I’m going to be honest with you.
There are nights — and I mean recent nights — where I’m sitting at my desk at 1 AM, staring at a client report, and something isn’t clicking. A consulting lead went cold. An algorithm update just torched a campaign I spent months building. A client is questioning whether the strategy is working, and you can hear the doubt in their voice — the kind of doubt that means they’re already shopping around. And in those moments, a voice creeps in. Not an audible one, but you know the one I mean. The one that whispers: Maybe you’re not as good as you think. Maybe you’ve been lucky this whole time. Maybe the industry finally passed you by.
After 20-plus years in marketing, SEO, and web development — working full-time, consulting on the side, navigating every algorithm change and industry shift Google has thrown at us — you’d think I’d be past that. You’d think the doubt would stop showing up. It doesn’t. It just gets sneakier. If you’re a Christian entrepreneur or a faith-driven business owner, you know exactly what I’m talking about — that tension between trusting God’s plan and wondering if you missed a turn somewhere.
The Valley Is Real
If you’re reading this and you’re in a hard season right now — the work feels heavier than it should, your industry is shifting under your feet, imposter syndrome has set up permanent residence in the back of your mind, and you’re wondering if you’ve peaked — I want you to know something.
You’re not failing. You’re in the valley.
And the valley is where faith gets forged.
I’ve been there more times than I can count. There’s a specific kind of pressure that comes with a career in tech and marketing. You carry the weight of staying relevant in an industry that reinvents itself every eighteen months. You carry the expectations of clients who are trusting you with their livelihood. And when you’re consulting on the side — when your name is the one on the line, not some agency brand — every win is personal and every loss cuts deep. That’s the reality of faith and entrepreneurship — the calling doesn’t come with a safety net.
Kristy and I have had seasons where the weight of it all came home with me. The “what if this dries up?” conversations. Not the fun brainstorming kind. The scared kind. The kind where you’re trying to figure out whether you’ve spread yourself too thin or not far enough.
Those moments are brutal. And I’m not going to sit here and tell you to just “pray harder” and it all works out with a bow on top. That’s not real. That’s not how this works.
Fear Is Not From God — A Bible Verse Every Entrepreneur Needs
Here’s what I keep coming back to, especially in the dark stretches:
“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
— 2 Timothy 1:7 (KJV)
Read that again. A sound mind.
When anxiety is running the show — when you’re making decisions out of panic instead of purpose — that’s not God’s design for you. Fear makes you reactive. It makes you say yes to projects you know are wrong because you’re scared to turn down the revenue. It makes you undervalue your own expertise because someone cheaper is undercutting you. It makes you second-guess twenty years of hard-earned knowledge because a LinkedIn post made you feel like everyone else has it figured out.
A sound mind doesn’t mean you have all the answers. It means fear isn’t driving. It means you can look at the hard situation clearly, feel the weight of it, and still make wise decisions instead of panicked ones. This is one of the most important Bible verses for entrepreneurs and business owners — not because it promises easy success, but because it promises you don’t have to operate from a place of terror.
For me, that’s looked like closing my laptop at midnight instead of spiraling for another two hours. It’s looked like telling Kristy “I’m stressed but I’m not giving up” instead of pretending everything’s fine. It’s looked like praying honest prayers — not polished ones — just “God, I don’t see how this works, but I’m trusting You anyway.”
He Finishes What He Starts
The verse that has carried me through more hard seasons than any other is this one:
“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”
— Philippians 1:6 (KJV)
God doesn’t start things and walk away. He doesn’t plant a calling in your heart and then leave you hanging. If He put this drive in you — this need to build, to solve problems, to serve people through your work — He’s not done with it yet. That’s the anchor for every faith-driven entrepreneur who’s ever stared at the ceiling at 2 AM wondering if the breakthrough is coming.
The hard season isn’t proof that you’re on the wrong path. Sometimes it’s proof that you’re exactly where you need to be, and something is being refined in you that couldn’t be refined any other way.
I think about the career pivots that didn’t pan out. The consulting relationships that fell apart. The campaigns that underperformed despite doing everything right. The times I stepped out in faith — like partnering with my friend Johnny on a service business, putting real skin in the game with someone I trust — not knowing if it would work, just knowing it felt like the right door to walk through. At the time, every setback felt like the end. Looking back? Every single one of them taught me something I couldn’t have learned from a win. The failures didn’t disqualify me. They prepared me.
Preparation, Not Punishment — Trusting God Through Business Struggles
This is the reframe that changed everything for me: the struggle isn’t punishment. It’s preparation.
James puts it plainly:
“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”
— James 1:2-4 (KJV)
“Count it all joy” — I’ll be honest, that’s a hard pill to swallow when a client just left and your side income took a hit. James isn’t saying the pain feels good. He’s saying the pain is producing something good. The trial is building something in you — patience, resilience, character — that you’re going to need for what’s ahead.
Every seasoned professional I respect has a valley story. Not one of them skipped the hard part. The ones who made it through aren’t the ones who had it easy — they’re the ones who refused to let the hard season be the final season.
The Mental Health Piece — What Faith Circles Don’t Say Enough
I want to talk about this because it doesn’t get said enough in faith circles: a demanding career can wreck your mental health if you let it.
The anxiety. The imposter syndrome — especially when you’ve been doing this for twenty years and some part of you still wonders if you really know what you’re doing. The comparison trap — scrolling LinkedIn and seeing everyone else’s highlight reel while you’re living your behind-the-scenes. The weight of consulting work where your reputation is the product, where every recommendation you make carries your name. The constant pressure of an industry that changes its rules overnight and expects you to already know the new playbook.
Faith doesn’t erase that. But it gives you an anchor when everything else is shifting. And here’s the thing — if you search for Bible verses about success and prosperity, you’ll find plenty of promises. But the real power isn’t in the prosperity verses. It’s in the ones that meet you when you’re drowning.
The Psalmist knew this:
“When my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
— Psalm 61:2 (KJV)
That’s not a prayer of someone who has it together. That’s a prayer of someone drowning. And it’s one of the most honest prayers in the entire Bible. I’m overwhelmed. Lead me to something solid.
If that’s you right now — overwhelmed, exhausted, wondering if the grind is even worth it — that prayer is yours. You don’t have to dress it up. You don’t have to have faith the size of a mountain. You just have to be honest enough to say “I need help” and brave enough to trust that God hears you.
Don’t Let Fear Make Your Business Decisions
Here’s what I’ve learned after two decades navigating this industry: the worst career decisions I’ve ever made were the ones I made out of fear. Chasing money instead of mission. Taking on clients I knew were wrong because I was scared to say no. Jumping at every shiny new trend because I panicked about being left behind instead of trusting the expertise I’ve spent years building.
A sound mind — the one God promises in 2 Timothy — doesn’t mean you’ll never be afraid. It means you don’t have to operate from that fear. You can feel the fear and still make the wise move. You can be anxious about next month’s workload and still show up today with excellence. You can acknowledge the doubt without letting it steer.
I think this is the hardest part for Christian entrepreneurs — we’re told to have faith, but faith doesn’t look like blind optimism. Real faith looks like Habakkuk: “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines… yet I will rejoice in the Lord” (Habakkuk 3:17-18, KJV). That’s faith with eyes wide open. Faith that sees the empty pipeline, the lost client, the uncertain quarter — and still chooses to trust God’s faithfulness over the spreadsheet.
I wrote previously about trusting God’s path even when you can’t see where it leads. This is the companion piece to that. Trusting the path is one thing. But what about when the path goes through a valley so dark you can’t see your own feet? That’s where endurance comes in. That’s where faith stops being a concept and becomes a lifeline.
To Anyone in the Valley
If you’re reading this and you’re in it right now — the hard, messy, uncertain middle of it — whether you’re a developer wondering if AI is about to make you irrelevant, a marketer watching budgets get slashed, a consultant wondering where the next project is coming from, or someone who just feels stuck in a career that used to excite you — I’m not going to tell you it’s all going to be fine by next quarter. I don’t know that. Neither do you.
But here’s what I do know:
God didn’t bring you this far to leave you here. The calling is still the calling. The work He started in you isn’t abandoned — it’s in process. And the hardest seasons often come right before the breakthrough, not because of some mystical formula, but because that’s when you finally let go of doing it all in your own strength.
There’s a Bible verse for business success that most people overlook because it doesn’t sound like a business verse at all: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6, KJV). That’s not a prosperity formula. It’s a surrender statement. And sometimes surrender — letting go of your death grip on the outcome — is the most productive thing an entrepreneur can do.
Keep going. Not because it’s easy. Not because you can see the finish line. But because the One who called you to this is faithful, and He finishes what He starts.
Close the laptop. Get some sleep. Talk to your spouse, your friend, your partner — whoever keeps you grounded. Pray the honest, ugly prayer. And then get up tomorrow and do it again.
The valley doesn’t last forever. But what it builds in you does.
