We have become his poetry, a re-created people that will fulfill the destiny he has given each of us, for we are joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. Even before we were born, God planned in advance our destiny and the good works we would do to fulfill it!

Ephesians 2:10 TPT

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Yes. I am a believer in destiny, a God-given and God-assigned purpose for every human being. The value of this destiny is not whether it leads to celebrity, wealth, or relevance, but whether it lights a fire in the heart that stirs the soul.

Too many people give up on destiny. Too many people settle. And honestly, it’s understandable. Life can be brutally painful, and that pain convinces us that it’s too dangerous or costly to keep chasing our dreams. 

So why not settle?

Why not settle for pleasure over pursuing purpose? Why not settle for selfishness over nurturing the fires of our imagination and working toward something greater than ourselves? Why not settle for greed over being motivated by God?

In the book of Ezekiel, God addressed seductive voices that asked questions like these and were leading his people astray: 

“…you will no longer conjure up lying visions or practice divination. For I will save My people from your seductive powers. Then you will know I am the Eternal One.”

Ezekiel 13:23 VOICE

Ezekiel warned his generation about seductive voices that offered survival instead of transformation, and it feels like we are facing the same temptation in our time.

Some days it feels like we’re building a culture that encourages resignation—settling for the life the world permits rather than striving for the life God promises. We might be discontent with what the world offers; we might even be downright angry about it. But rare is the person who believes they can change it. Instead of dreaming with faith, we become content to remain within the limits of our fear.

We don’t always call this quitting. Sometimes we call it “realism.” Sometimes we call it “maturity.” Sometimes we call it “wisdom.”

But when we trace our slow, quiet settling to its core, it’s the same thing Ezekiel confronted: giving in to the seductive voices offering us survival in place of transformation.

I am not pessimistic; I am just observing what I see around me and what I must resist daily in myself. The seductiveness of settling may be the greatest temptation I face.

These are the reflections and spiritual disturbances I’m recording today. Not to complain, but to understand, and conquer them by choosing breakthrough instead. 

Yes. I believe that there is another way. Rather than succumbing to resignation and surrendering our destiny, we can live in pursuit of breakthrough. 

Breakthroughs are life-altering discoveries that move us through obstacles and beyond barriers. They transform us, opening our eyes so that we can see past the limitations of humanity to the possibilities of God.

While past issues of The Chemistry Lab were lab reports, today’s edition is my field notes—spiritual data observed and recorded in real time. Last week, we discussed the brain and spiritual chemistries of getting stuck. Today, let’s discover together the areas where we have settled or resigned, which are also the very areas that have the greatest opportunities for breakthrough.

Notebooks open. Let’s see what we can learn today. 

“So be reasonable. Make a deal with my master, the king of Assyria. I’ll give you two thousand horses if you think you can provide riders for them. You can’t do it? Well, then, how do you think you’re going to turn back even one raw buck private from my master’s troops? How long are you going to hold on to that figment of your imagination, these hoped-for Egyptian chariots and horses?”

2 Kings 18:23-24 MSG

There’s a seductive voice that whispers to us in times of adversity. “Be reasonable,” it says. It sounds wise, even mature. But what if being reasonable is actually a form of unspiritual surrender?

In his book On Settling, philosopher Robert E. Goodin writes to help those consumed by endless striving. But he also warns against a darker version of settling: resignation—the quiet surrender of hopes and desires, the inward acceptance of unwanted outcomes.

He calls it what it truly is: not peace, but loss—an internal grief that steals joy, masked by a smile we wear to hide our perpetual disappointment.

And we wear it so long, we forget it’s even there.

This ancient pattern shows up vividly in the passage above from the Bible. Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, sent word to Hezekiah, king of Judah, as the Assyrian army laid siege to Hezekiah’s land. Sennacherib’s commander didn’t just threaten Hezekiah with force—he appealed to “reason.” Make a deal. Be practical. Look at the facts. You can’t win. The enemy knows that getting God’s people to be “reasonable” is often more effective than direct assault.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Most Christians are too reasonable to change the world. Most people are too reasonable to change the world.

Most Christians are too reasonable to change the world.

Why? Because adversity has a way of making settling seem sensible. Pain whispers to us that those dreams are not necessary for happiness, so why pursue them? Difficulty argues with us that God-given purpose is a myth pursued by the irrational, so why sacrifice our immediate comfort for it? 

We trade destiny for safety, calling it wisdom.

But history tells a different story. George Bernard Shaw captured it perfectly in a quote from Maxims for Revolutionists—a quote reinterpreted in the context of leadership in Originals by Adam Grant:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw

Every major breakthrough—cultural, political, scientific, spiritual—has come from those unreasonable enough to refuse the world as given. They wouldn’t let adversity make them “reasonable.”

So in our own chemistry lab of life, what “reasonable” compromises are we making? Where have we let the world’s logic override God’s calling? What breakthrough waits on the other side of our unreasonable faith?

Becoming aware of the “reasonable” trap is the first step on the path to breakthrough. But here’s what I’ve discovered: “Being reasonable” is just the surface symptom of something deeper. Underneath our logical compromises lie the real obstacles—the veils that blind us to God’s possibilities and keep us trapped in human limitations.

These are the field notes of someone learning to resist the reasonable—because faith was never meant to be veiled.

Removing the veils that blind us to God’s possibilities

But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil [of blindness] lies over their heart; [16] but whenever a person turns [in repentance and faith] to the Lord, the veil is taken away. [17] Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty [emancipation from bondage, true freedom]. [18] And we all, with unveiled face, continually seeing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are progressively being transformed into His image from [one degree of] glory to [even more] glory, which comes from the Lord, [who is] the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:15-18 AMP

Scripture tells us that the greatest transformations happen when the “veil of blindness” is removed—when we stop seeing through the lens of human limitation and start living by the Spirit’s vision. 

Freedom from the human limits of this life is found behind the veil of humanism. Our unbelief in the possibility of breakthrough is rooted in the idea that humanity—our wisdom, our power, our talents—is all we’ve got. Anyone who believes in anything greater is branded irrational.

Scripture counters this illusion.

Humanism is the veil that obscures the possibilities of God.

It places all understanding and power within the created, blinding us to what God can do. 

But when Jesus died on the cross, the veil tore. The barrier between the human and the divine was ripped open.

And [at once] the veil [of the Holy of Holies] of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; the earth shook and the rocks were split apart. 

Matthew 27:51 AMP

Even W.E.B. Du Bois used the metaphor of the veil to describe how social systems dehumanized Black Americans, blocking their true potential:

Leaving, then, the world of the white man, I have stepped within the Veil, raising it that you may view faintly its deeper recesses, — the meaning of its religion, the passion of its human sorrow, and the struggle of its greater souls.

W. E. B. Du Bois. The Souls of Black Folk

This made me ask:

What are the veils that keep me from God’s dream for my life?

What has kept me stuck in the past, blind in the present, and hesitant about the future?

To live unveiled requires identifying what keeps us disconnected from the glory God wants to manifest in our lives.

Here are ten veils that I’ve identified in my field notes. Maybe some will resonate with you.

The 10 veils that prevent breakthroughs

1. Tradition

The veil of tradition is the past masquerading as wisdom. It says, “We’ve always done it this way.” It’s old ideas and old wineskins (Matthew 9:14-17). 

Economist Joseph Schumpeter coined the term “creative destruction,” to refer to the way the free market grows. The market gets better and stronger when innovation sweeps away the old and makes room for something new. 

In the same way, creative destruction is necessary for spiritual renewal. What old ideas or traditions are clouding your view of what’s possible in the future?

2. Dysfunction

The veil of dysfunction is the emotional baggage we carry into our faith. One area of dysfunction I recognize in my life is the “hero complex” I carry from being an adult child of an alcoholic. I try to control outcomes to prevent the pain of experiencing failure. 

What dysfunctions are you carrying into your faith?

3. Assumptions

Assumptions are the personal beliefs I treat as absolute truth because they are comfortable and familiar. I rarely question these beliefs because they feel true, but such beliefs are often the ones that need questioning most.

An unquestioned assumption can become a sacred cow—a belief that is unreasonably immune to critique or opposition. If I don’t examine my assumptions, I’ll end up clinging to emotional sacred cows instead of chasing biblical truth. These sacred cows will block my vision, keeping me stuck in one way of thinking and preventing me from seeing what God is doing. 

Some of my assumptions might align with what the Bible says, and some might not. In some cases, they were passed on to me from other people or institutions. However tempting it may be to question the people or institutions who shaped these beliefs, real transformation starts when I question myself—before I question others or institutions.

What beliefs do you treat as absolute truth? How willing are you to question these assumptions?

4. Ritual

This veil refers to the comfort of routine. It’s clinging to emotional and spiritual patterns not because they work, but because they’re ours. We can become so comfortable in these routines that any change to them feels like loss, even when it’s growth.

Do you cling to any rituals, even when they don’t work?

5. Opposition

The veil of opposition is the resistance we get from people around us who push back on our transformation. It comes from frozen relationships, where people don’t want us to change because our growth exposes their own stagnation. The more we listen to this opposition and resistance, the more susceptible we are to settling into our doubt and fear.

How does it affect your vision when you get opposition from people around you?

6. Pride

The veil of pride is the pursuit of validation over transformation. It’s a drive for attention, achievement, and approval that comes not from purpose, but from fear.

Pride often doesn’t show up in the form of arrogance. It’s the way we handle our fear of inadequacy. Sometimes it leads to competition. Sometimes it leads to envy. For me, it was a search for love in all the wrong places—a desire to earn admiration and attention, hoping it would feel like love.

How do you see the veil of pride in your life?

7. Disbelief

The veil of disbelief is mentally rejecting the truth of who God is. This veil grows when we are unwilling to read Scripture for ourselves, and we only know God through what others say. 

When I finally began to see God for who he truly is in the Bible, I realized he isn’t punitive like I believed him to be—he’s corrective. He’s not trying to destroy who I am. He is trying to restore who I was created to be.

God is a coach. He is a parent. He is shaping me to win—not punishing me for falling short.

Every big vision feels unreachable when I view God as punitive. But when I see him as someone training me, not punishing me, breakthroughs stop feeling impossible and start feeling inevitable.

Do you have any disbelief about God that makes breakthroughs feel impossible?

8. Nostalgia

The veil of nostalgia makes us romanticize the past because we’re too weary to believe in—and work toward—a better today or tomorrow. 

“Wasn’t it better back then?” becomes a kind of spiritual anesthesia. We numb ourselves with memories and rationalize our loss of faith in what God can still do. When we idolize what’s behind, we lose vision for what’s ahead.

What veils of nostalgia are making you look backward instead of forward?

9. Idolatry

Under the veil of idolatry, the world defines our worth. We are shaped by prestige, popularity, and the latest digital media platform, and we stop listening to God. Our faith shrinks to satisfy the crowd rather than growing to please God. 

We might achieve some level of impact by trying to impress people, but we forfeit the far greater impact we were meant to have by pursuing God’s purpose—serving and helping people as he does.

Who or what defines your worth more—people or God?

10. Fear

Fear is the most primal and pervasive veil. It’s our fear of criticism, slander, vulnerability, failure, and even death. It’s the voice that whispers, “What if I’m not enough? What if I try—and lose everything?”

Fear is the veil that makes comfort feel like calling. It urges us to settle, to be “reasonable,” to choose survival over transformation.

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Breaking through to our destiny

These veils aren’t theoretical. They’re personal. They’re emotional, psychological, and spiritual. They are the parts of me that need to die.

Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. [24] Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

John 12:23-24 NIV

I am humbled by my veils, and my aim is to imitate Jesus—to die to them, and gain my freedom to fulfill my potential and destiny. What about you? I would love to know if you relate to these.

Better yet, create your own list. You’ll never chase your dreams or discover your breakthroughs if your veils convince you to settle.

Reply or reach out

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