The Christ Empowered Entrepreneur Podcast
Are you a passionate woman of God who is eager to fulfill God’s calling for your business with the peace, power, and joy of Christ? But do you find yourself continually distracted by the ways of the world and undone by your fears, doubts, and anxious striving?
Meet your host and “How to Girl”, Kathleen Fischer. Catch the wind of Kathleen’s passion for equipping Christian women to leave their flesh behind and become empowered in Christ to fulfill God's will on the earth!
Listen in on the stories and receive the practical wisdom, tips, and strategies that will transform your business story. And walk away knowing HOW to experience the vibrant life God has for you as a Christ Empowered Entrepreneur.
The Christ Empowered Entrepreneur Podcast
God's Cure for Anxious Striving in Business
How Christian Women Entrepreneurs & Leaders Can Overcome Overwhelm and Lead with God’s Peace
Pull up a chair at the café. In this heart-to-heart conversation, Kathleen names the often-ignored reality of anxious striving that quietly drains Christian women entrepreneurs and leaders—the pressure to perform, fear of falling behind, and the hustle that steals peace.
She contrasts the world’s “do-more” model with God’s way of leading and building a business—so you can trade overwhelm for peace, joy, and fruitfulness.
With scripture-rooted insight (John 15:5; Romans 12:2; Matthew 13:22, and more), real stories, and a simple morning practice to resist the pull to jump straight into work, this episode helps faith-driven women in business and leadership stop hustling and step into Christ-empowered leadership.
Grab your coffee, get honest, and discover God’s cure for anxious striving—then check the show notes for the Renew Your Mind in Christ freebie and more ways to grow.
LEARN MORE by visiting these Social Media Platforms:
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CONNECT DIRECTLY WITH ME VIA EMAIL @
Kathleen@KathleenFischerCoaching.com
I look forward to helping YOU become a Christ-Empowered Entrepreneur and Leader.
Hey there, friend. I'm so glad you are here with me today.
Let's begin by imagining this.
We're sitting together in an outdoor cafe. We each have our favorite yummy beverages and we've decided to get honest about what's really going on in our businesses.
Because if you're anything like me and the women I coach, you're feeling the constant pull of anxious striving, and it is threatening to drain the life out of you and your business.
We love God. We know he's called us into business, but somehow the joy and excitement we started with is being swallowed up by the constant pressure, anxiety, and exhaustion that the patterns of this world brings to the business building journey.
That's why today we are going to look at the world's patterns in business compared to God's way and discover God's cure for anxious striving.
Let's enter his presence as we begin.
Heavenly Father, thank you that you have not called us to carry the burden of the business on our own shoulders. You have given us your son Jesus, as our source of security, peace, power and joy for our lives and the businesses you've called us to build together with you.
Lord, open our eyes today to see the difference between the world's anxious patterns and your life- giving way of building a business. Settle us back into your love. Help us to hear your voice above every other. We ask for this father in Jesus' name, amen.
So let's be real with each other.
Far more often than we'd like to admit, we as Christian women find ourselves plagued by thoughts such as, if I don't push harder to build this business, it will fail. I never seem to be able to keep up with what the world is telling me I should be doing. I am so afraid of falling behind, but I'm exhausted as I try to keep up.
Maybe I just can't do this. Maybe I misunderstood God's call for me, because the mountains I'm looking at are just too big for me. And I'm afraid if I stop striving to fulfill the demands of this business, it will fail, and my heart will fail, and my life and home will be impacted in ways I can't even think about.
What am I to do, Lord, with all of this? Where are you in this business building story? .How am I supposed to fulfill the call you've placed upon my life? I feel lost. I feel alone. I feel disconnected from you and I don't know the way back to you. Help me, Lord, to find your path for the building of this business.
I need you, Lord. Help me.
Well, my precious friend, if these sound familiar to you, let me encourage you. You are not alone. The vast majority of women I speak to have shared these very thoughts with me, and I have wrestled with them as well.
But God sees us. He hears our cries and knows our hearts.
And he's here with us today, to share his truth that will set us free from the patterns of this world and lead us back into the security, peace and joy of following his will together with him.
The cure begins with the smelling salts of Jesus' words in scripture.
In Matthew 1322, Jesus warns us that the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth can choke out God's word in us and make us unfruitful.
When we allow these worries and a hunger for wealth to grab a hold of us, it will drive us into anxious striving. The result is the loss of peace, joy, and the fruitfulness God longs to bring into our lives.
Here's another piece of the problem.
Anxious striving is tricky because it often masquerades as responsibility.
The world tells us you've got to do dot, dot, dot. If you want to succeed. It's all up to you. You just need to work harder and your success will come.
While the world says it's up to us and how hard we are willing to work, God's word says something different.
In John 15:5. Jesus tells us that he's the vine and we are the branches. That apart from him, we can do nothing.
He is the one who produces the fruit through us as we abide in him.
But the world doesn't allow time for abiding with Jesus.
It has us setting our alarms early to hustle into our days, checking our phones as soon as we awake and before we know it, heading into work with barely a nod in Jesus' direction.
It is not that we don't want to spend quality time with Jesus, it's that we have come to believe what the world is saying more than what Jesus has said.
We come to fear the potential failure we may experience if we really spend time with Jesus before we enter our busy days.
So off we go, diving into our task lists, social media and projects we've created to make money and build the business God has called us to build, but sadly, apart from him. Anxious striving has captured us and drawn us away from Jesus, the true source of our peace, joy, and success in business.
But God sees us and he longs to rescue us.
He calls us to see the way out in Romans 12:2. "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will."
The pattern of this world is self-reliance and hustle.
The pattern of God's kingdom is abiding, trusting, and obeying.
So what's the cure?
It's not doing more. It's not hustling harder. The cure is returning by faith to your abiding relationship with Christ.
Remember again the words of Jesus in John 15:5. "I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing."
That's the cure.
Abiding, remaining, staying connected.
The Lord through Isaiah 30:15 puts it this way.
"This is what the sovereign Lord, the holy one of Israel says, "In repentance
and rest is your salvation. In quietness, and trust is your strength."
My precious friend, resting and abiding doesn't mean inactivity.
It means being so deeply connected to Jesus, that even as you work, you're moving in his peace, his wisdom, his strength, not your own.
Let me give you a few stories to help you see what God is saying.
In Genesis 15:1, God speaks to Abram when he's discouraged about not seeing God's promise yet fulfilled. And God says, "Do not be afraid. Abram, I am your shield and your very great reward."
God is compassionate toward Abram just as he is towards us.
He doesn't tell Abram to go make it happen on his own.
Instead, as he will with us, he addresses Abram's fear, his insecurity, and he reminds Abram that God himself is the greatest reward he can have on this earth.
This is true for us too.
I've lived this. So many times I've been like a racehorse, straining, pushing, charging ahead, and every single time I've let myself get caught in the world's anxious demands, I've ended up exhausted, burned out, and discouraged.
But when I stop and return to abiding in Christ, making him my top priority, I have discovered his peace and joy flowing back in, and the business moves forward in ways only God could have orchestrated.
In these times, God reminds me of his word in Romans 11:36, that all things are to come from him, through him, and be unto him; to him be the glory.
Amen.
One of my clients had such a powerful picture of the contrast between our worldly anxious striving and God's peaceful power to fulfill his will.
During our group coaching session, she had a vision of herself on a chariot.
In the first vision, she was standing and screaming, snapping the whip over the horses, driving them furiously to the finish line. That was her striving.
But then she saw a second vision. She was sitting peacefully in the back of the chariot while God himself guided the horses. Same finish line. Same race, but this time she was relaxed, joyful, and in communion with God in the journey.
She spoke of the incredible peace she felt in the second vision.
That is the picture of abiding with God in our business story.
We still enjoy talking about that vision in our group as we learn to shift from the world's patterns into abiding in Christ for the fulfillment of God's call.
Here's the big truth.
The world tells us striving will lead to peace, security, and joy.
But it's a lie.
The truth is that it leads us away from God and into the anxiety of this world.
Exactly where Satan would like to have us.
So let us resist Satan and draw near to God, where we will experience God's truth, that true peace, security, and joy can only be found in Christ.
And these are not something we have to chase. They are something we already have in him.
For Colossians 2:10 says, in Christ, you have been brought to fullness.
You are already complete in Christ.
So let me ask you, where are you noticing anxious striving in your life right now?
What would shift if you truly believed that Christ himself, not your next client, not your next product launch, but Christ himself is your greatest reward?
God's cure for anxious striving is found in an abiding relationship with Jesus, where his peace will settle and secure you, his love will satisfy you, and his wisdom will lead you into the fulfillment of God's call for your life.
If today's message has spoken to you, let me encourage you with a simple next step.
Tomorrow morning, decide to resist the pull to jump straight into business, and choose instead, to sit quietly with Jesus, even for a few minutes.
Enjoy his presence. Rejoice in his promise in Colossians 2:10 that you are already complete in him.
Thank him that he will be with you, guiding you and empowering you throughout the day ahead.
As you build this habit, you can expand it with a devotional that includes scripture reading and journaling, what you sense him saying.
This sweet time with Jesus will draw you back into the abiding relationship your heart is longing for.
If you'd like help renewing your mind with God's Truth, I've created a free resource called "Renew Your Mind in Christ". You'll find the link in the show notes along with other opportunities to keep growing with me.
Finally, if this episode has blessed you, share it with another woman in business who needs to hear God's cure for anxious striving.
Let's close our time together in prayer.
Dear Lord, thank you for reminding us today that we don't have to strive to fulfill your will for our lives and businesses.
Thank you for your truth that sets us free. That you are the vine and we are already secure and complete in you. That you will accomplish that which you've spoken to us as we abide in you.
I pray for every woman listening right now, that you would release her from the grip of anxious striving. That you would draw her back into an abiding fellowship with you and that you would help her to walk in the peace, joy, and power that you have for her.
It is in your precious name, Jesus, that I pray.
Amen.
That's it for today, friend.
Remember, God is inviting you to experience your heavenly status, settled, secure, and satisfied in Christ. Walk with him and let his peace lead the way in your business.
Till next time, bye-bye for now.