Win Today: Your Roadmap to Wholeness

Your Roadmap to Wholeness

466: When Pain Gets Wasted. Shawn Johnson on Stewarding the Middle Season of Life, How Bitterness Erodes Trust, and Why We Settle for Temporary Rest Instead of True Peace

Podcast ·

There’s a way to live that squanders pain while your heart hardens and your trust thins. Things like numbing, retelling the wound, and calling it wisdom. This week on Win Today, Shawn Johnson, lead pastor of Red Rocks Church and author of Attacking Anxiety, joins me to explore how people waste pain and how to steward the middle seasons when nothing seems to be moving, but everything inside you is being formed. We draw the line between rest and peace, why bitterness and distrust grow in the same soil, and how to turn waiting into worship without pretending the ache away. If you’re stuck in the middle, angry at the delay, or exhausted from managing outcomes, this conversation will help you regain your presence and cultivate a hard-won hope that lasts.

You’ll learn:
  • What “wasting pain” looks like, and how God repurposes it without romanticizing suffering.
  • How to steward the middle: waiting as formation, not failure.
  • The link between bitterness and broken trust, and the practices that starve bitterness.
  • Rest vs. peace: why we chase relief and miss the presence that heals.
  • A simple framework to move forward when anxiety, delay, and disappointment stack up.

Guest Bio

Shawn Johnson is the lead pastor and co-founder of Red Rocks Church (Denver, multi-site), and the author of Attacking Anxiety, where he chronicles his own fight with anxiety and depression and the practices that helped him rebuild. His ministry blends candor about suffering with a relentless call to faith and formation. Today isn’t about his résumé; it’s about your next faithful step in the middle.

Subscribe to the Podcast

Connect with Shawn Johnson

Website | Instagram

Resources Mentioned This Week

Show Partner

SafeSleeve designs a phone case that blocks up to 99% of harmful EMF radiation—so I’m not carrying that kind of exposure next to my body all day. It’s sleek, durable, and most importantly, lab-tested by third parties. The results aren’t hidden—they’re published right on their site. And that matters, because a lot of so-called EMF blockers on the market either don’t work or can’t prove they do. We protect our hearts and minds—why wouldn’t we protect our bodies too? Head to safesleevecases.com and use the code WINTODAY10 for 10% off your order.

Review “Win Today”

Click here to read the ratings, or even better, please leave me a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Your rating will help the podcast get noticed and positioned on Apple Podcasts.

Related Posts