Jennie Allen, 50, Shares Her Life-Changing Secret to Peace: ‘You Don’t Have to Hustle’
The bestselling author and faith leader shares why surrender—not striving—can bring women lasting calm
Key Takeaways
- You do not need to hustle or work harder to earn God's love and approval.
- Learning to say no to good things can be a powerful and necessary act of faith.
- Needing the same spiritual reminders repeatedly does not mean you are failing.
If bestselling author and IF:Gathering founder Jennie Allen could tell every woman one thing, it would be: You don’t have to hustle for God’s love. In her new 365-day devotional, When Jesus Is Everything: 365 Days of Faith, Purpose, and Freedom in Christ, she invites readers into a year of discovering what it means to truly rest in faith, take the pressure off, and enjoy walking with God.
For Allen, this devotional represents a culmination of everything she’s learned throughout her faith journey. “This has been all of the subjects and thoughts and writings that I’ve had all my life,” she shares. Working on the 365-day devotional allowed her to reflect on years of lessons about surrender, striving, and what it means to enjoy a relationship with God.
Each day includes Scripture and a prayer, something Allen hopes will make the book a meaningful companion for readers. “I hope and pray that this is helpful to people,” she says, “And that it blesses their life the way that some of those had blessed mine.”
In a heartfelt conversation with Woman’s World, Allen shares how she learned to say no, why we don’t have to strive for God’s love, and what changes when Jesus truly becomes everything.
Jennie Allen on why we don’t have to strive
One of the biggest lessons Allen keeps coming back to is that following God isn’t about trying harder to earn His love or approval. “I mean, how silly we must look to God,” she says. “Bringing all these little things to Him, but also how much He must delight and love that we want to be right with Him and we want to try.”
But while our desire to do what’s right is good, Allen says Christians can rest in what Jesus has already done. “That is the power of the cross. What Jesus did for us so we don’t have to strive. We get God because of what Jesus did for us.”
Rather than constantly worrying about whether we are measuring up, she says, “It’s not so much that we have to measure up. It’s that I don’t want to miss it if the God of the universe that made galaxies — like infinite galaxies — wants to walk with me today. I want that. I want to walk with Him.”
Jennie Allen says she’s still learning the same lessons
If there’s one thing Allen wants readers to understand, it’s that needing the same reminders again and again doesn’t mean we’re failing. She says striving has been such a recurring theme in her own life that she finds herself returning to lessons she thought she had already learned.
“I wrote a lot about striving, and I’m still learning that,” she says. “I learned that already. But I didn’t. I still need it today.” That realization has helped Jennie approach her own shortcomings with more grace.
“I’ve learned even in my struggle with striving not to beat up on myself,” she says. “There’s just a better way.” Ultimately, she hopes that same grace comes through in the devotional. “I hope that it feels like peace,” she says. “I felt peaceful in my writing of this.”
Saying no can be an act of faith
For women who are accustomed to doing everything for everyone, Jennie says faith sometimes looks less like adding another thing to the to-do list and more like having the courage to say no.
“I think so much of obedience is saying no,” she says. Allen has learned that following God can mean walking away from opportunities that seem good on paper when she senses they aren’t what she’s being called to do.
“The faith to say yes and the courage to say yes is just like the faith to say no when it doesn’t make sense,” she says. “I just think we’ve got to be brave and trust, and also just choose the most important things.” And for Allen, that kind of surrender has brought an unexpected sense of peace.
Jennie Allen hopes her devotional leaves women feeling at peace
That sense of surrender is ultimately what Allen hopes women carry with them through When Jesus Is Everything: 365 Days of Faith, Purpose, and Freedom in Christ. She encourages readers to release the pressure to do everything, especially when life is already full of family, relationships, and responsibilities.
And when Jesus truly is at the center, Allen says, fear no longer has to run the show. “When Jesus is everything, you don’t have to fear. He’s got it,” she says. “When Jesus is everything, you don’t have to hustle.” Her hope is that spending a year with the devotional gives women something much more lasting than a completed reading plan. “I hope every day is an exhale,” she says. “I hope they read it, they look forward to it, and they feel peace, and they feel loved by God.” Most of all, she hopes they experience “a walking with God that feels easy and light, and refreshing to their bones.”
Because when Jesus truly is everything, we don’t have to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders anymore. We can finally rest in the truth that we are deeply loved and fully known exactly the way we are.
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