Not as a platform.
Not as a program.
But as a practice.
A way of keeping my eyes fixed on Him.
A way of listening.
A way of returning when my focus wanders.
If these reflections draw even one person closer to Christ—steadier, more hopeful, more assured—then the spinning has found its center.
