487: Your Soul Is Fragmented. Now What? Heath Hardesty on Why You Don’t Know How to Receive God’s Love, the Lie of Self-Improvement Christianity, and the Path Back to Wholeness

Many people today feel scattered. Attention is fractured, emotions are unsteady, and spiritual life feels more like survival than formation. We move from one demand to the next, one distraction to another, and somewhere along the way, the soul begins to splinter. This week on Win Today, Heath Hardesty joins me for a deeply clarifying conversation about what it means to live with an integrated soul in a fragmented world. We examine why so many believers struggle to actually receive the love of God, how discipleship has often been reduced to a subtle form of self-improvement, and why attempts to short-circuit suffering often delay the very formation God is trying to produce. Heath offers a compelling vision of apprenticeship to Jesus—not as a program to become your best self, but as a way of life where union with Him becomes the starting point, abiding and obeying Him becomes the essence, and reflecting Him becomes the aim.

If you feel spiritually scattered, if your faith feels more performative than relational, or if you’ve realized you don’t actually know how to receive the love of God, this conversation will help reorient what true discipleship is meant to form.

You’ll learn:

• Why so many people live with a fragmented inner life
• Why receiving the love of God is harder than we admit
• How discipleship has been reduced to self-improvement
• Why short-circuiting suffering delays spiritual formation
• The biblical vision of apprenticeship that leads to wholeness

Guest Bio

Heath Hardesty serves as the lead pastor of Valley Community Church and is a founder of Inklings Coffee & Tea in downtown Pleasanton, California. Raised in a blue-collar home, Heath began his vocational journey as a plumber’s apprentice in Colorado before transitioning into pastoral ministry on the edge of Silicon Valley, where he now lives with his family. He holds degrees in literature, leadership, biblical studies, and theology from the University of Colorado Boulder and Western Seminary in Portland. Through his teaching and writing, Heath invites people into a reimagined vision of apprenticeship to Jesus—one that cultivates wholeness, resilience, and a deeper experience of God’s love.

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Resources Mentioned This Week

• All Things Together: How Apprenticeship to Jesus Is the Way of Flourishing in a Fragmented World
• Healing What You Can’t Erase: Transform Your Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Health from the Inside Out

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