I come from a long, long line of hard workers — Amish and Mennonite dairy farmers. It is in our genes and woven into our way of life.

Let me illustrate a couple of powerful truths that flow from that heritage.

Milking and tending dairy cows is not a seasonal hobby. It is a continual, seven-days-a-week, 365-days-a-year calling. It does not matter the weather, the holiday, or how you are feeling — the cows must be fed and milked. There is no skipping. There is no sleeping in.

To neglect milking a dairy cow is to cause her serious pain and possible infection. She must be relieved of her milk. Taking Christmas off was never an option.

As you can imagine, laziness in a family with this kind of legacy was not an option either.

My ancestors boarded a boat in Amsterdam in 1736 and sailed to Philadelphia in the New World. It was an arduous Atlantic crossing filled with peril. Landing in Pennsylvania, they pressed north and westward to new land. They cleared forests, built houses and barns, planted crops, and carved out lives.

In the 1800s, they moved again — westward into the Louisiana Territory and eventually into a new state called Indiana. They homesteaded, cleared land, built barns, planted fields, and established families and churches.

This was not done by people who sat around waiting for the sky to clear and the sun to warm the day. It was done with the sweat of their brows and the strength of their backs. If they did not do it, it simply did not get done.

Simply put, lazy people were dead people.

If you wanted to live, you worked. You contributed. Rain or shine. Cold or heat. Sun or cloud. Sometimes day, sometimes night.

That is a powerful legacy to live under.

And it is not just my story. It is the story of millions of families who call America home. If your family immigrated here, it likely wasn’t because of a lazy spirit. It happened through willfulness, determination, sacrifice, and a desire for something better.

Many of us carry that DNA into every other part of our lives — our employment, our families, our relationships, even our faith. The reflex is simple: work harder, push through, give it a little more.

And then Scripture whispers something different.

Isaiah writes:

“But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary;

they shall walk and not faint.”

— Isaiah 40:31 (ESV)

And Jesus says:

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

— Matthew 6:34 (ESV)

Into a heritage of effort, God speaks of waiting.

As I transition from full-time active employment into what is called retirement, I am discovering that the DNA of doing does not simply shut off. I hear in my heart a gentle reminder: Wait. I’ve got this. Be strengthened. Be renewed. Be restored.

The whole idea of “being” feels like foreign ground.

I am a doer. My whole life has been spent doing. What do You mean, “wait”?

And yet I hear Him say, Let Me get you through today. Tomorrow will worry about its own things.

So I sit. I meditate on what it means to be His child. To have not just the DNA of hardworking ancestors running through me — but the DNA of the Spirit shaping me.

And I sense Him whisper,

Just be for a moment. There will be things to do later.