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Episode 349- Finding Your Way Back to God in an Age of Deconstruction with Dr. Lina AbuJamra

What do you do when the people of God fail and you find yourself questioning God because of it? How do you deconstruct your misunderstandings about God, His people and life without deconstructing your faith altogether?

For author, Bible teacher, and medical doctor Lina AbuJamra healing from the hurt she experienced from her church led her on an unexpected journey in her faith. What started as a deep disappointment in people led her to feeling let down by God. It took a lot of time and realizations that what she had come to believe about God and how He worked wasn't based on His truth and that perhaps deconstructing the falsehoods and misunderstandings about God, wasn't a bad thing. However, as things were being taken apart in her understanding of who God was, she also needed to reconstruct what was true so that her faith would strengthen rather than fade away. It wasn't a quick process, but a holy one and one that she wrote about in her book, Fractured Faith: Finding Your Way Back to God in an Age of Deconstruction.

In this helpful conversation, Aubrey and Lina talk about why deconstruction is often rooted in our disappointments, ways in which we can heal from Church hurt, and how sometimes our doubts, questions and hurt can lead us into a deeper faith.

If you or someone you know has walked through being hurt by the Church and has found themselves unraveling, this episode will encourage you that perhaps through your hurt, God is wanting to rebuild in you a stronger, more resilient faith and life in Him.

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Episode 331 - The Power of Personal Revival with Lisa Whittle

How do we live a more connected life with Jesus when this world offers so many distractions? What would it look like for individuals to experience personal revival in their own faith that could spark revival in other's lives as well?

For author, podcaster and Bible teacher Lisa Whittle, it was her own journey towards seeking more of God that led her to write about it. As a woman in ministry, Lisa has seen and faced many challenges, but through it all, she was able to find God more and more. By asking God for her own personal revival, Lisa began to see all the ways the enemy of her soul attempts to keep her from it. From people pleasing and anxiety to social media and the celebrity culture that has infiltrated the Christian spaces she has been in, Lisa knows that there are many things that can derail her from living out of a whole hearted devotion to God. It is why she decided to update and re-release her book, I Want God: How to Love Him with Your Whole Heart and Revive Your Soul. As God continued to draw her own heart into personal revival, she realized the message she wrote years ago had even more relevance for our current culture.

In this episode, Aubrey and Lisa talk about the challenges many women face in ministry and how to overcome them, what personal revival looks like in both seasons of normalcy and seasons of pain, and how the fear of man can keep us from the freedom God so longs to give us.

If you've ever desired to experience more of God in your own heart and life but don't know how, this conversation will teach you the simplicity of loving Him and reviving your soul in the process.

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Episode 316 - Even If He Doesn't with Kristen LaValley

What do we do with the hard questions that arise from the pain we are feeling? How do we acknowledge our fears and our doubts while holding onto our faith?

For author Kristen LaValley, the process of moving from a formulaic faith that believed God wouldn't allow pain if she did all the right things into a genuine, messy belief and understanding of God came through several seasons of suffering. From losing her and her husband's ministry position and faith community to witnessing a murder, the loss of a baby and a very traumatic birth experience with her twins, Kristen had to untangle her belief in a God that neatly healed and fixed every pain into the true nature of who God was and how so often it is His presence that He offers us in our heartbreaks. Now, Kristen and her husband help others walking through questions in their faith and spiritual wounds by giving them the same space to ask and process that they received from others in their journey.

In this insightful conversation, Davey talks with Kristen about how what we believe about God shapes how we experience suffering, the way in which suffering shapes who we believe God to be and why wrestling is so important in moving from a transactional relationship with the Lord into a true and authentic one.

If you've ever struggled with questions about God's goodness in the seasons of your difficulties, this episode will help normalize the grappling and undoing we all have to do about our beliefs about God in order to learn who He truly is.

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Episode 314 - Grace and Suffering with Philip Yancey

What does grace have to do with our suffering? How do we experience the fullness of who God is when life is full of pain?

Author and journalist Philip Yancey has long sought out to understood the role grace plays in life and in our hurt. Having walked through a difficult childhood and untangling his understanding of God from church legalism steeped in racism and sin, Philip has offered what he has learned along the way to his readers through his many books, including his latest, Where the Light Fell: A Memoir. Philip is no stranger to the hard questions that can plague a lifelong pursuit of Jesus and his words have been a guide for so many in their own journeys.

In this conversation, Davey and Philip talk about the importance of grace and how it is tested, how those who are most desperate for Jesus find Him, and why pain redeemed can do more than pain removed.

If you've ever struggled to reconcile the God you know through misguided teachings from others with the true nature of God, this episode will help you find your way to the offer of grace that Jesus extends.

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Episode 293 - Finding Gospel Hope in Divorce with Barnabas Piper

How does the gospel apply in the loss of a marriage? Where can everyone involved find hope after the pain of divorce?

Having grown up as a pastor's kid of a world renowned theologian, John Piper, Barnabas Piper knew the right theological answers in life. It was through his own personal journey of pain after an unwanted divorce that led him to a newfound understanding of God's grace and mercy in his hurt and ultimately, his life. Since then, as a pastor, Barnabas has been able to help others through their own feelings of shame and heartache and has pointed them to the ways in which the gospel applies to all.

In this honest conversation, Nothing is Wasted guest host, Eric Schumacher sits down with Barnabas to talk about the transition between theological knowledge into a true understanding, what the gospel says to everyone who is affected by a divorce, and how the Church can love people well through the pain of a broken marriage.

This episode is for anyone who has walked through or has loved someone who has walked through a divorce as it reminds us all that God's redemptive love and the hope of the gospel applies to every pain we will ever endure.

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Episode 276 - Finding a Reason to Return with Ericka Andersen

Women are leaving churches in record numbers at higher rates than ever before. Yet, all of us are in need of healthy community more than ever. What is causing this mass exodus and how can the Church and women recognize their need for one another?

Journalist and author Ericka Andersen wanted to know why and started to investigate the staggering statistics. In turn, she found the deeper reasons such a vital part of the body of Christ was finding its way to the exit. She offers an explanation of why this is happening plus an encouraging call for women to reengage in the Church in her book, Reason to Return: Why Women Need the Church and the Church Needs Women. There she encourages women to see not only their need for Christ-centered community, but also the Church's need for the unique gifts of women. In it, she also shares her personal journey with alcoholism and how the Church played such a vital role in her own healing.

In this episode, Davey sits down with Ericka to discuss how women are leaving the Church at faster rates than ever before, how the anger of those who leave is often not against God, and why it is so important to go first and create a safe space for people to share their stories with vulnerability.

If you've found yourself ready to quit the Church because of the wounds that people have inflicted upon your or if you've left Church and don't know how to take the first step back towards community, this conversation will encourage you that even in its brokenness, the people of God are an integral part of our lives of faith.

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