When Strength Gets in the Way

Hey friends, I want to talk about something that quietly shapes how most of us respond to hard things — and I think when we see it clearly, it has the power to change everything.

This might take some unpacking — stay with me.

For most of my life, when things got hard, I got strong. I pushed through. I reminded myself of what I knew, squared my shoulders and moved forward. I called it faith. I'm not sure it always was.

Here's what I mean.

There's a version of faith that looks like resilience, fortitude and inner strength. It sounds noble. It sounds like the right response to adversity. And honestly — could you blame anyone for thinking that way? We watched the people we admired face impossible things without flinching. We read verses like 2 Timothy 1:7 — God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power, love and self-control — and concluded that feeling afraid was somehow a failure of faith. That the goal was to push past the fear and perform our way into peace.

I'm learning that's not quite right.

What I'm learning is that resilience — as good as it sounds — can quietly move us away from God rather than toward Him. It can become a form of self-sufficiency dressed up in spiritual language. And self-sufficiency, however well-intentioned, is not the same as trust.

Let me tell you what brought me here.

I'm building a coaching business. That alone takes everything — discipline, time, energy, focus. But life doesn't pause while you build. I had also been let go from my job. I had burned through most of my reserves. The only income coming in was social security disability. Then my car needed a $1,000 repair — twice in one month. And then the upstairs toilet started leaking into the kitchen ceiling.

I attempted to reseat the toilet and discovered the valve feeding the bathroom wouldn't shut the water off. I tried shutting off the main line to the whole house. It wouldn't shut off either. My ceiling was molding. I had no idea what the subfloor above it looked like. And somewhere in the middle of all of it I found myself asking God — out loud, with some frustration — how any of this was supposed to be "for me."

I catastrophized. I got afraid. My shoulders locked up. I felt it in my hip, in my jaw, deep in my sciatic nerve. Anxiety has a way of making itself known in the body whether we invite it or not.

Then I had a conversation with my daughter. And something started to shift.

I found myself looking again at 2 Timothy 1:7 — "I haven't given you a spirit of fear" — and something about it landed differently. Let's look at the verse before it. Paul writes to Timothy in verse 6:

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

Here's what I noticed. Paul isn't writing to someone having a plumbing crisis. He's writing to a young man who is afraid to operate in his spiritual gift — to step out, to lead, to do the thing God had specifically called and equipped him to do. I remember the first time I gave a prophetic word. The first time I prayed for healing over someone. The fear in those moments was real. That's the fear Paul is addressing — the fear that shrinks us back from our calling.

He's not saying you won't feel afraid. He's saying God hasn't given you that shrinking spirit. He's saying go anyway — because the power, the love and the self-control you need are already in you.

But here's what those verses had unintentionally taught me: that fear is a spiritual failure. That feeling overwhelmed meant I wasn't trusting God enough. That the faithful response to anxiety was to push through it — to override my emotions with enough scripture and willpower to get moving again.

So that's what I would do. I would shift into resilience mode. Remind myself that everything is working together for my good. That everything I am seeking is seeking me. I would tell myself to get up, take action, fix the problem, be strong.

And when the emotions kept coming anyway, I would quietly criticize myself for having them.

But here's the thing — didn't the God who made me also make me with emotions? Didn't He design this nervous system that tightens and aches and sounds the alarm when I'm afraid? He did. And He called it good.

So maybe the emotions aren't a failure. Maybe they're an invitation.

What if fear isn't the opposite of faith?

What if, sometimes, it's the doorway to it? What if allowing yourself to feel afraid — really feel it, without judgment — is the very thing that sends you running to God? The thing that makes Him say, "Look, she needs me."

That afternoon, in the middle of broken valves and molding ceilings and financial strain, I stopped trying to muster my way through it. I surrendered. Not dramatically — just quietly, internally, completely. I let go of the need to fix it, to be strong enough, to have a plan.

And my body responded immediately.

The sciatic pain loosened. The tightness in my jaw softened. My shoulders — still carrying something, even as I write this — began to release. Something deep was settling in me: faith is not a performance. Faith is a place of surrender.

It is trusting the God who promised to never leave me or forsake me. The one who promised to provide for me, to make a way for me, to work all of this — all of it — together for my good.

I didn't need to push harder. I needed to let go.

And then — and this is the part that made me laugh out loud — I remembered that I had been asking God for a new kitchen and bathroom.

The very things I wanted were on their way to me. They just didn't look the way I expected. Life was happening for me, not to me. The things I was seeking were also seeking me. I just couldn't see it because I was too busy being strong.

So here's what I want to leave you with.

Faith doesn't always look like courage. It doesn't always look like pushing through fear or swallowing your overwhelm or finding some inner reserve of strength you didn't know you had. Sometimes — maybe more often than we think — faith looks like stopping. Feeling what you feel. Bringing it honestly to the One who already knows.

Cast all your cares upon Him, because He cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7)

Then surrender to what you already know.

His faithfulness is flawless.