As winter gives way to spring, this episode invites us to pause before the new season gathers too much speed. Anchored in Ecclesiastes 3:1, Sarah reflects on the invitations God has been extending over the winter months, particularly the practice of saying no in order to make space for what matters most.

Together, we'll look back at the past season, notice the fruit that has grown, and consider whether God's invitation remains the same or is beginning to shift. We'll explore which rhythms are worth carrying forward, what the coming months already hold, and what might get in the way of faithful living in this new season.

Whether spring feels hopeful, busy, uncertain, or full of possibility, this episode offers practical reflection questions to help you notice God's leading and work with the season rather than against it.

Reflection Questions:

• What rhythms from winter still need to come with me into spring?
• What is already on the calendar?
• What will require more energy?
• Where am I likely to overestimate my capacity?
• What might get in the way, or be a trip hazard this spring?
• As I look back over winter, what invitation from God do I notice, and what fruit has begun to grow from it?
• As I move into spring, does the invitation feel the same, or do I notice something new beginning to stir?

Connect with Sarah on Instagram: @inthedustpodcast

This week, Sarah reflects on Philippians 4:9 and the invitation to move beyond learning, receiving, hearing, and seeing into putting faith into practice. Drawing from a recent family wedding, earlier episodes about revelation and cultivation, and a personal nudge after the Te Tiriti o Waitangi Wānanga, this episode explores how transformation often begins in ordinary, specific, and sometimes inconvenient acts of obedience. It is an invitation to notice what God has already shown us and ask what small act of cultivation might help it take root in our actual lives.

Reflection Questions

• What is one thing God has already shown me that I have been agreeing with in theory, but not yet putting into practice in my actual life?

• What small, concrete act of cultivation could I choose this week to start putting it into practice?

You can connect with Sarah on Instagram: @inthedustpodcast

This week, Sarah reflects on the “question behind the question” — the deeper thing that may be sitting beneath our first feelings, reactions, or concerns. Through everyday moments, journalling, Psalm 139, and Proverbs 20:5, this episode invites us to pause before rushing to respond, stay curious with God, and let the Holy Spirit gently draw out what is really going on underneath.

Reflection Questions

• What feeling or reaction has been sitting “on top” for me lately — and what might be underneath it?

• Where might I be tempted to act quickly before I have fully listened, prayed, or understood what is really going on?

• What question behind the question might Jesus be inviting me to notice right now?

• Is this feeling asking to be named, grieved, celebrated, waited with, or acted on?

• How could I make space this week to let God search my heart and gently draw out what is deeper?

You can connect with Sarah on Instagram: @inthedustpodcast

This week, I’m joined by my friend and longtime listener Suz Bathurst. Suz shares her story of coming to faith, following God’s call into Officership, and learning to trust him through the twists and turns of life, family, ministry, diagnosis, and change.

Together we talk about what it means to know ourselves honestly, to connect with God in ways that fit who he has made us to be, and to let go of the pressure to follow a “perfect” spiritual rhythm. Suz’s story is full of encouragement to notice God’s invitations, trust his timing, and begin again right where we are.

Reflection Questions

• What stood out to you from this conversation?
• I wonder how God is inviting you to lean into who you are asyou consider your rhythms of connection with Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

You can connect with Sarah on instagram: @inthedustpodcast

This week, I’m joined by my friend and longtime listener Suz Bathurst. Suz shares her story of coming to faith, following God’s call into Officership, and learning to trust him through the twists and turns of life, family, ministry, diagnosis, and change.

Together we talk about what it means to know ourselves honestly, to connect with God in ways that fit who he has made us to be, and to let go of the pressure to follow a “perfect” spiritual rhythm. Suz’s story is full of encouragement to notice God’s invitations, trust his timing, and begin again right where we are.

Reflection Questions

• What stood out to you from this conversation?
• I wonder how God is inviting you to lean into who you are as you consider your rhythms of connection with Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

You can connect with Sarah on Instagram: @inthedustpodcast

This week, Sarah reflects on the seeds we sow in the lives of others, drawing from a recent mihi whakatau, an Awaken gathering at Booth College of Mission, and the reminder from 1 Corinthians 3 that one person may plant, another may water, but God gives the growth. This episode explores the unseen and ongoing impact of faithful investment, the kind of seeds we are choosing to plant, and the markers God may be highlighting in a particular season. It is an invitation to keep sowing what is good, faithful, and life-giving, even when we cannot yet see the full harvest.

Reflection Questions

• What are the markers of this season for you?

• How are you embedding them?

• What kind of seeds are you planting in the lives of the people around you right now?

• Where are you being invited to keep sowing faithfully, even if you cannot yet see the growth?

• Are there any seeds you are planting unintentionally — through your words, reactions, pace, or priorities — that you need to pay attention to?

You can connect with Sarah on Instagram: @inthedustpodcast

This week, Sarah reflects on a moment of worship that caught her by surprise while exercising and considers how love for God can sometimes move from wild wholeheartedness to a tidier love. Drawing from the stories of Mary’s costly offering and David’s refusal to offer God something that cost him nothing, she invites listeners to notice where their love for God may have become domesticated and to consider one small, ordinary way to love him more freely, visibly, and wholeheartedly this week.

Reflection Questions

• Where has my love for God become too controlled or contained?

• What am I afraid might happen if my love for God became more visible?

• What is one simple, embodied way I could express love for God this week?

• Where might God be inviting me from careful respectability into freer affection?

• What would wholehearted love look like in my ordinary routines this week?

You can connect with Sarah on Instagram: @inthedustpodcast

In this episode, Sarah reflects on the surprising ways old labels and long-standing habits can shift over time. Through Parkrun, early mornings, winter breakfasts, and the nudge toward deeper prayer, she explores what it might mean to revisit something that once did not fit and ask whether God is doing something new in this season.

Reflection Questions:

• What are the anchoring rhythms and habits that are servingyou well in this season?
• What is one small thing you could gently test out, withoutneeding to decide whether it becomes a forever habit?
• What labels have you given yourself that might be harmful orunhelpful?
• What practices have you dismissed in the past that could help youflourish in this season?
• What are you holding tightly that might not be asbig a deal to release as it once felt?

Connect with Sarah on Instagram @inthedustpodcast

This week, Sarah continues The Songs We Sing by reflecting on Arms Open Wide by Hillsong United and the invitation to surrender our whole lives to God. Drawing on Romans 12:1, she explores what it means to offer God our ordinary, everyday lives as worship, and names some of the things that can get in the way of surrender.

This episode also includes a note that In the Dust will take a two-week break over the school holidays and return in three weeks.

Reflection Questions:

• Where do I sense God inviting me to stand before him with arms open wide, without hiding or holding anything back?

• What am I currently holding tightly that God may be gently asking me to place before him?

• Which of these feels most familiar in my life right now: control, self-sufficiency, fear, distraction and hurry, or attachment?

• What would it look like to offer God my everyday, ordinary life — my sleeping, eating, working, parenting, serving, resting life — as worship this week?

• What small “yes” might God be asking of me today as I learn again to trust him with my whole life?

You can connect with Sarah on Instagram @inthedustpodcast

This week, Sarah reflects on relistening to Shauna Niequist’s Present Over Perfect during a weekend away and the invitation to check in with the shape and pace of her own life. Drawing from five themes in the book — taking down the chairs, saying no, disappointing the right people, choosing the shape of our days, and simplicity — this episode is a gentle invitation to notice where God might be calling us back to presence, wholeness, and a more intentional way of living.

Reflection Questions:

• I wonder what books have shaped your life, might it be time to check in and revisit the teaching and application?

• Where might God be inviting you to take down a chair, rather than keep making more room?

• What deeper yes might be waiting on the other side of a faithful no?

• Are the people closest to you receiving the best of you, or only what is left over?

• If your current days are quietly shaping your life, what kind of life are they forming?

• What is one thing you are carrying that is no longer serving the life God is inviting you into?

You can connect with Sarah on Instagram @inthedustpodcast