Season 2, Episode 1: What Does It Mean to Live Whole Heartedly?

Come sit with me. Let's open the word together and discover how Jesus forms a wholehearted life. Because last season we talked a lot about healing. We talked about wounds, we talked about the voices that shape us. We learned to ask that powerful question, who told you that? We discovered that every wound can have a voice. And we learned that Jesus has a voice too. And we began discovering the difference between knowing truth, believing truth, and actually living from truth. We ended that season with a beautiful realization. A heart fully alive isn't a heart that never hurts. It isn't a heart that never struggles. It's a heart that keeps turning toward Jesus again and again and again. But now I want to take that conversation somewhere deeper. Because if that's true, what does it actually look like to live that way? What does wholehearted living look like on an ordinary Tuesday morning? What does it look like when someone says something that hurts you? When the prayer still hasn't been answered? When you're disappointed, when you're afraid, when you're angry, when you know what Scripture says, but something in your heart is still struggling to believe it? What does it look like when an old wound gets touched and suddenly you find yourself reacting in a way you thought you'd outgrown? What does it look like when God asks you to surrender something you desperately want to hold on to? What does it look like when you fail, when you're waiting, when you're tired, when you don't understand what God is doing? And how does a whole-hearted woman actually live? That's the question I want us to explore together this season. So welcome to the Wholehearted Woman Podcast. I'm Chris Ray, and this is your heart room, a place where your story is safe, your questions are welcome, and needing healing is never a failure of faith. This season is called the Wholehearted Life: Learning to Live from a Heart Formed by Jesus. And I have a feeling we're going to have some very honest conversations. We're going to talk about waiting, identity, failure, fear, relationships, boundaries, forgiveness, calling, surrender. We're going to sit with Hannah, Peter, Mary Magdalene, the Samaritan Woman, David, Paul, Martha, and so many others. But we're not going to study their stories simply because they're interesting people in the Bible. We're going to ask, what does their story reveal about the way God forms the human heart? And then we're going to bring that question home. What does this reveal about my heart? What does it reveal about yours? And most importantly, where is Jesus in all of it? Because this isn't about becoming better versions of ourselves. It's about learning to live from a heart formed by Jesus. So what does wholehearted actually mean? I want to begin this season by clearing something up. A wholehearted woman is not a woman who has arrived. She isn't a woman who never struggles. She isn't a woman who never doubts. She isn't a woman who always knows exactly what God is doing. She's not perfectly patient. She doesn't always respond correctly. She doesn't wake up every morning filled with faith, worship music playing in the background, ready to conquer the world. Sometimes she wakes up irritated, sometimes she's afraid, sometimes she's tired. Sometimes somebody says something at nine in the morning and she's still replaying the conversation at 4 30 in the afternoon. Can anyone relate? I can. Wholehearted living isn't perfection. And I think that's important because sometimes, particularly as Christian women, we can develop an image of what we think a faithful woman is supposed to look like. She trusts God, she serves, she's patient, she's gracious, she forgives, she doesn't get angry, she doesn't worry, she doesn't question, she gives, she loves everybody, she never says the wrong thing, and somehow she does all of this while smiling. And when that's our picture of spiritual maturity, we can begin doing something dangerous. We start polishing the outside while hiding what's happening inside. And that's what the world does. But Jesus isn't looking for a polished heart. He's looking for your heart, the one you actually have today. Can we have our first heart talk of the season? What happens when something difficult hits your life? Not what you think should happen, but what actually happens. Maybe anxiety begins rising. Maybe someone hurts you. Maybe you receive bad news. Maybe someone disappoints you. Maybe something happens in your marriage. Maybe one of your children is struggling. Maybe you're waiting on an answer. Maybe you feel rejected. Maybe you became angry. Where does your heart go? Do you immediately begin thinking, analyzing, rehearsing conversations, imagining outcomes, trying to fix everything? Do you call somebody? Do you withdraw? Do you become angry? Do you scroll your phone because you don't know what to think about it? Do you become busy? Do you shut down? And somewhere in the middle of all of that, where is Jesus? I'm not asking that as a judgment. I'm asking because I think this is incredibly human. We can love Jesus deeply and still be accustomed to handling our emotional lives largely on our own. Sure, we pray, we read scripture, we worship, we read our devotionals, we believe in God. But when something happens at 2.17 on a Wednesday afternoon, our first instinct may still be to go into our own thoughts and try to manage it on our own. And maybe that's because no one ever taught us something very simple. That there is a difference between believing in Jesus and learning to live your life with Jesus. I've been thinking a lot about this. What keeps us from reaching for Jesus precisely when we need him the most? Maybe it's embarrassment, maybe we're ashamed of what we're thinking, maybe we think I shouldn't feel this way, maybe we're afraid he'll be disappointed in us, maybe we aren't sure he'll even answer. Maybe we've prayed before and didn't seem to hear anything, so what does it matter? And somewhere along the way we stopped expecting him to respond. Maybe this situation seems too small in our minds. Surely God has more important things to deal with than this. Maybe God still feels distant to us. Somewhere up there in the sky. He's watching, perhaps, present, but not necessarily someone we can talk to about every detail of our lives. Or maybe we're simply accustomed to doing life the way we've always done it. We've spent years processing our problems inside our own minds. We've learned how to cope, how to solve, how to survive, how to keep moving. It may be messy sometimes, but we have our way of doing it, don't we? And reaching for Jesus in the middle of an emotional moment hasn't yet become our reflex. Because before I surrendered my heart to Christ, God felt distant to me. I believed in God, I wanted God, and in fact, so much of my searching was really about trying to reach him. I wanted to know him, but somewhere in my understanding, God was still this distant figure. And if I'm being truthful, which I promise I will be, I think there was also an idea of judgment attached to him. Then something began happening. I started hearing people talk about Jesus differently. I heard people at churches and conferences tell stories about their relationship with him. They talked about how Jesus met them, how he spoke to them, how he answered them, how he comforted them, not just when everything was wonderful. They talked about encountering him in some of the hardest moments of their lives. And I remember how much hope that gave me, because I had spent so much of my life trying to reach God. And eventually I discovered something that changed everything. I had been trying to reach for God, but he had been reaching for me all along. He wasn't an angry figure standing far away. He wasn't waiting for me to get everything right. He wasn't the boogeyman I needed to be afraid of. He had been patiently drawing me toward himself all along. And when I finally responded, he poured his love into some of the deepest places of my heart. And I want to be clear about something. That didn't mean everything became so easy so suddenly. There was a season when I cried a lot. There was pain. There were things being uncovered. There were places in my heart Jesus was healing that had been wounded for years. But the difference was I wasn't crying alone anymore. I was hurting with Jesus. I was walking through darkness with Jesus. I was learning with Jesus. I was being healed by Jesus. And that taught me something I want you to hear today. Relationship with Jesus doesn't mean we never walk through painful places. It means we no longer have to walk through them alone. And if you're wondering whether Jesus really welcomes that kind of honesty, open the Gospels. Look at the people who came to him. Look at his family line. They weren't polished. Martha was grieving the death of her brother Lazarus when she said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been there, my brother would not have died. Think about the emotion in that statement, the grief, the pain, and perhaps disappointment. She didn't approach Jesus pretending everything was fine. She brought him what was actually happening inside of her. Then there's the father in Mark 9, whose son desperately needed help. Jesus tells him that all things are possible for the one who believes. And the father responds with one of the most honest statements in Scripture. Help my unbelief. Faith and struggle in the same sentence. And Jesus didn't say, Well, decide which one it is and come back when your faith is stronger. No, he met him right there. Thomas brought doubt. Peter brought failure. The Samaritan woman brought a complicated history. Mary brought tears. People brought Jesus sickness, fear, questions, desperation, shame, confusion, sin, grief, and over and over again, Jesus engaged every one of them. He met people where they actually were, not where they thought they were supposed to be by searching more and trying harder and striving in the process. So I want you to hear this. Jesus isn't asking for the version of your heart you think he wants to see. You can tell him, Jesus, I'm angry. I'm jealous. I'm afraid. I know your word says you love me, but right now I'm struggling to feel loved. I'm afraid you're going to ask me to give up something that I don't want to give up. I'm embarrassed that this bothers me so much. I'm embarrassed about what I have done. I thought I had healed from this and now it's hurting again. You can tell him everything, not because he needs information. We don't tell Jesus what's happening in our hearts because he doesn't know. We tell him because relationship requires honesty and communication and transparency. And maybe wholehearted living begins right there, not with having everything together, all the answers, not with achieving perfect faith, but with bringing Jesus the heart we actually have right now, broken, messed up, inside out. The believing part and the struggling part, the surrendered part and the part still gripping tightly, the grateful part and the disappointed part, the courageous part and the terrified part, all of it. There's a beautiful prayer in Psalm 86, 11, where David prays, Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth, unite my heart to fear your name. Some translations say, Give me an undivided heart. And I love that one because notice what David isn't saying. He's not standing before God saying, Look at my perfectly wholehearted heart before you. He's asking God, Unite my heart, teach me, form me, bring the divided places together. That's incredibly important because wholeheartedness isn't something we achieve so that we're finally worth of intimacy with God. Wholeheartedness is something he forms in us through intimacy with him. We bring him the heart we have, broken, shattered, confused, and he so gently and lovingly forms it. Psalm 139 gives another beautiful prayer. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Think about the vulnerability of that. Search me. Look, look inside me. I'm not hiding. Show me what's there because I trust you. And then Jesus tells us the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart. All, not merely the healed parts, not only the believing parts, not the Sunday morning part, not the part we know how to explain. No, all your heart. Maybe that's what wholehearted living begins to look like. Not a flawless heart, an increasingly honest, surrendered, undivided heart being formed in relationship with Jesus. So let's make this very practical. Someone says something that hurts you, immediately you feel rejected. The old pattern might be to withdraw, or defend yourself, or people please, or replay the conversation 47,000 times. I've been there. We've all been there. But what might wholehearted living look like in that case? First, we pause. We ask ourselves, what's happening in me right now? Then notice. Why did that hurt so much? What did it touch? And then we ask the question from last season: who told us that? Where did the pattern begin? Where is it familiar in our past? Where did we come to know this of why it hurt so much? And what did it touch? Then we discern. What am I believing right now? And we write it or we list it. Maybe it's that I'm unwanted, that I'm not enough, that I have to make this person happy, that rejection means something about my worth. Then we bring it to Jesus. Jesus, this is hurt. I feel rejected. This is making me want to react. What is true here? And then respond from truth. Maybe that means extending some grace. Maybe it means having a conversation. Maybe it means setting a boundary. Maybe it means giving a little distance until we have figured all this out. Maybe it means realizing the person's comment wasn't actually about us. Maybe it means doing nothing at all. But notice what changed. When we give ourselves that time and space, we don't pretend the hurt wasn't there. We don't shame ourselves for feeling it. And we don't automatically let the wound decide what happens next, and that's key. We invite Jesus into it, and that's formation. That's how healing becomes a way of life. And it takes practice, it takes time. A pattern didn't form right away or yesterday. It happened long ago. A pattern is a pattern that forms through time, through experiences, and repeats itself because our mind wants to protect our heart. And that's how we're going to walk through this season together. We're going to begin with real life, what's actually happening. Then we're going to look at the heart. We're going to ask and figure out and look at what's happening underneath the behavior, the reaction, the fear, the anger, or desire. And then we're going to open scripture. We're going to find what's true. What does God's word reveal? Then we're going to look at Jesus. What does this reveal about him? How does he meet us there? What does he say about all this? What might he be inviting us to see, believe, surrender, receive, or do? And then practice. What does this truth look like tomorrow morning? Because I don't want us simply accumulating more information. I want us learning how to live with Jesus. And along the way, we're going to have some heart talks with ourselves, with one another, and most importantly, with him. So I want to give you only one thing to practice this week. Once a day, just stop. Maybe when something happens, maybe while you're having coffee, maybe in your car or while you're getting ready for work. Simply ask Jesus, what's happening in my heart right now? Then tell him. Don't fix it first. Don't judge it. Don't try to find the spiritually correct answer. Just tell him the truth. Tell him I'm worried, I'm happy, I'm disappointed, I'm confused, I'm angry, I'm excited, I'm afraid, I'm tired, I'm hopeful, I'm disgusted. Whatever is there, bring it. And then you might ask, Jesus, what do you want me to know here? And stay with him. You don't have to manufacture an answer. You don't have to force yourself to hear something. You have his word. You know his character. Sometimes a scripture may come to mind. Sometimes you may recognize something you didn't see before. Sometimes you may simply need to sit in his presence a little longer. The goal isn't getting an answer. The goal is relationship. It's learning to stop living your inner life alone. So before we pray, I want to leave you with a few questions to sit with this week. What happens inside you when life becomes difficult? Where do you instinctively go? What keeps you from bringing Jesus into those moments? Is there a part of your heart you believe you need to clean up before you bring it to him? And maybe the most important question, what would change if you really believed your whole heart was welcome with Jesus? Sit with that. Talk to him about it. Because this season isn't about learning how to look more wholehearted. It's about learning how to live that way. So, Father, I want to thank you that you already know us completely and still invite us near. Thank you that we don't have to hide. We don't have to perform, we don't have to polish our hearts before we come to you. You know the places where we believe, you know the places where we struggle. You know our joy, our disappointment, our fear, our hopes, our past, our wounds, our questions. You know all of it. And you love us. So, Lord, today we pray for the words of David. Teach us your way, Lord. Give us undivided hearts, search us and know us. Show us the places we've been trying to carry alone. Show us the places where we've kept you somewhere in the background instead of inviting you into the conversation. And Jesus, teach us how to live our lives with you when we're hurting. Help us turn toward you when we're afraid. Help us to turn toward you when we're confused. Help us to turn toward you when we're celebrating. Help us to turn toward you when we fail. Help us to turn toward you from our hearts. Teach us to recognize your voice. Teach us to live from your truth, who love you with our whole hearts. In Jesus' name, amen. Friend, this is where we're beginning. And over this season, we're going to sit with people in Scripture who knew something about real life. We're going to sit with Hannah in the waiting, with Peter in failure and restoration, with the Samaritan woman beside the well, with Mary Magdalene as Jesus rewrites the story her past had told about her. We're going to ask about boundaries, forgiveness, fear, calling, relationship, surrender, and so much more. Not as disconnected topics, but through one question. How does a whole-hearted woman live? And every time we're going to come back here. Real life, heart, scripture, Jesus, and practice. Because healing isn't the end of the story. We're learning how to live from the heart being formed by Jesus. So if today's conversation stirs something in your heart, I'd love for you to continue the journey with me at hearttoheartministry.com and connect with the Wholehearted Woman on Facebook, where we can keep having these heart talks together. So until next time, you are seen, you are deeply loved, and the shepherd is still speaking. I'll see you next week.