What if the thing you’re trying so hard to change isn’t actually the real problem?
Every new year, we make lists of everything we want to change—our bodies, habits, homes, spending, schedules, relationships—but what if we’re trying to solve the wrong problems? In this solo episode, Collide founder Willow Weston challenges us to look beneath our surface-level resolutions and ask what’s really happening in our hearts. Through Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus and God’s promise in Ezekiel to replace hearts of stone with hearts of flesh, Willow reminds us that real transformation doesn’t begin with trying harder; it begins when we allow Jesus to collide with the deeper places of our lives. Instead of covering pain, insecurity, loneliness, anxiety, or brokenness with temporary fixes, Jesus invites us to open every room of our hearts and let Him do what we cannot do for ourselves: make what has become old, hardened, and broken new again.
Meet Willow Weston
Willow Weston is the founder and director of Collide and host of The Collide Podcast. Through her teaching and leadership, Willow invites women to authentically collide with Jesus in the real, messy, painful, and beautiful places of their lives and allow Him to bring healing and transformation.
In this solo conversation, Willow gets personal about our desire to fix ourselves and challenges us to trade surface-level solutions for the deeper work Jesus wants to do in our hearts.
Key Takeaways
- When you’re trying to change a behavior: Look deeper. What appears to be the problem may actually be the way you’re coping with a deeper hurt, longing, fear, or insecurity.
- When you’re focused on changing the outside: Remember that God starts with the inside. Scripture reminds us that while people look at outward appearances, God looks at the heart.
- When you’re frustrated that you can’t change yourself: Stop believing it all depends on you. Willow reminds us that ultimately, God is the One who makes us new and restores what has become broken.
- When your heart feels hardened: Don’t lose hope. Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones reminds us that God can breathe life into places that seem completely dead.
- When you know something isn’t right: Get honest about the condition of your heart. Recognizing where you’ve become bitter, calloused, fearful, hopeless, or distant can be the beginning of allowing God to heal it.
- When you’ve invited Jesus into only part of your life: Open another door. Willow compares our hearts to houses where we sometimes allow God into the living room while keeping Him out of the bedroom, office, relationships, finances, parenting, or other private spaces.
- When you want a fresh start: Ask God for something deeper than a new habit. Pray with the psalmist: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
How This Episode Will Encourage You:
Jesus wants to collide with the deepest parts of your story—not just change your habits, but bring healing to what has become broken, hardened, or hopeless. The God who made your heart wants to meet you there and make it new.
