None of us can live without failure. What defines us is how we recover from our low points. At our rock bottom, do we turn toward God and delve deeper into community, or do we isolate ourselves? Today, Nate Larkin joins Gary Wilkerson to talk about how we can choose a better path in the middle of our failure.
In this "best of" episode, we revisit the inaugural episode of the Gary Wilkerson Podcast. Gary talks about how hope in Jesus Christ can transform the destitute and anyone who feels as if they have lost meaning in life. If you’re going through a season of hopelessness remember God is there. He cares about you and he loves you intensely.
God’s commands can sometimes seem so impossible to fulfill, so distant from what we want. In these moments, it can be so easy to become angry at God. Our visitor this week, Holly Dziedzickie, shares how her frustration with God’s commands led her down a rebellious path until he called her back in the most extraordinary way.
Unhealthy habits in life usually begin in small steps. They start when we say, “Oh, I can stay up late for this event and still wake up early for work tomorrow. I can splurge with my diet this week and work it off later.” Sooner or later we may find that these small choices have begun to build into serious health problems. This week, Gary Wilkerson talks with a Christian nutritional counselor, Laura Harris Smith, who shares her descent into a deadly medical condition, the way God healed her body and her journey into good health.
Shame and feeling incomplete or insignificant often leads us to seek out worldly solutions. As we spiral into isolation and harmful patterns of living, we can quickly find ourselves with addictions that we’d never imagined having. No one sets out to become a pornography addict, but many have found themselves caught. Unable to pull away from explicit material, they feel forced to watch as it consumes their thoughts and lives. This week, Gary Wilkerson and Bob Ditmer discuss the deeper injuries to our hearts and souls that can lead to addictions like pornography. They want believers to know that we can find healing that leads to freedom.
Shame is a feeling everyone knows. It is born out of something deep in our hearts, and we need God if we want to find freedom from it. As we are on this journey of healing and freedom from shame, we need people who point us toward God and pray for us. God calls us to live as a body in active connection with one another and constantly aware of one another’s needs.
When we go through heartache and crisis, God has many different ways to reach us. He may use loving relationships, the beauty of nature or even our work. Whatever that unique space is, he can use it to show us his goodness and glory in the darkest places of our lives. Music is how he reached our guest this week, long-time Christian musician Matthew Ward, after he tragically lost two of the closest people in his life. Life can be incredibly painful at times, but God is always near to his children, and he wants to show us how he will heal and transform our grief into something glorious. As we grapple with pain, we must always know that we can go to God and he will never turn us away.
We need God our entire lives the same way a very small child needs a loving caregiver. Trying to live as if we can take care of ourselves will only hurt us in the end. God wants us to rely on him for his transformative power in our lives. This week, Pastor and Counselor Doug Welbourn joins Gary Wilkerson to share how dependency on God has enormous benefits for our spiritual and emotional health.
Last week, Nate Larkin shared his personal testimony about struggling with a pornography addiction and how he eventually found freedom. This week, he and Gary discuss the types of sexual addiction and where they can spring from in our pasts. God wants to heal these deep heart wounds. As we heal and shed addictions, we will find it easier to forge deep and meaningful relationships with others. Gathering healthy community around us will make staying on the road to recovery easier. While the path may not be any smoother or less steep, faithful friends can walk beside us and remind us of our heavenly Father’s promises.
A pornography addiction can feel like a hopeless trap. When we pray and pray for it to go away, we can get stuck in a cycle of despair when the addiction remains. This week, visiting speaker Nate Larkin talks about his own sexual addictions and how he eventually found freedom.