When you don’t feel like!
You’re never without help!
There are seasons in life when certain things feel impossible. Prayer feels heavy. Faith feels distant. Obedience feels tiring. We tell ourselves, “I can’t do this right now,” and the feeling seems so real that it convinces us it must be true. Yet again and again, when we step forward— sometimes doubtful—we discover that the inability we felt was not the final truth.
Grace was present all along.
Grace is not only what saves us at the beginning of our walk with God; it is what sustains us in every step after. It meets us in our weakness, not after we have conquered it. Many believers misunderstand grace as something that works only when we are strong enough to respond. But Scripture and experience teach us otherwise: grace responds before strength appears.
There are moments when a thought rises and says, “You can’t pray.” It feels convincing. Emotionally, mentally, even spiritually, you feel empty. Yet the moment you choose—sometimes against every feeling—to open your mouth or your heart, prayer begins to flow. Words come. Tears come. Stillness comes. And you realize: I was never without grace. I was only listening to a lie.
So how do we reconcile this?
The answer is simple and humbling: the sufficiency was never ours.
What we often call “inability” is not the absence of grace but the awareness of our dependence. God allows us to feel weak so that we stop relying on our own perceived strength. When we finally move—not because we feel able, but because we trust Him—we encounter the grace that was already supplied.
Paul captures this truth when he writes that God’s grace is sufficient and His power is made perfect in weakness. Not removed weakness. Not hidden weakness. Weakness. This means grace does not wait for you to feel ready. It shows up when you are not.
That is why the enemy works so hard to plant discouraging thoughts. He knows that if you believe you cannot pray, cannot worship, cannot obey, you will sit still. But grace does not require your confidence—only your consent. The moment you say yes, even quietly, grace carries you the rest of the way.
This is true not only in prayer, but in every area of obedience. There are seasons when you feel you cannot forgive, cannot serve, cannot continue, cannot believe again. Yet when you take a step—often a very small one—you discover you are being upheld by something beyond yourself. That “something” is grace.
Grace does not deny that the season is hard. It simply declares that hardness does not have the final word.
So when the thought comes, “I can’t,” pause and remember: you were never meant to do it by your own strength. The Christian life is not sustained by human effort but by divine supply. What God requires, He provides the grace to fulfill.
Grace is available—not after you feel strong, but right where you are.
Not when you feel worthy, but when you feel empty.
Not because you can, but because He is sufficient.
And when you move, even trembling, you will find that grace has been waiting for you all along.