Caleb’s Story: From Striving to Surrender

Caleb had always been a man of discipline. From a young age, he learned that hard work yielded results, and if something wasn’t going right, it was up to him to fix it. This mindset served him well in his career, where he climbed the corporate ladder with sheer determination, and in his personal life, where he prided himself on being the kind of man who took responsibility. But when it came to his spiritual life, his relentless drive only left him exhausted.

He had been a Christian for years, but his faith felt more like a performance than a relationship. Every day, he tried harder—more Bible study, more prayer, more service. Yet, no matter how much he did, he felt distant from God, like he was trying to hold up a house whose foundation was crumbling beneath him.

The breaking point came when his marriage began to suffer. His wife, Rachel, noticed his constant tension, his frustration at never measuring up to his own impossible standards. One evening, after another argument about his inability to just be present, she sighed and said, “Caleb, when will you stop trying to fix everything and just let God do the work?”

The words hit him harder than he expected. He had spent so much of his life striving—striving for success, striving to be a good Christian, striving to be enough. And yet, despite all his efforts, peace eluded him.

That night, he went for a long walk, wrestling with everything inside him. “God, what am I doing wrong?” he asked, as if he expected a list of action items to fix his spiritual condition. But instead of a list, a quiet realization settled over him: “You were never meant to do this in your own strength.”

It was a simple truth, one he had heard before but never truly grasped. His role was not to force transformation through self-effort but to yield to the One who had already begun the work in him.

From that moment, things began to change—not because Caleb suddenly became perfect, but because he stopped trying to make himself into something he could never be apart from Christ. He learned to wake up and say, “Lord, I trust You to live Your life in me and through me in this moment.” He let go of the pressure to perform and started resting in the presence of the One who was working in him all along.

His marriage improved—not because he tried harder, but because he learned to yield. His time with God deepened—not because he forced himself to pray longer, but because he learned to listen. He stopped striving, and in doing so, he finally found peace.

Like the house on Sycamore Hill, Caleb had spent years trying to hold everything together with patches and paint. But true restoration came only when he placed himself in the hands of the Master Builder, who knew exactly how to make him whole.