Why You Keep Holding Back (And How to Finally Stop)

"The Lord turned to him and said, 'Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?'"
Judges 6:14

You don’t have a fear problem. You have a holding-back problem.

That was the bracing turn in Pastor Mike’s message Sunday — and it landed because most of us walked in expecting a sermon about being braver, and walked out with a sharper diagnosis. The thing that’s been keeping you in a holding pattern isn’t an emotion you can’t control. It’s a posture you’ve been choosing.

Pastor Mike opened with a memory most of us recognize. Sitting in class at Iowa State, head down, internal dialogue on loop: don’t call on me, don’t call on me, don’t call on me. And the wild thing — nine times out of ten, the answer somebody else gave was the answer he already had. The information wasn’t missing. The willingness to step out was.

He then opened 2 Timothy 1:7 — for God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline — and walked us into the Greek. There are two words the New Testament translates as fear. The first, phóbos, is morally neutral. It’s adrenaline before something dangerous. Scripture even uses it positively when it talks about the fear of the Lord. The second, deilía, only appears once in the entire New Testament — and it carries moral weight. It doesn’t describe an emotion. It describes a posture: shrinking back when action was required, by someone who had courage available and chose not to use it.

“Timidity equals holding back.”

That phrase, Pastor Mike said, came out of a recent conversation with Cindy Lake — and he hasn’t stopped thinking about it since. Because timidity, the deilía kind, lives in the gap between knowing and doing. It shows up in decisions you keep deferring and calling “wisdom.” It shows up in conversations you keep softening. It shows up in callings you keep negotiating with.

Then he opened Judges 6 — Gideon hiding in a wine press, threshing wheat in a place no one would ever thresh wheat, and the angel of the Lord walking up and saying, Mighty hero, the Lord is with you. Gideon hears that and immediately argues back: my clan is the weakest, I am the least.

Pastor Mike traced three roots from that exchange. Three reasons we hold back, and three ways God meets us in it.

1. We don’t see ourselves the way God sees us. God called Gideon “mighty hero” before the battle, before the army, before any visible evidence. Pastor Mike’s line was clarifying:

“God doesn’t see us where we’re at. He sees us where He’s taking us. God doesn’t call you who you are. He calls you who He pre-programmed you to be.”

The gap between God’s name for Gideon and Gideon’s name for himself was where timidity lived. The same is true for us. You will never live beyond the story you believe about yourself.

2. We ask “am I able?” when the right question is “is God able?” Timidity collapses the frame down to your resume, your strength, your track record — and of course it looks impossible. Pastor Mike pointed to Judges 7, where God deliberately stripped Gideon’s army from 32,000 down to 300 to fight 135,000 Midianites. Not because He wanted fewer soldiers, but because He wanted there to be no question who got the credit.

“The unfavorable circumstances in your life are glory soil.”

3. God doesn’t just send us — He goes with us. This is where the message got most personal. Pastor Mike told the story of being asked to preach at a financial firm packed with top reps in five-thousand-dollar suits — and the irrational thoughts that flooded him in the moment. They’ve got the wrong guy. The varsity speaker shouldn’t be playing before the JV speaker. In the wrestle, he heard the Lord clearly:

“You didn’t get yourself in this room. I got you in this room. And if I got you in the room, then you don’t need to be able. I’m able.”

So what do you do this week?

• Where are you calling something “wisdom” that’s actually retreat?

• What conversation have you been making smaller than it needs to be?

• What step have you been waiting on a sign for — that God already gave?

There’s a step. Pastor Mike said it plainly at the end. Maybe it’s joining a group, or leading one. Maybe it’s starting the business, or starting the family. Maybe it’s reaching out to a friend you’ve been quietly praying for.

Whatever it is — today, would you take the step?