Willow Creek Weekend Podcast Willow Creek Community Church

What do you do when you’re faced with a big problem? Most of us do one of two things: either move quickly into action, or become overwhelmed and freeze. It’s fight, or flight, or freeze.

When we think about how to change the world, or how to help people in difficult times, our best course of action is to go to God first. It’s a natural thing to want to help so badly that we rush in out of desperation or to feel so overwhelmed by the scale of a problem that we simply can’t find our way into action. And that’s where attuning your heart to God becomes incredibly powerful.

Have you ever been told to stop questioning and just believe? People say that with good intentions, but it can lead to a lack of faith. It’s perfectly normal and expected to have doubt and curiosity about Jesus and the Bible.
Have you ever heard of “doubting Thomas?” In John 20, Doubting Thomas had witnessed Jesus’ miracles and heard Him teach, but he still wanted to see the resurrected Jesus for himself. Jesus’ response to “doubting Thomas” says a lot about how He welcomes, and even encourages, our own doubts and questions!

We know the Easter story—Jesus lived a perfect life, suffered and died on the cross, and then rose from the dead on Easter Sunday. But what would it have been like to be one of His disciples or friends at Easter? They changed their entire lives to follow Him; then everything they thought would happen shattered when Jesus died. Their own hope died.
But then Jesus was miraculously resurrected and appeared to Mary and many others. While they didn’t fully understand the depth of who He was or what had happened, they knew for certain that He was alive! And that is what gives us hope for our own lives now.

Many of us have a fear of being alone. It’s a very human trait to suffer through feeling lonely and social isolation. But with God next to us, we are never truly alone. And God understands our feelings of loneliness and sadness; Jesus suffered terrifying depression and loneliness in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-46)and cried out to God in desperation.
Jesus experienced the depths of despair so that we would never have to experience true isolation. As we remember Jesus’ sacrifice on Good Friday, we unpack the story of His life and journey to the cross to see how Jesus is God with us in all things.

We imagine Jesus as a very serene, calm and soft-spoken man. But, just like us, Jesus feels anger, and in John 2:13-25, He gets so angry Jesus flips tables!
But have you ever noticed that anger comes from another feeling? The thing that lies underneath it causes an explosion that sometimes we struggle to contain; your disappointment, grief or sadness.
But we don’t need ways to manage anger–it’s not about how to control your anger, either. God made that feeling; therefore, feeling angry is not a bad thing. However, we can express our anger in ways that do not harm ourselves or others. Pastor Megan Marshman helps us understand how.

Shame is a word and feeling we all want to avoid. Shame is often a barrier between us and God, too. Our regrets, all those actions and feelings we carry with us for years, weigh us down and make us feel less than worthy of God’s love. But that’s just not true at all.

In John 18, Peter denies Jesus three times, something he is deeply ashamed of. And then, in John 21, Peter is forgiven by and restored through Jesus.

You, too, can experience forgiveness and restoration; true healing and freedom from shame, guilt and regret. Pastor Shawn shows us how this is possible in our own lives.