The idol of your own strength is trusting your work ethic, your effort, and your ability to make things happen instead of trusting God. You can be praying every day and still be operating entirely in your own strength. I did it for six months in Alaska: 12-hour days, every platform, all the marketing strategies, all the online courses and webinars, all the expert advice. By March I knew it wasn't sustainable. By June I had video documentation of my own burnout. I kept going anyway. It took hitting a wall hard enough in July that I stopped for six weeks. No work, no platforms, no newsletters, no expert advice. Just rest, walking, Bible reading, journaling. The fog began to clear slowly. What God showed me on the other side of the silence wasn't a new strategy. It was a reorientation. 2 Corinthians 12:9: my grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness.
The world's message about entrepreneurship is loud and consistent: be the first one up and the last one out, do what others won't, outwork everyone, no one is coming to save you. I moved to Alaska in December 2024, took three weeks to breathe, and then launched into exactly that. Hours of content creation across every platform, landing pages, ad copy, online conferences, daily tweaking and iterating. By March I knew it wasn't sustainable. By June I was documenting my burnout on video. I kept going anyway.
It took hitting a wall hard enough in July that I stopped for six weeks. No work, no platforms, no newsletters, no expert advice. Just rest, walking, Bible reading, journaling. It felt completely wrong: nothing would happen if I did nothing. But the fog began to clear slowly. What God showed me on the other side of the silence wasn't a new strategy. It was a reorientation: he hadn't been blessing the grind because he doesn't want me to build it the way the world teaches. He wants me to build it in a way that honors him. Matthew 11:28-30 became the anchor: come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
- You can be praying every day and still be operating entirely in your own strength. Prayer and self-reliance coexist all the time. The tell is whether you're actually listening and stopping, or steamrolling ahead while asking God to bless your plan.
- Hustle culture says work hard enough and you'll get there. God's way says come to me when you're weary. Those are two different things. The first produces burnout. The second produces rest that enables sustained effort.
- God doesn't bless the grind mindset. He waits for you to stop. The six weeks of rest weren't wasted time. They were the reset that allowed him to speak and show me what building looks like when it's done his way.
- 2 Corinthians 12:9: my grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness. Embracing weakness, not grinding past it, is where Christ's power actually shows up.
- The rhythms matter. Morning prayer before email. Kids to the bus stop before work. A workout. Eating breakfast and lunch. Dinner as a family. Devotional at the table. When those rhythms are in place, the work hours become sustainable and intentional rather than endless and anxious.
- Sometimes God lets you do it in your own strength until you can't anymore. Not to punish you, but because that's the only way stubborn people learn that they can't. The wall is part of the plan.
- After the six-week reset, the first thing to return wasn't a strategy. It was the presence of God. The intimacy that had been missing for six months came back, slowly, day by day.
What is the idol of your own strength and how does it show up in business?
It shows up as trusting your work ethic, your effort, your strategy, and your ability to figure things out more than you trust God to open doors, provide, and make a way. It's not incompatible with prayer. You can be crying out to God every day and still be operating almost entirely on your own strength. The difference is what you're actually doing with the answers you're waiting for.
I describe six months in Alaska where I was praying desperately and grinding full-speed simultaneously: 12-hour days, every platform, all the marketing strategies, all the online courses and webinars, all the advice from all the experts. I knew in March it wasn't sustainable. By June I had video documentation of my own burnout. But I kept going because the messaging I was absorbing from every algorithm was: this is what entrepreneurship is, no one is coming to save you, just keep going.
The tell is whether you're willing to stop. When stopping feels impossible, when rest feels like giving up, when you're driving toward a breakthrough that will finally earn you the right to take a breath, you're in it.
I didn't want to rely on God. I wanted to figure this out myself. I wanted to do it on my own, and I wanted to boast in that. I wanted to be able to say I figured this out.
Amy Dardis, Episode 22How do you find the line between working hard and trusting God?
The line is hard to see. There is real responsibility to work hard, steward time well, show up, put in effort, and not be lazy. God doesn't want passive waiting and nothing else.
The line is crossed when the effort shifts from stewardship into self-sufficiency: when you're working to prove something, when rest has to be earned, when you're not actually listening to God because you're too busy executing your own plan and just asking him to bless it.
The practical signals: Am I getting my strength from God daily, or am I grinding until I break? Is this pace sustainable or am I treating burnout as a necessary price? Is God being given the first hours of my day, or is he getting the scraps? When things don't work, do I reach for another strategy or do I come to him?
What happens when you stop grinding and just rest?
For me it was six weeks of rest after six months of grinding. No work. No platforms. No experts. No newsletters. Just walking, reading my Bible, journaling, listening to The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren one day at a time. It felt completely wrong for the first few weeks. Nothing would happen. No one was coming to find me.
But the fog began to clear. Slowly. The intimacy with God that had been absent for six months, even while I was praying every day, started to return. And then he reaffirmed the vision. He didn't tell me I was going down the wrong path. He told me I was building the right thing the wrong way.
I didn't want to rely on God. I wanted to figure this out myself. I wanted to do it on my own, and I wanted to boast in that. I wanted to be able to say I figured this out.
Amy Dardis, Episode 22Resources mentioned
- Ep 21 — When Your Business Becomes an Idol — Previous episode: the idol of business itself
- Ep 23 — The Idol of Control — Next in the series: controlling outcomes instead of trusting God
- Free Hiring Resources
Full transcript
I'm your host, Amy Dardis. Today we're continuing my walk of shame as we dive into this series on idols in entrepreneurship. An idol is an object or an abstract concept that we give higher priority than God. It's something that we rely on for blessing or help or guidance instead of God. It's anything that consumes our heart, our thoughts, or our devotion more than God. And it can be any good thing we elevate to a position of being the main thing in our life. It's whatever we are giving more influence, more power, more control in our life besides God.
Today's episode: we're focusing on the idol of our own strength, of doing things in our own ability, trusting our ability to make things happen, our strength, instead of relying on the power of God or allowing the Holy Spirit to be at work on our behalf. And I think this is one of the hardest ones I struggle with on a daily basis because it is so completely opposite of what the world teaches about business and entrepreneurship.
The world's definition of entrepreneurship: you have to get out there, be the first one up, the last one out, work the hardest, the longest, the most consistently. Do what other people are not willing to do. Grow and develop and make things happen. Be willing to do the uncomfortable, step outside of your comfort zone, push yourself, challenge yourself, stretch yourself, and make it happen. Because if you don't, nobody else is going to make it happen for you. No one is going to save you. No one is coming to save your business. It is all on you. Sound familiar? Because that is every influencer, every business expert, every book out there. That is the message.
And there is an element of responsibility. We do have to work hard. We do need to show up. We do need to put in the effort and stretch ourselves. We can't be lazy. We do have to steward well our time and our energy and our gifting and our relationships and everything that God gives us. So the battle becomes: where is this line? Where is this line between working hard and doing what I need to do, but still trusting in God, still relying on God, still recognizing and accepting the limits of my own strength and my own abilities?
More often than not, it's not me accepting my limits but coming face to face with them because I push myself to the breaking point. This last season, this last year: we had this big, huge transition, a cross-country move we did in two weeks that we had not planned for at all. God had been moving and working, and my husband and I both felt a very clear calling to uproot our family and our life and move to Alaska and launch this new business, even though it did not make sense to our plans or our timeline.
Once we got here, I took three weeks off. Processed through the enormity of the move, tried to catch up on sleep, focused on basic needs: finding a home, a vehicle, getting our kids enrolled in school. And then after those three weeks, I was like, all right, it is game time. It is time to get to work and make this happen. And that launched us into a season of grinding. Not only were we grinding in our business, we were also grinding in this house that was covered in cat pee and had soaked-through flooring and sub-floors, and we were ripping things out only to find more issues. And then my husband tore his right bicep fully and had to have surgery, had to have it reattached, and did not have a right arm at all for about three months.
So this was an insane season. Trying to get a new business off the ground while still running our other web design business, while starting a new life, while dealing with a house that was a project that never ended. And this was new for us: our previous business was relationship-driven and geographically based. Moving to Alaska switched us into a fully digital marketing strategy, something we had not really tried before. Huge learning curve. Hours and hours every day creating content for social, not just one platform but all the platforms. Writing landing pages, ad copy, creating videos, week in and week out tweaking and iterating, consuming content, learning new platforms, studying new strategies.
By March I was tired. We had started in January, and in March I knew I could not sustain this. This was not possible. Something had to give. But I kept going because all the advice out there, every time I got on YouTube or Facebook, everything I was seeing talked about how hard I needed to work, how I couldn't give up, how I needed to set timers for my day and grind, grind, grind. So I did. I just kept grinding.
By June I was really feeling the burnout. I have notes, journal entries, even a video of myself saying: I am so mentally and emotionally exhausted. I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm floundering. I am trying to work harder but I am not working smarter. Everything that I am pouring into is just wiping me out faster. But in my head I was thinking: if I just keep going long enough, if I just keep grinding, then something's gonna give, this strategy is going to work, I'm going to start creating a predictable lead gen system.
My kids were home from school for the summer. Every day I was working all day and they were looking at me like: this is not what you told us was going to happen. You promised us a better life. You told us you wanted to spend more time with us. And I was like, I know, I'm so sorry. Apologizing, trying to explain and justify it, and nothing was changing and nothing was happening.
By July I was just beyond burnt out. I told my husband, I'm just going to take the weekend to reassess. The weekend came and went and I had no more clarity or energy or ambition. Another week. And this ends up stretching out for six weeks. After I finally stopped, I realized just how burnt out I was. I had no direction, no vision, no ambition, no motivation. I would wake up in the morning and just feel numb and lost. I questioned everything. I questioned the whole plan, questioned God, questioned the business and everything I had learned up until this point.
Through that six-week period, I chose not to work. All I did was rest, read my Bible, go for walks, listen to The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. One day at a time, one of the 40 days, about 10 minutes a day. Read my Bible, wrote, journaled, and just waited and rested. And that felt very wrong because in my head I was thinking: this is not how you build the business. No one is going to find you. Nothing is going to happen in your business if you don't do something. There was this voice in my head. But I recognized that I needed a strong reset.
But here, through this whole time, all these months, I was praying every day, crying out to God desperately. But I was relying on my own strength the entire time. I was praying and asking, but I wasn't listening, I wasn't stopping, and I was just steamrolling ahead, even though I knew back in March: I can't keep doing this. And then in June: I can't keep doing this. And then finally, I really cannot keep doing this. And I stopped.
What I learned through this process: here I was putting all my hope in what the business could do for me. But I also was putting all of this pressure and all of this hope in me and in what I could do and in my work ethic and in my strength and in my energy. It wasn't about relying on God because I didn't want to rely on God. I wanted to figure this out myself. I wanted to do it, I wanted to prove it, I wanted to make it happen so that when it happened, I could be like, yeah, I did it. I could boast in my own effort when it succeeded. And that's not the heart that God wanted me to have.
What he ends up doing sometimes is: if you want to do this in your own strength, I'm going to let you. And I'm going to do it in my own strength until I can't anymore because I am that stubborn. Until I hit this wall, until I hit rock bottom, until I hit this breaking point, and I finally surrender. I finally give it to God. I lay it down at the cross and say, God, I cannot carry this anymore. I need you to carry it for me. And then I get to that point, and that's where God wants us all along.
And in 2 Corinthians 12, he says: my grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness. So then Paul says: therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardship, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. This idea of embracing weakness, of saying I don't have what it takes to do this on my own. God doesn't want us to do that. He says in Matthew: come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
After the six weeks, God starts to clear the fog. It wasn't because I did anything for six weeks. I literally did nothing except seek him and rest. Little by little, day by day, I started to feel the Holy Spirit's presence again. I started to feel connected to God again when up until that point I hadn't for six months. I had felt very disconnected from God, even though I felt like I was desperately going to him for answers. I wasn't feeling that intimacy. And then after six weeks, this intimacy starts to come back.
He reaffirmed this vision, this thing he had called me to, this business, this plan. I wasn't going down the wrong path. I was building what he wanted me to, but I wasn't building it the way that he wanted me to. Because I was relying on my own strength, seeking the world, the business experts, the strategies, the world's advice, the world's approval instead of seeking his. He is the one who is in control of it all, orchestrating this story, moving these pieces, shaping me in the process.
So I was like: okay, whatever I do, however I build this, he has to be first. I have to do this in a way that is sustainable for the long term. These 12-hour days, this grinding, this flip-flopping, trying this and trying that: that's not gentleness, that's not peace, that's not wisdom, it's just desperation and seeking the answers in all the wrong places. What are the habits, rhythms, systems, and structures I need to have in place? What does healthy look like? What does surrendered look like? What are the fruits of the spirit look like in my life as I build this business? It looks like rest. It looks like not 12-hour days. It looks like being purposeful and authentic, present and engaged with my kids.
So very tactically, practically: when I get up in the morning, I don't check my email, I don't check my phone. The first thing I do is start in prayer, have a cup of coffee, it is quiet, it is me and God. Then I take my son to the bus stop and we chat about his day. Then 30 minutes of prayer and Bible reading. Then my daughter gets up and we have 10 or 15 minutes together before she gets ready for her day. I take her to the bus stop. This whole morning is me being present with God and with my kids, and that comes first. Then I get my workout in. Then while the kids are at school, that is my time to work: record podcasts, create content, do calls. I take time to eat breakfast and lunch. When the kids start to come home, I pick them up or go to their games. Dinner together as a family. A devotional at the table. In the evenings, time with my husband and rest and winding down. That's a pace where I'm like: even though there's uncertainty, even though I don't have everything figured out, this is sustainable, this is healthy, this is fun, this is peaceful, this is joyful. This is the life I want to be living.
I go into this each and every day knowing that my strength has to come from God. Because I don't have what it takes to do this. Give us our daily bread. God, I need you, help me take this one day at a time. What can I do today to be productive? What can I do today to be with you? And when things start to happen, when things start to fall into place, he gets the credit. It is him. God did that. It wasn't me, it wasn't my own strength or my great idea or my hard work. That was God, his grace, his faithfulness, his provision. And every story I tell should always be pointing back to him. As always, you can learn more at clearauthenticbrands.com. That's all for this episode. See you next time.