When Usefulness Feels Relational
What I’ve been wrestling with lately is not whether usefulness is good. It is. Faithful stewardship matters. Organizations need dependable people. Ministry work requires people willing to carry weight for long periods of time.
But I’m beginning to realize how easily usefulness can drift into something more than stewardship.
Not consciously. Not with bad motives. Just slowly over time.
As I’ve reflected on this season, I can see moments from earlier transitions that shaped me more deeply than I understood at the time. There were relationships I assumed would naturally continue once a role changed, only to discover later that much of the connection had been tied to shared work, proximity, or organizational need. Some friendships remained strong. Others quietly disappeared.
I don’t say that bitterly. I think most of us have relationships connected to seasons, responsibilities, and shared environments. That’s part of life. But I can see now how some of those experiences reinforced something unhealthy in me without my fully recognizing it.
As long as I was useful, I felt more secure relationally.
Even writing that sentence feels uncomfortable because I would have told you for years that my identity was grounded in Christ. While that is mostly true, this season has exposed how much reassurance I continued drawing from being needed, being competent, being the person others relied on.
And the difficult part is that usefulness can mask those things for a very long time because externally it often looks healthy, responsible, even sacrificial.
Slowing down changes that.
Over the last several months, and especially since getting sick in April, God has been exposing how much of my internal steadiness was still connected to roles, contribution, and usefulness. Not entirely. But more than I realized.
I think that’s part of why transition can feel so disorienting for leaders who have carried responsibility for decades. It’s not just the loss of activity. Sometimes it exposes how much identity became attached to being needed by other people.
That doesn’t mean the work was false. It doesn’t mean the relationships were fake. It simply means temporary things were carrying more reassurance than they were meant to carry.
Roles change eventually.
Organizations change too.
Even relationships change shape over time.
And when identity becomes too anchored to those things, transitions expose how fragile that foundation can become.
I don’t think God has been removing usefulness from my life in this season. But I do think He has been exposing where usefulness quietly became tied to reassurance, credibility, and belonging in ways I never fully recognized while life was moving quickly.
I’m still sorting through that honestly.Still learning the difference between serving faithfully and needing usefulness to steady my sense of identity.
Some transitions reveal more than what is changing around us.
They reveal what we were depending on underneath it.
As I’ve walked through this season, I’ve realized that transition often exposes questions we were too busy to notice while momentum was carrying us forward.
Not questions that need immediate answers.
But questions worth sitting with honestly before rushing to resolve the discomfort they uncover.
Questions I’ve Been Sitting With
As I’ve walked through this season, I’ve realized that transition often exposes questions we were too busy to notice while momentum was carrying us forward.
Not questions that need immediate answers.
But questions worth sitting with honestly before rushing to resolve the discomfort they uncover.
What parts of my past do I keep feeling drawn back toward out of insecurity or fear of failure?
What parts of the future I sense God directing me toward require the most faith to step into?
What themes, principles, or tensions keep surfacing repeatedly in conversations, prayer, Scripture, or reflection?
Where do I feel most unsettled when I am no longer needed in the same way?
Who in my support network can help me process honestly, challenge my assumptions, and discern wisely?
What would it look like to serve faithfully without allowing usefulness to define my worth?
Announcement
I recently contributed an article to Christian Coaching Magazine exploring how organizational alignment shapes stewardship, decision-making, and long-term organizational health.
Read the article → Designing for Flourishing: Where Mission Meets Money
(CCM subscription required)
“Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”
— Isaiah 43:18–19
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