The Support I Usually Give Away Is the Support I’m Learning to Receive

On August 12th, I had surgery to remove a pituitary tumor. I’m telling you not because I want this space to become about my health, but because for a long time I didn’t develop my own support. I was too busy working to invest in relationships that could carry weight. We’re so used to being self-reliant that needing support can feel like it disqualifies us from the label “high performer.” What I’m discovering in recovery is the exact opposite.

C.H.E.W. with Me

New here? What is CHEW? — a 30-second practice that grows into a day woven with God’s love.

C: Clarity — Eventually, Everyone I Work With Hits a Hard Season

People come to me for a variety of reasons — some for development, some for a specific decision, some already in crisis. But eventually, if we work together long enough, everyone goes through a genuinely hard season: a crisis, a stretch where the temptation to be overwhelmed by anxiety is real. For most of my career, my role has been to sit across from people in that season and help them solve what they’re facing using Scripture. I know how to do that from the helper’s chair. I’m far less practiced at being the one who needs help.

H: Hear— A Cord of Three Strands Is Not Quickly Broken

“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! … And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” (Ecclesiastes 4:9–12)

This is not a verse about weakness. It’s a Father telling you plainly that you were never designed to withstand hard things alone, and that community isn’t a consolation prize for people who can’t manage on their own — it’s the design itself. Note the number: a cord of three strands. Not two. Three. The strength is in the multiplication, not in any single strand holding the weight alone.

There’s a second layer worth sitting in: the Hebrew word behind “broken” here is nathaq — it doesn’t picture something that gradually frays or wears thin with use. It’s a word for something torn apart by force. Braided cords don’t come undone on their own; something has to violently rip them. The design Solomon is describing isn’t fragile. It’s built to resist exactly the kind of pressure a hard season applies.

My wife has been steady in a way I didn’t know I needed until I needed it. A few close friends checked in without being asked to. And across a stretch of appointments — the neurosurgeon, the ENT surgeon, primary care, the endocrinologist, and every tech who ran an MRI, a CAT scan, an ultrasound, an EKG — more than one of them noticed something and said so: I was calmer than most people they see in that chair. I wasn’t performing that. My only explanation is that CHEWing on God’s love throughout the day for over a year has led me to trust Him more than I ever have.

E: Exchange — Letting People Carry What I’m Used to Carrying

Eighteen months ago, my focus shifted specifically to helping Christian high performers move God’s love from head to heart. Before that, I was Gospel-centered, but my approach leaned more on applying Scripture to solve the problem in front of me than on this specific head-to-heart movement. I want to be honest that the peace wasn’t constant. There were moments of genuine anxiety — wondering if something terrible was about to happen to me. What I noticed is that those moments passed quickly once I returned to one specific question: because God loves me as much as He loves Jesus, how does that impact the anxiety I am feeling right now? Asking it, and actually waiting on the answer, is what CHEWing has trained into me over the last year.

My team has been part of this too. In the weeks leading up to surgery, they saw me fatigued more than once and extended grace I didn’t ask for — covering what needed covering without making it a thing. The delegating I’ve been writing about the last several Fridays turned out to be preparation I didn’t know I was doing.

The calm the medical staff kept noticing wasn’t mine to take credit for. It was a year of practice finally showing up in a room I couldn’t perform my way through.

Because God’s love for you is as complete as His love for His own Son, how does that change the anxiety you’re carrying into whatever room you’re walking into next?

Set a timer for sixty seconds. Ask yourself that exact question — because God loves me as much as He loves Jesus, how does that impact what I’m feeling right now? — and just wait on it. Don’t rush to answer. If your mind drifts, bring it back to the question itself, not to solving it. That’s the whole sixty seconds.

W: Walk — Name Your Support System

Before today ends, name three to five people who make up your own threefold cord — the ones who’d show up if you needed them to. If it’s been a while since you told any of them what they mean to you, send one message today. Not a crisis message. Just gratitude, ahead of time, before you ever need to call on it.

Closing question: Who is holding a strand of your cord right now that you haven’t thanked lately?