Steadfast in the Season of Pride™

June is the month when the tower turns up the volume. The corporate liturgy grows loud, the idols are polished and paraded, and the pressure to celebrate what grieves the heart of God becomes inescapable. This is the season when I most seriously wonder if I can keep working in a place so proudly opposed to the One I serve.

But it’s also the season when the other exiles become more visible. They won’t always say they’re five seconds away from barfing rainbows if they see one more Zoom background or get one more invitation to a child‑abuse seminar masquerading as “support for trans children,” (although some do say this and it makes me laugh every time). What they will more often say is, “I’m so worn out. I just want this month to be over.” Or, “I’m avoiding my inbox right now.” Or they leave their cameras off because they’re checked out and just trying to survive.

These are the weary faithful — the ones who still resist, even quietly — and they need to know they are not alone. Part of being a Christian in the tower is learning to spot them, strengthen them, and remind them that God still sees their faithfulness in a place that never will. Or if they are not believers, it’s such a perfect opportunity to speak truth into their weariness.

The tower feels taller in June. The air feels thinner. The cost of obedience feels heavier. And yet this is also when the call becomes clearest. If the remnant is discouraged, then leaving would not be obedience — it would be abandonment. The moment I most want to escape is often the moment God reminds me why He stationed me here. Not just to put a few points on the board by getting especially egregious policies changed (although that does sometimes happen and it does feel really good) but rather to bear witness. To feed the sheep.

June may be theatrical, but it is also when the quiet work of God becomes impossible to ignore. Beneath the noise and slogans are people starving for something real — people exhausted by the performance, people seeking sanity, people quietly praying for reassurance that faithfulness still matters.

And this is where the hidden work happens. Not in conference rooms or policy meetings, but in the margins. In whispered conversations after a call ends. In private messages that begin with, “Do you have a minute?” In the hallway moments when someone’s eyes finally say what their mouth cannot. These are the places where the Spirit moves. These are the cracks where truth slips through.

The cracks appear because the corporation can reward compliance, but it cannot manufacture peace. It can promote visibility, but it cannot give rest. It can celebrate identity, but it cannot heal a soul. And when people finally feel the gap between what the tower promises and what it delivers, they begin looking for the God whose presence steadies His people. If they drift toward me at all, it is only because His peace has made itself visible.

Faithfulness in exile is rarely dramatic. It is small, steady, and quite ordinary. It looks like answering a message from someone who hasn’t slept well in weeks. It looks like praying for a coworker who doesn’t know you pray. It looks like encouraging a friend who is starting to wonder if there's more to life than spreadsheets and powerpoint decks. It looks like refusing to bow — not with a speech, but with a quiet, immovable peace God Himself supplies.

Over time, that peace becomes its own kind of protest. Not loud. Not performative. But unmistakable. In a world addicted to spectacle, steadiness is a miracle only God can produce.

This is why I stay. Not because the tower is good or the month is easy, but because the Shepherd has exiles here, and He cares for His sheep through His people. The Kingdom has always advanced through those willing to remain in hard places long enough for fruit to grow — fruit God Himself brings forth.

And this is where that fruit becomes visible, so I have learned to look for Him in the small things:

In the coworker who whispers, “Thank you for saying that — I thought I was the only one.”

In the young mother who finally stops apologizing for loving her children more than her career.

In the husband who realizes that stepping back is not failure but obedience.

In the colleague who admits, with trembling relief, that he is tired of playing the game.

These are not corporate wins. They will never appear on a slide deck. No VP will ever applaud them. But heaven does. Heaven always has. Because heaven measures success in souls, not slogans.

And when I remember that the Kingdom is not threatened by a month of corporate liturgy, and that the Spirit is not intimidated by a tower built on self‑worship, something in me settles. The noise fades. The pressure loosens. The month becomes bearable again.

Because I am not here to win culture wars with HR, I am here to be faithful. I am here to strengthen the weary. I am here to bear quiet witness to a better Kingdom. And as long as the Shepherd has exiles in this place, I will remain at my post.

Not because the tower deserves my presence, but because the exiles do.

Not because the month is easy, but because the mission is clear.

Not because I am strong, but because He is.

And when the noise rises again next June — as it surely will — I will remember what is truer than the tower’s liturgy: that the God who keeps His people in Babylon also keeps His people through Babylon. That He sees every unseen act of faithfulness. That He gathers every quiet victory. That He delights in every soul strengthened in the shadows.

And that one day, when the towers fall and the noise dies and the idols crumble, the fruit of this hidden obedience will stand — radiant, eternal, untouched by the month that once felt unbearable.

This is why I stay.

This is why I keep watch.

This is why faithfulness, even here, is worth the cost.

Towers fall, but God never changes.

The Career Idol | Called to Stay in Babylon | Steadfast in the Season of Pride™