Wholehearted Pursuits

It’s easy for our desire to grow spiritually and connect with God to inadvertently turn into a grind. Before we know it, we’re carrying tension, pressure, and anxiety into prayer, reading the Bible, and on into everyday life. Wholehearted living doesn’t start with our efforts, but by relaxing into being deeply loved by God, right now. 

In this episode, we talk about why faith can feel exhausting when we treat new insights like items to add to a spiritual checklist, and why God never relates to us as a project He’s trying to fix. We explore how Scripture grounds this in God’s character, because God is love and His love does not waver, disappear, or depend on your performance.

If this brings peace or touches other questions you’re holding, subscribe, share with a friend who needs rest, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

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Subscribe to our newsletter and learn more about the ministry of Wholehearted Pursuits at www.wholeheartedpursuits.org.

When you subscribe, you'll receive a free devotional ebook by email, Listening for God: Noticing His Whispers in Everyday Life.

Stay connected with Wholehearted Pursuits on Instagram.

Wholehearted Pursuits Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization that helps leaders cultivate healthy, integrated lives through deeper connection with God, self, and others.

How often do you come to God in prayer only to spend most of your time apologizing for your failures and feelings, minimizing your real struggles and questions, or coaching yourself with the scriptures about what you “know” you should already be doing?

If you’re anything like me, you come with a true desire to know and please God but this "editing” in prayer leaves you feeling disconnected and alone. 

It is God’s delight to meet us where are, not where we think we should be. 

In this episode, we’re talking about what self-editing with God can look like, some reasons we do it, and learn to take a step toward being with Him just as we are. 

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Subscribe to our newsletter and learn more about the ministry of Wholehearted Pursuits at www.wholeheartedpursuits.org.

When you subscribe, you'll receive a free devotional ebook by email, Listening for God: Noticing His Whispers in Everyday Life.

Stay connected with Wholehearted Pursuits on Instagram.

Wholehearted Pursuits Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization that helps leaders cultivate healthy, integrated lives through deeper connection with God, self, and others.

Most of us walk through life with a kind of "noticing blindness", missing everything from the birds nearby, an ache in our chest, or a personal belief running the show underneath a conversation. In this episode, Cheri introduces noticing as a foundational skill of a wholehearted life: the practice of offering a moment of attention to what's actually happening in us and around us.

Drawing on Ephesians 5:15, she explores the difference between reactive living and responsive living, and why noticing is the first step from one to the other.

Topics covered:

•       What "noticing" actually means, and how to start with the outer world before moving inward

•       Five things we can learn to notice: emotional experiences, relational experiences, self-talk, core beliefs, and deeply held values

•       Why curiosity and compassion (not fixing or problem-solving) are essential to this practice

•       What to do when you're "not good at noticing," and why that's still a good place to start

•       How noticing leads to naming, and naming leads to greater wholeheartedness

Cheri closes with the invitation to ask God for the grace to notice a little more today than yesterday, and bring what you find to Him with confidence in His love. 

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Subscribe to our newsletter and learn more about the ministry of Wholehearted Pursuits at www.wholeheartedpursuits.org.

When you subscribe, you'll receive a free devotional ebook by email, Listening for God: Noticing His Whispers in Everyday Life.

Stay connected with Wholehearted Pursuits on Instagram.

Wholehearted Pursuits Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization that helps leaders cultivate healthy, integrated lives through deeper connection with God, self, and others.

You can be sincere, faithful, and still feel split in two. One version of you shows up for work, another for home, another for church, and somewhere underneath all of it is a tired heart trying to hold everything together. I’m Cheri Cochran, and this first conversation introduces Wholehearted Pursuits, a podcast for anyone who wants deeper connection with God, themselves, and others, and who is done mistaking striving for spiritual growth.

We start with Jesus’ words about the greatest commandment, because it names the goal with simple clarity: love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. From there, we get honest about what wholehearted living is not. It’s not white-knuckle willpower. It’s not “trying harder” Christianity. It’s not perfectionism with a Bible verse taped on top. Wholeheartedness means moving toward healing and wholeness, and bringing your entire self forward instead of living a compartmentalized, fragmented life.

We also talk about a timeless trap: calling raw reactions “authentic.” If we never pause to discern what’s underneath our words and behaviors, we can confuse what feels natural with what’s merely familiar. Using stories from everyday life and years of communication coaching, I unpack how growth often begins at the edge of discomfort, and why the Holy Spirit’s gentle work helps us respond instead of react.

The most comforting foundation is this: God goes first. Our wholehearted pursuit is always a response to God’s wholehearted pursuit of us, revealed in Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ongoing presence. If you’re hungry for spiritual formation, emotional health, and a faith that integrates your real life, let's walk this together. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the journey.

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Subscribe to our newsletter and learn more about the ministry of Wholehearted Pursuits at www.wholeheartedpursuits.org.

When you subscribe, you'll receive a free devotional ebook by email, Listening for God: Noticing His Whispers in Everyday Life.

Stay connected with Wholehearted Pursuits on Instagram.

Wholehearted Pursuits Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization that helps leaders cultivate healthy, integrated lives through deeper connection with God, self, and others.