I have been watching Malinda Fuller's journey for years. She used to work alongside me as a massage therapist in a chiropractic office before I had my own practice, and I remember the day she came back from that conference in Indiana and something had shifted in her. I didn't know exactly what had happened yet. But I knew something had.
When she put in her notice not long after, I was genuinely sad to lose her. And I understood completely.
And then I watched what followed: her husband's contract work quietly surpassing her income within months. The blessings coming in small and steady and faithful ways. And eventually, years later, the two of them selling their home, 70% of their belongings, buying a 42-foot travel trailer and a truck, and hitting the road full-time with their kids while her book made its way into the world.
That is a woman who has learned something real about obedience. And she wrote a book about it so the rest of us could catch up.
The White-Knuckled Fist
It started at a conference in Indiana in September 2015. Malinda went with an agenda. She had been working three to four days a week as a massage therapist, just started homeschooling her kids, and was quietly wrestling with a dream to write and speak and create. She wanted God to open a door for her to work from home. She had given him what she described, with complete honesty, as an ultimatum.
He didn't do what she demanded.
On the last night of the conference, sitting with her journal and her frustration, she felt God give her an image: a white-knuckled fist, gripping tightly, with no room left to receive anything new.
The message was clear. She was holding so hard to her job, her income, her sense of security, that her hands were full. There was no room for whatever he was trying to hand her. And then came the question that stopped her cold: am I your provider, or are you?
She knew the right answer. She had been saying it since childhood. But knowing the right answer and actually living it are completely different things.
She came home and put in her notice within a week. She quit the week before Thanksgiving. The math made no sense. Their expenses had just gone up 30% after moving into a larger home, and quitting her job was a 30% decrease in take-home pay.
And then her husband started getting phone calls for contract work. Within two months, his side income was consistently surpassing what she had been making. Not because they had marketed or strategized or hustled for it. Because she had opened her hand.
That was the first leap. The book is the story of everything that came after.
Obedience Is Not a Dirty Word
I want to say something about the word obedience, because Malinda addresses it head-on in the book and I think it is important.
We live in a culture that flinches at that word. Especially women. Obedience sounds like compliance. Like shrinking. Like giving up your voice. People told Malinda she would never be able to sell a book with that word in the title and she should change it.
She didn't change it.
Because here is what she actually means by obedience, and what she has lived out: it is freedom. It is letting go of control and letting God do what he wants to do. It is a grace pass from the exhausting belief that everything depends on how hard you push.
Her subtitle says it perfectly: the surrender over the striving heart.
The opposite of obedience is not strength. It is the delusion that we know better. That we can time it better. That if we just work harder and strategize smarter and build a bigger platform and grow a larger email list, we will finally arrive somewhere worth being.
Malinda sold her first manuscript with fewer than 500 email subscribers and fewer than 2,000 social media followers. People had told her she needed to wait, build more, grow more. She didn't wait. She was obedient. And the manuscript sold.
Because God can do whatever he wants. And he tends to do his best work when we get out of the way.
The Difference Between Hard Work and Workaholism
I want to be clear about something Malinda makes plain in the book: she is not anti-hard work. She homeschooled two kids while her husband traveled 150 days in a year while she finished and edited her manuscript. That is not laziness. That is remarkable.
What she is against is the line we cross when hard work becomes workaholism. And the definition she uses is precise: a workaholic is someone who sacrifices relationships in order to achieve goals.
When what gets laid on the altar is your marriage, your children, your friendships, your health, your sleep, that is not stewardship. That is striving. And it is not sustainable. Something will break. It always does.
She said something I have thought about many times since: nowhere in scripture does Jesus ask us to be busy. He asks us to have a good work ethic. To be diligent and wise stewards. But he also tells us to rest. And that part we skip over almost entirely.
The hustle culture message is: you can do anything if you work hard enough. You owe it to yourself to go after your dreams. Bigger, faster, more. That is not the gospel. And more and more people are waking up to the cost of living as though it were.
This Is Also My Story
I have to be honest: this conversation was convicting for me too.
I started my own practice on January 20th of that year. I had heard God's voice very specifically call me to it. And I was afraid. And he said: do you trust me? And I said of course. And he said: then I will provide.
I told my husband I was putting in my notice. He said: don't you think you should get a loan first? I said: I think when I put in my notice and trust God, I will get a loan. And that is exactly what happened.
Malinda's story and mine rhyme in that way. The fear, the question, the leap, the provision. It is not a formula. It is a relationship. And the relationship requires that we let go of the things we are gripping so tight there is no room left for anything new.
I also got convicted during our conversation about my phone. My girls have told me to put it down. They want me to watch them ride their bike. They want me to read to them. And I know they are right. That is its own version of hustle: staying available to everything except the people right in front of me.
Malinda's book is for anyone who has told God they have got the rest of it covered and just needs him for the spiritual parts. He does not want to be left out of the finances, the parenting, the marriage, the health, the work. All of it. He wants to be in all of it.
Find Malinda
Malinda Fuller's book, Obedience Over Hustle, is available wherever books are sold, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Christian retailers. You can find her at malindafuller.com (m-a-l-i-n-d-a) or at obedienceoverhustle.com. At the time of this recording, she and her family were hitting the road full-time in their travel trailer, following wherever the next thing leads.
Which is, honestly, the most on-brand way to live out a book called Obedience Over Hustle that I can imagine.
Listen to the full conversation with Malinda Fuller on the Well Connected Podcast: Live Your Life in Alignment. Available wherever you get your podcasts.
Find Malinda and her book at malindafuller.com or obedienceoverhustle.com
