Everyday Faith Podcast

What if God can see you in the darkest place you've ever been — and He's already on His way to find you? 

In part one, Jess sits down with Ashlee Assadi — wife, mom of five girls, artist, and writer whose words have now reached millions of people. But Ashlee's story doesn't start with a platform. It starts with a 21-year-old girl on her knees in tears, asking God if He's even real.

Ashlee shares the moment that changed everything — the loss of her best friend, a prayer prayed in desperation, and a series of encounters so specific and so perfectly timed that looking back, there's really only one explanation. A bubbly stranger in a salon chair. A cousin's invitation to a worship night. A pastor who paused mid-service and described exactly what she'd been through. And a room full of people who prayed over her — the night she gave her life to Jesus and never looked back.

We also hear about what happened on a mission trip to Mexico that permanently changed Ashlee's understanding of what God can do — including a moment straight out of the Gospel of John that she watched unfold right in front of her eyes. 

And she closes with something for every mom, every person doing the quiet and unseen things — a reminder that God is in the small things. He sees them. And He works through them more than we know. 

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What if saying yes to God — even when it costs you everything — is actually the safest place you can be?

Today we're joined by Yegor Hambaryan, a friend of the podcast who has lived more adventures with Jesus in one lifetime than most of us could imagine. Yegor grew up in Armenia, came to faith as a young boy at a summer camp, lost both of his parents as a teenager, and went on to spend years as a missionary across Europe. Most recently, he walked away from a successful tech sales career to become a student in New York — trusting God to handle the rest. 

Yegor talks about what it looks like to be like a tree planted by a stream — not immune to hard seasons, but rooted deeply enough that the hard seasons don't change what you look like from the outside. He talks about the power of a grateful heart, why complainers never get things done, and why sharing the miracles God gives you is the very thing that opens the door to receiving more of them.

If God is calling you to something that comes with a real cost right now, this one is for you.

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Wherever you are in your faith journey, you’re welcome here! Subscribe and find encouragement for the everyday moments that matter most! 

Some conversations are worth revisiting — and this quarter gave us a lot of them.

In this special recap episode, we're pulling together some of our favorite moments from the last few months of guests and conversations. Think of it as a highlight reel of the best things we heard, said, and sat with — and an invitation to go back and listen to the full episodes if you missed them.

We revisit Rachel Bailey on the lies we believe and why there's no shame in having believed them. Noah Egeberg on obedience — and the surprising truth that the first fruit of saying yes to God isn't the outcome, it's intimacy with Him. Tori Benham on the power of agreement and why what we come into agreement with shapes everything about how we live. Thann Bennett on why God's invitations are always more about relationship than results. Ben Cooley on sitting with your kids in the hard stuff instead of rushing to fix it. And one more gem from Ben on culture — whether you're setting it or it's setting you. 

If something jumps out at you, go back and listen to the full conversation. There's more where that came from.

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What if the reason your relationships feel unfulfilling has less to do with the people in them — and more to do with what you've been expecting them to fix?

Dean Goossen is back for part two! Counselor, friend of the podcast, and father of eight – Dean walks us through one of the most honest and clarifying frameworks we've heard for understanding why we do what we do in relationships — starting with the image of a heart full of holes, where love gets poured in and leaks right back out before it can do any good. 

We talk about what it looks like to react from old wounds without even realizing it, why fear is so often at the root of our relational struggles, and what it actually takes to begin healing — not just managing. And then we get into unspoken expectations, which might be the most quietly destructive force in any relationship. The things we assume the other person already knows. The needs we never voice. The conflict that builds up not because anyone did anything wrong, but because nobody said what they actually needed. 

Dean closes with something so simple and so hard most of us never actually do it. Just slow down. Be still. And see what comes to the surface when you stop running from it. 

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What you believe is what you belong to. And that changes everything about your relationships.

That's the idea at the center of this conversation with Dean Goossen — counselor, friend of the podcast, and father of eight. Dean has spent years sitting with people in their hardest moments, and what he keeps coming back to is this: most of our relational struggles aren't really about the other person. They're about the island we're living on inside. 

In this episode, Dean walks us through a deceptively simple framework for understanding why we do what we do in relationships — why we use people as rungs on a ladder, why encouragement doesn't always land, and why achieving everything we thought we wanted can still leave us feeling anxious, depressed, and unsatisfied. 

The answer, he says, always comes back to belief. What have you come into agreement with? And is it actually true?

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Some of the most convincing arguments for faith aren't sermons. They're the ordinary moments where God shows up exactly when He's needed.

In part two of our conversation with Kay Hiramine, we get more of the stories that have shaped his decades of walking with the Lord — moments of provision, healing, and community that defy easy explanation. Kay reflects on what real hospitality looks like, the daily and nightly rhythms that have kept his marriage strong for nearly four decades, and a story of answered prayer that still leaves him in awe.

We talk about what it means to pursue community on purpose, why shared meals matter more than we tend to give them credit for, and what it looks like to step out in obedience even when it feels a little foolish. 

This episode is a powerful reminder that faith was never meant to stay theoretical. It's meant to be lived, tested, and trusted.

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A Buddhist teenager, a secular leadership conference, and a moment that changed everything — this testimony is one you have to hear to believe.

Today we're joined by Kay Hiramine, a man who has spent his life weaving relationships across more than 120 countries, and who carries one of the most remarkable testimonies we've ever heard on this podcast. Kay grew up in a Buddhist home in Southern California, the son of Japanese immigrants, practicing ancestral worship and feeling completely empty inside despite his outward success. By high school he was reading Nietzsche and Camus, sliding into narcissism, and dying on the inside while looking like he had it all together. 

Then, at a totally secular leadership conference, something happened that none of the 13 teenagers in that small group cabin could explain. A presence. A voice. A light. And Kay walked out of that room a changed person, even though he didn't yet know the name of who he'd encountered. 

What follows is a story of searching, heckling a Volkswagen-mechanic-turned-pastor who refused to give up on him, a Gideons Bible bought for a dollar, and a father who threatened him with a knife rather than let him become a Christian. It's raw, it's honest, and it's one of those stories that reminds you just how far God will go to bring someone home.

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What is one thing you're carrying right now that Jesus already paid for?

That's the question we leave every listener with at the end of this episode — and it's worth taking seriously before you answer it too quickly. 

As America marks 250 years of independence, we zoom out to look at where the idea of freedom actually started in this country. The faith of the Pilgrims. The God-language woven throughout the founding documents. The conviction that rights come from a Creator, not a government.

But the episode quickly turns inward — because the bondage most of us are actually fighting isn't external. It's the lies. I am helpless. I am unlovable. I am worthless. Three categories that are at the root of almost every internal struggle — and that Scripture has been speaking to for thousands of years.

We get personal about our own stories of feeling trapped on the inside while looking fine on the outside. And we walk through what it looks like to step into the freedom Jesus actually offers — not freedom to do whatever you want, but freedom to finally live the way you were created to live. 

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What happens when you strip away everything you've achieved, everyone you know, and everything that makes you feel significant — and all that's left is just you and God?

For Ben Cooley, that question stopped being theoretical. He lost his job, his platform, and his sense of identity all at once. And what he found on the other side was something he couldn't have found any other way.

Ben co-founded an anti-slavery organization that reached 12 countries and helped over 100,000 children. He's a father of ten and one of the most honest guests we've ever had on this podcast. In this conversation he talks about belief — not as a concept but as the foundation everything else is built on. How you articulate it, how you rehearse it, how you celebrate it so it actually shapes your family and your organization instead of just looking good on a wall.

He also talks about the lie that high performers are most susceptible to — that God's love is somehow connected to what you produce. And he shares the single most important shift he's made in understanding the difference between being a human doing and a human being.

Life is meant to be enjoyed, not endured. This conversation will remind you why — and point you back to the One who made it that way. 

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What if the greatest gift you could give your kids isn't a better version of your parenting — but a healed version of yourself? 

Jeff Zaugg and Ben Cooley are back for part two of our Father's Day conversation, and this one goes to places we didn't expect. 

Both men get honest about the stories they carry — the moments of failure, the coping mechanisms built around pain, and what it actually looks like to let God do surgery on the parts of you that are still fathering from a place of woundedness. We also spend time on the dad who's thinking about giving up. Not in a surface-level, pull-yourself-together kind of way — but with the kind of honesty that only comes from men who have actually been there. Their answers are worth the whole conversation. 

And they close with a round of practical encouragement that is equal parts funny and genuinely life-giving — the kind that reminds you what this role actually is and why it matters more than you probably give yourself credit for today.

You are loved. You are a learner. You are a leader. And it's not too late.

Join us online!

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Wherever you are in your faith journey, you’re welcome here! Subscribe and find encouragement for the everyday moments that matter most!