The Holy Kind of Stubborn

Beloved Friend,

There is a kind of stubbornness that is not rebellion. It is not pride. It is not you refusing correction or thinking you know better than everyone. It is that holy firmness that refuses to bend to anything outside God’s will for your life. It is the ruggedness that makes you hold on to what God told you even when it looks too unfamiliar or too scary for the people around you.

There are moments when people will love you so much that their love becomes a cushion. They do not want you disappointed. They do not want you hurt. It is their way of caring, yet it can also coddle you into smallness. Your dreams may scare them because they have never seen such possibilities before and they quietly want you to dream within the limits of what feels safe to them.

People’s fears can easily become a boundary around your life if you are not careful. People mean well, yet their caution can shrink you. Someone who is scared of failing will naturally advise you to avoid anything that looks uncertain. Someone who has only known survival will speak from survival, not vision. Fear passed down like this feels like wisdom, yet it quietly cripples you. It makes you doubt what God told you. It makes you settle for what is familiar instead of what is possible. This is why holy stubbornness is necessary. You need enough conviction to love people and still not allow their fears to shape your destiny.

Scripture is full of people who had to practice this holy stubbornness. Abraham left everything familiar because God said so. Joseph held on to dreams that sounded ridiculous even to his brothers. David refused Saul’s armor because he knew who sent him. Paul kept preaching even when those who loved him begged him not to go to Jerusalem out of fear for his life. Their conviction anchored them.

This stubbornness is not the one that makes you dismiss wise counsel. That one is pride. This is the stubbornness that keeps you from bending simply because the people you love do not see what God showed you. You honour them, you listen to them, you weigh their words, yet you still choose the path God marked out for you.

It takes a certain firmness to step out of generational patterns. A certain resolve to leave comfort zones. A certain grit to tell yourself that your parents’ fear will not be your fear. Your friends’ hesitation will not be your hesitation. Life’s troubles will not be your boundary.

God’s best often requires courage. The kind that plants its feet and says, God said this, and I will stay with Him until I see it. That is the holy kind of stubborn. The one that keeps you aligned with Heaven when everything around you tries to shrink your faith.

With thoughts of kindness,

ABBA’s Shofar