Reframing Faith: From Control To Surrender

Ever notice how the word that defined you as a child still whispers in your faith today? Responsible, fearful, carefree, intense... those early scripts can quietly turn trust into performance or even control. We open up about the invisible lenses that shape how we see God, money, and control, and why childlike faith isn’t naive at all. It’s a grounded posture of expectancy, curiosity, and hope that changes how you budget, plan, and breathe through uncertainty.

We start by naming the lens: control, safety, performance, fear of failure, obligation... what would you call it? From there, we trace how those reflexes show up when the bank balance dips or life crowds in. Instead of waiting until our backs are against the wall to pray, we make the counterintuitive move of surrender first. You’ll hear practical ways to pair intentional planning with honest trust, so you can stop white-knuckling outcomes while still stewarding your responsibilities with clarity.

This conversation also tackles the traits we were told were too much. Loud, bossy, intense can be raw material for leadership, advocacy, and holy courage when refined by wisdom. We share prompts to help you reclaim those parts without bulldozing others: What did you suppress to fit in? What might God be asking you to bring back? Along the way, we offer a fresh reframing like life is happening for you, not to you and that restores agency without denying reality and builds faith one small proof at a time.

If you’re ready to trade striving for surrender and fear for trust, tune in for a blend of story, practical steps, and gentle challenge. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s carrying too much, and leave a review to tell us what childhood word you’re reframing now.

**Correction: The scripture is Matthew 18:3.

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Transcript

Introducing Childlike Faith

The Lens Of Childhood And Faith

Control Versus Surrender

Life Happens For You Perspective

Striving, Scarcity, And Provision

Budgeting With Trust, Not Fear

Reclaiming Suppressed Childhood Traits

Invitations, Resources, And Next Steps

Closing And Ways To Connect

Speaker 0:18

Welcome to Beyond Organised, the podcast that helps you simplify your life and amplify your purpose. I'm Mel Schenker, life coach, speaker, founder of She's Organised, but, more importantly, a wife and mum of four little kids. If you've ever felt overwhelmed, like you're constantly juggling everything but never quite catching up, this is the place for you. Here we go beyond just the tidying up and creating systems. We're talking about real life strategies that bring order to your life, but also we talk about the things beyond the organising, the things that really matter, like your parenting relationships and so much more. So grab your coffee and let's dive in. Welcome back. This episode is gonna be a little bit different to what you're used to. I want to get you thinking again, like I have done in some of my previous solo episodes, where I want you to start reflecting a little bit more and I'm gonna post some things to you. Now, what we're gonna talk about today is sort of the concept around childlike faith. Now, some of this stuff I actually do in my high-level high-ticket coaching, and I'm gonna touch on a glimpse of it with you today because I feel like this is something that's really important and it actually changed my life in terms of the foundations on how I viewed faith. Because I hadn't really stopped to think about it in a lot of ways. Now, I want to talk particularly around the scripture in Matthew 18. And in verse three, it mentions having like, unless you become like a child, you can't enter the kingdom. So I want to talk about becoming like a child. Now, for those of us that have been Christians for a while, we kind of understand what Jesus means by this. You know, a child is trusting, feels safe and secure in who they are generally, and in their environment, and trusting that their parents will do what's best for them. Might not always agree, but I get that. But there's a lot that we can learn from children in the way that they trust. And they are very quick to trust until the world will teach them, unfortunately, for many, will teach them how they get hurt from trusting. And so when this question was posed to me, what lens am I viewing my faith through in terms of what does my childlike faith lens look like? I thought back to my own childhood. And yes, I'd gone through abuse. I'm also the oldest child, and big part of just my personality, the way it is. The word that came to my mind was responsible. I was a responsible child. Now, for some of you, you can relate. For some of you, no, it's not that word. But I encourage you, what were you like as a child? Were you responsible? Were you carefree? Were you scared? Did you hate that you had no control and no say over your life and your parents dictated everything? What was it for you? What is the lens that you view childhood? Now, don't get me wrong, most of the aspects of my childhood were great. And I do have very fond memories growing up and what things were like. But I guess in terms of how I was, I was pretty responsible. And so then I realized the lens that I'm viewing my faith through was through this lens of responsibility. And that's not what God is asking of me when it came to my faith. He didn't want me to be responsible with my faith. He wants me to be responsible with a lot of things in life. Yes, definitely. But when it came to faith, he wanted me to surrender. Now that was very difficult for me, letting go of that control that I was comfortable holding, whether it was working for me or not. I liked having that control. And so I had to work through a lot of that to understand that the way I was viewing faith was a little bit filtered. It was filtered through the lens of responsibility. And so what lens are you viewing faith through? Is it through control, safety, performance, fear of failure, obligation? Or are you quite free-spirited, childlike, and you're actually doing pretty well with that? And if you are doing well with that, I encourage you to share that with the people around you because that isn't so easy. And from what I'm seeing from a lot of women that are coming through my door, it's something they really struggle with. And, you know, a lot of people come to me to help them get organized, but all these things, all these things become part of the package. And this actually forms part of our identity. And it's key in being able to understand all of this. Another thing to think about, and another way to look at it, that having childlike faith, I know it doesn't use those words specifically in the Bible, but that's what it's meaning. But having the childlike faith, it's not being careless or irresponsible or immature, naive. It's not being any of those things, which we can associate with children as well. It is about being trust-filled, expectant, hopeful, curious, even. Children are quite curious. And there is this level of belief that life is happening for you, not to you. So even the bad things that you feel like you don't have any choice in, people are hurting you, making decisions for you, you're feeling like you're scrambling for control in your actual physical life. When we can shift the lens in which we view our face through, but also that we're viewing our life through, all of a sudden you're not the victim anymore. Life isn't just happening to you, and you're powerless and out of control. You are starting to gain that control back in a healthy way, a healthy balance, not too much, not too little. You're regaining some power and authority, confidence. All these things also happen by default through reframing our lens through this clear picture of how we are viewing our faith and our faith in God. So, apart from the main question of what lens are you viewing your faith through, I also want to pose this question to you. Are you striving to prove something? This tends to go hand in hand with how we're viewing our life and our faith. There is this element for a lot of people that there is something they're trying to prove to someone or something. And then I guess another question I could ask you is are you trying to hold everything together? Because you don't believe he will. You actually feel like with your finances, for example, you are scraping by week to week. Cost of living has hurt you and your family, and you are doing everything in your power to put food on the table, keep the roof over your head, keep life as normal as possible, but you feel yourself drowning. And the way that you're viewing your faith is when your back is against the wall and you literally have no other choice because there is no money in the account to now pay the next bill. And so now you're going, okay, God, I'm trusting that you'll provide. Is that what's happening here? That that was me. That was definitely me. So I'm being honest here. I was also viewing faith with my back against the wall. And that's not how he wants us to view it. He wants us to not come from this angle of, all right, I've got no more choices. Now I give it to you. This reactive, helpless, defeated point of view. That's just not his intention. When we can actually actively choose to trust in him, that he will provide, because his provision is endless. When we're trusting him for that, even if our backs against the wall or not, when our heart posture is one of you are good, I know you'll come through. I have no idea how you're gonna do it. I've really got no idea, but I know you're gonna come through. It changes things. Now, I help people with their budgets. I I budget myself. And I had budgeted for many years. And there were still times where, and even in starting this business where it's like, I don't know where the next money's coming from, and that's stressing me out. But even through this, I've had to learn to go, you know what, God's got me. I'm still here. My business is still here, I'm still serving people, I'm still growing and still moving forward. And it's okay. You know, we're still here, we're still in our house, there's still food on the table. Even if a bank account looks a little bleak one week, he has come through again and again. Now, that's not me being irresponsible with my money, not at all. I'm still being intentional and knowing where my money goes. But there is this level of faith that has unlocked since getting my lens aligned with the way that God is actually asking of me to view all of this. There has just been this unlocking of provision that has happened because now I'm aligned with what he's actually asking of me. I'm letting go of that control. I've stopped white knuckling it. I've stopped. And my goodness, it was hard. It was hard. But it is so possible. And from stepping through all of that to where I am today, yeah, things aren't perfect. I mean, this is life. Things are still gonna pop up, things are gonna happen, but you learn to trust him more because he's never let me down. And you trust more and more, and it builds your faith more and more. And then you continue to come in and step in from this place of being proactive and intentional and purposeful instead of just reacting and out of fear. So I'm going to keep it short with you on this one because I don't feel like I need to say much more other than challenge you on the lens that you're viewing your face through and go back to your childhood, maybe how you viewed things. And I also want to say there might be things that you as a child, you learnt to suppress, you learnt to change so you could grow up into the mature adult that you are. But maybe some of that got squashed out of you that God actually wants you to maybe tap into a bit again to be that childlike person that he's asking. Now, when I posed this to someone recently, the light bulb went off for her. And she said, you know, in my childhood, I was always told I'm too much, I'm too loud, I'm too full on, I'm too intense, I'm too much, I am just too much. And so I learned to suppress all these parts of me. And she was an outgoing person, all of that. And she learned to suppress to fit into this mold that society thought was acceptable, family thought was acceptable, all of that. And when we had this discussion and we talked about, you know, maybe there's parts of you as a child that you learned to suppress and change and shift and had things trained out of you that God actually put in you to be who you are, that was a huge release for her and a lot for her to process and deal with. And perhaps it's the same for you too. God doesn't make mistakes. He created you a certain way. If you're too loud, if you're too bossy, too controlling, too whatever else that you were told as a child, what does that mean for who he actually wanted you to be? And yes, okay, it doesn't mean you go around like bossing everyone around or whatever these days, but go, okay, he created me to be a leader, to speak up, to achieve this and that. Like, look into that, tap into that. If you've got questions on this, please reach out to me. There is a text button. You can send a text directly to me, and I will respond as soon as I can. I would love to hear your thoughts on this because I've never heard anyone talk about this before, but this is something that God was revealing to me. And I'd love to know what your thoughts are with this. Now, if you're someone that's like, I need to dive deeper into this, I want to know more of this, then you can join me inside the She's Organized Hub. That's fine. And I'll get to know you in there, and that would be great. I've got plenty in there to get you started. But I have got an offer. So it does cost a bit more. But my goodness, the transformation that happens in that will change your life. And if that's something that you are interested in knowing more about, I would love to share those details with you. So just feel free to send me an email or again, send a text or DM me on Instagram and I will get back to you and help work out if it's a good fit for you or not. But there are resources and there are things put in place to help you in this season now, to help you grow in your faith. And yes, you might come through the door here in trying to get more organized, trying to get a little bit of control back in your life or find a new system, whatever it is. But it goes so much deeper than that. And I would love to be part of it and like to help unlock that for you the same way that many other women have trusted me as well. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. And I look forward to talking to you again next week. If you like this episode, don't forget to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you want to continue the conversation, you can connect with me on Instagram @shes.organised or for some free resources, head over to beyondorganised.com/toolkit. Remember, organising is a tool to live the purposeful life beyond it. See you next time.