When Obedience Feels Like Walking Against the Wind

There is an insecurity I have been walking through these past few months.

It is the insecurity of walking against the wind. Swimming against the tide. Moving in a direction that feels contrary to the common, proven, and often successful strategies of our time.

For me, the wind and tide right now sound like this:

“Focus on one thing at a time.”

“Don’t spread yourself thin.”

“Do one thing with excellence rather than five things with mediocrity.”

These are not bad instructions. In fact, they are grounding points of wisdom for many entrepreneurs. They are tested guidelines, proven counsel, and often very sound advice.

But in the season the Lord has me in, they do not bring peace. Or maybe a better way to say it is this: they are not the words of my Lord, my Mentor, my Counselor, my King. He is not the One speaking those instructions to me right now.

Instead, He is saying:

“Dig more wells. Do not worry about the depth. Just keep digging.”

“Buy more fields to sow seed into. Do not worry about the harvest. Just keep spreading.”

And this is where my insecurity is revealed.

I feel the pressure of the proven voices. The voices of successful businessmen and women. The counsel of the many. The strategies that make sense. The advice that sounds responsible.

And then I feel the weight of obedience.

There is a tug-of-war in my mind as I follow the leading of the Lord further away from the insight and instruction of the masses. I know only one voice truly matters, yet the other voices still sow doubt and distraction. Not because those words are always wrong.

But because they are not the words coming from the One who is Truth.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

I am finding that the insecurity of this season reveals more about me than it does about the faithfulness of the Lord I follow. It reminds me that I am utterly dependent on His words of life, His Spirit of comfort, and most of all, His nearness in order to endure.

The wind and waves will always rise along the journey of obedience. The question is: whose voice has more pull in my life?

The uproar?

Or the steady, unshakable, faithful voice of my God—my Rock, my Strength, my Deliverer, my Father?

If good advice and sound counsel become more important to me than following the voice of the Lord, I will always end up shipwrecked, blown off course from His purposes and plans for my life.

However, I must also recognize something important. In this season, the Lord is teaching me to trust Him above every other voice of “reason.” But there have been many other seasons where those same voices of counsel were echoing His wisdom and direction for my life. If I am not aware of the season I am in, I can easily stray from the very wisdom and counsel the Lord is providing through others. I can find myself way off course, even in ruin.

I have been there, and I know it well.

The difference between these two contrasting directions is often found in the season of life I am in.

If I am told, “Put on a coat before you go outside,” and I refuse, only to leave the house and get soaking wet, then I have failed to yield to sound advice based on the season. Yet on another day, the same advice may come. But inwardly, I know clearly: this is not a day for a jacket. So I walk outside as I am and find that it is hot and sunny. The very jacket that would have protected me in one season would have burdened me in another.

This is the nuance of life with God and walking with others. Sometimes obedience requires stepping out of the boat when everyone and everything around you says, “Stay in the boat.” (Matthew 14:28–31)

Other times, obedience means going below deck and sleeping soundly while the waves crash overhead. (Mark 4:35–41)

We need each other. We need wise counsel and instruction from those who have gone before us, especially those with proven fruit and a faithful track record. But more than anything else, we need to hear clearly and regularly from the Lord every step of the way.

There will be times when His voice is clearly affirmed through the voices of others around us. And there will be other times when we feel the tension and discord between the voice of the crowd and the voice of God. At the end of the day, only His voice can have the final word. He is the One who created us with a plan and a purpose. He holds the blueprints—the scrolls—of our lives in His hands.

His voice is the only voice that will never fail. Faithful and true, even to the end of the age.

Scripture References:

John 10:27

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”This connects directly to the theme of discerning and following the Lord’s voice above every other voice.

Proverbs 3:5–6

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart… and he will make straight your paths.”This reinforces the tension between human reasoning and surrendered trust in God’s direction.