A Deeper Walk with Christ

Maybe the goal is remembering that Jesus is the Savior, and therapy can be one of the tools He uses along the way.

As Christian influencers and entrepreneurs, we can spend so much time building the life we prayed for, that we stop making room for the God we prayed to.

We thank Him for the opportunities. We call our businesses a blessing. We talk about trusting His timing. But when He asks us to slow down, turn down a deal, or change the way we work, that trust gets tested.

What happens when following God threatens the lifestyle we have worked so hard to build?

That is a question I have had to answer for myself.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a go-getter. I loved learning, creating opportunities, and pushing past barriers. That drive eventually led me into entrepreneurship and a career as an influencer.

In that world, success has some pretty obvious markers: followers, money, brand deals, and opportunities that make other people feel like you have arrived. I experienced those things, and honestly, there were parts of that life I loved. But even with financial security and a thriving career, I still experienced loneliness and a lack of fulfillment that another opportunity could not fix.

Then, I was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus and myositis, and the pace I had built my life around became impossible to maintain.

The pain was overwhelming, and my faith was shaken. I questioned God and, for a time, turned away from Him. But eventually, I realized I could not walk through that season without Him. Reading Job helped me feel less alone, and over the next three years, God began revealing how much of my trust depended on my circumstances.

I believed He was good, but I had connected His goodness to being healthy, successful, and financially secure. Through that painful season, I began knowing Him beyond what He could do for me.

But knowing Him more deeply brought me to another crossroads: my heart was changing, while my way of living was still shaped by hustle.

I was trying to make God a priority without changing the lifestyle that kept pushing Him to the margins.

“Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

— Matthew 9:17

Jesus spoke these words in a conversation about fasting, explaining that what He was bringing could not simply be contained within the old ways. His illustration has also challenged me to examine my own life: am I willing to let my way of living change as I follow Him?

I wanted a deeper relationship with God, but I was trying to fit it into a life organized around constant productivity and control. I wanted to trust Him while still making sure I had every outcome covered.

I would pray about my future, then spend the rest of the day worrying about how I was going to secure it.

Illness had changed my business. I had lost money, gone into significant debt, and could no longer physically work the way I once had. My instinct was to hustle harder and get back to where I used to be.

But I felt the Lord asking me to let go of the way I had been living.

For me, that meant leaving my management team, turning down certain deals, and clearing commitments from my schedule so I could prioritize Him. Those were deeply personal decisions, and they were difficult. The opportunities I was releasing were the same ones I had relied on to pay my bills.

Obedience did not immediately make everything easier. My income decreased, and my financial responsibilities remained. I found myself asking, “God, I am trusting You, but how is this going to work?”

I kept telling Him, “You gave me this house to steward. I have to make this happen. I have to find another deal. I have to figure it out.”

So much of my thinking still came back to what I could do.

God was teaching me to work from dependence on Him instead of fear that everything would fall apart without me.

That is where I want to challenge those of us who are building businesses and platforms while professing faith in Christ.

We need to examine what is actually leading us. Is it obedience to God, or fear of losing momentum? Are we accepting an opportunity because it aligns with our convictions, or because we cannot bear to watch someone else get it? Have we made ourselves so available to our businesses that we have little attention left for Him?

These questions reach beyond whether our content mentions Jesus. They ask whether He has authority over the life behind the content.

It is possible to publicly give God credit while privately refusing to release control. We can say He comes first, yet give Him whatever time remains after the emails, deadlines, and endless demands of staying relevant.

And in an industry where there is always more to chase, there may never be time left for Him.

A deeper walk with God has to be allowed to shape our decisions. It affects what we say yes to, how we define enough, and whether we can rest without feeling that our worth is disappearing.

That does not mean every Christian entrepreneur needs to leave their management team or turn down the same opportunities I did. It means we must be willing to bring our work before God and follow where He leads, even when it challenges what we have always known.

Trusting Him still involves responsible decisions, wise counsel, and faithful work. But there is a difference between tending what He has entrusted to us and believing we alone can keep our lives from falling apart.

I am learning that I can make a plan without making that plan my security. I can work diligently without allowing fear to dictate my pace. I can bring my needs to God without demanding that He meet them through the opportunity I have already chosen.

My bills have continued to be paid, even through seasons when I could not see how it would happen. I am grateful for that provision. But the deeper lesson is learning to trust His character while the outcome is still unclear.

Trust cannot depend on every act of obedience producing an immediate financial reward. Otherwise, I am right back where I started, measuring God’s goodness by how comfortable my life feels.

The lifestyle we have built cannot become so precious that we refuse the work God wants to do within us.

Even something we received with gratitude can become something we cling to more tightly than Him.

So the question I keep returning to is this: if God asks me to change the life I have worked so hard to build, will I let Him?

I am still learning. I still have moments when worry rises and I want to take everything back into my own hands. But I am learning to return to Him, to seek Him before rushing into another solution, and to let knowing Him shape how I live.

The greater thing taking shape in me is a deeper trust in God. A faith that can hold on to Him when the numbers change, the opportunities slow down, and the future looks different from what I imagined.

I want to steward my business well and  I want to use my influence with purpose.

But more than that, I want to know Him.

And I want my life to make room for that.

-Ash

I used to say, “I trust God,” and I truly believed that I did. But recently, I realized that my trust had limits. I could trust God for the little things. I could trust Him to send a blessing, open a door, give me an opportunity, or work something out.

But when something BIG was on the line?

My mortgage is due and there isn’t enough money. My business isn’t doing well. Something happens that threatens my security. Suddenly, “I trust God” would turn into:

“Okay, but I HAVE to figure this out.”

Because in my mind, I can’t lose my house. I can’t let this bill go unpaid. I can’t let my business fail. I have to do something.

And that’s when it finally clicked for me:

I trusted God, as long as I still felt like I had some control.

I would pray about it. I would tell God I was giving it to Him. But then I would pick it right back up and start trying to carry it myself.

I’d work harder.

Stress more.

Think about it constantly.

Try to figure out every possible solution.

And I called that being responsible.

But sometimes what I was actually doing was striving because I was afraid of what would happen if I truly released the outcome to God.

I’m learning that the bigger the issue, the deeper the trust has to become.

Laying something at God’s feet doesn’t mean we stop being responsible. It doesn’t mean we stop working, planning, paying our bills, going to the doctor, or doing what wisdom requires.

It means we stop believing that everything depends on us.

Maybe real trust isn’t saying, “God, I trust You to give me the outcome I want.”

Maybe it’s saying:

“God, I trust You even when I don’t know what the outcome will be.”That’s different.

Because sometimes we’re not actually trusting God, we’re trusting God to make sure we never lose the thing we’re afraid to lose.

So I’ve been asking myself a different question:

What am I still trying desperately to control because I’m afraid of what will happen if I truly put it in God’s hands?

What am I asking Him to handle while exhausting myself trying to handle it first?

Maybe that’s the place where God is asking for deeper trust.

Not less responsibility.

Not less wisdom.

Not less action.

Less striving. Less fear. Less control.

Because saying, “God, I trust You,” is one thing.

Living like I trust Him when everything in me wants to take control?

That’s where trust becomes real.

Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.

 

I’ve seen a lot of conversation about the Cornell Seven on my timeline. People are angry, asking questions, demanding answers, and seeking justice.

I’ll be honest: my immediate reaction was anger too.

As a woman who has experienced sexual abuse at a young age, I know what it feels like to be in a space where you no longer feel you have control over your own body. So when I hear allegations involving sexual violence, there is an emotional response that comes with that.

At the same time, I haven’t deeply researched all the facts of this particular case, so I don’t want to speak as though I know every detail or have reached conclusions I’m not equipped to make.

But I do know that I couldn’t sit in my initial emotional reaction for too long.

Because as a daughter of Christ, my trust in God has to be bigger than my anger.

And that realization led me to a much larger question.

When horrific things happen, one of the first questions people ask is:

Where was God?

If God is all-powerful, why didn’t He stop it?

If He could intervene, why wouldn't He?

And if He sometimes intervenes, why do righteous people have prayers go unanswered while people doing evil appear to prosper?

These are difficult questions. But I think our questions sometimes reveal something deeper: what do we actually believe about the character of God?

Someone asked me recently, “If God has the power to save someone, wouldn't He also have the power to prevent the evil from happening in the first place?”

My answer was yes.

God has the power to stop evil.

But God is also perfectly just, righteous, and merciful.

When we say, “God should immediately remove evil,” we have to consider the full weight of what we're asking. Evil isn't limited to murder, rape, and the horrific acts that immediately come to mind. Sin exists in humanity.

If perfect justice meant God immediately destroying every person the moment they sinned, who among us could stand?

Instead, we see God's mercy and time given for repentance, transformation, and redemption.

That doesn't make evil acceptable.

Mercy is not God's approval of evil, and delayed judgment is not the absence of justice.

That distinction matters.

But Why Does God Intervene Sometimes?

Then someone asked another question that stopped me:

How does God decide when to intervene? I've seen righteous people go unanswered while people doing evil seem to receive miracles.

And that was where I had my aha moment.

Part of the disconnect may be that we assume every favorable outcome is God's endorsement.

But is it?

Scripture doesn't teach us that everything we desire, or everything that appears miraculous, necessarily comes from God.

When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, he offered Him the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

That should tell us something.

Getting what you want is not always evidence that God gave it to you.

Sometimes the thing that looks like a blessing may be the very thing pulling you farther away from Him.

And sometimes the thing that feels like God's rejection may eventually reveal itself as His protection.

We simply don't have the vantage point God has.

Knowing God Changes the Question

And that's when something clicked for me:

It's easy to make God the villain of a story when our understanding of Him is simply “the big guy upstairs controlling everything.”

But knowing God's character changes how we process what we cannot explain.

When I know Him as Father, I don't have to interpret His character through every circumstance. I can interpret my circumstances through what I already know about His character.

That doesn't mean Christians won't suffer.

It doesn't mean every prayer will be answered the way we want.

It doesn't mean everything painful will suddenly make sense.

And it certainly doesn't mean we become passive about injustice.

We should seek truth. We should protect people. We should pursue justice through the appropriate means. People should be held accountable for wrongdoing.

But there is a difference between pursuing justice and allowing the pursuit of justice to consume us.

You Don't Have to Carry the Weight of Vengeance

This is what I'm learning.

I can be angry about evil without allowing anger to own me.

I can desire justice without appointing myself judge.

I can advocate for accountability without surrendering my peace.

I can acknowledge evil without believing that God has somehow lost control.

Scripture says, “Vengeance is Mine.” (Romans 12:19)

That means there is a weight I was never designed to carry.

God sees what I don't see.

God knows what I don't know.

And no person ultimately escapes His judgment simply because justice doesn't happen according to my preferred timeline.

That's where faith becomes more than something we say.

Faith isn't pretending to understand everything God does.

Faith is trusting God's character when I don't understand His actions.

So when I encounter stories that make me angry, grieve me, or leave me asking, “God, where were You?” I can bring those questions to Him.

I can seek justice.

I can care deeply.

I can grieve with those who are hurting.

And then I can release the parts that dont belong to me, to Him.

Because I believe He sees the entire picture. I believe He is just even when I don't understand His timing. And I believe evil will not ultimately escape judgment.

If you struggle to believe that, I wouldn't tell you to stop asking questions.

I'd invite you to go deeper.

Learn who God says He is, not simply who pain, disappointment, culture, or even other Christians have told you He is.

Because the more you understand His character, the more you'll realize that trusting God doesn't require having an explanation for everything.

Sometimes faith is simply saying:

“God, I don't understand what You're doing. But I know who You are.”

And sometimes, that's enough.

 —Ash

Romans 12: 17-21

17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
    if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Sometimes the healing is in the unhealing.

I prayed for God to heal me completely. And when He didn’t,when the healing only came partially,I couldn’t understand why.

I thought healing meant taking it all away.

But over time, I began to realize that while God hadn’t healed everything I could see, He was healing things in me that no one could see.

The parts of me that were afraid.
The parts that needed control.
The parts that thought His faithfulness could only be measured by the outcome I prayed for.

What remained unhealed led me into a deeper understanding of who He is. It taught me that His presence is not proven by the absence of pain, and His faithfulness is not limited to giving me the ending I asked for.

So yes, I’m still sick.

But what once made me question His faithfulness has become one of the things that reminds me of it.

I still believe in healing. I still pray for healing. But now I know that sometimes the miracle isn’t only in what God takes away.

Sometimes it’s in what He does within us while it remains.

Sometimes, the healing is in the unhealing.

Romans 5:3-5 NIV

3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

 

Instead of only asking, “Is this technically a sin?” maybe the questions should be: What is my heart posture toward it?

Sometimes we can get so caught up in doing the thing that we forget the One who gave us the opportunity to do it in the first place.