Cease Striving

by | Jul 20, 2026 | Articles, Testimonies

For most of my adult life, I have been a striver. I wanted to excel at work. In leadership. In health. In every measurable category available to me. If there was a scoreboard, I wanted to be winning. Success was tangible. It could be tracked. And over time, I accumulated some wins. But with each win came reinforcement of a definition of success shaped more by the world than by Scripture.  I believed the gospel. I believed salvation was by grace. Yet I often lived as though approval—God’s and everyone else’s—still depended on my performance. Paul’s question to the Galatians challenges me: “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3). Much of my striving wasn’t ambition. It was fear. Fear of failure. Fear of letting people down. Fear that if I stopped producing, I might matter less. Striving feels noble when people depend on you. As men, we are called to work, to lead, to take responsibility. Those are good and biblical callings. But somewhere along the way, striving can result in carrying responsibility for outcomes God never intended for us to carry.  The Bible contrasts the striving of man with the sovereignty of God in Psalm 46:10: Cease striving and know that I am God (NASB1995). When we are still, when we hold loosely to outcomes and let the Lord lead, then we become more aware of God’s will for our lives.  It’s not an invitation to complacency but a call to surrender. A return to fully depending on God. Ceasing to strive doesn’t mean abandoning ambition. It means to focus...