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
Success over Stinking Thinking 4
Freedom from Stinking Thinking
Most of us wrestle with negative thoughts that seem to set up camp in our minds. You know those old memories, regrets, worries, and all the ways we convince ourselves that things will never change. Sometimes, it feels like no matter what we do, our thoughts run the show and leave us feeling worn out and small.
King David understood this struggle better than most. Imagine being betrayed by your own son, hunted by people who once cheered you on, and forced to hide in caves to stay alive. Yet, even in the darkest moments, David made a choice. He took his eyes off the mess and turned them to God. In Psalm 23, instead of rehearsing every pain and enemy, he quietly said, ""The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." Those are not the words of a man in denial. That is someone who has decided to trust the Shepherd more than his fears.
Real change does not come by ignoring reality or pretending everything is fine. David found freedom by filling his mind with who God is and what God promised. The Bible calls this meditation, but it is not just quiet reflection. Picture a cow out in a field, chewing its cud over and over. That is what we are invited to do with Scripture. When we slowly walk through each line of Psalm 23, letting every word sink in, something shifts. We start to see our lives through the eyes of our Shepherd, not the lens of our wounds.
Negative thinking always tries to return our focus to ourselves, our failures, our lack, and our shame. But God keeps calling us to look up and see Him instead. You are not alone if you are worn out from living inside your own head. There comes a point where you say, ""Enough is enough."" I am done letting old lies call the shots. I want God's truth to be the loudest voice in my mind.
Here is what I hope you take away from this episode. Peace does not come by trying harder or talking yourself into a better mood. Peace comes when you slow down long enough to let the Shepherd lead you, even if it is just one small step at a time. Let Psalm 23 be your resting place this week. Let the words remind you that God is caring for you right now, no matter what you feel or face.
If this message brings hope to your heart, share it with someone else who could use it as a reminder of God's kindness. Thank you for listening and walking this road with me. I am grateful you are here, and I am praying that today, God's voice will be louder than all the rest.
Thanks for listening. Find us on YouTube, Substack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
David has victory over his stinking thinking. David, in the middle of all of the tragedy that's happening around him, in the middle of horrendous circumstances, david sees Christ and the cause, not the situation. He sees a shepherd. He's above it. And David, in the middle of all this, says I'm not going to be afraid because you are with me. David sees God turning his worst experiences into banquet tables. He sees God. He says in the presence of mine, enemies, with them watching, look what you're doing for me. He says God, you refresh me. God, you refresh me, man, I got it good Everywhere I go. Surely goodness and mercy do follow me. And then he goes and I ain't never leaving God.
Austin Gardner:What if our thoughts were like David's when all the fears come raging at us? What if we said hold it, I'm not going to look at the enemy soldiers. I'm not going to look at my son betraying me. I'm not going to look at how he's publicly humiliated me. I'm not going to look at how my friend turned on me. I'm going to look at God. I wonder what would happen.
Austin Gardner:We look for solutions or someone to blame or something to blame, instead of looking to our shepherd. We accuse or we excuse, but we don't look at our shepherd. We are so man-focused I have been we're me-focused, we're afraid and hurting, because we're looking at us and David has every reason to look around and say I'm in massive trouble here, but he says no, no, no. Let me swap the focus from me to my shepherd. Once you focus on how much you are loved in spite of everything, once you focus on how much you're loved, it will change your life. It'll change the way you sleep, it'll change how you feel when you learn to realize that God loves you, like the Amazon River, like the great, mighty Mississippi, come flooding at you with love of God, just swarming over the top of you like ocean waves, helping you learn to love others and God loving you no matter what you do or where you are.
Austin Gardner:Here's the interesting thing David doesn't mention David in Psalm 23,. Except as a beneficiary, I shall not want, because he's my shepherd. He leads me because he's my shepherd. He makes me lie down because he's my shepherd, but he never says this is who David is. I'm the king. God, you owe me, god, you made promises to me. He's not talking about David. He has turned his circumstances. He's turned his focus from his circumstances to Christ, from danger to deliverance, from fear to faith, from crying to praise.
Austin Gardner:So what we got to learn to do to get success over our stinking thinking is to meditate, is to chew the cud. It is to take in truth, let it fill up our lives, and then to regurgitate truth and to go over it again and again. It is to learn truth and then to murmur it to ourselves. In Psalm 1 through 3, he said Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. Could I just say to you we do.
Austin Gardner:We listen to our own ungodly self, we listen to social media's ungodly self, we listen to all this and that's where we get our advice. Instead of saying the Lord is my shepherd, he said don't stand in the way of sinners. But we spend more time with sinners, learning what we ought to think and do, than with the Lord. Then we sit in the seat of the critical, the scornful, the bad attitudes. But that's not what God wants. He wants our delight to be in the law of the Lord. He wants us to meditate in the law of the Lord day and night. He wants that to be what we think about. He wants it to be that I would think to myself this is what God says. He says, if we'll learn that we will be like trees planted by the rivers of water, it'll bring forth our fruit in our season. God will take care of the fruit, our leaves won't wither and whatever we do will prosper. So what are we going to do about our stinking thinking? So the truth is, the stinking thinking comes from being man-focused and thinking about ourselves and thinking about what we do. It comes from thinking about us, and we've got to get our minds off of us, to get our minds on the Lord. We've got to get help to do that. Now, what does that mean? It's going to be what you meditate on. To do that Now, what does that mean? It's going to be what you meditate on.
Austin Gardner:So one of the illustrations often used by Bible commentators when they describe meditate is the chew, the cud. So the cow spends all day long harvesting the food, eating the food, chewing the food, swallowing the food, but they're not done. And then, when they got their bellies full and they got enough green grass in them, they go, lay down and they regurgitate and they chew it over again. They chew the same food they already had. They chew it again and swallow it, and they do that till they get all the nutrients out of the food. That's what we're going to need to do. We're going to need to take the time to really meditate on what the word of God is saying here. So, in other words, we're going to memorize it until it becomes a part of us. That's what eating does makes it a part of us and then we're going to bring it back up and we're going to talk about it more. It's not going to depart out of our mouth. It's going to be who we are, and we're going to make it like that, and then that's going to become a truth in us. Now here's what we do. We see our failure, not the power of our Savior. We see our circumstances and we don't realize that God is going to take care of things. We look up and say I'm not sure there's enough food for tomorrow, instead of saying I'll trust my shepherd. We look up and say, oh no, they're about to attack me. I've got to come up with something.
Austin Gardner:When David was in trouble, david looked at the Lord. Where are your eyes? What are you looking at? What is big to you? See, I want you to turn Psalm 23 into something you meditate on, to help you get off of you and onto him.
Austin Gardner:The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Do you realize what he's doing? He's starting not with himself. He's not saying, lord, I'm your king and you're supposed to take care of me. No, he's not starting with. I messed up and you need to take care of me and forgive me. He's not starting off saying I don't deserve it. He just goes straight to the point you are my shepherd and because you are my shepherd, you take care of everything. You take care of everything. I have no lack. I have no needs. I shall not want lack. I have no needs I shall not want. Fact is, in all this turmoil, with everything going wrong in my life, you find a way to give me peace and to take me to cool waters. You feed me when I'm so discouraged I can't stay alive. You restore my soul. See what he he's doing. He's focused on the Lord. Then he says and even if I walk through the valley of the shadow, you are with me. You see, the focus that David has is on the Lord.
Austin Gardner:I don't know what you're thinking about. I don't know what you're thinking about. I don't know what your stinking thinking is. I do know you're bombarded with negative thoughts because you're human. I do know you may feel like you're inadequate. Your body's not right, your mind's not right, your place in life's not right. Even your sex isn't right. You might. Or your gender you might. You might really, I mean, it can be so much messed up in us. But I want you to understand something. That's not what you think on. You see, you want to calm those thoughts, push them aside and think on this the Lord is my shepherd and sit there. What does the Lord mean? Who is the Lord Is? What does is mean? My, my, my Shepherd? What does shepherd mean? I am the great Jehovah. God is shepherding me. What does it mean to shepherd me? Go look up shepherds and think about it. Then think about your life and think about all the things God's done, as he's led you along and provided for you everything you've needed. Meditate on all that. Let it become a part of who you are.
Austin Gardner:I'm tired of stinking thinking. I'm tired of being negative and critical. I'm tired of wanting to lash out. I'm tired of wondering why people don't pay attention to me. I'm tired of all that lash out. I'm tired of wondering why people don't pay attention to me. I'm tired of all that junk. I just want to quit thinking about me. I want to think about him, don't you? So I challenge you to take this to heart and let's focus on the Lord and who he is and what he's doing, and let's let him guide our thoughts. Let's get victory over stinking thinking. I got so much more I want to share with you, because the Lord's working in my life. I want to see him work in yours. So thank you for taking the time to listen. Invite some people to come along with us, if you would. I hope that you're sharing this. I hope it's of value to you and I am honored that you take the time to listen.
