Feeling stuck is not a spiritual condition, it's a signal you've outgrown where you are. The roots you've been putting down are doing exactly what they're supposed to.
Feeling stuck is not a spiritual condition. It's a signal. And more often than not, what we interpret as being stuck is actually the sensation of outgrowing where we currently are. Like a child whose feet have grown past their shoes, the discomfort isn't a sign something is wrong. It's a sign something is ready.
That reframe matters, because the enemy targets this feeling specifically. If he can shut down a woman, he shuts down enormous influence. Women affect families, neighborhoods, workplaces, and whole communities. The stakes of keeping us small are high, which is exactly why the lie of being stuck gets deployed so often.
Psalm 42 opens with the image of a deer panting for water, a picture of deep longing. The context behind it is sobering: the sons of Korah were Levites, the musicians and praise leaders of the temple. When Absalom attempted to overthrow his father David, everyone fled, including them. They found themselves suddenly displaced, cut off from the very thing they had been called and equipped to do. Their cry reads like a journal entry from anyone who has ever been knocked sideways by something completely outside their control.
"Why are you cast down, O my inner self? And why should you moan over me and be disquieted within me? Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall yet praise Him, my help and my God."
What is striking is the back-and-forth in that psalm. One verse is raw complaint. The next is the soul being commanded back into alignment. That is not weak faith. That is honest faith actively doing the work. The spirit has to rise up and tell the soul what to do, not the other way around.
You have to speak to your own soul. You will rejoice. I choose to see the goodness of God in the land of the living, no matter what this looks like right now. That choice is not a feeling. It is a declaration made ahead of the feeling.
God is not stuck. And He lives on the inside of us. So the math on "stuck" simply does not work. What actually happens when we feel that way is one of two things: either we have genuinely outgrown a current season and expansion is coming, or our gaze has turned inward and we have lost the vision that comes from focusing beyond ourselves.
A Harvard behavioral scientist studied what actually produces happiness and found four things: faith, family, friends, and serving others. That list lines up precisely with Scripture. And notice what every item on that list has in common: none of them are self-focused. The path out of feeling stuck almost always runs through something or someone outside of yourself.
When our focus is not on ourselves, we move forward into the fullness God has for us.
The enemy knows this. So he will close every door he can find. He will send discouraging voices. He will replay the past or paint terrifying futures that will never actually happen. His goal is to disrupt vision, because you cannot go forward when fear is running your eyesight.
Early on after getting saved, I went to work for a lady evangelist, Dr. W. Rich. She was based out of Alaska, which is a genuinely chaotic place to route international travel from. I would spend hours arranging multi-leg trips, and everything was connected. Change one flight and the whole thing unravels.
And then revival would break out at a Friday night service. At midnight. And she would lean over and whisper, "We're staying."
At first, that wrecked me. Because I was operating purely on natural ability, and natural ability is never enough. It's not supposed to be enough. The point where it runs out is actually the doorway into the grace God has anointed you to walk in. He is patiently waiting for us to live in that place, not just visit it during emergencies.
What changed for me was getting to a point where the Holy Spirit would start nudging me a day or two before she'd say anything. Start looking at other options. You're going to be staying. That kind of sensitivity doesn't come from willpower. It comes from being planted, getting rooted, and letting those roots go deep. The fruit follows the roots.
Being stuck is a lie. God is always on the move, and He lives on the inside of us.
The Israelites had barely left Egypt before they started begging to go back. Standing at the edge of the Red Sea, with Pharaoh's army closing in, they essentially accused Moses of bringing them out into the desert to die. And here is the stunning part: they were already on the path of deliverance. God was literally about to part the water in front of them and drown their enemy behind them. But fear had completely collapsed their vision.
Moses told them: Fear not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord. The Egyptians you have seen today, you shall never see again. And then God said something even sharper to Moses when he came crying about the situation. The Lord did not console him. He did not offer reassurance. He said, essentially, why are you coming to me with this? Tell the people to go forward.
That is a hard word. But it is also a mature word. There comes a point in your walk where God has already given you what you need, and the answer to the problem in front of you is not more prayer about the problem. It is movement.
The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace and remain at rest.
I have had to say that to myself many times. My version sounds more like: Katie, shut up. You will not think like that. Your spirit has to take authority over the part of you that wants to complain, wants to be the victim, wants to see only the limit. That part will always exist. The question is which voice leads.
Second Peter chapter one lays out a progression: faith, moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, patient endurance, godliness, brotherly affection, love. Each one builds on the last. Verse 8 says the more you grow in these things, the more productive and useful you will be. Verse 9 says those who fail to develop in these ways are shortsighted, living as though they have forgotten they were already cleansed.
That word "endurance" matters. Not just patience in a single moment, but endurance over the long haul. I was venting to my husband not long ago about a situation I was tired of, and he said it plainly: there is just endurance being built in you right now. I was not interested in hearing that. But he was right.
The greatest breakthroughs in my life have come when I've had hunger and thirst for Him like never before, and just said, Lord, I can see where I need to be. It seems like miles away and there's no bridge. He is the bridge.
Proverbs 16:3 says to roll your works upon the Lord, to commit and trust them wholly to Him, and He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will. When that alignment happens, plans are established and they succeed. But alignment requires commitment. A tree does not bear fruit by uprooting itself every few months to find better soil. Consistency is not the boring option. It is the fruitful one.
Second Peter 1:3 says that by His divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. Not most of what we need. Not a good start. Everything. The promises in His word enable us to share His divine nature and escape the corruption of the world. That is the equipment we are already walking around with.
Women are made to do hard and holy things. Not small, cautious, don't-rock-anything things. The influence is real, which is why the warfare is real. An eagle getting a new beak has to go to a high place alone and beat the old one off against a rock. There is a painful in-between before the new thing grows. But it does grow.
The call on your life is not generic. It is specific to you, crafted for you, and no one else can fulfill it. When the enemy tells you it is too late, or you already missed it, or you are too far gone, the exact opposite is true. That is how you know the moment is actually ripe. The lie shows up loudest right before the breakthrough.
Go forward. Bear excellent fruit. The roots you have been putting down are doing exactly what they are supposed to do.
