What Am I Trying to Prove?
And to Whom?
When Frustration Becomes a Teacher
Those questions landed on me years ago—and it hasn’t let go.
I first heard it in a seminar, almost in passing. But it stayed.
Especially in moments of frustration.
Unfinished tasks.
Hard conversations.
That inner pressure that feels heavier than the situation itself.
So I learned to pause and ask:
What am I trying to prove right now?
And who am I trying to prove it to?
The Deeper Question Beneath the Question
The hard answer kept returning: I was trying to prove that I matter.
That my life has value.
That I can make a difference.
That my presence counts.
And once I named that, another question followed quietly behind it.
Why am I trying to prove anything at all?
This wasn’t really about performance or productivity.
It was about identity.
Somewhere along the way, many of us learned—subtly, quietly—that worth needed reinforcement.
That love needed earning.
That being “enough” required evidence.
So we strive. We explain. We defend. We push.
And we grow tired trying to secure what was never meant to be fragile.
Remembering Whose We Are Changes How We Live
But there is a better way of living.
This question—What am I trying to prove?—can become a holy interruption.
Not to shame us, but to lead us home.
Because when we remember whose we are, we are freed to live authentically who we are.
We are His beloved.
Not because we succeeded.
Not because we got it right.
But because Love decided so.
When we rest there, something shifts.
Striving loosens its grip.
Fear loses its voice.
And Christ lives His life through us—not as pressure, but as love expressed naturally to the world.
Love has nothing to prove when it rests in Him.
Reflection