Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
4 20 2026
When Strength Shifts—God Is Not Finished, He’s Refining Part 1 of 3
There comes a moment in a man’s life—quiet at first, almost unnoticeable—when something begins to shift. It’s not dramatic. It doesn’t announce itself. But you feel it. What once came quickly now takes longer. What once felt sharp now feels… just a little dulled. The edge you relied on, the quickness you trusted, the ability to push harder than the next man—it begins to change.
When I was younger, “old” was someone else. Thirty looked old. Fifty looked ancient. And now, standing at the edge of 77, I realize something… old isn’t a number. It’s a realization. It’s the moment you recognize that you are no longer becoming who you thought you’d be—you are becoming who you are.
And if we’re honest… that realization can feel unsettling. It has for me.
Arthur C. Brooks, in From Strength to Strength, calls this the crossing of two curves. The first is what carried you…drive, innovation, pushing, building. The second is something quieter… wisdom, understanding, the ability to see patterns, and to pour into others. The world calls the first strength… and the second, if it notices at all, calls it decline.
But you have to see through the eyes of God…through Scripture that is never calls it decline.
“Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” (2 Corinthians 4:16)
God is not in the business of reducing you. He is in the business of refining you. We’ve heard that forever but may not notice it so much while we’re living through it.
The problem is… most of us built our identity on the first curve. We learned early that performance gets noticed. Achievement gets rewarded. Being “special” opens doors. And somewhere along the way, without realizing it, success stopped being something we did… and became something we needed.
Brooks calls it success addiction. Scripture calls it something deeper.
“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matthew 6:21)
So, what are you addicted to?
If your treasure has been in your ability, your productivity, your recognition—then when those begin to shift, it doesn’t just feel like loss… it feels like your identity is slipping.
That’s why this season matters so much. Because God is not asking you to hold on tighter…He’s asking you to let go deeper.
Paul understood this. Earlier in his life, he was driven, forceful, and relentless. A man of action, of intellect, of impact. But listen to how he speaks later: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7)
He doesn’t measure his life by accomplishments. He measures it by faithfulness. That is the second curve in God’s economy. Where strength is no longer about how much you can carry… but how much you can release. Where influence is no longer about being seen… but about who you are shaping behind the scenes. Where your life stops being about proving… and starts being about pouring. I pray for those of you old enough to see this, and also for those young enough to see the wisdom of this sitting just on the hill above.
And here’s the truth most of us resist…If God did not allow the first strength to fade,
we would never reach for the second. Are you listening?
We would cling to what worked… and miss what matters. So the slowing is not rejection.
It is redirection. The weakening is not abandonment. Isn’t it an invitation?
Invitation to trust differently. To live deeper. To measure your life not by what you’ve built… but by what God is building in you.
Because in the Kingdom, the greatest strength is not found in what you can do…
It is found in who you are becoming.
And I can say honestly, at my age, I still desire to become more than I am. I want whatever time I have left in life to matter…to my Jesus…for my spouse, my children, and the friends and contacts God has called me to give myself away to. But that “MORE” is filtered through a completely different sifter because He has opened my eyes and put this yearning…this hunger inside to surrender the images and goals of my past, to lay them down without regret and without trying to resurrect them in some quieter, more “acceptable” form… and to receive instead what I once would have overlooked—the quiet work of becoming like Him.
To measure “more” now not by how much I can still produce, but by how deeply I can love…
how quickly I can forgive… how faithfully I can show up when no one is watching and nothing is being recorded. To let that hunger drive me not toward recognition, but toward surrender…
not toward being needed, but toward being available.
Because I am beginning to see that the truest “more” is not ahead of me in accomplishments… it is within my reach when I’m obedient. I know that is not a word many like.
It is in the unhurried conversation.
The timely encouragement.
The restraint of words that once would have wounded.
The willingness to decrease so that He might increase.
And so, this longing in me now… is different. It is steadier. Less anxious, more anchored. I am no longer striving to become someone… I am yielding to Someone. Lord, I pray I am getting through…
One old man who wants to save my younger friends from getting lost along the way
to what is really, “MORE”
“Lord, make me more like You”—not in what I do alone…
but in who I am when everything else is stripped away.
Because if the rest of my days accomplish that… then every one of them… will have mattered.
Questions
- Where have I quietly tied my identity to what I can still do… instead of who I am in Christ?
- What is God asking me to release in this season so He can form something deeper in me?
Next – Part 2 of 3 – The Grove, Not the Tree—Returning to the Life That Matters
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