Pundayschool · Episode 13 companion

The Lift Button: a devotional for anyone still pressing

A quick devotional for busy people: 3 to 5 minutes, start to finish. Read it or listen to it, whichever fits your morning: a coffee break, a commute, or the two minutes before the rest of the house wakes up. When you reach the bottom, you have done today's devotional.

3 to 5 minutes · read or listen · Psalm 37:7 · goes with the short "The Lift Button"

A small elevator lobby with two stainless steel elevator doors side by side, a lit call button panel mounted on the wall between them, a leafy potted plant in the corner, and Pundayschool's round white mascot standing below the panel, one hand raised and pointing up at the button.
The whole sermon happens in this lobby: two doors, one button, and a mascot who has already pressed it once.
In short

This devotional, from Pundayschool Episode 13, "The Lift Button", teaches that biblical waiting is not the same as standing still doing nothing. Its verse is Psalm 37:7: "Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him" (NIV). Pressing the call button a second or third time never made the lift move faster, because the lift was already coming. Waiting on God works the same way: our job is not to keep pressing, it is to trust that he heard us the first time.

First, watch the short

Pundayschool · EP 13

The Lift Button

One button. One light. A very specific kind of faith that believes pressing again helps.

On its way up

The short has not gone live yet. The day it posts at @pundayschool, the video will play right here. The devotional below stands on its own, so read on.

Coming to YouTube · TikTok · Instagram · Facebook

Reading Psalm 37:7

"Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes."

Psalm 37:7, NIV

Prefer to listen?

The wider passage, Psalm 37:5 to 9, read aloud in the King James Version. About a minute.

There is a very specific kind of faith that believes pressing the lift button again will make it come faster. Not because the first press didn't work. The light is on. The lift knows. Apparently, it needs reminding. So we press again. Then harder. Then the other button, the one for the floor below, because at this point we are open to options.

The mascot stands with its back mostly to the camera, hands clasped together under its chin in a praying posture, head bowed, waiting on the mat in front of the closed elevator doors.
Same posture, different lobby: pray the same prayer, just slightly louder this time.

We stare at the little number like our concentration is contributing. Floor six. Interesting. Check phone. Nothing. We know none of this does anything. We know. But waiting with empty hands feels irresponsible. We need to touch something. So we pray the same prayer, slightly louder this time. We wait on God the way we wait for a lift, because doing nothing feels dangerously close to nothing happening.

Then David writes something inconvenient: "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him." Inconvenient, because most of us were hoping for something more proactive. A button, perhaps. But biblical waiting is not pretending we don't care. It is refusing to confuse our own activity with God's activity.

The lift was already coming. Our third press did not move it. Maybe the thing we are actually waiting for isn't stuck either. Maybe our job was never to keep pressing. Maybe our job is simply to trust that God heard us the first time.

Let the light stay on.

Three honest questions

No lecture here. Just three quiet questions, between us and God, while the light is still on.

An extreme close-up of the elevator's call button plate: a round illuminated up button, its edges dulled and smudged from years of pressing, mounted above a plain unlit down button on brushed steel.
A button, perhaps. Worn smooth by everyone who has ever needed something to happen faster.

A short prayer

Finger off the button. Pray it slowly, in these words or your own.

Father, thank you that you heard me the first time, even when I kept asking. Forgive me for confusing my fidgeting with faith, and for treating stillness like giving up. Help me tell the difference between trusting you and merely reminding you. Teach me to wait the way this verse describes: patiently, without fretting, with my hands finally still. Let the light stay on, and let that be enough for me today. Amen.

A close-up of the same call button panel, with the mascot's cartoon fingertip touching only the very top edge of the lit button, caught in the moment of lifting away rather than pressing down.
The moment the whole short has been building to: the finger comes off the button.

One step for today

You do not need a plan for the rest of the day. You need exactly one thing.

Name the one thing you are waiting on. A job, an answer, a diagnosis, a relationship, a prayer you have prayed more times than you can count. Say it out loud, once, honestly. Then do not pray it again today. Not because it stops mattering, but because you already said it, and God already heard it.

If the urge to check, ask, or press again shows up before bedtime, notice it, name it for what it is, and let it pass. The light is still on. That is not nothing. That is the lift, already coming.

That's it

That is the whole devotional. No extra reading, no follow-up task, nothing to sign up for. If one line stuck with you, say it back to God once more before the day picks up speed. That counts. You have done today's devotional.

Questions people ask

What does Psalm 37:7 mean?

David wrote this psalm to people who were unsettled watching the wicked seem to get ahead. His answer is not a strategy, it is a posture: be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Stillness here is not passivity or resignation. It is confidence that God is already active, so we do not have to manufacture activity of our own just to feel like we are doing something.

Is waiting on God the same as doing nothing?

No, and that is the whole point of the lift picture. We pressed the button once, correctly, and the lift was already on its way. Every extra press after that changed nothing about the lift, only about our own anxiety. Biblical waiting is trusting that the one thing we did, the honest prayer, the real request, was already received. It is not laziness. It is refusing to confuse our own fidgeting with God's timing.

Why do I keep praying the same prayer over and over?

Usually because waiting with empty hands feels irresponsible, so we look for something to touch. That instinct is not shameful, it is human. But Psalm 37:7 invites something different: say it honestly once, then trust that God heard it the first time. Repeating a prayer is not wrong, but if it is coming from panic rather than devotion, it is worth noticing the difference.

What is the difference between my activity and God's activity?

Our activity is the pressing, the checking, the extra effort we add because stillness feels risky. God's activity is the actual thing moving toward us, whether we can see it yet or not. The lift was already coming before the third press. Confusing the two means we start to believe our anxious effort is what makes things happen, instead of trusting that God was already at work.

Where can I watch The Lift Button?

Episode 13 goes live soon at @pundayschool on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, and the video will be embedded near the top of this page the day it posts. Bookmark this page or follow @pundayschool to catch it first.