Awake Nations

Today, we engage in a profound exploration of the theme of divine disruption as articulated in Glenn Bleakney's enlightening work, *The Unexpected Path to God's Purpose*. The episode invites listeners to introspectively assess their current internal landscapes, particularly the unsettling feelings of restlessness that often accompany significant life transitions. We delve into the universal human experience of feeling as though the solid ground beneath our feet is eroding, revealing how such disruptions are frequently misinterpreted as failures rather than as divine redirections toward new assignments. Our discourse elucidates the critical distinction between discerning God’s acts and understanding His ways, emphasizing that the discomfort we experience during transitions may serve as a vital mechanism for spiritual growth and preparation. By navigating these themes, we aim to equip listeners with the insights necessary to embrace change as a catalyst for personal and spiritual evolution, rather than as a source of anxiety or despair.

Takeaways:

• The sensation of shifting ground often indicates a universal human experience of divine disruption.
• Divine intervention frequently occurs not to rescue us, but to lead us into new assignments.
• Understanding the difference between God's acts and His ways is crucial for spiritual discernment.
• Transitioning through divine disruption can lead to profound personal growth and character development.

Links referenced in this episode:

• awakenationstv
• unsettledbook.com
• awakenations

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Awakenations TV
• Glenn Bleakney
• Unsettled Book

Hey everyone!

Today’s training with Dr. John Burpee was riveting and empowering. We explored how believers can train their five spiritual senses, become more sensitive to the Holy Spirit, and recognize the many ways God communicates with us.

Hebrews 5:14 teaches that our powers of discernment are “trained by constant practice.” Spiritual discernment does …

What do you do when your plans fall apart, your resources begin to disappear, or important relationships come to an end?

Glenn Bleakney reveals three ways God unsettles us: the disruption of plans, the dissipation of resources, and the dissolution of relationships. Discover why disruption does not always mean destruction—sometimes it is God’s preparation for your next season.

Glenn’s new book, Unsettled: The Unexpected Path to God’s Purpose, releases August 18. Download a free chapter and preorder at UnsettledBook.com.

Awake Nations with Glenn Bleakney is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

When something God once used begins to disappear, it does not mean He has forgotten you. Yesterday’s provision is not always tomorrow’s pathway.

The brook drying up was not Elijah’s destruction; it was God’s direction. Don’t become so focused on what is ending that you fail to hear where God is leading you next.

Unsettled: The Unexpected Path to God’s Purpose is available August 18.

Download a free chapter and preorder at UnsettledBook.com

Awake Nations with Glenn Bleakney is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

What do you do when your plans fall apart, your resources begin to disappear, or important relationships come to an end?

Glenn Bleakney reveals three ways God unsettles us: the disruption of plans, the dissipation of resources, and the dissolution of relationships. Discover why disruption does not always mean destruction—sometimes it is God’s preparation for your next season.

Glenn’s new book, Unsettled: The Unexpected Path to God’s Purpose, releases August 18. Download a free chapter and preorder at UnsettledBook.com.

From a young age, we are handed a map for life. Follow the right path, make wise choices, work hard and everything should unfold according to plan.

But what happens when the plan falls apart?

A door closes. A dependable resource dries up. A relationship that once felt secure comes to an end. In moments like these, it is easy to assume we have failed—or that God has forgotten us.

But sometimes what feels like disruption is actually divine redirection.

The apostle Paul had a worthy plan to preach in Asia, but the Holy Spirit prevented him from going. That closed door redirected Paul toward Macedonia, opening the way for the gospel to advance into Europe.

Elijah experienced something similar when the brook that sustained him dried up. The empty creek bed was not evidence that God had abandoned him. It was a signal that the season had changed. God was leading him toward Zarephath, where another miracle was waiting.

Not every disappointment is directly caused by God. Human decisions, our own mistakes and life in a broken world can all affect what happens to us. Yet none of these things place us beyond God’s ability to redeem, redirect and use them for His purposes.

The most difficult part is often the space between doors. The old season has ended, but the new one has not yet begun. You no longer have a map, so you must learn to listen for God’s voice.

That unsettled place is not wasted. God uses it to deepen your dependence, strengthen your character and prepare you for what comes next.

God is not trying to leave you rootless. He is a planter. When He permits your roots to be disturbed, it may be because He is preparing to establish you in soil where you can flourish.

If your plans have been interrupted, your resources have diminished or familiar relationships have changed, do not assume your story is over. God may be redirecting your steps toward a purpose you cannot yet see.

Feeling Unsettled?

Download a free chapter of my new book, Unsettled: The Unexpected Path to God’s Purpose, and preorder your copy today at a special discounted price.

Download the free chapter and preorder at UnsettledBook.com

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Glenn Bleakney sits down with Shaneen Clarke, a dynamic Christian speaker and John Maxwell certified life coach, for an unflinching look at faith, healing, and the complex reality of spiritual trauma. Against the backdrop of recent church leadership controversies, Shaneen draws from her extensive ministry experience to explore the delicate balance between maintaining faith and processing hurt within religious communities.

Drawing from her own journey and years of guiding others, Shaneen offers a compassionate roadmap for those wrestling with their spiritual identity after experiencing emotional abuse in faith settings. She tackles the challenging question many face: how do we reconcile our image of a loving God with painful experiences in His church?

This episode delves deep into the healing process, offering practical wisdom for rebuilding trust and finding authentic community after church hurt. Shaneen shares transformative insights on the power of forgiveness without diminishing the validity of pain, while providing concrete tools for those ready to step into their next chapter of faith.

Whether you're personally processing church trauma or supporting someone who is, this conversation offers both validation and hope for the journey ahead.

Some of you love Jesus and cannot walk back through a church door. You have not turned from the Lord; you have turned from a room where you were hurt. I understand that, and so does my recent guest on the podcast, Shaneen Clarke.

Shaneen spent more than twenty years in a church in the UK before enduring what she now names plainly as spiritual abuse. In her words, it was mostly the misuse of authority, the kind that grows in a celebrity culture where everyone assumes the leader is right and everything he says must be from God. She knows the cost from the inside. She lost trust in leadership, wondered whether her marriage, her finances, her reputation, and her faith would survive, and reached the place where she wanted to give up. “I’ll still love God,” she remembers thinking, “but I don’t know if I could carry on in ministry.”

She did carry on. And her testimony now is that recovery is possible.

NAMING WHAT WE HAVE TOLERATED

There is a line Shaneen offered that I have not been able to set down: what we confront will die, and what we tolerate dominates. For too many years the church has tolerated toxic culture, and toleration is a kind of permission. We have watched a pattern repeat across the world, in Australia, in America, in Europe, in Asia; a moral failure surfaces, and behind it we discover a culture that was already unwell, leaders who knew something and said nothing, people who felt intimidated and stayed quiet. The failure was the symptom. The tolerated culture was the root.

Part of what has done such deep harm is the weaponizing of Scripture, bending the text to defend the leader or to pressure the wounded. Shaneen named the prosperity distortion especially, the give-and-you-will-be-blessed, withhold-and-you-will-be-cursed manipulation that has bruised so many. I know the genuine scriptural basis for generous giving; that is not what either of us is describing. We are describing the misuse of holy words to control God’s people.

This is why silence is not neutrality. When leadership avoids the truth to protect the institution or the reputation of a leader, it deepens the wound. Shaneen was direct: we minimize what victims have been told, we defend the wrong thing, and we withhold the whole truth. The healthier way is full disclosure, honestly facing what actually took place rather than rushing to defend a system.

THE HEALING IS REAL, AND IT IS PRACTICAL

If you are in the middle of this, Shaneen walked through the practical steps that carried her, and I want to hand them to you plainly.

Call it what it is. Acceptance comes first. Stop defending the abuse. Many of us feel guilty even using the words spiritual abuse, as though naming it were the sin. Naming it honestly is where healing begins.

Forgive. The big “F word” in the church, as she put it. Forgiveness is not a verdict that what happened was acceptable; it is the guarding of your own heart against bitterness, resentment, and the trap of a wound that never closes.

Regain trust. Trust is rebuilt through relationships, face to face, not only through a screen. When we are hurting we isolate, we hide, we carry shame that whispers we did something wrong. Reconnecting is hard precisely there, and it is exactly where the mending happens.

Step back and take counsel. Seek a trusted third party who can assess the situation from every angle. Shaneen did this; she went to two mature elders who took her cause to the leaders. The leaders refused to meet, and Matthew 18 was never honored, and her wound went deeper because a biblical principle was denied. Her counsel still stands: get wise, outside help.

See a therapist if you need one. There is good Christian therapy available, and there is nothing unspiritual about it. Churches, of all places, should be the ones encouraging it.

DON’T LET GO OF THE CHURCH

Here is the part I most want the wounded to hear, and it comes from someone who earned the right to say it. Don’t isolate yourself. Don’t let go of the church.

Shaneen reclaimed her faith and her healing by going back to community. Not the polished, trending, everything-looks-perfect environment she had known for years; she now belongs to a small local village Bible study, and she has found there the authenticity and the deeper, meaningful connection her soul actually needed. “We don’t find community,” she told me. “We build community.” She lost friends in the season of her hurt, people who judged her and fell away, and she grieved them; but others stood beside her, and those are the ones she chose to build with.

The Scripture we opened with was Hebrews 10:25, that we not neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encourage one another, all the more as we see the Day drawing near. The Day is drawing near, and it is dark out there, and we were never meant to walk this road alone.

MEND BEFORE SEND

I shared with Shaneen something I teach here often. In Ephesians 4:12, the word for equipping carries the sense of mending or repairing. The fivefold ministry does not exist merely so you can identify your gift and your calling; it exists to make you whole, to form Christ in you until we come to the full stature of Christ. God wants to mend you before He sends you.

That is the reformation I believe we are living through. Not the destruction of the church, but its divine reconstruction; leaders being revived and made healthy, relationships being realigned, the authentic gospel being recovered after a decade of sugarcoating. A generation that will not settle for half-truths is asking, honestly, what is true, and where can we go if we cannot trust the church? The answer cannot be a better facade. It has to be a church with a pure heart and clean hands, a place where Jesus is truly honored as Lord and people are loved because they bear His image.

So if you have been hurt, hear this from someone who has been where you are and has come out the other side. It took her a while. It may take you a while. But healing is possible, community can be rebuilt, and the Father is near to the brokenhearted.

Be brave. Reconnect.

Shaneen Clarke has ministered for thirty years across Europe and beyond. You can connect with her at shaneenclarke.com. This post is drawn from our conversation on the podcast; a fuller follow-up on spiritual fathers and mothers is on the way.

Awake Nations with Glenn Bleakney is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Church hurt is real—but it doesn't have to define your future.

In this honest and hope-filled conversation, Glenn Bleakney sits down with Christian speaker and leadership coach Shaneen Clarke to explore the growing crisis of spiritual abuse, toxic church culture, and moral failure within the Church.

Drawing from her own journey of healing and restoration, Shaneen shares practical wisdom for rebuilding trust, processing disappointment, and rediscovering authentic Christian community without losing your faith in Jesus.

Together they discuss:

• What spiritual abuse really looks like
• Why so many believers are walking away from church
• How to recover from toxic leadership
• The difference between faith in Christ and disappointment with people
• Building healthy, Christ-centred communities
• Practical steps toward healing, forgiveness, and restoration

Whether you've experienced church hurt personally, are walking with someone through it, or are a leader seeking to cultivate a healthier church culture, this conversation offers biblical wisdom, compassion, and genuine hope.

Connect with Shaneen Clarke:

🌐 https://shaneenclarke.com

Learn more about Glenn Bleakney and Awake Nations:

🌐 https://AwakeNations.org

📺 https://AwakeNations.tv

#ChurchHurt #SpiritualAbuse #Faith #ChristianPodcast #Healing #ChurchLeadership #KingdomReformation #ShaneenClarke #GlennBleakney #Discipleship

Before Elijah stood on Carmel, he was hidden at the Brook Cherith. In this teaching, we unpack the Hebrew roots of "Cherith" (to cut, to cut covenant) and "hide" (saphah, the same word behind Psalm 31:20's "secret place") to reveal that Elijah's hiding wasn't only about provision, it was preparation. Discover the three things God was doing in the secret place, communion, cutting, and covenant, and why this hidden curriculum still shapes every voice God sends to a generation. If you've ever wondered why the wilderness season feels so long, this message will show you what God is actually building in the hidden place before He brings you out.

Awake Nations with Glenn Bleakney is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.