A few years ago, my dad ran his first marathon. He had determined that instead of listening to music, podcasts, or audiobooks while training and on race day, he would pray.       

Why? 

Because God was his strength when his own wasn’t enough. 

Recently, I’ve been thinking about reliance on God a lot. As someone who loves productivity, hitting achievements, and the general feeling of success, I often try to do everything in my own strength. When things start getting too hard to bear, I just try to push harder, get over it, keep going. I talked about that in this blog post.

But sometimes I’m unable to push harder. I realize that I can’t get up and keep going. That’s when I hit a wall. 

Then what? 

As humans, we will all—at some point or another— get to a point where our best just isn’t good enough to get us through. Whether it’s something physical (like working out or fasting), emotional, or spiritual, there are some things that we will be completely inadequate to get through on our own strength. 

There are a few things we can do when we get to a point of inability to deal with whatever is coming at us. We could…

• Grind it out. It doesn’t matter how weak I feel, how terrible things are— God has made me smart, strong, and resilient. I’ll get through this! 
• Let it beat us. I guess things are past the point of being fixed. Poor me… 
• Seek guidance from those around us. I know someone who has gone through this! I know they’ll be able to give me what I need. 
• Go to God. I know I’m not strong enough. I can’t fix things on my own. No one can help me like You do. God, what do you have to say about this? 

It’s clear what the “Christian” solution should be— the last one. This is the advice that most believers will give to others. But cliche, insincere words coming from people who don’t understand your pain or circumstances never really help, do they?

I’m going to break down each of these four strategies, and we’re going to look at what the mindsets and actions can lead to. 

Grind it out

It’s clear in Scripture that there are some jobs that Christians are to do. For example, we have been enabled and commanded to share the Gospel with the world (Mark 16:15). We are supposed to resist the devil so that he will flee from us (James 4:7). That’s our job.

This can be taken too far, though.

Some people believe that God has already done everything He’ll do, and now they just have to run around and, in a sense, act like God and do everything themselves. They think they have to manufacture anything they could possibly need without relying on God at all. 

When this happens, people forget that God is their source of strength. They magnify themselves by making it look like they’re so strong, have so much faith, have such a close relationship with God. This is where pride can creep in. 

That is a dangerous mentality, since although God has equipped us for every good work (Hebrews 13:21), there are some things we simply can’t do. For example, convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job. (John 16:8). 

So, while there are certain jobs that we are supposed to do as believers, there are also things we have to leave in God’s hands. Believing that whatever happens is up to God and Him alone is a way of taking off our spiritual armor (Ephesians 6:10-18). Our prayers make a difference, and our words and actions impact people and their decisions. 

But at the end of the day, God is God, and we are not. We’re only human—in many ways, we’ll fall short. But praise the Lord that every time we call out to Him for help, He comes and rescues us!

Let it beat us

Some people, on the other hand, believe in a completely other extreme. They believe that whatever happens is all under God’s sovereign control and we just “sit back and watch”. That is resignation at its highest! Satan can have a heyday with that, wreaking all sorts of havoc that some Christians believe is part of God’s mysterious will.    

Like I mentioned earlier, we as God’s people are not supposed to live as passive Christians. 

We have authority over the devil (Luke 10:19), and we are supposed to use it. Since he was disarmed at the cross (Colossians 2:15), the only way he can get to us is through our thoughts. He’ll try to lie to us, get us angry, make us question what we know is true. We can not give up the moment our peace is challenged.

This is where fear, depression, anxiety, and a complete victim mentality can be birthed. Never resign!

Seek guidance from those around us

There’s definitely a time and place for going to others with the hopes of getting encouragement and advice. However, it’s important to not idolize people. While unity and support with other believers is so important, no one has all the answers. Nobody understands every aspect of your circumstances in a way that they’ll be able to offer completely infallible advice. 

Sometimes God leads us to other people for a bit of guidance and support, but they can’t be our default method of getting through adversity. 

I can’t make it clear enough how good and beautiful it is when believers work and pray together and encourage one another—I’ve been so touched by support, love, prayer, and encouragement from other believers! 

I’m just saying that we can’t prioritize advice from our parents, friends, or even pastors over what God has to say. 

Go to God

The last way people can try to handle adversity is by going straight to God about it. To some people, this may sound like the “right” but impossible thing to do. We can’t see God, yet we’re supposed to believe that all of the chaos in our lives will magically fall into place because of Him? 

It might sound a little… crazy. 

But here’s the thing: God has every answer to your problems. 

He sees into the spiritual realm and knows exactly what’s going on behind the scenes. He knows why you are struggling with that particular burden. And do you know what?

He is the only one who can get you through. We are constantly burdened with things that can feel too heavy to carry on our own. How can we realistically handle these circumstances?

I went through a heavy spiritual attack several weeks ago, and I tried to work through it on my own, but I couldn’t seem to get through it, so I started to resign. I became fearful and started to act on that fear.

After both trying to grind it out and then resigning (the first two ways of handling attacks!), I talked to my mom about what I was dealing with (strategy #3). 

But through it all, I hadn’t truly seeked the Lord for His advice. His guidance. I didn’t pray and then wait in silence for His answer. I did everything I could do all on my own. 

And then one day, it felt so heavy that I finally brought it to Him. I went to my hiding place and instead of talking it all out, I just rested. I imagined Jesus was right there, and He gave me the biggest embrace. 

I couldn’t work through it on my own strength. Resigning to “whatever happens happens” only made things worse since it led to poor decision making. And while getting some counsel from my mom helped, it certainly didn’t fix things. 

But when I brought my burden to the Lord, He reminded me of something so crucial: I wasn’t meant to carry it.        

Everything I’ve said over the course of these last 1000 words can be summed up in one Bible verse. 

“Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; 

He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.”

—Psalm 55:22

I want to encourage you with this: God sees what you’re going through. He understands your struggle. He knows if you’re overwhelmed, afraid, living in a reality beyond even despair. 

But He doesn’t want you to carry that. He doesn’t want you to bear those burdens, because He knows that you’re not strong enough— only He is. Not only is He able, but He is willing!

More than you may know, He wants to set you free from all bondage. 

When you feel like you’re not strong enough to bear your burdens, give them to God— He can be trusted, because He loves you too much to let you down.