From Fixing to Inviting: What Lent Teaches Practice Owners About Healing
When I decided to become a therapist, I genuinely wanted to help people find God.
I imagined therapy as a clear path: if I asked the right questions, followed the right treatment plan, and showed up faithfully, clients would heal, emotionally and spiritually. I carried a quiet assumption that transformation was something I could guide, manage, and, if I was honest, produce.
Thankfully, God showed me otherwise.
The Subtle Burden of “Fixing”
Many of us who are therapists and practice owners carry an unspoken weight: the responsibility for outcomes.
We want our clients to grow.
We want our teams to thrive.
We want our businesses to reflect our faith and values.
Over time, that desire can subtly shift into control. We plan harder, work longer, and strive more, not because we lack faith, but because we care deeply. Somewhere along the way, helping turns into fixing.
I didn’t realize how much this mindset shaped my work until a moment in graduate school that stopped me in my tracks.
Jesus Never Forced Healing
During an introductory counseling course, our class was discussing how Jesus interacted with people who were suffering. One of my classmates pointed out something I had never fully considered before: Jesus invited people into their healing; He didn’t force it on them.
He asked questions.
He waited for willingness.
He invited movement, often quite literally.
That idea landed hard. I realized my role was not to convince, direct, or manufacture healing, but to invite people into an experience where healing could occur.
That shift changed everything.
How This Shows Up in Practice Ownership
This temptation to fix doesn’t stop in the therapy room. It shows up in leadership and business ownership, too.
We:
Over-function for clients or staff
Feel responsible for everyone’s growth
Rush decisions instead of discerning them
Measure faithfulness by productivity
Without noticing, we begin to believe that if we just try harder or do more, things will fall into place.
But the work of Christ has never been about control; it’s always been about surrender.
Why Lent Feels Uncomfortable for Practice Owners
Lent is particularly challenging for people like us.
We are problem-solvers.
We help others face hard truths.
We guide people through reflection and change.
Yet when it comes to our own inner work, we often resist the same process. Lent asks us to slow down, deny ourselves, and look honestly at what shapes us. It disrupts our habits of rushing and fixing.
Fasting, in particular, confronts our desire to stay in control. It removes distractions and exposes where we rely on comfort, productivity, or approval instead of God.
And that’s exactly why Lent matters.
From Doing More to Letting Go
Lent is not about spiritual performance or becoming a “better” Christian. It’s about making space, space for God to reveal what needs to be released and what He longs to form in us.
For practice owners, this often means letting go of:
The need to have the answers
The pressure to produce outcomes
The belief that faithfulness equals constant effort
God doesn’t waste the work we do. He uses the challenges, the decisions, and even the frustrations of leadership to draw us closer to Him. Often, the real transformation isn’t happening in our clients or businesses; it’s happening in us.
An Invitation, Not Another Task
This is why I wrote The Practice of Becoming, not as another thing to add to your to-do list, but as an invitation to experience Lent differently.
Over six weeks, the devotional walks alongside therapists and practice owners as we:
Release our need for control
Make space for God through fasting and reflection
Pay attention to how our work is shaping us
Allow Christ to transform us through the very roles we inhabit
Lent is not about fixing yourself. It’s about becoming, slowly, honestly, and with God at the center.
If your work has been stretching you, exhausting you, or revealing places you’d rather avoid, consider this an invitation. You don’t have to force healing. You don’t have to strive your way into transformation.
This Lent, you are invited to let God do the work.
Purchase your copy here in time for the Lenten season.
