A Pilgrimage of Unfolding Grace

Ryan Adams

Welcome to A Pilgrimage of Unfolding Grace, a podcast intended to extend the conversation on themes from my book of the same name. In this journey, I want to help you explore your Story with God, your personality in the light of Christ, and the gifts you have been given by the Holy Spirit. I believe your calling is found at the intersection of these related themes if you learn to listen carefully enough.

  1. 08/09/2023

    Justin McRoberts

    Like many people, the Covid-19 pandemic became a sort of apocalyptic reckoning for me. When the world shut down I was forced to examine the way I held my work - although if I’m honest I already knew on a deep level I was teetering on burnout even before everything stopped. As all our norms and rhythms of “doing church” were put on hold, I realized I needed consistent guidance from a caring presence, which led me to Justin McRoberts. It has been a relationship that has greatly benefited me three years on. One of the first pieces of wisdom I received from my time with Justin was understanding and blessing my limitations. Historically I had wandered into a common trap for spiritual leaders - I made myself available 24/7 in case there was a crisis any given day or hour, and I subconsciously put myself at the center of every possible solution to the problems we had in our community. I was afraid of disappointing my people, not doing a good job with the responsibility I had been given. Creating boundaries and saying “no” seemed anathema to the grandeur and challenge of the vocation, especially when sized up with scriptures that said we must “always be ready” or we must “be all things to all people”. From an authentic desire to be the best pastor I could be, I was stretching myself thin while also teaching my people a lesson I never intended - we must deny our boundaries in Jesus’ name. Justin helped me to see, not only was naming and embracing my limitations as a human being a blessing for me, it was also one of the greatest lessons I could pass along to my community.

    1h 7m
  2. 06/27/2023

    Mark Nicks

    The problem with the ways in which we often try to name the truest things about ourselves is that they are so transparent and transient. They are transparent in that they don’t seem to provide a solid enough foundation upon which to see ourselves, and transient in that they seem to constantly shift, or even slip through our fingers. None of these lies seem to provide us with the length or breadth necessary to identify ourselves, and we find ourselves scrambling to compensate. I would like to propose that we in the Christian household have an opportunity to reclaim an understanding of our true identity, and allow that reclamation to inform and shape how we see our personality. The most profound way we can approach “identity” is seeing it is a gift to be received, not a status to be earned or attained. There are a few ways we phrase it, being “made in the image of God”, or being God’s children, but my favorite way to name it is being “the Beloved”. It is a hard thing to learn how to receive love rather than earn it, perform for it. Perhaps this can be seen as one of the primary pursuits of a spiritual life. But to learn to receive our belovedness as the core of who we are is to find something eternal and unchanging, in the highest highs and the lowest lows of life itself. It is a gift that is not dependent upon what we like or don’t like, what we have or don’t have, what we do or don’t do, what others think about us. I had the honor to sit down with my longtime friend and colleague Mark Nicks to discuss the difference between identity and personality. Mark is a pastor and counselor who uses story to help us discern how God is redeeming our personalities as we await the new heavens and new earth.

    57 min

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About

Welcome to A Pilgrimage of Unfolding Grace, a podcast intended to extend the conversation on themes from my book of the same name. In this journey, I want to help you explore your Story with God, your personality in the light of Christ, and the gifts you have been given by the Holy Spirit. I believe your calling is found at the intersection of these related themes if you learn to listen carefully enough.