THE INVISIBLE LEASH
Everyone is being led by something.
This sphere sits in my own backyard. Nothing remarkable about it. Just glass.
One evening I looked through it. The entire scene bent around a single focal point.
The Cross.
And the world rearranged itself around what was already standing there.
Most of us don’t see what is leading us.
The world is quick to praise it.
And by the time we finally recognize it —
We have already been following it for years.
DEDICATION
To the Holy Spirit — for showing me the way and showing me the light. And most of all, for unhooking the leash and giving me the ability to recognize who I am actually leashed to — my Heavenly Father. His love. His grace. His mercy.
To my sister — who always inspires me with her stories of adventure. The dogs. The leashes. This Spark was birthed in those conversations, and her input is woven into the heart of it.
To my wife — who always supports me, loves me, and encourages me. Who once sat me down and said, “Honey, you need to keep writing.” And so I’m writing. And writing. And writing. Thank you.
To my readers — who continue to encourage me and be inspired. I hope your lives receive something fresh from these pages. A new perspective. A new thought. Something worth carrying.
SCRIPTURE
“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” — Galatians 5:1 (NKJV)
“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” — Romans 8:14 (NKJV)
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” — Matthew 11:28 (NKJV)
THE HOOK
The strongest leash in my life was the one nobody could see.
Including me.
From the outside, it looked like discipline.
From the inside, it never let me rest.
THE STORY
There was a time in my life when I believed strength meant outperforming weakness.
Not just weakness at work.
Weakness in identity.
Weakness in where I came from.
I grew up around instability and survival systems that quietly shape people long before they recognize it. I watched patterns move through generations. Some loud. Some subtle. And somewhere inside me, I made a decision very early —
I would not become what I came from.
My father passed down a lot of things I eventually had to leave behind. But one thing he gave me — and gave me cleanly — was discipline.
He knew how to work.
I watched him sleep on a couch beside an alarm clock, waking through the night to rotate parts inside chemical tanks so jobs would keep moving. The discipline was real. The rest of what surrounded it… I could not carry forward.
So I pushed hard the other way.
Harder than most people probably realized.
When my father had to walk away from the business, I stepped into a world I was nowhere near prepared for. Young. Inexperienced. Carrying something much larger than myself. Liability. Responsibility. Pressure. Employees. Decisions and consequences I did not yet fully understand.
And I knew immediately — if I was going to survive this, I had to earn respect.
So I did what came naturally.
I outperformed.
I learned every process. Every system. Every moving part. I worked beside the employees. I mastered what they mastered. Then I pushed myself harder.
Eventually, the respect came.
So did the leash.
At the time, I did not recognize it. Because the world rewards people like that. Discipline gets praised. Achievement gets rewarded. Reliability gets admired.
Nobody pulls a high performer aside and says —
Be careful. This might quietly become your identity.
So the leash kept tightening.
Not just in business.
Everywhere.
The gym. Softball. Bowling. Hunting. Boating. Photography. Projects. Goals.
Whatever I touched — I had to master. And once I mastered it, I moved on to the next.
At the time, I thought I was building excellence.
Looking back, I was outrunning inadequacy.
I was not tethered to the activities.
I was tethered to what was driving them.
And what drove me was deeper than ambition.
It was survival.
If I could outperform the room, I felt safe. If I could become exceptional enough, maybe nobody would ever see the frightened parts underneath.
Then life added weight.
Marriage. Children. Responsibility. Grief I did not have language for. Forty-five employees. Managers depending on decisions. Payroll. Liability.
There was no pause button.
No room to collapse.
Failure was not digestible to me.
Not disappointing.
Not inconvenient.
Annihilating.
So I pushed harder.
And for a long time — externally — it worked.
But somewhere along the way, the realization arrived.
The leash was not the business.
Not the responsibilities.
Not the hobbies.
Not the discipline.
The leash was the fear underneath all of it.
The need to prove.
The need to survive.
The need to become untouchable.
The need to outrun where I came from.
THE MOMENT
And the most disorienting part of an invisible leash is this —
The world applauds it.
It does not warn you.
It celebrates you.
It hands you trophies for the very thing tightening around your chest.
And the people praising you have no idea what is actually holding you upright.
Neither do you.
The leash I could not see was the one leading me.
And the world applauded it the whole way.
THE TURN
Years later, I met Jesus.
But the real shift did not come from believing in Him.
It came from a complete heart exchange with Him.
I had a saying I lived by for decades —
Ninety-nine percent of something is one hundred percent of nothing.
When I finally surrendered my life to Christ, I knew immediately this could not be partial.
I could not give Jesus occasional authority.
Because partial surrender still leaves something else holding the leash.
So the exchange became complete.
Not overnight perfection.
Alignment.
Abiding.
Daily pursuit. Daily surrender. Daily recalibration.
And something inside me changed.
The leash did not disappear. But it stopped leading me.
That distinction matters.
Because there are things we may never fully be rid of this side of heaven. Old instincts. Old fears. Old reactions. Old survival systems.
But God does not leave us tool-less.
He gives awareness.
Discernment.
Wisdom.
A toolbox.
And over time, you stop walking into every room emotionally unprepared, reaching for performance, control, or fear.
You pause long enough to reach for the right tools.
The old leash still tugs sometimes. Writing. Projects. Goals. The instinct to master.
But now I recognize it.
And recognition changes everything.
There is an undercurrent inside me now that steadies me before emotion takes over.
Not perfectly.
Consistently.
A muscle built through abiding.
I can sit in rooms where emotions rise all around me and feel peace underneath it.
Not because I am stronger.
Because I am aligned.
And when things become imperfect, I know I have a God who is still perfect.
THE DRIFT
Push harder.
Stay disciplined.
Outwork what you feel.
Outperform the weakness.
Discipline solves what feeling cannot.
The performance is the proof.
I know. Because I followed a leash I could not see. For most of my life.
THE REFLECTION
Looking back, I understand something I could not see then.
My life was never truly transformed by achievement.
Achievement only temporarily silenced the fear.
Peace came later.
Peace came through surrender.
Through realizing I no longer needed performance to tell me who I was.
And along the way, I came to recognize something else.
Not every leash we carry is fully our own.
Some are inherited. Through atmosphere. Through grief. Through fear. Through survival systems passed quietly down.
And the beautiful part of it is this — what I found is reachable for anyone.
Not because my way is the great way.
Because surrender changes what is leading you.
I am not trying to become someone people follow.
I am trying to live in a way that reflects the One I follow.
That carries enormous responsibility.
Because how we live affects people. Our words. Our reactions. Our alignment.
The older I get, the more I believe the greatest responsibility we carry is not success.
It is the care of others.
Kindness.
Presence.
Stewardship.
Those are the things that leave the deepest marks.
I spent enough years fighting for first place.
Now —
I fight for second.
WALKAWAY LINE
Just because something drives you… doesn’t mean it should lead you.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
What invisible leash may still be quietly shaping your decisions, your reactions, your identity, or your sense of worth?
MY PRAYER
Heavenly Father,
Thank You for loving us enough to reveal the things quietly leading us.
The fears we learned to survive through.
The pressures we learned to perform through.
The wounds we learned to hide behind.
Teach us how to recognize what is pulling at us before we surrender authority to it.
Help us exchange striving for surrender. Performance for peace. Fear for alignment.
Teach us to abide closely enough to hear Your voice above the noise of the world.
And let the lives we live leave behind kindness, wisdom, care, and truth for others.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
ABOUT G~
G~ writes from lived experience — exploring identity, authority, and time through the lens of faith, trial, leadership, and surrender. His reflections are not meant to condemn or hype, but to steady. Rooted in covenant, forged through adversity, and anchored under the authority of Jesus Christ, his work invites readers to examine who governs their lives — and to live intentionally under truth.
If what you’ve read resonates with your journey, feel free to reach out.
G~
Well, coming from a reader I have not yet had the pleasure of knowing, that means a lot. I am so glad something in it spoke to you. God Bless You... G ~
Visiting here from R. Meadow's Substack, and glad I came. Very insightful, Gregrey. Many of us find ourselves leashed to performance, even as Christians, often motivated by people-pleasing. Your prayer brings to the forefront what needs to be part of our daily rhythms: renewed abiding in Christ and spending our time reflecting him, not pleasing others.