What happens when obedience comes from love — not fear — and still breaks you?

That’s the question that cracked something open for me in this conversation with Christine Jaynes, founder of Train in Truth. Christine didn’t grow up performing for God out of fear. She was confident, secure, sincerely devoted — and she still ended up carrying things He never asked her to carry.

Four kids in five years. A miscarriage. A body that finally shut down. All because a good, godly conviction got quietly twisted into a rule she thought she had to keep no matter the cost.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your “yes” to God is actually coming from Him — or from a version of Him you built out of good intentions and bad theology — this one’s for you.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why sincere devotion doesn’t guarantee accurate theology

• The difference between obedience as pressure and obedience as partnership

• How God corrects His kids without condemning them

• Learning to hear His voice as a nudge, not a billboard

Christine’s story is proof that even our best-intentioned obedience can need to be unlearned — and that God is patient enough to do it.

Listen now.

Scriptures from today:

• 2 Timothy 1:7
  “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind (discipline).”

• Ephesians 3:19
  “To know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge…”

• Ephesians 4:16
  “From whom the whole body, fitly joined together…”

• Isaiah 54:17
  “No weapon formed against you shall prosper…”

• Matthew 18:20
  “Where two or more are gathered in my name…”

• Hebrews 10:37
  “He that shall come will come…”

• Hebrews 5:14
  “By constant use, learn to discern good from evil.”

• John 10:27
  “My sheep hear my voice…”

• Romans 14:23
  “Whatever is not from faith is sin.”

• Exodus 20:3
  “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

To connect with Christine:

• Free tool to help you practically walk with Jesus daily: Walking in the Spirit Guide.

• Christine’s resource page.

• Live monthly trainings and community in Christine’s FB community.

To take Lenee’s Grace Scale Quiz, visit Grace Scale Quiz

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I’m always amazed at how truly living and active the Word of God is.

Lately I’ve been leaning into the story of Noah in Genesis 6. And here’s something I didn’t expect to find there: the very first time the word grace shows up in all of Scripture is in that chapter.

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” — Genesis 6:8

Grace — meaning precious, well-favored, found sufficient. Right in the middle of corruption, judgment, and a world about to be washed clean.

It doesn’t mean Noah was perfect the way we think of perfect. The word actually means whole, healthful, full of integrity, sound, upright. (If you want a deeper dive into that word, check out episode 9 of the Redeemed Perfectionist podcast — I unpack it there.)

Yet God called him “perfect in his generations.” In other words, he was as clean as he knew how to be, and he walked with God instead of walking the way his generation walked.

And then grace showed up and gave him an assignment.

Build the ark. Measure it. Cut the wood. Pitch it within and without. Prepare the rooms. Follow the instructions.

But here’s what really hit me:

God never told Noah to go find the animals.

He didn’t say, “Build the ark, then go chase down two lions, two elephants, two giraffes, two birds, and somehow convince them all to get in line.”

Noah’s job was obedience. God’s job was completion.

Noah built what God told him to build. God brought what Noah could never gather on his own.

(Ohhhh, you are speaking to me, Lord.)

And yet — so often I still want to do God’s job.

How many times have I taken the instruction God gave me… and then panicked because I couldn’t figure out how to supply every outcome, every provision, every person, every open door, every “animal” needed to make the thing complete?

But grace doesn’t mean I do nothing.

And obedience doesn’t mean I do everything.

Grace gives me the ability to do my part without carrying God’s part.

Read that again.

Maybe that’s the invitation for you today, too:

Build the boat.

Let God bring the animals.

A small exercise for you:

Grab a pen and finish these two sentences —

The “boat” God has asked me to build right now is…

The “animals” I’ve been trying to gather myself instead of trusting Him for are…

Sit with what comes up. That’s usually where grace wants to meet you.

P.S. — Noah means “rest.” Isn’t God good?!

If you’re ready to go deeper — you can grab a free copy of Chapter 1 of my book, You Will Make Mistakes, at leneepezzano.com. It’s a great place to begin to establish a healthy foundation to overcome the pressure of perfectionism.

See you next time, Friend.

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I should be doing more. I should be further along. I shouldn’t feel this way.

Sound familiar?

This week on the Redeemed Perfectionist podcast, I sat down with Mary Gallagher to talk about the quiet exhaustion so many of us carry — the kind that comes from trying to be a “good enough” Christian by a standard we were never actually given. We talked about the difference between conviction and shame, why God doesn’t lead with pressure, and what it actually sounds like when He invites instead of demands.

If you’ve ever wondered whether the voice pushing you to do more is God or something else entirely, I think this conversation will help you tell the difference.

🎧 Grab your earbuds and your favorite cuppa, and let’s hang out a bit. I trust your heart will be refreshed 😉

And if you want to go deeper on where you land between grace and performance, the [Faith-Based Perfectionism Quiz] is still one of the simplest ways to find out.

In this first episode of The Redeemed Perfectionist, Leneé Pezzano shares the story of how God called her to write her book, You Will Make Mistakes, and how that calling exposed the fear, panic, overthinking, and “what ifs” underneath her perfectionism.

Together, we’ll begin unpacking what perfectionism really is, why it holds us back, and how it often shows up as anxiety, procrastination, fear, self-protection, and the exhausting need to know “how” before we obey.

This episode also introduces the heart of The Redeemed Perfectionist: helping Christian women break free from the exhausting cycle of perfectionism and embrace the power of God’s grace.

You’ll walk away with a deeper question to bring before the Lord:

Do I truly love and accept myself as I am in my imperfection?

God’s love for you is not dependent on your performance, your achievements, or your ability to get everything right. You are fully seen and fully loved by your heavenly Father.

Not because you haven’t worked hard. But because celebrating yourself has never felt like something you get to do.

Welcome to The Redeemed Perfectionist — the podcast for Christian women who are exhausted from striving, quietly wondering if God is disappointed in them, and ready to discover what it actually feels like to walk WITH Him instead of endlessly running toward His approval.

I’m Leneé Pezzano — mentor, author of You Will Make Mistakes, and a fellow recovering perfectionist. I know how heavy the burden is. I’ve carried it most of my life.

But here’s what I’ve learned: God is not distant, disconnected, or displeased with you. He cherishes you. And grace — not performance — is the antidote.

Each week we’ll explore:

• God’s real heart for you

• Practical strategies to quiet perfectionism

• How to silence the inner critic with biblical truth

• The freedom that comes from celebrating progress over perfection

Hit follow so you never miss an episode. And come as you are — I’ll be right here waiting for you.

🔗 Go deeper at leneepezzano.com

You know when you hear something that makes you stop dead in your tracks and creates panic?

My brain literally brought me to the familiar feeling even as I typed those words.

It starts with shock. For a brief moment you are paralyzed, as if you just got hit with a stun gun. Then comes the internal gymnastics as you begin to realize things aren’t what they were just moments before. Suddenly your body tightens, your stomach drops, the adrenaline kicks in, and your mind is off to the races — scrambling to find a way to protect yourself from another blow.

That is exactly how I felt the first time Matthew 5:48 crossed my line of sight:

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Seriously?

There it is…my soul full of fear off to the races with no chance of competition from anything or anyone.

At the heart of the fear? Well…if God Himself is the standard — what chance could I possibly have?!

Can you relate?

Here’s what I believe to be true about you.

You are not lazy. You are not indifferent. You are someone who cares about doing right by God.

If anything, you care too much — in the way that keeps you up at night running mental replays of conversations, in the way that turns getting dressed in the morning into a silent courtroom where you’re both the defendant and the judge.

You are someone who wants to please God. And somewhere along the way, that beautiful desire got hijacked.

It got dressed up in a Jesus costume and handed you an endless to-do list.

So, let’s talk about that verse. Because I think it’s been used as a weapon against us — starting from the enemy and sustained by us— and Jesus never intended it that way.

When Jesus said, “be perfect,” He was wrapping up the entire Sermon on the Mount. And in that sermon, He wasn’t handing out a stricter rulebook. He was doing something far more radical: He was dismantling the performance system altogether and addressing something far more important – your heart.

Don’t just avoid murder — deal with the anger underneath it. Don’t just follow the rules about marriage — tend to the condition of your heart. Don’t just love the people who make it easy — love the ones who make it hard.

He wasn’t raising the bar, so we’d try harder. He was redirecting our eyes entirely — from behavior management to heart transformation.

And that word perfect? In the original Greek, it’s τέλειος (teh-LAY-oss). It doesn’t mean flawless. It doesn’t mean spotless, mistake-free, always-on-time, never-a-bad-day perfect.

It means whole. Complete. Mature. Healthful. Sound.

It’s the word used for a fruit that has fully ripened. A plan that has fully unfolded. A person who is becoming — steadily, faithfully, through seasons and storms — everything they were created to be.

That’s what Jesus was calling us toward. Not performance. Becoming. He only ever expects us to live as righteously as we know how at the present moment, doing the best we know how to do.

I spent years running what I now call a broken factory inside me — producing anxiety, striving, and shame on a loop, all in the name of getting it right for God. I thought exhaustion was the price of devotion. I thought better performance was the requirement for acceptance and for maintaining my status as His child.

I was wrong.

I wasn’t chasing God. I was chasing a counterfeit — a version of holiness built on works, not Grace. I started off with genuine faith in the Blood of Jesus, but like the Galatians, I shifted to attempting to maintain my salvation through works. Paul calls that “another gospel” (Galatians 1:6).

And the root sin? Fear.

And fear is a terrible foreman. It doesn’t know how to say enough.

Grace on the other hand, does.

Here’s what changed everything for me.

I remember when my bestie and I were having a beautiful time of prayer one evening on my couch. As we leaned in, the Lord began to give her a vision of me, Jesus, and a measuring stick.

She explained how she saw my belief that the Lord was using the measuring stick to count my failures, measuring the gap between who I am currently and who He expects me to be, all the while holding contempt and frustration towards me.

She then saw the reality of how He used the stick. And let me tell you, it was vastly different.

He is not tallying my mistakes. He is not measuring the gap between who I am and who I should be and sighing with disappointment. He is a Father — the best kind — watching His daughter grow, cheering every step forward, and holding steady through every stumble.

Where perfectionism says prove yourself, God says abide in me. Where the inner critic says try harder, the Father says come closer. Where the world measures your output, God looks at the heart.

And your heart? The one that longs to do right by Him, the one that picked up this article, the one that hasn’t given up even when it’s hard?

That heart is not failing. It is being awakened to His truth.

And here is where I get so stoked for both of us.

If God starts something, He will finish it. Philippians 1:6 says, “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:”

So, this week, I want to leave you with something to pray — not a perfect prayer, not a polished one. Just an honest one.

“Lord, show me how You actually see me. Not the version I’ve constructed out of fear, not the measuring stick I’ve handed You — but the truth of how Your eyes land on me. I’m tired of running. I want to know Your heart.”

Sit with that (even amidst the hyperactivity of your mind!). Let Him answer in His still, small voice. He will.

Perfect was never the goal. Grace always was.

If this stirred something in you, I’d love for you to share it with someone in your life who might need to hear it today.

And if you’re ready to go deeper — Episode 9 of the Redeemed Perfectionist podcast unpacks this even further, and you can grab a free copy of Chapter 1 of my book, You Will Make Mistakes, at leneepezzano.com. Both are waiting for you there.

Until next time — God’s not measuring your performance. He’s celebrating your progress.

This breaks my heart every time. 😔

There’s a resounding theme amongst Christian women I talk with regularly (and some who I meet for the first time!).

“I just feel like God is so angry and disappointed with me.”

They desperately want to be accepted by Him, but they can’t seem to live up to His standards and are often tormented by fear of punishment. They have grown weary and exhausted trying to please Him.

What once was obedience has turned into obligation.

These aren’t necessarily new Christians; many are seasoned, having been in the faith for years.

As I unpack more of their stories, there’s one thing they all have in common — the belief that they need to work harder and do more to fix the problem, as if more self-discipline and better performance will bring the freedom they desire.

So, they do “all the things:”

• Read and/or memorize more scripture

• Pray more

• Fast

• Get more involved in church

• Sacrifice/tithe more

• Try harder, do better in relationships, finances, work, school, etc.

Only to find themselves burned out, utterly exhausted and silently dying a slow death inside with no hope that there is a better way.

Having myself been the woman I just described, I can now name the reason for the exhaustion so many others feel.

👉 A DISTORTED VIEW OF GOD’S HEART 👈

These women have undeniable love for Jesus, but subtly and without realizing it, they slipped out of abiding in God’s grace and into attempting to justify themselves through their works, ultimately believing perfection is the standard in order to be accepted by God.

Initially, they entered into salvation through faith in the Blood of Jesus - the very Gospel Jesus Himself preached.

But because they have a faulty foundational belief system that confuses God’s standards of holiness with a counterfeit spirit of religion that promotes – and requires – self-justification, they eventually strive to live up to unrealistic standards that God did not place there to begin with – something the Apostle Paul calls “another gospel.” (Galatians 1:6)

They don’t realize that the same approach they took to obtain salvation – faith that the Blood did the work for them while they were yet dead in their transgressions (a.k.a. the Gospel) – is the same approach that will provide them a long-lasting, joyful relationship with the Lord.

They aren’t yet convinced that God understands their imperfections and desires for them to surrender their own strength in exchange for learning to rely on His. They haven’t fully accepted that grace is the antidote - the power - that enables them to walk out their faith.

It’s not that they won’t see results from their own efforts. After all, the principles of obedience and sacrifice do apply. But they’ll burn out and possibly shipwreck their faith.

Until they learn to rewrite the story of God’s heart toward them, until they learn to recognize the counterfeit gospel from the authentic one and silence it with truth, until they surrender to His way…

They will stay stuck in the grip of perfectionism and striving and never fully realize the possibility of serving God from the overflow of joy that comes from learning to walk WITH Him.

And that is what breaks my heart.

Here’s what I want you to know today: God is not standing over you with a scorecard. He is not tallying your failures or waiting for you to get it right before He draws near. He already drew near — all the way to a Cross — so that you wouldn’t have to earn what He freely gave. That is the Gospel. And it is still true for you today, in your exhaustion, in your striving, in your mess.

This is not a permission slip to abandon obedience, repentance, or responding to the Gospel. Those matter deeply. But here’s the difference — when you truly encounter the heart of God for you, obedience stops feeling like a burden and starts flowing from a place of love. You don’t obey to be accepted. You obey because you already are.

If what you just read stirred something in you — if some part of you whispered “that’s me” — I want to help you go deeper.

Start here: grab Chapter 1 of my book You Will Make Mistakes — Discovering God’s Grace in the Midst of Perfectionism free. It’s the first step toward rewriting the story you’ve been believing about God’s heart for you. If you’re ready to dive in fully, you can also do that there!

And if you’re ready to keep the conversation going, The Redeemed Perfectionist podcast is waiting for you as well. We discuss these kinds of topics and much more.

See you there!