Before You Follow the Resistance

Resistance has been on my mind lately.

Not just the kind of resistance that tells us something feels wrong. I’m talking about the internal pushback that makes us want to back away from something before we fully understand why.

I don’t want to do this. I shouldn’t be here. This isn’t for me. I need to get out of this.

Looking back, I can identify some pretty pivotal places in my life where I felt exactly that way. And strangely enough, several of the things I resisted the hardest ended up leading me somewhere I’m incredibly grateful I went.

Years ago, I stepped into an industry I knew very little about, and almost immediately, I tried to convince the people who had hired me that they had made a mistake. Life outside of work had become incredibly complicated at exactly the same time, and I was convinced I was going to fail them. I told them they could find someone better. I genuinely tried to give them reasons to let me go.

They didn’t.

They invested in me instead.

I ended up staying for six years. That decision introduced me to people who became incredibly influential in my life, taught me skills I still use today, gave me opportunities I never could have anticipated, and created relationships that continued influencing my path long after that particular season ended.

I had been fighting so hard to get away from something I can now see God used to prepare me for things I couldn't possibly see at the time.

And it wasn't the only time.

I nearly talked myself out of taking a dance class. I went back and forth over the decision and found plenty of reasons not to go. I went anyway, and that one decision eventually gave me a community of people who became a meaningful part of my everyday life.

Again, resistance.

Again, something on the other side of it I couldn't see yet.

That doesn't mean resistance is always a sign that we should push forward. It means resistance deserves a question before it gets a decision.

What Is This Resistance Trying to Tell Me?

There are very good reasons to resist things.

An unsettled feeling can be discernment. A situation can violate our values. A relationship can be unhealthy. An opportunity can look wonderful on paper and still be wrong for us. God can absolutely use discomfort to keep us from walking somewhere we shouldn't go.

But resistance can also come from fear.

It can come from insecurity, inconvenience, unfamiliarity, pride, a lack of confidence, or the simple fact that what is in front of us requires something we don't particularly want to give.

And those feelings can sound remarkably similar when we're standing in the middle of them.

I don't want to do this can feel a whole lot like I shouldn't do this.

Those are not necessarily the same thing.

That distinction has made me want to become much more intentional when I feel myself resisting something. Instead of immediately backing away or forcing myself forward, I want to stop and pray through what I'm feeling.

God, why am I resisting this? Is this discomfort protecting me from somewhere I shouldn't go, or am I afraid of somewhere You're asking me to go? Is there wisdom in this hesitation, or am I trying to avoid something because it feels unfamiliar, inconvenient, or difficult?

Resistance doesn't always need to be conquered. It needs to be discerned.

We Don't Always Know What God Is Doing

A friend once gave me an image of this that I have never forgotten.

He watched a small child fighting desperately against having his nose suctioned when he was sick. If you've ever tried to do this with a little one, you know the scene. The child squirms, cries, turns away, and fights with everything they have because from their perspective, someone is doing something miserable to them.

But the adult knows something the child doesn't.

This thing they're fighting is going to help them breathe.

My friend pointed out how much that can resemble our relationship with God.

We can resist what He is allowing or where He is leading because all we know is that we don't like what is happening. We can't see what He sees from where we're standing. We don't know what this moment is preparing us for, what it's protecting us from, who we'll meet because of it, what we'll learn through it, or how God may eventually use it.

That doesn't mean every uncomfortable experience was orchestrated by God or that we should spiritualize every difficult circumstance. It means our limited perspective isn't always enough to determine the purpose of what we're experiencing.

There are things I fought in my own life because I was convinced I knew what the outcome would be.

I didn't.

Your Obedience May Not Be Only About You

There is another part of resistance I've started thinking about differently too.

There was a particular day I felt strangely compelled to wear my hair up. It sounds incredibly insignificant, especially because I rarely wore it that way anymore and had no reason I could identify for doing it. In fact, I was in virtual meetings all day, and I would normally NEVER wear my hair up for those. But I couldn’t shake this persistent feeling that it needed to be up. I resisted the thought so many times that it actually became annoying, because it made absolutely no sense to me.

I eventually did it anyway.

Later that day, I met a friend for dinner. She shared that she had been wrestling with whether or not she needed to cut her hair. She had prayed for a very specific confirmation: if I showed up with my hair all the way up, not just half up, she would know she was supposed to cut it.

Suddenly, the thing that had seemed completely pointless to me wasn't pointless at all.

I had been sitting on the other side of someone else's prayer without knowing it.

That experience changed something about the way I think about obedience. We naturally evaluate decisions according to what they mean for us. Where will this take me? What will I get from it? Why do I need to do this?

But what if we aren't always the only person involved?

We may never know when our willingness to follow God's prompting places us on the other side of someone else's prayer.

The job I resisted wasn't only about what I gained from it. I contributed to people's lives there too. The community I almost didn't join didn't simply become something I needed. I became part of that community for other people as well.

We tend to see only our side of the equation because it's the only side we have access to.

God doesn't have that limitation.

Surrender the Resistance Before You Follow It

I don't want to start treating every feeling of resistance as a flashing sign from God saying, Keep going! That would miss the point entirely.

I want resistance to become a cue to pay attention.

When I feel myself immediately trying to escape something, dismiss an opportunity, avoid a conversation, or talk myself out of taking a step, I want to become curious about why.

Is this wisdom or fear?

Is something genuinely wrong, or is it simply uncomfortable?

Am I protecting a healthy boundary, or protecting myself from vulnerability?

Am I sensing God's direction away from this, or am I fighting His direction toward it?

And then I want to pray before I decide.

We won't always receive an immediate answer. Discernment can require Scripture, wise counsel, time, circumstances, and continued prayer. But bringing our resistance before God changes the posture from I don't want this, so I'm not doing it to God, I don't want this. Help me understand what You want.

There is surrender in that difference.

Looking backward, I can see places where I fought hard against things God eventually used beautifully in my life. I couldn't see any of that while I was resisting them.

That makes me wonder what I can't see now.

So I'm learning not to fear resistance, and I'm also learning not to automatically trust it.

When resistance arrives, I want to let it send me to prayer before I let it send me in a direction.

Because the question isn't simply whether I want to go.

It's whether God is asking me to.