56. Still Leading from Fear as a Christian Physician? Find Peace

You can love God, be an excellent physician… and still feel driven by fear.

Fear of missing something.
Fear of making the wrong call.
Fear of not being enough.

I’ve been there too.

In this episode, I’m sharing something deeply personal, something I find myself coming back to again and again.

Because the real issue isn’t just fear.
 It’s the place we’re leading from.

So easy for us as physicians to slip into a performance-based identity—where everything depends on us, striving feels normal, and control feels necessary.

But that’s not where peace lives.

So easy for us as physicians to slip into a performance-based identity where everything depends on us, striving feels normal, and control feels necessary.

But what if God calls us to live differently? To live from our identity as sons and daughters rather than pressure and performance to please people or the system?

In this episode, I share:

•  Why fear shows up so often in medicine—even for strong believers 
•  How performance-driven identity keeps us stuck in striving 
•  What it looks like to shift into peace and Spirit-led leadership 
•  A simple first step to release control and hear God more clearly 

Because the truth is:
The opposite of fear isn’t faith—it’s perfect love.

And when you begin to live from that place, everything changes.

If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, pressured, burned out, and stuck in striving, this episode will meet you right where you are.

✨ Next Step:
Join the Heal the Healers Facebook Group—a Kingdom community for Christian physicians seeking to hear God’s voice and integrate faith into medicine in a real, practical way.

Are you a Christian physician or healthcare professional longing for a deeper walk with God and a supportive community that truly gets it?

📍 Mark your calendar: October 30–31, Boston, MA
The Heal the Healers Conference is coming.

This is more than a conference—it’s a space to encounter God, be restored, and be equipped to live out your calling in medicine.

This event is for physicians and healthcare professionals!

👉 Join the VIP waitlist to be the first to hear when registration opens and get early bird registration rates to tickets:
https://ingahofmann.com/events

Follow me on Facebook
Check out my YouTube Channel

Join our growing Facebook Community 

Transcript

0:00

You can be a wonderful and strong and incredible physician, You can love God. but you still might find yourself in this place of fear. Maybe fear of missing something with a patient, fear of an adverse outcome. Fear of never being good enough for this job, or just fear of running out of time, or what if and if you're doing the right thing. And if that's you, I really wanna encourage you to look at it from a different angle and how you can overcome fear. So stay tuned for after the music. Welcome back to another episode of the Christian Physician Podcast. I'm your host, Inga Hoffman, and this is a place where you can learn to hear God's voice, integrate faith into medicine in a real practical way. And today's episode is no different and very personal. I always. Try to give you something where I feel like this is something the Lord has speaking to me about or I just experienced, or it's often something we have been discussing and the Heal the Healers mentorship community, and there are just some topics that really resonate with people, and I want to inspire you and encourage you. I was recently just this week at a, regional church of an here hosted by another church with a wonderful speaker with the name of Le Headland. He's a Norwegian origin minister, lives in the United States. And he had really had such a wonderful message that I had heard before. I heard him actually speak just about six months ago at a another conference I went to. In Nashville, Tennessee area, and I was so excited to have him in this area because I believe his message of. Ministering out of a heart of love and out of love of the Father is really so important and it's so deeply resonated with me, but it was also, just so timely because they. Similar themes that we have been discussing in a series I'm doing right now in the Heal the Healers Mentorship Program, which is all centered on our identity and Christ on how we can work onto the Lord versus performing from anxious, striving. And so it really gave some additional language and perspective that I just wanted to share here, because I believe it will encourage you. Because here's the thing, even as believers, we know we should have faithful but let's be real. Oftentimes we have. Fear creeping in, in our high pressured environments in just living from that sense of fear and striving under pressure. And it's hard sometimes for us to lay that aside and say, okay, I'm gonna stop being afraid and I'm going to actually have faith. So I hope this lesson will encourage you if you find yourself in this place, which honestly I find myself in Quite often and I need those reminders too. Let me talk about a few things. Number one, I feel like the root issue is often that. It's not just fear we are operating from in the medical world in fear of not being good enough, fear of making the wrong decision fear of, oh, there's just never enough time in the day. This kind of sense of overwhelm. It's really the question of what kingdom are we actually living from? Often in our head we are like, if I just had more faith, then things will be better. But we don't even know sometimes how to get more faith. But the deeper issue is really, are we operating from God's perspective, from God's kingdom, or are we operating from the kingdom of the world that is often. Late plastered with cobblestones of fear, right? The whole world is often in this tension of fear and now more than ever over the last several years in particular. And it just. Seems to keep on getting worse. So how can we posture and redirect ourselves away from fear and live a life that isn't controlled by fear, but rather built a life that is based on, rooted on God's word and his kingdom. And I think, let's be real, as physicians sometimes that is really hard because. We are so trained and wired to take control of everything. Because we learned that if we try to control all the variables and all the outcomes, that we can prevent bad things from happening to people. And that's certainly true. For people that live for more practice, probably even in intensive or inpatient settings, right? We always have contingency plans for if X, Y, Z happens with this patient overnight. We teach the resident right? Call me. We have all these contingency plans and that is really good, but it has fostered this environment and this thinking in our head that if we could just control everything and all the variables, then I'm okay. But life doesn't work that way. We can do our best to try to control all the variables and things might. Run very differently and the outcome might be very differently. So I just wanna caution us, we are building our own kingdom to try to control everything in our lives. Then fear will automatically creep in because there is always factors we cannot control. So this is where that teaching that Le Headland had, it was really powerful. So at this event I was he has a powerful teaching and I encourage you actually go look him up, find a YouTube video. There is a book, on this message that I've read, and there's also a bunch of videos out there on this teaching. You can Google probably three chairs and leave headland and we'll find it. It's a powerful framework. So I really wanna reference him and honor him for how he, has a framework for it and positions it. I might have used different language in the past, but I really feel like this fits so well and it's so illustrative. So he talks in this message about these three chairs that people live from. They are basically three types of people in the world. Chair number one represent those people that are. Basically in the Kingdom of God. So chair number one is the kingdom of God. Those are people that are saved. They love the Lord Jesus, and they have their identity in God, their father, or sons and daughters So it's rooted in love. It is secure. It's being led by God, it's being at peace. It's being at ease because knowing that my father in heaven has me. So that's the main posture. Then chair number two is the kingdom of self, how he calls it. It is basically what I often raised in our physician identity series as a performance driven identity. It's all about. Myself how do I get a hat? It is about hopefully everything will work out okay for me, or what can I do to serve the Lord better? Sometimes these might be really good sounding things, but there often are, I need to do more. It's about me and me, my feelings, what can I do? Because it is coming from in identity of productivity and outcomes. And that's often where I think we either live as being religious people, right? We're trying to do the right thing. And I'm not saying that some of those habits are not right or good, but it's this mindset of. I need to do stuff to work out my salvation. And again, I'm not saying discipleship and spiritual growth aren't important. In fact, I very much believe in those. But when we take it to the extreme and I think it's all about me, I can do something to earn more favor with God. That's where we trip up. So that's I think a place, at least I personally have found myself so much in because it's so ingrained in us, this performance driven, identity driven by our to-do list, by our achievements that if I just do more, I will be more recognized. Our whole medical environments, healthcare. Certainly in academia particularly is very much founded on these principles. I just work harder. I just need to achieve more. I need to be a good citizen. I take on this other project, and if I just do enough, I will get enough recognition and people will love me and they will care for me, and maybe eventually I got promoted. Or accolades or acknowledgement or race or whatever it might be. And the reality is often that doesn't work out the way we hope, but that type of achievement is driven by an identity that comes from basically productivity and performance and outcomes. So it's all focused on a false identity of myself versus an identity rooted in Christ. And that is often where fear and anxiety and strife all these things live in our physician lives. And that's why so much resonated with this message of these three chairs, and especially these chair too. The kingdom of self because that is very much how we operate and what we are used to. And let's be real. It's very draining. It's exhausting to live in that place because we often live in a constant state of worry. Not doing enough, not being good enough, not working hard enough, not having enough time. It is very much focused on lack and circumstances around us. Then looking to our heavenly Father as a provider. And then chair number three, I'm just gonna mention it for completeness sake, in his message, talks about the kingdom of the world. These are all the people that don't believe in Jesus. And they often have been presented with. A false gospel of what church looks like, what believing in Jesus looks like. We often present a Jesus and a God that is actually not the God of the Bible. And I have to confess I way too many times to that myself or did that myself because whenever we operate from what Leave Headland would call the chia number two of of the kingdom of self. Or in, in our medical environment, when we are also performance driven, we become competitive. We become edgy, anxious, we have anxious striving. We are not really pointing to Jesus even when we are very compassionate physicians, but there's always this level of exhaustion running our tails off. Not really living in the freedom of Christ that Christ has given us. And there are so much I could say about this and probably you'll get the message, but in essence, most of the time we really do a bad job representing the actual gospel in its fullness and we are presenting maybe a twisted image in our broken humanity. And I think as long as we realize that. That's good. That's important. That's an important step. But, so these are the three chairs. I don't wanna belabor this point too much. What we do, his teaching, I encourage you get his book, watch one of those videos. He's an amazing speaker and just amazing minister. His story is just absolutely amazing. But what really resonated with me is this part of our physician identity that is so rooted in performance. Which basically represents the chair number two that many Christians live in, which is the kingdom of self. We are so rooted in our performance identity. And our training just reinforces that, right? We have to have the sense of control. We certainly want to be highly responsible, which is a good thing. But with that comes in perfectionism, trying to do everything out of my own strength. And then I really only go to God when I'm at the end of my rope. And that is. A broken identity and it is very exhausting to live from that place because all we are doing is we are not really any different than anybody else out there. We are trying to work hard and seeking accomplishment, identity in the things we do, even if they are really good things, providing compassionate and most excellent and good care for people that are hurting and that are broken and that need our help. This is all wonderful, but when our identity is a little bit twisted and not leaning on the Lord, then. This type of race and chase after being the excellent physician, most compassionate, will be exhausting, burning us out and wearing us out, because it all depends on me versus. I am led by the Lord and my father is a good father who loves me and who guides me and who gives me the right wisdom and discernment in the moments who won't wear me out, but who will strengthen me and lift me up. So that is a subtle but very important shift, and it might be easy to miss, but what I wanna encourage you. To really pound on and go in prayer to this identity shift, how would it look like if I am not primarily in my identity, a physician or a leader or a mom or a dad or whatever you would describe yourself. But what if my identity first is I'm a son, I'm a daughter. Of my father in heaven. And that is something that sounds so simple and you're like, duh. Of course I am a son but there is a difference in knowing the Bible and the scriptures in your head. And actually living like that in your heart and in your whole embodiment. And what I've found personally having been at these crossroads, and even in LA's meetings a couple times now, is that sense of complete surrender of some of the things we actually really wanna hold onto very dearly. And that are very hard to give up because we wanna try to control them because oftentimes not all out of bad motives because we care. There are some personal situations that I'm really struggling with. I'm praying, I'm fasting, I'm believing the word of God, I'm standing on it, but some days are really hard and I just wanna go in there and do the right thing or clean up or make it go the right way. And often when we do that, it just leads to the opposite. And that means I have to learn over and over again, and even this past weekend. To just lay it all bare before the Lord and say, I have nothing in me. I'm just gonna bring it to your feet. I'm scared to even give it away because I'm afraid to give up control over certain situations. Maybe for you it's a family member maybe it's a work situation. Maybe it's a patient that is really difficult for you right now and pulling on your heartstrings to deal with. And it takes a lot of. Surrender and a humble heart to say, I'm gonna lay it all at your feet. It actually takes a lot of bravery and courage because we wanna hold onto it so badly. But I encourage you, get into prayer with the Lord after this podcast and just ask him, or even now as you think about it, Lord. What is a thing that I need to relinquish control, because that might be just the first baby step towards his direction and his loving arms, and then say, Lord, I'm gonna give that to you. Fill me with your love. Fill me with the love of the Father. And when we sit from that place, when we operate from the place of, my father is a good father, he loves me, fear actually goes away. You can still work hard, you can still care deeply, but you're no longer striving from an identity of performance or no longer controlled by fear, but you're operating from the peace of the Lord, from clarity, from the leading of the Lord by the Holy Spirit, and that is so much more powerful and also a place to work from rest. So ask the Lord. Pass and pray and say, God, where am I operating in fear right now? And then give that to him. I have to say, when I was at this event this weekend, it was really wonderful and one night I brought, so in the morning I was at church service and it was a wonderful message and I heard this message before, but it's always good to hear the same message fresh because the Lord always has another layer and another part of work to do for you. And le prayed over me and that was very powerful. And then in the evening I brought back home my husband and one of my kids, and and he just asked Le to pray for them. He, he prays for everybody and people got touched and it was a powerful move of God. And I had already been prayed for, so I didn't even ask for another round of prayer, but he just pulled me. Via the side and gave me big hug and he all, he said is, oh mama, or something like that. He probably knew what was going on in my heart, but I just suddenly was so filled with the joy of the Lord and actually was laughing, just getting so filled with the joy. But you know what? In that moment, and even since then, it's now a few days ago, being so filled with the joy of the Lord that the cares of the world, whether it's the world or your personal life, grow so dim and faint away. It's a wonderful, powerful thing. I've never slept so good in a long time, and I just felt at ease and reminded at, no, that is what it is to be in the presence of God. Sometimes it could be that awe and wonder sometimes can be the fear of the Lord. Sometimes it's just that. That emotional touch, the love of the father that you feel. And in this moment, all I needed was filled with a joy and it really took my worry and my fear away. And the last thing I wanna leave you with, remember the opposite of fear is not faith. I know we read that on t-shirts and bumper stickers. Faith over fear. Yes, we should have faith and that's important. Be rooted in faith. What? Cast out fear. The Bible says perfect love, cast out all fear. That is the perfect love of our Father God for us. And when we embody that love, we can also overcome the fear and the darkness of this world. So I wanna encourage you with this today. I wanna maybe go a little bit deeper in the next episode to talk about this and take it a step further and how can we. Work from a place of arrest. And work onto the Lord versus be in this vicious cycle of anxious striving. Again, that's another practical example for us, right? Anxious striving is all operating from this chair. Number two, for the kingdom of me for performance identity versus how can we work onto the Lord from a place of rest. Where we know our identity in Christ and can work from that place. So we don't burn out, we don't exhaust ourselves, and we can actually be the hands and feet and the hope for patients, for our colleagues around us. So with that, I'll leave you with that encouragement. If this resonated with you, I encourage you. Invite you to join my Facebook group. It's called the Heal the Healers Facebook group a kingdom community for Christian physicians. You can look that up. I will put it in the show notes below. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show and share it with others. It's a huge support for this ministry. And until next time, God bless you and have a wonderful day.