#Breakthrough: Self-Striving

By: Kolleen Lucariello

When you've spent your life living through stubborn, snowy New York winters, you've probably spent some time spinning your wheels trying to get unstuck from the grip of the slick white stuff.

Chrissy experienced this a few months back when she was headed over to record an Activ8Her teaching. She texted to say she was on her way—until she wasn’t. That’s when I received the message: “I’m stuck in my driveway. I have help. I slid off.” Except that the help couldn’t pull her Tahoe out of the ditch. Instead, it buried her deeper. They pushed and pulled, but instead of making progress, the Tahoe sank further in.

If you’ve ever been stuck in snow, you know this moment: the moment when effort stops being helpful and starts making things worse. And isn’t that exactly what self-striving feels like?

According to Merriam-Webster, to strive means “to devote serious effort or energy” or “to struggle in opposition.” Striving isn’t just about working hard; it can also be about internal struggle. It’s the emotional tension that comes from trying to fix, prove, defend, or control something in our own strength. And often, that inner striving shows up quietly in our thoughts and feelings.

If we were willing to take an honest internal inventory, we might find ourselves stuck—pouring out energy but seeing no movement. How many of us know it’s possible to exert enormous amounts of energy and still go nowhere? We work harder. We think harder. We analyze harder. We pray harder. We try harder. Yet the situation doesn’t shift. The relationship doesn’t change. The breakthrough doesn’t come.

Just like spinning tires in snow, the more force we apply, the deeper the rut becomes.

Because striving can create the illusion of progress while quietly keeping us stuck.

The Lord once showed me I was spinning my wheels as I prayed for understanding in a few relationships that had left me wounded. I had been replaying the same hurt—over and over again—until I think He couldn’t stand to hear it anymore. My internal dialogue had become: “What did I ever do to deserve this?” I was emotionally moving, but I was not healing. I was striving to understand rather than trusting that He already understood.

The bruises I carried from past hurt had trained me to live in a reactive state most of the time. A lack of trust can do that to you. If you find yourself triggered easily, defensive quickly, or guarded constantly, your energy is often being used to protect yourself rather than step into God’s freedom. Speaking from experience, that is what spinning your wheels looks like—the effort convinces you that you’re moving, but in reality, you’re stuck.

I also realized I have been waiting for closure from people who had wounded me. I was stuck, spinning my wheels, waiting to hear: “I’m sorry I did that to you.” “I’m sorry for the pain I caused you.” "I'm sorry ....."

Spinning our wheels makes us pause—waiting to be understood or validated by someone else. We stall emotionally while we wait for another person to move first, as if their acknowledgment is what will finally make us whole. But in that waiting, God is also inviting us to move—not by force, but by obedience. Not by control, but by trust. He is inviting us to adjust to the conditions we’re in.

But spinning feels productive because it’s loud, active, and emotionally charged. It gives the illusion that something is happening because something is being felt so deeply. But adjusting feels different. It feels like surrender. It feels like releasing our grip on outcomes we cannot control and trusting God with what we cannot fix. Only one of these options leads to freedom.

For Chrissy, it wasn’t more pushing that finally changed the situation; it was a pause. A reassessment. A moment where everyone involved had to admit, this approach isn’t working.

Because there comes a point where effort stops being the answer, and wisdom becomes the invitation. I wonder if God does the same thing with us. Not in frustration, but in mercy, He interrupts the spinning. Not to shame us for trying so hard, but to free us from the belief that trying harder is the way forward.

Sometimes that interruption comes as exhaustion. Sometimes it comes as silence. Sometimes it comes as the quiet realization that what we’re doing is no longer producing life—only strain. And in those moments, the Lord doesn’t usually say, “Try harder.” He gently invites something far more uncomfortable to our striving nature: Stop. Trust. Release. Let Me in it.

Because surrender often feels like doing nothing to a system built on self-effort. But in the Kingdom, surrender is not inactivity—it’s realignment. It’s the moment we take our foot off the gas. Not because the situation no longer matters, but because we finally recognize that force was never producing freedom. In snow, traction changes everything. Without it, tires spin endlessly, digging deeper with every attempt to move forward. But when something is placed under the wheel—something stable, something designed to grip the ground—movement becomes possible again.

And spiritually, that’s what surrender does. It creates traction where striving created spin. It gives God access to the very places we’ve been trying to control. It shifts us from internal struggle to dependent trust. From reaction to rest. From self-effort to Spirit-led movement. Rest is not resignation. It is repositioning. It is the decision to believe that God is not absent in what feels stuck, and He is not intimidated by what we cannot fix.

So instead of spinning the same thoughts… we pause.

Instead of replaying the same hurt… we release it.

Instead of trying to force understanding… we trust His perspective is already complete.

And slowly, something begins to shift; not always the circumstance at first, but us.

The tension loosens. The urgency quiets. The internal noise settles. And in that space, traction returns. Not because we finally figured it out, but because we finally stopped trying to be the one who has to.

We'd love to have you join the conversation this month as we learn how to #breakthroughselfstriving. Find a chapter here or discover how you can start one of your own here.