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Awesome Marriage Podcast

Wider Lens: Free Me from Me: Escaping the Maze of Self-Centeredness by Embracing a God-Centered Life

Awesome Marriage Podcast

Dr. Kim Kimberling

Relationships, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.9 • 813 Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2026

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Are you caught in a maze and don't even know it? Today, Dr. Kim is joined by Ryan Wekenman to talk about the maze of self-centeredness we all have to navigate. When we begin living for applause, appreciation, or validation, we can easily drift out of sync with the Lord and into a life focused on serving ourselves—the exact opposite of what God calls us to. In this powerful conversation, Ryan and Dr. Kim challenge us to recognize the pull toward self-focus and invite us to shift our attention back where it belongs: fully on Jesus. We pray this episode encourages you to take the focus off yourself and go all in on Him.

Episode Takeaways:

  • Self-centeredness is a spiritual issue that affects everyone.

  • Control is often at the root of self-centeredness.

  • We need to be intentional about serving others.

  • Self-improvement should not come at the expense of God-centered living.

  • The Lord is our shepherd; we lack nothing when we trust Him.

  • Finding freedom comes from letting go of the need for validation.

Quotes from this Episode:

If Satan can't get you to not worship, he'll try to get you to make worship about you.

You don't need self-help. First and foremost, you need God's help.

The problem isn't self-help. The problem is thinking that self-help will save.

The way towards abundant life is serving and it's humbling yourself.

There's so much freedom on the other side of letting that performer in you die.

I think we have to be intentional about that because it's easy to absorb the culture and let that just become part of, well, everybody's doing it.- Dr. Kim

I think one thing that God has taught me and I still struggle with at times is learning to celebrate others. - Dr. Kim

I think what God is teaching me now, as old as I am, is that just do what I want you to do. - Dr. Kim

 

Time to Reflect:

  1. Where in my life am I most tempted to seek applause, appreciation, or validation instead of simply seeking the Lord?

  2. How might my focus on myself be affecting the way I love and serve my spouse and the people around me?

  3. What is one practical way I can shift my focus from myself to Jesus in my daily decisions and interactions this week?

 

Connect with Ryan:

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Self-help books fly off the shelves, self-help podcast, so much information out there.

0:05.3

And the thing is, like, I journaled this morning. I take, I do cold plunges all the time.

0:10.7

You know, like so much of the self, the tools that the self-help world is teaching are great tools.

0:16.9

The problem isn't self-help. The problem is thinking that self-help will save.

0:21.6

And so what ends up happening is these tools, actually, if we're not careful, what ends up happening is we start practicing these tools with self as the starting point.

0:33.6

And then we start to wonder why we're still so exhausted at the end of the day.

0:40.2

And so I think one of the things that we just need to be aware of in our cultural moment is

0:45.5

that all of these tools can be good things, but you don't need self-help.

0:49.9

First and foremost, you need God's help.

0:51.9

Welcome to the wider lens podcast.

0:53.7

Today, my special guest is Ryan Winkerman.

0:56.8

He's a storyteller, a pastor who is passionate about finding creative ways to help people explore

1:01.8

life's biggest questions.

1:03.4

He's the author of Singlet Today and Free Me from Me and the co-host of two podcasts,

1:08.5

Stories in Scripture, a show that brings the Bible to life for people

1:11.8

all around the world, and afterthoughts, a weekly conversation about faith, culture, and the church.

1:16.9

He has a master's degree from Talbot School of Theology and is the teaching pastor of Red Rocks

1:21.9

in Austin, a young, vibrant church. Let's go to the studio and meet Ryan now.

1:31.6

Ryan, welcome to the Waterlands podcast. I am so glad to have you here today that you were able to join us. And I am really excited about this

1:36.2

conversation and about the book and all those kind of things. So thanks for saying yes. Kim,

1:41.5

thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here. I love the space that you're creating.

1:45.7

And I can't wait to dive into it.

...

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