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
Bitterness Said “Build a Wall,” Jesus Brought a Sledgehammer
A quiet confession opens the door: being forgotten can bruise a soul deeper than we admit. From a small hotel room in Arequipa, while traveling and staying ahead on upcoming shows, we speak to the listener who feels unseen, the one carrying silent wounds that never found closure. Bitterness can look like strength, but it slowly becomes a hidden prison. It promises protection, yet keeps the heart locked away from love.
This episode offers a way out, a path from bitterness to freedom. Grace meets us where striving ends and whispers, “Come to me.” It’s not a pep talk or a demand to try harder. It’s God living His life in you when you’ve run out of your own strength. His nearness in the silence is the quiet truth behind every fear: you are never forsaken, never forgotten, never unseen.
From that place of grace, we walk the slow, honest road of forgiveness, the kind that begins as a decision long before feelings catch up. We talk about releasing closure to God’s justice, forgiving again when old memories sting, and learning to rest in the Shepherd who carries us home.
We name the hard truths: sometimes you must forgive what wasn’t done, the message that never came, the friend who disappeared, the years no one asked how you were. But forgiveness, when chosen again and again, becomes the daily decision that frees your future from old wounds.
We end where hope lives not in wishful thinking, but in confident assurance that the Great I Am is with you here and now. His grace doesn’t erase the past; it transforms it, teaching you to breathe again, to live today in His presence, and to trust that His love still holds your story.
If this spoke to you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help others find hope and healing.
Thanks for listening. Find us on YouTube, Substack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
Welcome back to Followed by Mercy. I am coming to you from beautiful Adiquipa, Peru. And I am so very excited to be here. I am ending my travels here. We got here on the 2nd. And I'm actually recording this on the 15th tomorrow morning at about 5:30 a.m., 6 o'clock. 5:30, I think we have to be at the airport a.m. We'll fly to Lima and get there about 9 or 9:30. Wait a few hours, get some breakfast, and then we will fly from there to Atlanta. I have to stay a few days ahead on the podcast to get everything uploaded and everything prepared so that everyone can get a copy of this. And so I wanted to to I wanted to take the time today to talk to you about something that's really on my heart. You know, I deal with people by the grace of God, and I appreciate so much that I get to. It's still a chance to serve, still a chance to minister to people, and I and I get people that have been hurt, deeply hurt, deeply wounded. And so this is dedicated to you. You've been deeply wounded, and this is dedicated to you. When you've been left alone, I want you to know how God meets you when everyone else walks away. Now, this is not following my Galatians or excuse me, my Ephesians context. I won't even put it in. It'll be a miscellaneous. But I really felt like I ought to say this. Maybe you know what it feels like to be forgotten. You reached out once or twice, but no one answered, no one called, no one showed up. The silence grew louder than the words. You're hurting, and you needed to hear from someone. At first you say to yourself, you don't care, but deep down you do. It wasn't just loneliness, it's the ache of believing you don't matter anymore. That kind of pain doesn't just hurt your feelings, it starts to shape your soul. You begin to build walls that will protect you, or at least you think they will, but they only end up trapping you inside your own bitterness. That's what I want you to hear. They trap you in your own bitterness. For a while, shutting down, shutting people out, that feels like a strength. I'm getting back at them, I'm not going to talk to them, I'm shutting them out. But bitterness always lies. It tells you you're safer alone when you're really just getting sicker and sicker on the inside. Then one night, when you've run out of ways to stay angry, the Lord begins to whisper it. It's not loud, it's not even demanding. It's a steel small tug that says, Come to me. That's where peeling begins. Not when everyone finally apologizes, but when you collapse, but when you collapse into the arms of the one who never left you. Jesus said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. That promise doesn't mean the pain won't come. It means that when it does, you'll never face it alone. You may have felt abandoned, but you were never unseen. You thought God was standing at a distance, but he was right there beside you, quiet, steady, and just waiting for you to look up. Grace isn't God, isn't God helping you try harder. Grace is God living his life in you when you've come to the end of yourself. The moment you stopped striving and started crying out, grace was already there, holding you, carrying you, teaching you that love was never lost. You can't fall out of a love you didn't climb into. That's the mystery of grace. Even in your silence, your bitterness, you were still loved. The Father didn't walk away when you did, he stayed. He went with you. But grace doesn't just comfort you, it also calls you. Because somewhere inside that quiet space, you'll hear him say, It's time to forgive. Forgiveness is where freedom begins. It's not easy, it's not instant. And it's not saying that what happened was right. It's saying, Lord, I refuse to let this wound define me any longer. Sometimes the hardest part to forgive isn't what was done to you, but what wasn't done. The apology never came, the friend never showed up, the silence stretched for years. Forgiveness means you stopped waiting for closure from people who can't give it. Hear that? You stop waiting for closure from people who can't give it. You release them to God and you let God handle what you can't. When you forgive, you're not setting them free, you're setting yourself free. You're choosing to live unchanged. You're saying, Lord, I trust you to bring justice, to make things right in your time. I'll walk in peace while you take care of the rest. And here's the part no one tells you. Forgiveness usually happens. Forgiveness usually happens just after you get to where it's impossible. It happens before you forget your feelings catch up. You don't wait on your feelings. It's a decision before it's a feeling. It's an action, not an emotion. It's a choice you make to keep making and keep making until your heart begins to heal. You forgive. And when your memory, when your memory stings again, you forgive again. And you keep forgiving until the pain loses its power. Forgive and go back to the place you forgave and say, I already forgave this. Say it out loud, name the date, name the place. Let it be clear. The same spirit, that same spirit lives in you. His life is in you. That's what gives you the power to do what seems impossible. To forgive when you have every reason not to, to love when others don't deserve it. To reach out when it feels safer to stay silent. Sometimes God lets us walk through seasons of betrayal or neglect, not to punish us, but to purify our love and teach us what His forgiveness really feels like. That wound becomes a classroom. The pain becomes a place where grace takes root. So you've been living behind the wall, waiting for someone else to make things right. Maybe this is your moment to take one small step toward the light. You don't have to fix everything. You just have to say, Lord, I'm tired of holding this. I give it to you. Grace will meet you there. It always does, because the shepherd didn't stay behind when you wandered off. He followed you into the wilderness. The pit may be deep, but he, Jesus, is deeper still. You haven't lost your way. You've been found. You don't find God. God finds you. You don't have to fight your way back. You can rest in the arms and on the shoulders of the shepherd who will bring you home, and he never lets you go. You can forgive, you can reach out, you can begin again because God hasn't forgotten you. He's been there all along, loving you through the silence, teaching you how to live free, and carrying you from pain to praise. So I want you to know you have hope. Now, hope is a bad word. I sold I used the word hope the other day, talking to somebody and they said, I don't like that word, you know, because it's a doubt word, but in Bible terms, it's not a doubt word. In Bible times, it's a confident assurance that the promise will come true. And so you have the confident assurance that God will take care of you. I know you've been left alone. I know what that feels like. I know you're hurting. I know you wish there was something you could do. I know you feel like there's no way you can fix this, but there is. Trust God. He loves you today. He's making a difference in your life if you'll let him. So you do not have to live any longer in the hurt. You don't have to live any longer in the bitterness. You can get up and move on. You don't have to live in yesterday. He is the great I am, not the great I was. He's the great I am, not the great I will be. He's with you right now in this minute, making a difference in your life. I want to thank you for listening. I want it to be your an encouragement to you. I want you to go through today and think to yourself, man, I love Jesus, but more than that, Jesus loves me. He found me, he's doing a work in me. Let that be true in your life. Live it, enjoy it, and let realize that surely goodness and mercy are following me, pursuing me, chasing me down all the days of my life. Thank you so much for listening. I pray this has been a blessing to you. God bless you.
