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Win Today: Your Roadmap to Wholeness

Your Soul Is Fragmented. Now What? Heath Hardesty on Why You Can't Receive God's Love and the Lie of Self-Improvement Christianity

Win Today: Your Roadmap to Wholeness

Christopher Cook

Mental Health, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Health & Fitness

4.9 • 528 Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2026

⏱️ 70 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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.

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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Episode Links

Transcript

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0:00.0

The Art of Leadership Network.

0:03.2

This week on Win Today.

0:04.8

When apprenticeship, discipleship to Jesus is reduced to a program and becomes simply

0:12.2

this kind of linear, you know, step one, step two, step three, kind of eight, nine week

0:18.1

course that you master and then you're done.

0:27.3

We've left the truth of what apprenticeship to Jesus really is.

0:30.3

Hey, you guys, welcome to the podcast.

0:32.5

Thanks so much for joining me this week.

0:36.6

So there's a quiet reality many people are starting to recognize.

0:37.5

Maybe you.

0:39.7

Their souls feel fragmented.

0:41.5

Attention is scattered.

0:43.1

Emotions are inconsistent.

0:47.8

And even their relationship with the Lord can feel distant or mechanical.

0:53.2

And what makes it even more confusing is that many are doing all the right things.

0:56.0

Things like reading scripture, attending church, engaging spiritual practices, and yet despite all that, they still feel disconnected from

1:02.2

the love of God. Well, today my guest is a new friend pastor and author Heath Hardesty. This

1:08.1

week we talk about why so many believers struggle to actually receive

1:11.6

God's love apart from good performance. In other words, do good, get good, do bad, get rejected.

1:19.5

If you've listened to the podcast for any length of time, you know I've been transparent about

1:23.3

my own journey and struggle with exactly that. I'm working on that right now. We also discuss

1:29.4

how discipleship has often been reduced to a subtle form of self-improvement and why our

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