When faith dissipates, it rarely goes all at once. It gets crowded out, one reasonable compromise at a time, until the space that used to belong to God has been filled by something else, and you can’t name exactly when that became the way things are.

The routine morning prayer getting replaced by phone scrolling is rarely a conscious choice; it’s just the path of least resistance, taken once and then again, until the resistance disappears and so does the prayer. The ambition that fills the calendar leaves no visible wound, but rather steals the hours that used to hold something else.

Jesus names this in the parable of the sower as a specific kind of displacement: the seed that falls among thorns, where worry and the pull of ambition do their work slowly and almost without notice, until what was trying to grow is choked out and has no room left.

Many of us recognize this soil.

A faithful farmer, though, scatters seed everywhere without first evaluating which ground is ready, which means the word is still being offered to the version of us that has let other things move in.

The seed has been scattered. The question is whether we can clear a little space.

This week’s invitation: Name one thing that has been crowding out your faith. Just naming it is the first step, then decide whether it’s worth the space it’s taking and what it’s costing you.