Why the Change You Want Doesn't Need Willpower

Every January, we all hit the same wall.
You start the year with intention. A new habit. A new schedule. A new version of you. Maybe it’s fitness. Maybe it’s peace. Maybe it’s finally dealing with your anger, your anxiety, your numbing, your drifting. Maybe it’s spiritual—coming back to church after a long time, opening your Bible again, trying to rebuild a relationship with God you’re not sure you still have.
And then, somewhere along the way, you stall.
Not because you didn’t want to change. Not because you’re uniquely weak. But because there’s a hard truth we rarely admit:
Intention without formation will always fail.
You can want a different life without having a structure that can hold it. You can crave transformation while still living inside rhythms that keep producing the same results.
The good news is: you were made for more than willpower. And God is not asking you to white-knuckle your way into becoming like Jesus. He’s inviting you into a different kind of change—slow, Spirit-powered, rooted, and real.

There’s a strange, beautiful moment in Zechariah 4. God’s people have returned from exile. They’re trying to rebuild the temple—the center of worship, the symbol of God’s presence. They started strong, but now they’ve stalled. There’s opposition. There’s fatigue. There’s too much rubble. The work feels bigger than their strength.
And God sends a word to the leader of the rebuilding project, a man named Zerubbabel:
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says the Lord.
That line is famous for a reason. It’s God’s way of saying, “You’re not going to pull this off by grit. You’re not going to muscle your way into what I’m building.”
But then God says something else:
“The hands of Zerubbabel… will also complete it.”
So which is it? God’s Spirit, or Zerubbabel’s hands?
Yes.
This is how transformation works. God doesn’t change your life by magic. He partners with you. He works through you. He empowers your hands with His Spirit. His power doesn’t replace your participation—it makes it possible.
That’s the invitation: God can do in you what you cannot do on your own, but He will not do it without you.

In Zechariah’s vision, there’s a lampstand—think menorah—burning with light. In the Old Testament, that light represented God’s presence. What’s striking is that the temple isn’t even finished, but the lampstand is already there. The message is quiet but profound:
God is with you in the rebuilding.
You might feel unfinished. You might feel like a construction site. But God doesn’t wait for you to become impressive before He draws near. He’s present in the process.
And then Zechariah sees something even stranger: two olive trees feeding oil directly into the lampstand. If you know anything about olive oil, you know you don’t “tap” an olive tree like maple syrup. Olives have to be crushed and pressed.
That’s part of the point. The vision isn’t literal—it’s prophetic. God is saying: My presence will be sustained by a living source. Not a one-time burst. Not a jar that runs out. A continual supply.
And that’s where the image of a tree becomes so important.
Throughout Scripture, spiritual health is connected to rootedness, not performance. Not the visible parts of life. Not the highlight reel. Not the outward productivity. Roots.
Psalm 1 opens the entire book of Psalms with this picture:
A person who delights in God’s instruction is like a tree planted by streams of water—steady, alive, fruitful in season, leaves not withering.
What stands out to me is that it says fruit in season.
That means there are seasons without fruit.
There are seasons where you feel like you’re doing everything “right” and you still don’t feel like much is happening. Seasons where growth is underground. Seasons where you’re just trying to survive. Seasons where you’re rebuilding after loss, disappointment, or failure.
Psalm 1 doesn’t promise a pain-free life. It promises a rooted life.

“Blessed” doesn’t mean comfortable
Psalm 1 begins with a word that gets misunderstood: blessed.
In the biblical sense, blessing isn’t mainly about your circumstances going well. It’s not “everything I touch turns to gold.” Scripture calls people blessed when they’re forgiven, when they trust God, when they’re corrected by God, even when they mourn or endure persecution.
Biblical blessing is less about ease and more about inner stability—a soul anchored in God even when life is unstable.
That’s why Jesus can say, “Blessed are those who mourn,” and mean it.
Blessed doesn’t mean you avoid hard things. It means you have a different kind of life inside the hard things.

The desert tree that stays green
When most of us imagine “a tree planted by streams of water,” we picture a lush scene: a bubbling creek, shade, greenery everywhere.
But an ancient Israelite might picture something else.
They might picture a tree in a dry riverbed—a wadi—where water only comes in flash floods. Most of the year, it’s dust. Heat. Harshness. No visible supply.
And yet there are trees that survive there—stubbornly green—because their roots go deep enough to access what the surface can’t provide.
That’s what God wants for you.
Not a life where the weather is always perfect. A life with roots deep enough that even when the surface is dry, your soul stays alive.

So how do roots grow?
Psalm 1 says it happens through delighting in God’s instruction—meditating, chewing, returning, letting it sink in until it shapes you.
Scripture says the Bible is “God-breathed” and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training—not to make you smarter, but to make you whole. Jesus says the difference between a life that stands and a life that collapses isn’t the exterior of the house. It’s the foundation.
And here’s what I’ve learned: God’s Word doesn’t just give information. It builds a foundation.
It teaches truth.
It exposes lies you’ve normalized.
It restores what’s gotten bent or broken.
It trains you in a new way of living.
That’s why it touches every sphere of life. Marriage. Friendships. Parenting. Conflict. Anxiety. Money. Purpose. Forgiveness. Integrity. Your inner world. Your outer habits. Your future.
There is not a part of your life Jesus doesn’t want to heal.

If you’re serious about change this year, I want to give you two simple next steps.
First: give God actual time.
Not vague intention—real hours. Real attention. If you want roots, you need repeated contact with the Source.

Second: build scaffolding.
Choose a few practices that make the life you want possible.
Here’s a simple framework you can try. Pick one or two specific rhythms in each category:
Prayer

• “I’ll read one Psalm every morning.”
• “I’ll pray for five minutes before I check my phone.”

Rest

• “I’ll take a screen-free walk three times a week.”
• “I’ll practice a Sabbath night rhythm—one evening where I stop.”

Relationships

• “I’ll join a group and show up consistently.”
• “I’ll have one intentional conversation each week.”

Work / Vocation

• “I’ll start my day asking, ‘Lord, how do you want me to love today?’”
• “I’ll do one task with excellence and calm—not hurry and chaos.”

Start small. Start real. Don’t despise the day of small things.
Because the most radical changes in your life usually won’t come in a single moment.
They’ll come through ordinary rhythms—over time—where God’s Spirit meets your hands.

So here’s my question for you:
What would it look like, this year, to stop trying harder… and start becoming rooted?