Followed By Mercy
The Followed By Mercy Podcast
Real Grace, Honest Hope
You might notice a new name and a fresh look, but the heart behind this podcast is the same. After years as the World Evangelism Podcast, I sensed God leading me to a deeper, more personal path centered on His relentless mercy and the kind of honest hope that can reach into every hurting place. That’s why this show is now called Followed By Mercy Podcast. The format may shift, and the tone may be a bit more personal, but my mission hasn’t changed: I still believe the world desperately needs to hear the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ. You are welcome here if you’ve been with me from the beginning or just found us now.
What if God’s love is more personal, stubborn, and relentless than you ever imagined?
Welcome to The Followed By Mercy Podcast, where we get honest about pain, hope, and the kind of grace that finds you right where you are, five days a week. This isn’t about religious performance or church routines. It’s for anyone who’s ever felt worn out, unseen, or unsure if they belong in the story of God’s love. Every conversation is rooted in this reality: God loves you right now, just as you are, and He isn’t giving up on you.
Here’s what you’ll find in every episode:
Experience God’s Relentless Love
Every show starts by reminding you that the Shepherd knows your name, cares about your story, and isn’t offended by your failures or questions. This is personal—it’s about God’s unwavering affection for you.
Find Your Place in His Heart
Once you grasp how fiercely you’re loved, sharing that love with others doesn’t feel forced. It becomes the most natural thing in the world. Real grace overflows.
Prayer That Changes You
We pray together—not just for the world “out there,” but for the battles and hopes you’re carrying right now. These prayers are honest, rooted in Scripture, and meant for hearts that need a gentle touch from the Shepherd.
Discover Your Unique Role
Whether you’re called to go, give, serve, or show kindness in your corner of the world, God’s mercy meets you where you are. You’re not just a bystander. You are His beloved, invited into the story He’s writing.
When life knocks the wind out of you, this is a place to catch your breath. You’ll hear the encouragement that meets you on your hardest days, and your honest questions will be welcomed. No pretending, no heavy-handed advice—just the reminder that your Shepherd is right there with you, walking every step with you, even when you feel like giving up.
Why does this matter? Because some days, it feels like nobody sees you or cares what you’re going through. But the truth is, you have a Shepherd who never takes His eyes off you, lets you slip through the cracks, and never gives up on you. That kind of love can put you back on your feet, and it might be the hope someone else is waiting to see in you, too.
If you’re longing for more than just religious talk—if you want to know you’re not alone and that God’s mercy is following you all the way home, you’re in the right place. Whether you listen in the car, on a walk, or in a quiet moment, let every episode remind you: God’s mercy is after you right now, ready to bring real grace and honest hope.
Subscribe today and join a community to discover what happens when loved people become loving people. The journey’s just beginning, and there’s a place for you here.
Followed By Mercy
Introduction to Psalm 23
Have you ever felt like you’re just not good enough for God?
That’s where I found myself—completely wrecked, not just spiritually but physically. I’m battling stage four kidney cancer. It’s spread to my lungs. I’ve lost a kidney, a testicle, and both adrenal glands. And in the silence of night, when no one’s around, the darkest thoughts show up: God doesn’t love me. I’m going to die and be forgotten. My friends don’t care.
Then something unexpected happened. I started meditating on Psalm 23.
The opening line—“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”—became my lifeline. It calmed my panic attacks. It helped me sleep again. Most of all, it started breaking the grip of a lie I’d believed for years: God’s love must be earned.
I grew up knowing Jesus loved me, but only in my head. My heart couldn’t hold onto it. My dad loved me, but he always pushed for more. An A on a test was met with, “Why not all As?” Over time, that became my image of God: constantly evaluating, never satisfied, waiting for me to measure up. It made me critical of everyone else, too. I became a spiritual scorekeeper, not a son.
The turning point came through two things: friends who showed me grace when I didn’t deserve it, and those quiet nights meditating on Psalm 23. Slowly, I began to see the truth:
God doesn’t love me because I’m right.
He loves me because He’s right.
He doesn’t love me because I earned it.
He loves me because I can’t.
Romans 5:6 says, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
That truth is changing me. And I believe it can change you too.
So I made this podcast. Each episode is under 10 minutes, straight from my heart. No hype. No filters. Just one hurting person talking to another.
If life’s backed you into a corner…
If you’ve hurt the people you love…
If you wonder whether God really sees you or cares—this is for you.
The Holy Spirit is closer than you think. And He wants to show you:
You are fully known.
You are deeply loved.
And you don’t have to earn a thing.
Thanks for listening. Find us on YouTube, Substack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
I want to make this an introduction to a chat I'd just like to have with you. I don't really want to preach, I just want to share what God's been doing in my life and I want to take you on a journey with me, if that's at all possible. I am dealing with a lot of issues in my life that put me in a bad position and if you're my friend and you're watching this, you probably have some idea of that. I have cancer. I have stage four kidney cancer. It is now spread to my lungs. It's already taken out a testicle dosage to adrenal glands and a kidney. I have to take steroids every day to stay alive and sometimes I have the most horrendous thoughts that want to run through my mind that God doesn't love me, that I am dying and I will soon be gone and forgotten and my friends don't care. And it's weird stuff that happens to you. I'm not saying that to complain. I'm saying that to show you that I've been in a dark place and Psalm 23 and the Holy Spirit of God, our best friend, has literally changed my life and I want to take you on that journey.
Austin Gardner:I grew up knowing that Jesus loves me. This I know. I grew up knowing Jesus loves all the children, all the little children of the world. I grew up knowing God is love, but I knew it in my head and I didn't often know it in my and due to maybe erroneous Bible teaching, probably misunderstood by me. I'm not trying to blame anybody for anything, but I always thought that I had to measure up to God. If I didn't measure up, maybe God wasn't pleased with me. If I didn't measure up, maybe God wasn't pleased with me If I didn't do the right things.
Austin Gardner:I lived almost like you know, when I was a boy, my daddy would send me to do something and I would run as fast as I could try to find the wrench he asked me to find and run back with it. And when I ran back with it, my dad was always like where you been? What took so long? Why don't you do it like I told you to? And that became, I think, my modus operandi of the way I saw God I looked at. That's how God looks at me. I'm never fast enough, never good enough. My parents never meant it wrong. You know, as a kid I was bitter about it. I thought bad things, but my dad was doing the best he knew how to do, and he loved me. He loved me with all of his heart. He was a good dad, my mom was a good mama, but when I would come home with an A, my dad would say see there, you can get A's. Why don't you get A's all the time? And when I'd come home with a 90, he'd say why did you get a 90? When you got an A last time? You could have got a hundred again. What happened? Why don't you do your work? And so I know my dad was an orphan, by the way, he never had a dad. His mama died when he was six of an illegal abortion and he was passed from children's home to children's home, abandoned and abused, and so he didn't know how to love me like he should have loved me.
Austin Gardner:I judged him for that a long time. I shouldn't have, and so all I would say to you is that that same thought, that same way he acted, became the way I looked at it and the way I thought about it, and that's the way I thought about God. I think it also affected the way I parented. I think I parented wrong, because you know, you repeat what's happened to you with your children and that's so wicked and so wrong. But worse, I put that view on God. But worse I put that view on God and I didn't know that God loved me. God brought a lot of people into my life that really helped me. I got a friend named Steve and Steve was the most generous and kind. He wrote to me, he called me when a lot of friends had turned against me and people had attacked me publicly and I was losing it. He came to my aid and he helped me and he encouraged me and he introduced me to a guy named Malcolm who I actually got to talk to on the phone and who has taught me so much about how much God loves me unconditionally. And so Malcolm and Steve have done a tremendous work, been used in my life.
Austin Gardner:But I started meditating on Psalm 23. And I would lay in the bed at night and these thoughts would come rushing into my head about how I was dying and it was over and God didn't love me and things were going bad and I had all these bad thoughts. And then I stopped and I said wait a minute, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. And you know what. It calmed me down, I went to sleep, no panic attacks, and I want to help you with that. I don't think I know anything, I don't think I've arrived, but I think I could share with you what God's been sharing with me and what God's been teaching me, and so what I thought I might take over the next little bit and I'll keep them all real short, less than 10 minutes and I just want to share with you what God has been doing in my life.
Austin Gardner:I know you're hurting. I know most of us are going through stuff that no one else understands and no one knows about, but I know your father does and he loves you. I didn't know he loved me so much and I am so thrilled. Oh, by the way, a cousin of mine named Mike, lord help me. I go to a funeral of my aunt and Mike stands up and he talks about how he is God's beloved and I'm God's beloved. So all these things, you know who's doing all this. You know who's orchestrating all this in my life. It's the Holy Spirit and he's calling me to understand how much God loves me and he's making a tremendous difference in my life. God loves me and he's making a tremendous difference in my life, I'm waking up to the fact that I am loved.
Austin Gardner:And the bad thing is that when you don't think God loves you and when you think you always have to measure up and when you think you're always being graded and judged, what ends up happening is you become a judger and you then decide does my wife love me like she should? Are my children treating me like they should? And you become a condemner and you don't mean to, but it's kind of like the nature of the beast and I don't know if that makes sense to you, but that's how I had become and in the religious group that I've been a part of almost all of my life, I mean judging is just part of it. It's like Phariseeism. It's like I have more standards than you and I live more right than you and I do more right than you, and that's the way we talk and that's the way we act and the Lord's been teaching me. It's the way we act and the Lord's been teaching me. So I'm inviting you to go on a journey with me.
Austin Gardner:This will be the first and it's the introduction to my Psalms 23 series. My son, chris, has really pushed me hard to share this with you. I know you are backed in a corner and I know you feel like no one loves you. And I know when you get backed in that corner you strike out. I did, I do. I get frustrated. I want to take it out on other people. Do you know what I mean? You ever been there? Then you hurt the ones you love the most and you regret what you said You're like. Why was I so mean, why was I so ugly, when the best friend you've ever had is the Holy Spirit of God. He lives in you.
Austin Gardner:If you're a born-again believer, god loves you and he loves you unconditionally. I'll be showing you this. But in John 17, 23, god loves you like he loves Jesus. And so, as I wrap this up, do you realize how God loves Jesus? When Jesus goes to get baptized, god opens the heavens, the Holy Spirit comes down, the Son is there and God says this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. He hadn't worked a miracle yet. He hadn't healed anybody, he hadn't raised anybody from the dead, he hadn't faced temptation. He hadn't done anything but be a normal person for 30 years as a carpenter. We've seen one time when he stepped out into the light at the age of 12. That's it, that's all. And God loved him.
Austin Gardner:God loves you.
Austin Gardner:He doesn't love you because of what you do. He loves you because of who he is. He doesn't love you because you're right. He loves you because he's right. He doesn't love you because you gain it. He loves you because he's right. He doesn't love you because you gain it. He loves you because you can't.
Austin Gardner:God commended his love toward us and while we were still sinners, yet sinners, christ died for us In Romans 5, 6,. He died for the ungodly, he died for the helpless, those who couldn't help themselves. And I just want you to know today God loves you. Would you go on a journey with me? Invite others if you're interested. I'm really going to do this because my son has really pushed me to do it and I hope it is a blessing to you. And if you get a blessing, let me know, send me a contact, send me a note and I will get this fixed with more and more things and I'll try to become better at doing, but I'm really just want to get the message out. I love you and I thank God for the chance to talk to you. You have a good time loving Jesus and understanding how he loves you, and I'll bring Psalm 23 to you over the next few days.