On Personal Responsibility And The Danger Of Trusting In God

This may not sit well with a lot of believers, but an over reliance on God and God’s help can be deeply problematic.

Do I believe in God? Yes.

Do I believe in God’s help? Yes.

Do I rely on it? Absolutely not.

I looked closely at someone’s life and realized that what they called faith was actually avoidance. Their over reliance on God was a way to escape responsibility for their own choices, their own thinking, and their own outcomes. They wanted God to magically plan, approve, and execute their entire life while they did the least amount of mental labor possible.

I am not saying God cannot intervene. Miracles exist as evidence. History, scripture, and lived experience all testify to that. But miracles are, by definition, rare. They are exceptions, not systems. Building your life on the expectation of divine interruption is not faith. It is gambling with your future.

Stand up and use your head. Figure your life out.

My mother prays to God a lot. Outwardly, she is one of the most hardworking people I know. I have never met anyone more tenacious. She can work until her hands bleed. And yet, she is very poor. What I noticed early on is that anything my mother does not understand, anything that feels complex, abstract, or intimidating, she hands over to God entirely. Not out of humility, but in surrender of agency.

As I grew older, I saw this same pattern everywhere. When people encounter systems they do not understand, money, institutions, power, politics, career progression, negotiation, leverage, they spiritualize their ignorance. Instead of doing the mental work required to understand the problem and come up with solutions, they place God in charge of it.

“God is in control” is the most annoying statement I have ever had the displeasure of hearing with my two ears. What do you mean God is in control? Why? Why are you not actively trying to figure it out and negotiate a solution?

They call it trust; but it doesn’t fool me. It is in fact, abdication of responsibility. What they’re doing is quitting by proxy. It is a systematic way of outsourcing your responsibility to someone you cannot question, cannot audit, and cannot hold accountable. Someone who did not explicitly consent to managing your life while you opt out of thinking.

It is easier to get on your knees and shout amen when your pastor says, “Every room you enter, whether they like it or not, you will be favored,” than it is to sit down, analyze power structures, build competence, cultivate social intelligence, and intentionally position yourself into rooms whose outcomes will actually change your life.

“My pastor has decreed” is a spell people repeat to soothe their anxiety about uncertainty. And because God does not lie, they confuse the moral nature of God with a guarantee of personal success.

Where exactly did God promise you that one? In that form, on that timeline? Or in the words of a very famous philosopher AKA Odumeje; Who you? Who born you? How do you form? How do you exist?

Faith often gets misrepresented as passivity. But any honest reading of scripture shows something else entirely. Even divine promises required human movement. Seas parted only after someone stepped forward. Walls fell only after deliberate, repeated action. Provision came after planning, obedience, and work. God was never a replacement for thinking. God was never a substitute for responsibility.

My point is simple and uncomfortable. Society is governed by institutions. And institutions do not respond to prayer. They respond to strategy, competence, timing, negotiation, and leverage. You must understand the rules of the systems you are operating in. You must learn what you do not know. You must think. You must plan. You must execute.

Be ruthless. God’s promise is not a strategy.

Love God. Trust God. But do hard things. Learn hard things. Think critically. Move strategically. There is a critical amount of scheming, planning, and intentional design that goes into building a successful life and career. Not evil scheming. Intelligent scheming. The kind that studies reality instead of denying it.

Faith should give you courage, not excuses. It should sharpen your responsibility, not dissolve it. God is not offended by your intelligence. God is not threatened by your planning. God is not honored by your refusal to think.

At some point, you have to use your head. You pray, and then you get up and do the work. And I don’t mean physical work because any idiot can do that.

Get it?