The Collide Podcast

This week on the podcast we’re honored to welcome one of our all-time favorite musicians and artists, Uriah Garay. Uriah is an incredible songwriter and worship leader with a whole lot of wisdom to share about stepping outside our comfort zones, giving it all we’ve got, and cultivating an attitude of true worship. This episode is jam packed with truth bombs and profound ideas on giving God our “yes” even if we don’t have anything else to give. To tune into Uriah’s music (we KNOW you’ll want to after getting to know him!) go to www.uriahgaray.com.

We are thrilled to be joined this week by Elizabeth Boyle, who is an incredible people-gatherer, story-teller, and intention-setter. Elizabeth speaks with passion and enthusiasm about the beauty and practicality intentions can provide in our life and our faith. It can be so easy to have big dreams, yet settle for small lives, distracted by the apathy and stress of everyday life. However this week on the podcast we discuss ways to accomplish your goals and set intentions that spark joy and light up our lives with purpose.

We are now a few weeks into January. How are you doing on those resolutions you made as you rang in 2019? Are they leaving you just as empty as you felt in 2018? This week on the podcast, Willow discusses the problem with the way we view resolutions. We may think our problem is our weight, our relationship status, our addiction, our schedule, or our messy home, but the real problem actually goes much deeper than our willpower to change can reach. This episode may be just the loving nudge you need to ditch your list of surface-level solutions and run to Jesus - the truest and most powerful source of change in our hearts and lives.

We know we're always called to love, but it isn't always easy. Join us this week on the podcast as we share audio from our Always event of Collide's Founder and Director Willow Weston sharing her heart. 

Willow vulnerably shares stories from her own life where the call to love collided with her pain and brokenness and forced her to examine how the degree to which we love has everything to do with how loved we believe we are. 

This week on the podcast we are joined by none other than the New York Times best-selling author, devoted husband, fun-loving father, and enthusiastic follower of Jesus, Bob Goff himself! We're thrilled to share the audio of his Q&A session with Willow from our Always event. Listen in on his answers to questions like:

-Why he only sings some of the words in worship songs

-What he would tell his 8 year old self

-Why he plans to wear a Red Sox baseball cap for the rest of his life, even though he's not a fan and has never been to a game

-The one question Bob plans to ask God when he gets to heaven

You'll get in a few good laughs, but more than anything you'll walk away from  this conversation inspired and encouraged to love with everything you've got and to use the power of your voice and your words to bring more people in on the fun of following Jesus.

Join us this week as Willow talks with friend and pastor Kurt Ingram about what it means to have God with us in a season and a world where our heart cry is for Immanuel - someone to be for us, even in our loneliest state. As you’re wrapping presents, decorating dinner tables, frosting gingerbread people, or writing cards to loved ones, tune into this episode to reflect on the reality of the Christmas celebration.

Christmas is upon us and with it comes an array of traditions and emotions - there's singing and baking and anxiety and hope and family drama and gifts and joy. Not to mention all the weird stories about the large bearded man who breaks into our homes at night. This can be a confusing season, full of meaningful reflection, but also for some it is a reminder of deep wounds. Tune in this week as Willow discusses what it truly means to have God with us.

What if the very things you're doing to protect yourself from rejection are actually keeping you from the connection you're longing for?

Have you ever felt lonely even when you're surrounded by people? Maybe you have friends, family, a spouse, a church community—and yet something inside you still feels disconnected, unseen, or alone.

Licensed mental health counselor Breeze Potts joins Willow for an honest conversation about why women often struggle with loneliness and what can keep us trapped there. Breeze shares that underneath anxiety, depression, relational conflict, and other struggles, she often hears a deeper question from women: Who am I, will I be accepted, and am I enough?

Together, Breeze and Willow unpack how comparison, social media, shame, and the fear that our struggles are "too much" can cause us to withdraw from the very relationships we need. We may cancel plans, stop returning texts, become critical of others, or convince ourselves that no one really wants to know us. And sometimes, without realizing it, our inner assumptions begin creating the loneliness we're trying to escape.

But there is another way. Breeze encourages women to lean in—to challenge the stories we tell ourselves, become aware of our patterns, reach out, and take small courageous steps toward connection. And at the heart of it all is the beautiful truth of Emmanuel: God is with us. We don't have to clean ourselves up, fix everything, or become someone else before God meets us. He meets us as we are.

If you've been feeling lonely, disconnected, rejected, or convinced that you're too much, this conversation will remind you that you are worthy of relationship, community, and love—and you don't have to stay isolated.

Breeze Potts is a licensed mental health counselor who has been practicing for more than 12 years. She has a gift for "drawing the deep out of people," helping women explore the thoughts, assumptions, patterns, and experiences that can keep them stuck.

Breeze and Willow have been friends for nearly 20 years, and their long-standing friendship gives this conversation an especially honest and vulnerable feel. Breeze brings both professional training and personal experience to the conversation, openly acknowledging that many of the questions she helps women navigate are ones she has wrestled with herself.

• When you feel lonely or disconnected: Look beneath the loneliness and ask what beliefs or fears may be keeping you from reaching out.
• When comparison makes you feel like you're not enough: Recognize how social media and idealized images can distort the way you see yourself and your life.
• When you assume you're too much or too broken: Challenge the inner story that says you're the exception—that God's grace and other people's love somehow don't apply to you.
• When you're tempted to isolate: Take one small step toward connection instead of waiting for someone else to rescue you from loneliness.
• When you wonder whether God is really with you: Remember Emmanuel—God meets you right where you are, just as you are.

If you're lonely, don't believe the story that you're too much, too broken, or too difficult to love. Lean in, reach out, and let safe people remind you of who you really are. God is with you—and He often uses other people to help you experience that truth.

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I’m going to fail. Someone else could do it better. I don’t have anything special to offer. I’m not enough.

At Collide, we call these our “not me’s”—the lies that convince us we don’t have what it takes for God to use us. But what if instead of focusing on everything we think we’re missing, we started believing God can use what we already have?

In this special team conversation, Willow Weston sits down with Collide team members Kelli Hawkinson, Tammy Lindhout, and Nina Hall to talk honestly about the fears, insecurities, and false beliefs that have held them back—and what they’ve learned about saying yes to God anyway. It’s a conversation at the heart of Collide’s Yes, You Bible study: believing that God can use our talents, stories, experiences, pain, and even our weaknesses to do amazing things in this world.

Throughout the conversation, each woman shares how she has learned that God wasn’t waiting for her to become more impressive or qualified. The invitation isn’t to become her. It’s to bring God what you have and trust Him with what He can do through it.

• When you think someone else could do it better: Stop waiting to become someone else. God created you intentionally, and your insecurity doesn’t erase your purpose.
• When you’re afraid you’ll fail: Borrow someone else’s belief in you. Sometimes we need people who can see potential in us before we’re able to see it ourselves.
• When the lies start creeping back in: Pay attention to your reactions. Defensiveness, anxiety, insecurity, or comparison may reveal an old lie you’ve started believing again.
• When your gifts don’t seem impressive: Don’t underestimate willingness. God can build something significant through small acts of obedience, one step at a time.
• When you think your brokenness disqualifies you: God can use it. When we’re honest about our weaknesses, our stories can give other people permission to be honest about theirs too.
• When you see potential in someone else: Tell her. Your invitation or encouragement may be exactly what she needs to step into something God has for her.

You don’t have to be the most talented person in the room. You don’t have to get rid of every insecurity. You don’t have to wait until your story is perfectly healed.

God has a history of using unlikely, imperfect, weak, and broken people.

Willow describes Collide as a kind of “ragtag” group of women who are insecure, fearful, messy, afraid of failure, and in need of second, third, and fourth chances—and yet God continues to use their willingness to create a ripple effect in the lives of other women.

Instead of focusing on everything you think you’re missing, ask:

What has God already placed in my hands?

Your gifts. Your personality. Your experiences. Your story. Your compassion. Your weakness. Your willingness.

You don’t have to become someone else before God can work through your life. Bring Him what you have, take the next step, and trust Him with what He can do through your yes.

God wants to use you. Yes, you.

Follow Willow: Website | Instagram | Facebook

💑Check out Collide’s website for info on upcoming conferences, events, and resources.

📲Follow Collide on Facebook and Instagram for encouragement, inspo and a fun peek into our ministry.

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Join us this week as a few of our staff people get deep and real about their own struggles to love from healthy and whole places. From being jealous of all your friends in seemingly more desirable seasons of life, to withdrawing from friendships because of fear and insecurity, we all fall into patterns of bitterness and frustration because of our own pain. God calls us to love from a place of wholeness and belovedness.

Willow sits down with Kristen Mattila and Michelle Holladay as they share their own experiences of loving from places of pain. This is an episode that will inspire you to inspect your own relationships and move your heart toward loving from a place of wholeness.