Embracing the Friction Point

God isn’t looking for the polished Sunday morning version of your life—He wants the real you, right in the middle of the uncertainty.

I think we’ve all had those seasons—the ones where we’re standing at a crossroads, tension pressing in from both sides, trying to make a decision that doesn’t have a clear answer laid out in Scripture. And to complicate things further, sometimes the church itself doesn’t even have a unified stance on the issue at hand.

How do you make a decision that aligns with your faith when there’s no black-and-white answer? For me, it took time. A lot of conversations with my therapist, a lot of prayer, and a whole lot of reframing about how I viewed my ADHD. It took a while for me to break down the shame I carried around not being able to fix my ADHD with sheer willpower, spiritual practices, and a handful of organization hacks. Somewhere along the way, I had internalized the idea that my righteousness as a believer was directly tied to my ability to stay organized.

Let that sink in for a second.

At some point in my life, I had taken the old saying “cleanliness is next to godliness,” run with it, and turned it into a moral failure every time my laundry piled up or my office looked like a crime scene. And here’s the kicker—that belief created a lose-lose cycle for me.

• When I was struggling, I felt shame for not being more disciplined, for not having my life in order.
• But when I did manage to keep everything together, I felt pride—and worse, I found myself looking down on others who couldn’t manage as well.

It was toxic.

And the worst part? I had never questioned it before.

I had indiscriminately absorbed this idea that my ability—or inability—to keep my life together had some direct link to my spiritual worth.

That had to change.

So, I studied Scripture. I worked through unlearning the lies that had been filling me with shame. I dug into what God actually says about our struggles, our limitations, and His grace. I did the work. And you know what I found? That nowhere in Scripture does God expect perfection from me. We are called to be good stewards of what we have, yes, but God isn’t disappointed in me for struggling with executive function.

Have you ever been there? Maybe it wasn’t ADHD medication for you. Maybe it was starting therapy after years of believing you just needed to pray harder. Maybe it was setting a boundary that made you feel guilty but was the only way to protect your peace. Maybe it was walking away from a belief, a system, or even a relationship that no longer aligned with who you were becoming.

Whatever it was, I bet you felt it—that friction, that internal battle, that nagging voice asking, “But what if this means I’m not trusting God enough?”

If you have, I want you to hear this: God can handle your big emotions, meltdowns, and wrestling. He is not sitting in Heaven, arms crossed, disappointed that you need help, that you need support, that you need something outside of sheer willpower to function. If you are at a crossroad, stuck in uncertainty, tangled in the fear of making the wrong choice, I encourage you to bring it to God honestly. Not the filtered, polished, Sunday-morning version, but the real, raw, unfiltered version.

Ask yourself:

• Have I internalized beliefs that aren’t actually from God but from cultural expectations?
• Is this decision leading me toward healing and wholeness or further into fear?

I don’t believe God calls us to live in turmoil over decisions that are ultimately about taking care of the minds and bodies He gave us.

I pray that whatever you’re wrestling with today, you won’t hold on to guilt as tightly as I did. Because sometimes the thing we think will change us for the worse is actually the thing that sets us free.

…

Excerpt from This Little Fire of Mine: How Flickers of Doubt Can Spark a Bolder, Brighter Faith by Kendall Mariah ©2025. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson. Available wherever books are sold. HarperCollinsChristian.com