The Nothing Is Wasted Podcast

We’ve probably all heard the sermons about not trusting our emotions. “We should preach to our feelings and not let them lead us,” they say. After all, the heart is deceitful above all things, right? While that may be true, it doesn’t mean we should ignore our emotions or treat them as excess baggage. That’s something that Elizabeth Laing Thompson knows very well. Elizabeth advocates for us to rec...

Failure is not something any of us want. It is consistently ranked as one of the most common fears, but it is also a fact of life. None of us make it through with a perfect record. That’s something that Os Hillman learned the hard way. After not one but two failed marriages and going from thriving in business to being broke, Os had been through failure and adversity on a tremendous scale. What Os...

For some of us, the idea of racial trauma is entirely theoretical. We maybe understand it as a thing of the past from the limited history we were taught, or we turn on the TV and see reports of it happening to someone else. Someone who doesn’t look like us. But we don’t all have that luxury, that unique privilege of experiencing racism in the third person. Sheila Wise Rowe knows this all too well....

We are living in times unlike any in our country’s history. In the months following the killing of George Floyd, nearly every eye in the country has been on the unfolding story of racial tension. In the wake of this tragedy and the ongoing conversations about it, Davey was joined by LaMorris Crawford to discuss the topic of racial reconciliation and what each of us can do in this unprecedented mom...

As a pastor, Dr. Adam B. Dooley had preached about having faith in the midst of trials many times. After all, what pastor hasn’t? But standing in a hospital room with his three-year-old son, Adam’s theoretical knowledge was about the become practical. No parent should have to hear that their child has leukemia. With an uphill battle in front of his family and questions of whether his son would eve...

We want to believe that the churches and other Christian environments that our children grow up in will always be safe, but too often that isn’t the case. This is something Jill Monaco knows all too well. After a sexual assault from a priest as a child, Jill grew up wondering what was wrong with her. What had she done to invite this horrible abuse? As her adult life fell into a spiral of continued...

While Erin was in the midst of grieving her traumatic loss, Steve was about to walk into one of his own. He and his wife Wendy went to bed one night just like any other happily married couple, but Wendy never woke up. In the second part of their conversation with Davey, Steve shares his story and the couple shares how they found each other in the wake of unimaginable tragedy and what God has done...

Before Erin Ullmer had met her husband Steve, before her new life and new family, there was the moment on the bridge. The moment where everything changed. A peaceful day walking in the park for Erin, her husband John, and their kids turned into a life-defining moment when Erin lost her husband, her daughter, and very nearly her life in a random act of violence. In this first part of their conversa...

ADDICTION SERIES PART FOUR   Cory and Michelle Joy knew their oldest son Caleb had some struggles. They’d caught him in smaller things like drinking and smoking weed, but it was all too easy to dismiss this as childish foolishness. Surely he’d grow up and move past these things, right? By the time they realized the extent of the grip that addiction had on Caleb’s life, it was too late. Despite the...

ADDICTION SERIES PART THREE   Even as a child, Allen Cothran could tell his experience with drugs wasn’t like everyone else’s when he was quite literally intoxicated with the feeling he got from simple cold medicine. As an adult, Allen found himself pulled into using pills to medicate away emotional pain, and the problem only grew from there. Stuck in the tension between his family and ministry an...

ADDICTION SERIES PART TWO Before he was the bestselling author of Every Man’s Battle and many other books, before the radio show and the successful ministry, Stephen Arterburn was an addict. When he was exposed to pornography at an early age, Stephen’s mindset was set down a dark path that would shape his life for years to come. Stephen’s journey from a sex addict to someone who’s ministered to th...

ADDICTION SERIES PART ONE   Seth Haines looked like he had it all together. As a lawyer and a writer, no one would have suspected that he had a problem. Sure he drank pretty regularly, but who doesn’t? It didn’t seem to be affecting his home life or his career. He’d never gotten a DUI, never been abusive, never seen alcohol hurt his work. On the outside, it looked like Seth had it all under contro...

Esther Fleece Allen’s childhood wasn’t easy. Having dealt with an abusive father and being abandoned by her mother before age 13, Esther went through more hardship as a child than many of us may hope to face in our lives. Her trials didn’t stop there though. When the now-adult Esther’s father showed up at her home after years of absence and began stalking her, it became clear that her trauma would...

As a successful neurosurgeon, Dr. Lee Warren was no stranger to hopelessness. He often had the unenviable job of telling patients that their prognosis wasn’t good. Day in and day out, Lee lived in this tension. He believed in a God who brought hope, but he so frequently saw people who’s situation was hopeless. But this went from theoretical to physical for Lee when his son was found dead in his ho...

Matt Hammitt had what looked like the perfect Christian life. As the lead singer of the successful Christian rock band Sanctus Real and with a wife and kids at home, it seemed like he had found his purpose in life. But just as Sanctus Real’s biggest hit song was rocketing up the charts, Matt and his wife Sarah got news that their unborn son had a rare, life-threatening heart defect. As their young...

Three years ago last week, the Nothing Is Wasted Podcast was launched. Since then, we’ve seen more people find hope and healing than we could have ever imagined, and we are so thankful to all of you in our community for listening and sharing what God is doing in your lives through this ministry. One of the questions we get most often is “How did Nothing Is Wasted start?” So for our third birthday...

On the last episode of this podcast, we promised a special episode this week to celebrate three years of the Nothing Is Wasted Podcast. The world seemed different when we made those plans. In light of the killing of George Floyd last week and the civil unrest that has permeated our country over the last several days, we felt like that wasn’t the message that our community needed right now. Perhaps...

Most divorce stories don’t end in remarriage, but Jeff and Cheryl Scruggs are the exception. After seven years apart, the couple and their daughters were a whole family once again. But a wedding is only the start of a marriage, and Jeff and Cheryl’s second wedding was only their first step into a long journey of learning what a Godly marriage really looks like. Jeff and Cheryl return to talk more...

With a wife and two daughters, Jeff Scruggs thought he had everything he could want in life. His wife Cheryl felt differently. Dissatisfaction in the marriage eventually led to an affair, and no matter how hard Jeff fought for their marriage, the couple soon found themselves divorced. But the death of their marriage wasn’t the end of their story. Lonely and hurt, Cheryl and Jeff met Jesus and afte...

Michele Cushatt was already no stranger to pain and hardship when she faced her biggest challenge yet. Michele made her living as a successful communicator, which made it that much more heartbreaking when a doctor told her she had cancer in her tongue. They removed the cancer, and it came back again and again, until Michele was left in a state of constant pain for months and with effects that woul...

Luke Lezon’s life was already hard enough. Getting married and planting a church in the same year had turned out to be plenty challenging on its own. But Luke’s life got even harder when he suddenly contracted a mysterious illness. As doctor after doctor failed to diagnose just what was wrong with him, Luke found himself walking through the hardest trial he’d ever faced. Luke sits down with Davey...

“What is God’s will for my life?” If we’re honest, it’s a question we’ve all probably asked. For Mike Donehey, it’d be easy to think he’d figured out his answer. As the award-winning lead singer of Tenth Avenue North, it certainly seems like he’s doing exactly what God’s will for him is. But Mike found himself asking, “is this really God’s will?” And more than that, he even found himself wondering...

Our spiritual lives grow the most when we are in community with other believers. So what does that look like in this time when our ability to spend time with our communities has been so drastically disrupted? In this installment of our Livestream Videocast Series, Davey is joined by Tara-Leigh Cobble, Aubrey Sampson, and Tyler Tatum to discuss how to continue to grow spiritually despite social dis...

We are living in an uncertain time, and we’ve all probably felt that in our finances. Whether you’re out of work, worried about the future, or wondering what’s going to happen to your business, finances are probably not far from the front of any of our minds. In this installment of our Livestream Videocast Series, Davey is joined by Anthony ONeal, Joe Sangl, and Os Hillman to discuss how to make w...

None of us are exempt from the emotional effects of the COVID-19 outbreak. While we are all aware of the physical ramifications of the virus, this situation presents an unprecedented challenge to our emotional health as well. In this installment of our Livestream Videocast Series, Davey is joined by Alison Cook, Mike Foster, and Justine Froelker to discuss how to stay emotionally healthy in this s...