When Theo Von recently opened his Bible on his podcast and read John 5 — Jesus asking the lame man, “Do you want to be healed?” — he admitted on camera, “I think I want a new story.” In this episode, Pastor Travis and his wife Maddi react to that clip and respond with their own.
Maddi shares about growing up in church, falling into heroin addiction by nineteen, and the elderly stranger at a Tennessee gas station who handed her a tract titled “Can the dead really walk again?” just days before she finally surrendered to Christ. Travis recounts chasing corporate America, a brief stint in the Marine Corps, and the two nights he spent strung out in a van in Rialto, California before his twin brother bought him a bus ticket home to Maine.
Together they speak honestly about church hurt, identity built around sin and mental-health labels, the tension between “come as you are” and being transformed, and how God uses broken people on purpose. But they also speak directly to the listener whose rock bottom doesn’t look like a needle or a jail cell — the successful, the comfortable, the Theo Von types whose emptiness is just as real — pointing to Solomon, Avicii, Robin Williams, and the rich man and Lazarus as a reminder that the invitation of John 5 is still open.
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