What’s fascinating about human beings is that we can be stuck and not even know it. I’m not talking about being literally stuck, like pinned to a wall or trapped in a chair. I mean metaphorically stuck. And this can be true even of high performers. Believers as well.

The sinister nature of this kind of stuckness, if you will, is that it doesn’t look or feel like being stuck at all. It doesn't announce itself loudly. It doesn't blow up your life in a dramatic crisis. It just sits there — underneath the organized calendar, the polished résumé and manicured LinkedIn profile, underneath the version of you that everyone else sees functioning just fine.

By all accounts, everything is working. On paper, at least. The job is solid. The relationships are intact. The mortgage is paid. And yet there's this low-grade buzz, like feedback from an amp or static from a radio station that’s slightly off-frequency, or just out of reach. A sense that the life you're living, and the life you were built for, are not quite the same address.

Most of us don't sit with that feeling long enough to diagnose it, let alone fix it. Instead, we rearrange the deck chairs. We add something to the schedule that feels like a cure (it’s not), or subtract something that felt like the problem (it wasn’t). We mask a lack of progress with movement and call it a productive week.

But the buzz doesn't go away. It gets quieter, yes, but the internal discord simply pops up elsewhere — like whack-a-mole.

Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep.

Attention drifting off in meetings and personal conversations.

Pastimes becoming slightly less fulfilling.

The symptoms may look different, but they can point to the same question: is there a discomfort you keep managing around because you’re unwilling to lean into it?

Since you’re reading this, I’ll go ahead ask you directly: are you still craving Egypt?

Let me explain.

Israel's story in the wilderness is one of the more uncomfortable mirrors in all of Scripture. Uncomfortable because the people in it are not villains. They're exhausted, physically and emotionally — and more importantly, they’re unsure. They've been freed from bondage and led into a desert with the promise of a land of “milk & honey” ahead — but the desert is hard, and the hunger is real. So they do what people under pressure do: they reach for the familiar.

They are not just complaining about hunger. They are expressing a preference for Egypt — the place that enslaved them for hundreds of years, the place they cried out to the Lord to be rescued from. Egypt, for all its brutality, was a known commodity. They knew what the day would cost them. They knew what they’d get in return. The uncertainty of the wilderness, even with God in it, felt worse than the certainty of chains.

That's not just a wilderness phenomenon. You can find yourself in your own “wilderness” at any time — even at your desk on a Tuesday morning.

The pull back toward Egypt shows up again in Numbers 14, when the scouts return with a terrifying report about the land ahead. The lament of the people is resounding: "Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?" They even started talking about appointing a new leader to take them there. The land God promised them is right in front of them, and they are actively organizing a rebellion, and a retreat.

Notice what's driving it. Not laziness, not faithlessness in some abstract sense, but fear. Fear of what the next step actually costs. The land ahead is real, the inhabitants are real, and so is the risk. Egypt, by comparison, is at least predictable and stable.

We do this. We stay in roles that no longer fit because the alternative requires a conversation we haven't had the courage to start. We keep the side project permanently in "someday" status because launching it means finding out whether it actually works. We protect the income, the title, the reputation — not because those things are wrong, but because they are ours, and the thing we sense we're supposed to build is still uncertain.

The security being protected is real. I'm not dismissing it. A mortgage is real. A family depending on you is real. I'm not suggesting you blow up what's working on the strength of a feeling.

But there's a difference between wisdom and Egypt. Wisdom counts the cost of moving forward. Egypt counts the cost of moving forward, invents reasons why the cost is too much, and refuses to count the cost of staying put.

The buzz may be a tell, but it is not a verdict. Symptoms like sleeplessness, drifting attention, or fading enjoyment can have many causes. They do not confirm a calling. But persistent restlessness can still be a signal worth testing — especially when it keeps surfacing beneath a life that looks fine on paper.

The question is whether the Spirit is drawing your attention to a place where fear has been masquerading as wisdom. That question deserves discernment, not a snap diagnosis.

Like the Israelites in the wilderness, you can’t get to the promised land overnight. The first and most honest thing you can do is stop managing around the restlessness long enough to sit with it. Then you can identify it for what it is.

Not fix it. Not act on it yet. Just name it — and name what you're protecting as well.

You can't navigate from a location that you won't admit you're stuck in.

Your Next Move

This week, write one sentence — just one — that names both things: the restlessness you keep returning to and the specific security you're protecting by not moving toward it. Not a paragraph. Not a plan. One sentence, written down somewhere you'll see it. Something like: “I keep feeling pulled toward [X], and I'm protecting [Y] by staying where I am.” That sentence is not a commitment to act. It's a commitment to honesty — and honesty is where alignment starts.

Hit reply and tell me: what's the one word that best describes the thing you're protecting? I read every response.