February 13, 2025 • 29 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everyone, it's so great to have you with us today.
On Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We are going to continue
our very encouraging series today called Life's Healing Choices, and
in these lessons, Rick Warren will guide us through a
deep biblical exploration of how to overcome the hurts, hang ups,
and habits that really hold us back. So get ready
(00:25):
for some practical insights and powerful truths that can lead
to lasting change and freedom in your life. All right,
here's Rick with part one of a message called the
Hope You Need for Change.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
We talked last week about how we all have unhealthy
areas in our lives, habits, hurts, and hang ups that
mess us up.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
We talked about how.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
The cause of the hurt in your life is when
you try to play God, denying your humanity, trying to
control everything.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
When you try to control everything.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
It causes frustration, It causes fatigue, it causes failure. And
we talked about the first step last week, which is
to realize I'm not God. I admit that I am
powerless to control my tendency to do things that I
know are unhealthy. I do them anyway, and my life
tends to be unmanageable. Now if you take that first step,
(01:16):
and last week I said that is the most difficult
step for many people, because it means being honest about
your pain, honest about your hang ups, your hurts, that
you don't have it all together, that there's some emotional
stuff in your life that needs to be cleaned up,
that there's some bad things that need to be reorganized
and refixed, and that all of us have broken areas
in our lives.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
That's painful.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
In fact, it can be downright devastating, because if you've
carried a hurt for a long time, you often begin
to get your identity from that hurt. I'm a victim,
I'm this and it's very, very painful. And as you
begin to take first step, you start grieving over your past. Man,
I wish that hadn't happened. I wish I hadn't done
those dumb decisions. I wish I hadn't had that bad response.
(02:00):
And you start to grieve over wasted time, wasted energy,
wasted guilt and shame and resentment, and you start to grieve.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
And so God takes us.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
To step two, which is the hope step, and God
helps us and in Matthew, Chapter five, verse four. The
second beatitude says, God blesses those people who grieve. They
will find comfort. Now, what God is saying here is
when you do the painful work, and it is painful
(02:31):
of owning up to your problems, of owning up to
the health issues that are not correct in your life, physical, emotional, spiritual,
in every other way. When you actually face your hang ups,
your hurts, your bad habits, and you face that pain,
God says, I will be right there to give you hope. Now,
you cannot get healthy without hope. You can go forty
(02:55):
days without food. You can go about eight days without
water and go I don't know, I think about eight
to three minutes without air at the maximum. But you
can't go one second without hope. You have to have
hope in order to get healthy again. You'd never go
on a diet if you didn't. Hope would make you
look better, feel better. You hoped it would work, and
(03:19):
so we all need hope. You cannot live without hope.
The verse there on your Bible, on your outlined Proverbs
eighteen fourteen says no one can live with a broken spirit.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Now, what is hope?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Hope is the light at the end of the tunnel
that all this effort I'm making into honestly face my
past and my hang ups and the things in my
life that aren't right, that there's a light at the
end of the tunnel.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
There is hope.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
That it's the expectation that things are gonna work out,
that it's gonna get better. Hope is the energy that
helps you keep going on as we take these eight
steps to getting healthy again Together. No hope, you won't
last this series much less through what God wants to
do in your life. The issue then becomes how do
(04:05):
you have hope or where do you get hope when
change seems hopeless. I've worked on my marriage, it didn't
get any better. I've worked on these things in my
life that I know I don't like and I want
to change in my life, but I don't know how
to get better. And when you feel hopeless about a relationship,
(04:26):
about a problem, about a situation, about a characteristic of
your life that you really don't like, about something that's
happened to you in the past that you can't seem
to let go of, and you feel hopeless, where do
you get hope in those situations? Well, the Bible tells
us where, and the Bible says that there are five
things that you need to remember that will give you
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hope in a hopeless situation. In fact, let me make
you a guarantee this morning. If you will memorize these
five things, and if you will remember them on a
day by day basis, and you really let them enter
into your heart and your soul, you will never again
feel hopeless. I can guarantee that, on the basis of
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God's word, if you will remember these five things and
apply them every time you start to get in despair,
you will never again feel hopeless. Now, these five things
build on each other. The first one's pretty obvious, and
as we get a little bit further and further, it becomes.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
More and more powerful in your life. What are they?
Number one?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
If I want to have hope to change, first, I
must remember God is with me. I remember that God
is with me. Because the first reason we often feel
hopeless is we forget about God. We think we're on
our own, on our own. We think, if it's to be,
it's up to me. We think I have to solve
all my problems myself. God isn't there, and we forget
(05:57):
God The Bible says this in Job chapter eight.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Read it with me.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Those who forget God have no hope. Well, of course, folks,
if there were no God in this world, we'd have
a lot of reasons to be discouraged. We'd have a
lot of reasons to feel helpless and hopeless. Alexander Schulzenitzen,
the Nobel Prize winner, wrote an article a while back
in National Review magazine, and he said, if you want
(06:24):
to summarize all of the problems of the twentieth century,
all of the bad things that happened in the last
one underd years, you can sum it up in one phrase.
That was the title of his article. Men have forgotten God.
When we forget God, we tend to act like animals.
When we forget God, we tend to be selfish. When
we forget God, we tend to lose hope. Now, a
(06:46):
definition of an atheist is someone who is living as
if there is no God. Now, if that's the definition,
I know a lot of Christians who are atheists, because
even though we believe in God, we often act when
it comes to our problems like God doesn't exist. I
got to solve this problem on my own. I've got
to do this on my energy.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I got to figure it all out myself.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
We don't consult God, we don't pray to God, we
don't think of him first. We think, well, I just
got to figure this out. That's called practical atheism, and
a lot of Christians do that.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
In fact, the pastors can do it.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
In nineteen eighty at the end of the first year
of this church, my health hit the wall. I had
a health crisis and I just lost all my strength.
And I went through a year in nineteen eighty one
of depression for almost a year, and I was very weak.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I didn't have much energy at all.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
And I was filled with doubt and fill with anxiety
about the future of this church. And I thought, what
if I don't get my strength back, What if I
don't regain my health, What if I don't have the
energy to lead this church? What will happen to the church?
Will it crumble? Will it fall apart? Will it blow away?
What's going to happen? And I was filled with a
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lot of doubt and a lot of despair. God said
to me, not literally, but in my mind, gave me
an idea. He said, an impression. He said, Rick whose
church is this. I said, well, it's your church, God.
He said, then it's my responsibility, not yours, so we
don't worry about it. And I took my Bible and
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I began to read through the Book of Psalms, and
I took an under a highlighter, and I underlined all
of the verses that dealt with either despair or depression.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
And in that study I found this.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Verse, the next verse in your outline, Lord, when doubts
fill my mind and when my heart is in turmoil,
quiet me and give me renewed hope and cheer. Some
of you are feeling hopeless about changing your life right now,
it's never going to change. You need to memorize this verse.
(08:54):
You need to pray it to God. You need to pray, Lord,
when doubts fill my mind and when my heart is
in turmoil, quiet me and give me renewed hope and cheer.
It's like the old Amy Grant song. You've got to
remember you're not alone in this world. The first thing
you remember when you start to feel hopeless is God
(09:16):
is with me.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
But that's not all. Number two.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
I remember not only that He's with me, but I
remember that God cares about me. He cares about me,
He loves me. I matter to him. And the Bible
is very very clear about this in Lamentations chapter three.
Let's read it together. I have hope when I think
of this. The Lord's love never ends. His mercies never stop.
(09:43):
They are new every morning. Now circle the phrase never ends.
How is that possible? How is it possible for God's
love for you to never end? I mean, obviously human
love ends. We see it all around us. People fall
out of love all the time. Why because human love
is conditional, and God's love is unconditional, and therefore it
(10:04):
never ends.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
There's a version in.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
The Bible where God says, I have loved you with
an everlasting love. I have loved you with an everlasting love.
Now here's my question to you. Have you ever let
God love you?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Oh? You know about God's love. But I've said this before, But.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Many Christians have never felt the unconditional love of God.
In your mind, you still think God's love is conditional,
that he loves you on your good days, and he
frowns on you on your bad days. And there are
areas in your life you don't even know about. There
are areas in your mind closets and doors and rooms
that you.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Don't know about.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
God wants to fill every area of your mind, heart,
and soul with his love, and that takes time, and
you have to.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Learn to let God love you.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Why because when you let God love the ugly things
in your life, you have to first admit and that's tough.
In fact, it's far easier. Listen, It's far easier for
you to love God than it is for you to
let God love the unlovely parts in your life. Henry
(11:17):
Nowen wrote a book called The Return of the Prodigal Son,
and in that he talks about Rembrandt's famous picture of
the Prodigal Son. You know that story. The son went
to his dad one day, it's in the Bible, and
he said, Dad, I want half my inheritance. And he
went off and blew it on wine, women and song,
mostly on women. A few years later, he comes back home.
He's broke, he's busted, he's destitute, and he goes I
(11:39):
blew it dad, and his father, instead of rejecting him,
giving a scolding or lecture, welcomes him home with a warm, loving,
forgiving embrace. Rembrandt painted this painting of the loving Father
welcoming the sum home. And that's the center of the picture.
But over to the side, there are some bystanders who
were watching.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
You were looking on as observers, and now On says this.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
For years I instructed students on the different aspects of
the spiritual life. But one day I realized that I
had never ever really dared to step into the center
of the picture, kneel down and let myself be held
by a forgiving God. Have you ever done that? Have
you ever let yourself be held by forgiving God? I
(12:26):
needed to move from a bystander to a participant, from
a teacher about love to being loved as the beloved.
But I didn't have an inkling of how difficult that
journey would be and how much longer it would take
to complete.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Why is that?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Why does it take so long to really understand the
unconditional love of God? Because it's a process, Because God
has to open up areas of your life that you
really don't want to look at, areas that you don't
like about yourself, And God says, you know what, I
want you to know that I love you even in
that area, even in the area that you can't stand
about you notice this next verse on your outline some
(13:08):
one oh three. He is like a father to us,
tender and sympathetic, for he knows what we're made of dust,
We're just particles put together. And God says, I want
to be a father to you, tender and sympathetic. God
wants to be the father that you may have never had,
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a different kind of father than the one you may
have had, A tender, a sympathetic, an understanding father, because
he knows all about you. He knows why things happen
to you, He knows why you chose to do the
choices you made, and he loves you. Many people, if
not most people, have never really felt that they matter
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to God. They've never really felt that God loved them unconditionally.
This week I talked to a woman who was radically
changed when she finally experienced the unconditional love of God.
And she told me about her past and how it
caused enormous shame in her life. She said she felt guilty,
(14:14):
she felt ashamed, she felt self loathing, she felt discussed
with herself about some decisions that she had made and
some actions she had taken and regrets. And I asked her,
I said, what was the breakthrough, what was the turning point?
And this is what she said. I wrote it down
when I realized that God loved every part of me,
(14:37):
every part of me, not just now, but even at
the very moment I was making ugly, sinful choices.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
He even loved me. Then, when she understood that her
life was changed by.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
The unconditional love of God, That's what Romans five eight says.
The next verse, God showed is great love for us
by sending Christ to.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Die for us.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
You want to know how much you matter, Look at
the cross. That's how much you matter. Jesus Christ came
to earth to die for you. That's the reason for hope.
Not only is God with me, but he cares about me.
Number three and it gets even better. Not only is
He with you and care about you. I need to
remember that He knows my situation. He knows my problem,
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he knows my pain, he knows the things that hurt
in my heart. How is that possible? Well, obvious, God
knows everything. He knows your habits, he knows your hang ups,
he knows your hurts. Saw him fifty six. Verse six says,
you know how troubled I am. You have kept the
record of my tears? Did you know that? Did you
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know that? The Bible says, God has kept the record
of every tear that has fallen down your cheek. That's
what I call getting up close and personal. Ever ever
even shed a tear that God missed. Nothing is beyond
his love, nothing is beyond his compassionate gaze.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
He's with you.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
He loves you, and he sees everything you have gone
through are going through, and knows what you're going to
go through. He knows you up close and personal. You've
all heard people say, nobody knows what I'm going through.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
God does. Nobody knows the hell I'm in at home?
God does.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
God knows exactly what you're feeling. In fact, he knows.
Listen to this. He knows it better than you do,
because you don't even understand some of the pain you
go through. You don't know why all the time you heard.
But God does. In fact that you know that. The
Bible says, when you are in so much pain and
you are so confused about something in your life that
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you don't even know how to put it into words,
you can't even pray about it because you can't verbalize
what you feel. The Bible says God prays for you.
He talks to himself about your pain. In Romans chapter eight,
it says, when we don't know what to pray, when
we're in pain, when we don't know which way to turn,
the Holy Spirit praise for us. God talks to himself
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about your pain. That's how much you matter. Even when
you don't know how to pray, He's praying for you
to himself. That's how much you matter to God. That's
how intimately he is aware.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Of what's going on in your life.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Psalm thirty one, verse seven says, you have seen the
crisis in my soul. Some of you are in a
crisis right now. God sees it, He knows about it,
He cares about it, and there is hope for change
if you will trust him. I want you to hear
Carl's story. Would you welcome him.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
My name is Karl, and I'd like to share how
Jesus Christ changed my life and set me on the
path to getting healthy again when I finally realized how
much I matter to God. I've spent most of my
life pretending that I'm braver than I feel. I've struggled
all my life with feelings of worthlessness, insecurity, fear, panic,
and anxiety. You see, I was raised in a very
(18:23):
ultra strict family, where my father's motto was children are
to be seen and not heard. There was no physical abuse,
but my parents used rage to control us and fear
to intimidate us into submission. I was never allowed to
voice my opinion. In fact, I never really felt my
feelings mattered as a child. My spirit was broken through
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a lot of frightening incidents. For instance, when I was
about seven, our family was driving home from visiting my
grandparents when I offered a stick of gum to my siblings.
Dad immediately knew that I had stolen the gum from
my grandparents and confronted me. I admitted it and expected
a good spanking. When we got home. However, Dad pulled
(19:04):
over and asked if I knew what happens to thieves.
I said no, and he replied that they go to prison.
He then pointed to a big, dark, scary looking building
and told me that it was the prison I would
be staying in for the next twenty years. He made
me hand over all my possessions and said I should
beg God's forgiveness. My brother and sisters and I were
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screaming in fear. That was the beginning of my lifelong
struggle with fear of others and of God. I became
a people pleaser. Unfortunately, my fears and insecurity were reinforced
by my religious upbringing. I was taught that my salvation
was based on how good and perfect I was. But
even if I led a perfect life and then committed
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one mortal sin and died without confessing it, I was
told that God would send me to hell for all eternity.
I'm sure many of you were brought up this way too. Grace, love,
and forgiveness were foreign concepts to me. I was expected
to perfectly keep the Ten Commandments and under my own power.
Since there was no provision for failure or progress, I
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could never admit my struggles, so I learned to put
on a mask of self righteous piety, while inside I
was consumed by the terror and guilt of my inability
to live up to a perfect standard. I thought God,
like my Dad, was unpleasable, so I tried to appease
the wrath of both God and my Dad by going
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to seminary to study for the priesthood. I wanted to
escape my feeling of self condemnation and earn the love
I desperately desired. But there was no escape there either.
From day one, I compared myself with the other seminarians
and felt that I came up short. Not only did
I feel that they were all more godly than I,
I felt that God himself viewed me as a hypocrite.
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I wanted to leave after the first six months, but
it took two more years to build up the courage
to face my dad's disappointment of not having a son
as a priest. Then, in nineteen sixty eight, I got married.
My wife was very controlling and I was very controllable.
We fought often, but I'd feel fearful and guilty and
give in. We both were miserable over time she gained
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one hundred and twenty pounds. Instead of lovingly confronting her,
I had a pity party and started going to prostitutes.
After nineteen years of misery, my wife left me. I
spent the next three months in severe depression and isolation.
To add insult to injury. When I finally went to
a counselor to deal with my deep feelings that I
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was worthless and didn't matter to anyone. My therapist fell
asleep while I was talking to him. That was the
final straw. I did a complete oneint eighty and decided
I would start living solely for myself, without regard for
others approval. So I partied hard for the next four
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years and went to the opposite extreme of my strict upbringing.
I got addicted to prostitutes and pornography, tried drugs, and
became an alcoholic. But no matter what I did, I
couldn't escape the feeling that I didn't matter and the
childlike fear and panic that still often gripped me. So
I tried confronting my fears. I decided to act tough
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on the outside. For three and a half years, I
worked as a bouncer at a bar, smuggled steroids across
the border from my own use, took karate, and got tattoos.
But all these remedies were only skin deep. My heart
was still fearful inside. Gradually I realized how I had
traded one form of bondage for another, and how empty
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it was, and I was then God lovingly reached out
to me in grace. A fellow bouncer began to talk
to me about God. Then God used a beautiful dancer
to invite me to church. I guess God knew what
it would take to get my attention. It was here
at Saddleback that I heard for the first time that
I really mattered to God. And for the first time
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I heard what Jesus is really like. I'd been taught
that Jesus was a victim. Here I learned that he
chose to die and he did it for me. He
did it because I mattered that much to him. This
was truly amazing grace. Then eight years ago, Pastor Rick
began a series on recovery principles from the Beatitudes of Jesus.
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So the following Friday, I went to celebrate recovery to
let God start healing my hurts, habits, and unhealthy attitudes.
From the moment I walked in the door, I knew
that I was home at last. Nobody tried to judge me,
fix me, use me, or shame me. Instead, they gave
me what I'd been looking for all my life, unconditional love.
That started my process of getting healthy again in regards
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to my hurts. As I began to feel and experience
God's deep love and grace. Old wounds began to be healed,
including closure with my ex wife and a new relationship
with my parents in regard to my habits. Through God's power,
I read recently celebrated eight years of moral purity and
ten years of sobriety. But to me, the most incredible
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change has occurred with the fear that I've carried all
my life. Growing up, I was a victim. I didn't
even have ownership of my own feelings and opinions. I
had no problem embracing the first step that Pastor Rick
talked about last week. I felt powerless all the time.
Unfortunately I was stuck there. What I needed was the
hope of Step two. As I learned more about how
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much I mattered to God and how much Jesus Christ
loves me, my fears, panic, and insecurities began to decrease.
As First John four p. Thirteen says, there is no
fear in love. Perfect love drives out fear because fear
has to do with punishment. You see, at the root
of all my insecurity and fear was my fear of God.
(24:57):
I had a God problem.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Here.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
I learned about God's amazing grace through Jesus that freed
me from my terror of God. Rather than working against me,
God wanted to help me and give me the power
I needed to do the right things. My works oriented
perfectionism has convinced me that I was powerless, but Jesus
did for me what I couldn't do for myself. He
loved me, and his love and power transformed my life.
(25:23):
I now have the privilege of serving as one of
the leaders for a men's recovery group and as leader
of Teens and Temptations, a group to help teens get
healthy again. In closing, I want to share my life
verse it has given me the hope to get healthy again,
especially in the area of perfectionism. Romans eight one says, therefore,
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there is now no condemnation for those who are in
Christ Jesus. If you're struggling with insecurity, fear, and feelings
of worthlessness, I urge you to turn your life over
to Jesus. His love will give you the hope you
need to get healthy again. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
If you feel you're in a hopeless situation, you just
need to remember these things.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
God is with me. God cares about me.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
God sees what I'm going through and it even gets better.
Number four, I need to remember he has power I
don't have. He has power that I don't have. Luke
eighteen says, what is impossible for men is possible with God.
Did you know that the sun radiates more power in
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one second than has been used by all of mankind
throughout history in one second? Did you know that the
sun has enough power to burn constantly for the next
thirty billion in years, and that son is just one
of gazillions of them that God created. Sufficing to say,
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God has more power than you can comprehend. You just
need to realize He's got enough for your problems now.
Because God's power is unlimited, two things are true. Number one,
he never gets tired, he never gets fatigued, he never
runs out of energy. And number two, he never calls
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rolling blackouts. He doesn't say now for the next hour
of your life, my power will not be available. I'm
sorry you're on your own in this situation. Forget the temptation.
He has more power than you could possibly imagine, and
what's impossible for men is possible with God.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
You are listening to Pastor Rick's Day, and I want
to share something that can bring hope and healing to
your everyday life. Yeah, no matter what challenges you face,
you can find peace and strength by immersing yourself in
God's Word. And that's why we're so excited to introduce
the Life's Healing Choices Scripture Box. This is a unique
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resource and it's designed to inspire and uplift you, helping
you trust in God's promises through every high and every low.
It features fifty two beautifully designed scripture cards that offer
encouragement straight from the Bible. And these scripture cards come
in a beautifully crafted, high quality leather like box with
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enough space to add more sets of scripture cards as
your collection grows. The Life's Healing Choices Scripture Box is
a perfect tool to deepen your faith. It fills your
mind and heart with God's truth, one uplifting verse at
a time. And today, when you support daily hope with
a gift, please request your very own Life's Healing Choices
(29:01):
Scripture Box. You know your donation really helps us share
the hope of Jesus Christ with people all around the world,
and this beautiful scripture box is our way of saying thanks.
Just go to Pastorick dot com to get your copy
of this great resource that's pastorick dot com. Or you
can just text the word hope to seven oh three
(29:23):
oh nine. Again, that's the word hope to seven oh
three oh nine. Be sure to join us next time
as we look into God's Word for our daily hope.
This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and
your generous financial support.
Hey, everyone, it's so great to have you with us today.
On Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We are going to continue
our very encouraging series today called Life's Healing Choices, and
in these lessons, Rick Warren will guide us through a
deep biblical exploration of how to overcome the hurts, hang ups,
and habits that really hold us back. So get ready
(00:25):
for some practical insights and powerful truths that can lead
to lasting change and freedom in your life. All right,
here's Rick with part one of a message called the
Hope You Need for Change.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
We talked last week about how we all have unhealthy
areas in our lives, habits, hurts, and hang ups that
mess us up.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
We talked about how.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
The cause of the hurt in your life is when
you try to play God, denying your humanity, trying to
control everything.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
When you try to control everything.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
It causes frustration, It causes fatigue, it causes failure. And
we talked about the first step last week, which is
to realize I'm not God. I admit that I am
powerless to control my tendency to do things that I
know are unhealthy. I do them anyway, and my life
tends to be unmanageable. Now if you take that first step,
(01:16):
and last week I said that is the most difficult
step for many people, because it means being honest about
your pain, honest about your hang ups, your hurts, that
you don't have it all together, that there's some emotional
stuff in your life that needs to be cleaned up,
that there's some bad things that need to be reorganized
and refixed, and that all of us have broken areas
in our lives.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
That's painful.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
In fact, it can be downright devastating, because if you've
carried a hurt for a long time, you often begin
to get your identity from that hurt. I'm a victim,
I'm this and it's very, very painful. And as you
begin to take first step, you start grieving over your past. Man,
I wish that hadn't happened. I wish I hadn't done
those dumb decisions. I wish I hadn't had that bad response.
(02:00):
And you start to grieve over wasted time, wasted energy,
wasted guilt and shame and resentment, and you start to grieve.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
And so God takes us.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
To step two, which is the hope step, and God
helps us and in Matthew, Chapter five, verse four. The
second beatitude says, God blesses those people who grieve. They
will find comfort. Now, what God is saying here is
when you do the painful work, and it is painful
(02:31):
of owning up to your problems, of owning up to
the health issues that are not correct in your life, physical, emotional, spiritual,
in every other way. When you actually face your hang ups,
your hurts, your bad habits, and you face that pain,
God says, I will be right there to give you hope. Now,
you cannot get healthy without hope. You can go forty
(02:55):
days without food. You can go about eight days without
water and go I don't know, I think about eight
to three minutes without air at the maximum. But you
can't go one second without hope. You have to have
hope in order to get healthy again. You'd never go
on a diet if you didn't. Hope would make you
look better, feel better. You hoped it would work, and
(03:19):
so we all need hope. You cannot live without hope.
The verse there on your Bible, on your outlined Proverbs
eighteen fourteen says no one can live with a broken spirit.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Now, what is hope?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Hope is the light at the end of the tunnel
that all this effort I'm making into honestly face my
past and my hang ups and the things in my
life that aren't right, that there's a light at the
end of the tunnel.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
There is hope.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
That it's the expectation that things are gonna work out,
that it's gonna get better. Hope is the energy that
helps you keep going on as we take these eight
steps to getting healthy again Together. No hope, you won't
last this series much less through what God wants to
do in your life. The issue then becomes how do
(04:05):
you have hope or where do you get hope when
change seems hopeless. I've worked on my marriage, it didn't
get any better. I've worked on these things in my
life that I know I don't like and I want
to change in my life, but I don't know how
to get better. And when you feel hopeless about a relationship,
(04:26):
about a problem, about a situation, about a characteristic of
your life that you really don't like, about something that's
happened to you in the past that you can't seem
to let go of, and you feel hopeless, where do
you get hope in those situations? Well, the Bible tells
us where, and the Bible says that there are five
things that you need to remember that will give you
(04:49):
hope in a hopeless situation. In fact, let me make
you a guarantee this morning. If you will memorize these
five things, and if you will remember them on a
day by day basis, and you really let them enter
into your heart and your soul, you will never again
feel hopeless. I can guarantee that, on the basis of
(05:12):
God's word, if you will remember these five things and
apply them every time you start to get in despair,
you will never again feel hopeless. Now, these five things
build on each other. The first one's pretty obvious, and
as we get a little bit further and further, it becomes.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
More and more powerful in your life. What are they?
Number one?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
If I want to have hope to change, first, I
must remember God is with me. I remember that God
is with me. Because the first reason we often feel
hopeless is we forget about God. We think we're on
our own, on our own. We think, if it's to be,
it's up to me. We think I have to solve
all my problems myself. God isn't there, and we forget
(05:57):
God The Bible says this in Job chapter eight.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Read it with me.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Those who forget God have no hope. Well, of course, folks,
if there were no God in this world, we'd have
a lot of reasons to be discouraged. We'd have a
lot of reasons to feel helpless and hopeless. Alexander Schulzenitzen,
the Nobel Prize winner, wrote an article a while back
in National Review magazine, and he said, if you want
(06:24):
to summarize all of the problems of the twentieth century,
all of the bad things that happened in the last
one underd years, you can sum it up in one phrase.
That was the title of his article. Men have forgotten God.
When we forget God, we tend to act like animals.
When we forget God, we tend to be selfish. When
we forget God, we tend to lose hope. Now, a
(06:46):
definition of an atheist is someone who is living as
if there is no God. Now, if that's the definition,
I know a lot of Christians who are atheists, because
even though we believe in God, we often act when
it comes to our problems like God doesn't exist. I
got to solve this problem on my own. I've got
to do this on my energy.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I got to figure it all out myself.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
We don't consult God, we don't pray to God, we
don't think of him first. We think, well, I just
got to figure this out. That's called practical atheism, and
a lot of Christians do that.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
In fact, the pastors can do it.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
In nineteen eighty at the end of the first year
of this church, my health hit the wall. I had
a health crisis and I just lost all my strength.
And I went through a year in nineteen eighty one
of depression for almost a year, and I was very weak.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I didn't have much energy at all.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
And I was filled with doubt and fill with anxiety
about the future of this church. And I thought, what
if I don't get my strength back, What if I
don't regain my health, What if I don't have the
energy to lead this church? What will happen to the church?
Will it crumble? Will it fall apart? Will it blow away?
What's going to happen? And I was filled with a
(07:59):
lot of doubt and a lot of despair. God said
to me, not literally, but in my mind, gave me
an idea. He said, an impression. He said, Rick whose
church is this. I said, well, it's your church, God.
He said, then it's my responsibility, not yours, so we
don't worry about it. And I took my Bible and
(08:20):
I began to read through the Book of Psalms, and
I took an under a highlighter, and I underlined all
of the verses that dealt with either despair or depression.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
And in that study I found this.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Verse, the next verse in your outline, Lord, when doubts
fill my mind and when my heart is in turmoil,
quiet me and give me renewed hope and cheer. Some
of you are feeling hopeless about changing your life right now,
it's never going to change. You need to memorize this verse.
(08:54):
You need to pray it to God. You need to pray, Lord,
when doubts fill my mind and when my heart is
in turmoil, quiet me and give me renewed hope and cheer.
It's like the old Amy Grant song. You've got to
remember you're not alone in this world. The first thing
you remember when you start to feel hopeless is God
(09:16):
is with me.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
But that's not all. Number two.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
I remember not only that He's with me, but I
remember that God cares about me. He cares about me,
He loves me. I matter to him. And the Bible
is very very clear about this in Lamentations chapter three.
Let's read it together. I have hope when I think
of this. The Lord's love never ends. His mercies never stop.
(09:43):
They are new every morning. Now circle the phrase never ends.
How is that possible? How is it possible for God's
love for you to never end? I mean, obviously human
love ends. We see it all around us. People fall
out of love all the time. Why because human love
is conditional, and God's love is unconditional, and therefore it
(10:04):
never ends.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
There's a version in.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
The Bible where God says, I have loved you with
an everlasting love. I have loved you with an everlasting love.
Now here's my question to you. Have you ever let
God love you?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Oh? You know about God's love. But I've said this before, But.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Many Christians have never felt the unconditional love of God.
In your mind, you still think God's love is conditional,
that he loves you on your good days, and he
frowns on you on your bad days. And there are
areas in your life you don't even know about. There
are areas in your mind closets and doors and rooms
that you.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Don't know about.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
God wants to fill every area of your mind, heart,
and soul with his love, and that takes time, and
you have to.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Learn to let God love you.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Why because when you let God love the ugly things
in your life, you have to first admit and that's tough.
In fact, it's far easier. Listen, It's far easier for
you to love God than it is for you to
let God love the unlovely parts in your life. Henry
(11:17):
Nowen wrote a book called The Return of the Prodigal Son,
and in that he talks about Rembrandt's famous picture of
the Prodigal Son. You know that story. The son went
to his dad one day, it's in the Bible, and
he said, Dad, I want half my inheritance. And he
went off and blew it on wine, women and song,
mostly on women. A few years later, he comes back home.
He's broke, he's busted, he's destitute, and he goes I
(11:39):
blew it dad, and his father, instead of rejecting him,
giving a scolding or lecture, welcomes him home with a warm, loving,
forgiving embrace. Rembrandt painted this painting of the loving Father
welcoming the sum home. And that's the center of the picture.
But over to the side, there are some bystanders who
were watching.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
You were looking on as observers, and now On says this.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
For years I instructed students on the different aspects of
the spiritual life. But one day I realized that I
had never ever really dared to step into the center
of the picture, kneel down and let myself be held
by a forgiving God. Have you ever done that? Have
you ever let yourself be held by forgiving God? I
(12:26):
needed to move from a bystander to a participant, from
a teacher about love to being loved as the beloved.
But I didn't have an inkling of how difficult that
journey would be and how much longer it would take
to complete.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Why is that?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Why does it take so long to really understand the
unconditional love of God? Because it's a process, Because God
has to open up areas of your life that you
really don't want to look at, areas that you don't
like about yourself, And God says, you know what, I
want you to know that I love you even in
that area, even in the area that you can't stand
about you notice this next verse on your outline some
(13:08):
one oh three. He is like a father to us,
tender and sympathetic, for he knows what we're made of dust,
We're just particles put together. And God says, I want
to be a father to you, tender and sympathetic. God
wants to be the father that you may have never had,
(13:31):
a different kind of father than the one you may
have had, A tender, a sympathetic, an understanding father, because
he knows all about you. He knows why things happen
to you, He knows why you chose to do the
choices you made, and he loves you. Many people, if
not most people, have never really felt that they matter
(13:53):
to God. They've never really felt that God loved them unconditionally.
This week I talked to a woman who was radically
changed when she finally experienced the unconditional love of God.
And she told me about her past and how it
caused enormous shame in her life. She said she felt guilty,
(14:14):
she felt ashamed, she felt self loathing, she felt discussed
with herself about some decisions that she had made and
some actions she had taken and regrets. And I asked her,
I said, what was the breakthrough, what was the turning point?
And this is what she said. I wrote it down
when I realized that God loved every part of me,
(14:37):
every part of me, not just now, but even at
the very moment I was making ugly, sinful choices.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
He even loved me. Then, when she understood that her
life was changed by.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
The unconditional love of God, That's what Romans five eight says.
The next verse, God showed is great love for us
by sending Christ to.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Die for us.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
You want to know how much you matter, Look at
the cross. That's how much you matter. Jesus Christ came
to earth to die for you. That's the reason for hope.
Not only is God with me, but he cares about me.
Number three and it gets even better. Not only is
He with you and care about you. I need to
remember that He knows my situation. He knows my problem,
(15:25):
he knows my pain, he knows the things that hurt
in my heart. How is that possible? Well, obvious, God
knows everything. He knows your habits, he knows your hang ups,
he knows your hurts. Saw him fifty six. Verse six says,
you know how troubled I am. You have kept the
record of my tears? Did you know that? Did you
(15:48):
know that? The Bible says, God has kept the record
of every tear that has fallen down your cheek. That's
what I call getting up close and personal. Ever ever
even shed a tear that God missed. Nothing is beyond
his love, nothing is beyond his compassionate gaze.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
He's with you.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
He loves you, and he sees everything you have gone
through are going through, and knows what you're going to
go through. He knows you up close and personal. You've
all heard people say, nobody knows what I'm going through.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
God does. Nobody knows the hell I'm in at home?
God does.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
God knows exactly what you're feeling. In fact, he knows.
Listen to this. He knows it better than you do,
because you don't even understand some of the pain you
go through. You don't know why all the time you heard.
But God does. In fact that you know that. The
Bible says, when you are in so much pain and
you are so confused about something in your life that
(16:53):
you don't even know how to put it into words,
you can't even pray about it because you can't verbalize
what you feel. The Bible says God prays for you.
He talks to himself about your pain. In Romans chapter eight,
it says, when we don't know what to pray, when
we're in pain, when we don't know which way to turn,
the Holy Spirit praise for us. God talks to himself
(17:15):
about your pain. That's how much you matter. Even when
you don't know how to pray, He's praying for you
to himself. That's how much you matter to God. That's
how intimately he is aware.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Of what's going on in your life.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Psalm thirty one, verse seven says, you have seen the
crisis in my soul. Some of you are in a
crisis right now. God sees it, He knows about it,
He cares about it, and there is hope for change
if you will trust him. I want you to hear
Carl's story. Would you welcome him.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
My name is Karl, and I'd like to share how
Jesus Christ changed my life and set me on the
path to getting healthy again when I finally realized how
much I matter to God. I've spent most of my
life pretending that I'm braver than I feel. I've struggled
all my life with feelings of worthlessness, insecurity, fear, panic,
and anxiety. You see, I was raised in a very
(18:23):
ultra strict family, where my father's motto was children are
to be seen and not heard. There was no physical abuse,
but my parents used rage to control us and fear
to intimidate us into submission. I was never allowed to
voice my opinion. In fact, I never really felt my
feelings mattered as a child. My spirit was broken through
(18:44):
a lot of frightening incidents. For instance, when I was
about seven, our family was driving home from visiting my
grandparents when I offered a stick of gum to my siblings.
Dad immediately knew that I had stolen the gum from
my grandparents and confronted me. I admitted it and expected
a good spanking. When we got home. However, Dad pulled
(19:04):
over and asked if I knew what happens to thieves.
I said no, and he replied that they go to prison.
He then pointed to a big, dark, scary looking building
and told me that it was the prison I would
be staying in for the next twenty years. He made
me hand over all my possessions and said I should
beg God's forgiveness. My brother and sisters and I were
(19:24):
screaming in fear. That was the beginning of my lifelong
struggle with fear of others and of God. I became
a people pleaser. Unfortunately, my fears and insecurity were reinforced
by my religious upbringing. I was taught that my salvation
was based on how good and perfect I was. But
even if I led a perfect life and then committed
(19:47):
one mortal sin and died without confessing it, I was
told that God would send me to hell for all eternity.
I'm sure many of you were brought up this way too. Grace, love,
and forgiveness were foreign concepts to me. I was expected
to perfectly keep the Ten Commandments and under my own power.
Since there was no provision for failure or progress, I
(20:09):
could never admit my struggles, so I learned to put
on a mask of self righteous piety, while inside I
was consumed by the terror and guilt of my inability
to live up to a perfect standard. I thought God,
like my Dad, was unpleasable, so I tried to appease
the wrath of both God and my Dad by going
(20:30):
to seminary to study for the priesthood. I wanted to
escape my feeling of self condemnation and earn the love
I desperately desired. But there was no escape there either.
From day one, I compared myself with the other seminarians
and felt that I came up short. Not only did
I feel that they were all more godly than I,
I felt that God himself viewed me as a hypocrite.
(20:52):
I wanted to leave after the first six months, but
it took two more years to build up the courage
to face my dad's disappointment of not having a son
as a priest. Then, in nineteen sixty eight, I got married.
My wife was very controlling and I was very controllable.
We fought often, but I'd feel fearful and guilty and
give in. We both were miserable over time she gained
(21:15):
one hundred and twenty pounds. Instead of lovingly confronting her,
I had a pity party and started going to prostitutes.
After nineteen years of misery, my wife left me. I
spent the next three months in severe depression and isolation.
To add insult to injury. When I finally went to
a counselor to deal with my deep feelings that I
(21:36):
was worthless and didn't matter to anyone. My therapist fell
asleep while I was talking to him. That was the
final straw. I did a complete oneint eighty and decided
I would start living solely for myself, without regard for
others approval. So I partied hard for the next four
(21:56):
years and went to the opposite extreme of my strict upbringing.
I got addicted to prostitutes and pornography, tried drugs, and
became an alcoholic. But no matter what I did, I
couldn't escape the feeling that I didn't matter and the
childlike fear and panic that still often gripped me. So
I tried confronting my fears. I decided to act tough
(22:18):
on the outside. For three and a half years, I
worked as a bouncer at a bar, smuggled steroids across
the border from my own use, took karate, and got tattoos.
But all these remedies were only skin deep. My heart
was still fearful inside. Gradually I realized how I had
traded one form of bondage for another, and how empty
(22:38):
it was, and I was then God lovingly reached out
to me in grace. A fellow bouncer began to talk
to me about God. Then God used a beautiful dancer
to invite me to church. I guess God knew what
it would take to get my attention. It was here
at Saddleback that I heard for the first time that
I really mattered to God. And for the first time
(23:01):
I heard what Jesus is really like. I'd been taught
that Jesus was a victim. Here I learned that he
chose to die and he did it for me. He
did it because I mattered that much to him. This
was truly amazing grace. Then eight years ago, Pastor Rick
began a series on recovery principles from the Beatitudes of Jesus.
(23:21):
So the following Friday, I went to celebrate recovery to
let God start healing my hurts, habits, and unhealthy attitudes.
From the moment I walked in the door, I knew
that I was home at last. Nobody tried to judge me,
fix me, use me, or shame me. Instead, they gave
me what I'd been looking for all my life, unconditional love.
That started my process of getting healthy again in regards
(23:45):
to my hurts. As I began to feel and experience
God's deep love and grace. Old wounds began to be healed,
including closure with my ex wife and a new relationship
with my parents in regard to my habits. Through God's power,
I read recently celebrated eight years of moral purity and
ten years of sobriety. But to me, the most incredible
(24:16):
change has occurred with the fear that I've carried all
my life. Growing up, I was a victim. I didn't
even have ownership of my own feelings and opinions. I
had no problem embracing the first step that Pastor Rick
talked about last week. I felt powerless all the time.
Unfortunately I was stuck there. What I needed was the
hope of Step two. As I learned more about how
(24:37):
much I mattered to God and how much Jesus Christ
loves me, my fears, panic, and insecurities began to decrease.
As First John four p. Thirteen says, there is no
fear in love. Perfect love drives out fear because fear
has to do with punishment. You see, at the root
of all my insecurity and fear was my fear of God.
(24:57):
I had a God problem.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Here.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
I learned about God's amazing grace through Jesus that freed
me from my terror of God. Rather than working against me,
God wanted to help me and give me the power
I needed to do the right things. My works oriented
perfectionism has convinced me that I was powerless, but Jesus
did for me what I couldn't do for myself. He
loved me, and his love and power transformed my life.
(25:23):
I now have the privilege of serving as one of
the leaders for a men's recovery group and as leader
of Teens and Temptations, a group to help teens get
healthy again. In closing, I want to share my life
verse it has given me the hope to get healthy again,
especially in the area of perfectionism. Romans eight one says, therefore,
(25:44):
there is now no condemnation for those who are in
Christ Jesus. If you're struggling with insecurity, fear, and feelings
of worthlessness, I urge you to turn your life over
to Jesus. His love will give you the hope you
need to get healthy again. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
If you feel you're in a hopeless situation, you just
need to remember these things.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
God is with me. God cares about me.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
God sees what I'm going through and it even gets better.
Number four, I need to remember he has power I
don't have. He has power that I don't have. Luke
eighteen says, what is impossible for men is possible with God.
Did you know that the sun radiates more power in
(26:45):
one second than has been used by all of mankind
throughout history in one second? Did you know that the
sun has enough power to burn constantly for the next
thirty billion in years, and that son is just one
of gazillions of them that God created. Sufficing to say,
(27:08):
God has more power than you can comprehend. You just
need to realize He's got enough for your problems now.
Because God's power is unlimited, two things are true. Number one,
he never gets tired, he never gets fatigued, he never
runs out of energy. And number two, he never calls
(27:28):
rolling blackouts. He doesn't say now for the next hour
of your life, my power will not be available. I'm
sorry you're on your own in this situation. Forget the temptation.
He has more power than you could possibly imagine, and
what's impossible for men is possible with God.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
You are listening to Pastor Rick's Day, and I want
to share something that can bring hope and healing to
your everyday life. Yeah, no matter what challenges you face,
you can find peace and strength by immersing yourself in
God's Word. And that's why we're so excited to introduce
the Life's Healing Choices Scripture Box. This is a unique
(28:19):
resource and it's designed to inspire and uplift you, helping
you trust in God's promises through every high and every low.
It features fifty two beautifully designed scripture cards that offer
encouragement straight from the Bible. And these scripture cards come
in a beautifully crafted, high quality leather like box with
(28:40):
enough space to add more sets of scripture cards as
your collection grows. The Life's Healing Choices Scripture Box is
a perfect tool to deepen your faith. It fills your
mind and heart with God's truth, one uplifting verse at
a time. And today, when you support daily hope with
a gift, please request your very own Life's Healing Choices
(29:01):
Scripture Box. You know your donation really helps us share
the hope of Jesus Christ with people all around the world,
and this beautiful scripture box is our way of saying thanks.
Just go to Pastorick dot com to get your copy
of this great resource that's pastorick dot com. Or you
can just text the word hope to seven oh three
(29:23):
oh nine. Again, that's the word hope to seven oh
three oh nine. Be sure to join us next time
as we look into God's Word for our daily hope.
This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and
your generous financial support.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!