Stop Living Like There’s Not Enough — The Kingdom Worldview Changes Everything
Most of us have spent years operating out of a worldview built on scarcity, certainty, perfection, and self-focus — and we didn’t even know it. In Episode 201 of the Daron Earlewine Podcast, Daron picks up where Part 1 left off and unpacks the alternative: the connection worldview. Built on four tenets — abundance, mystery, fallibility, and others-focus — this framework isn’t just a fresh perspective. It’s the way Jesus actually described life in the kingdom. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
What it looks like when you actually believe there’s enough
Abundance doesn’t mean prosperity gospel. It means God is generous, there is enough, and you were designed to be a conduit — not a container. Daron shares a story from the start of his sabbatical, standing outside his Wyoming cabin looking at the Yellowstone mountains, saying, “God, I’m doing so much better than I deserve.” And the Holy Spirit stopping him mid-sentence: No. This is how I love my kids. And you are my son. That moment cracked something open. From abundance flows mystery — the idea that God is knowable but not controllable, and that staying curious keeps you connected. Then comes fallibility: you are imperfect, you are in process, and failure is just learning. Daron gets honest about growing up in the holiness tradition, where the pressure to appear perfect led him and his friends to lie at ordination. Shame does that. But the connection worldview says God isn’t waiting to separate from you when you fall — he’s running toward you.
How others-focus ties it all together
The fourth tenet — others-focus — is where the whole framework lands. Other-focused living isn’t optional. It’s the evidence of a transformed life. When you live from abundance, lean into mystery, and stop performing for perfection, something shifts. You stop protecting yourself and start emptying yourself. Love becomes the natural output. And the good news stops being something you hold onto and starts being something you pass on. As Daron puts it: “All good news is meant to come to us on its way to someone else.” If you’re ready to trade the separation worldview for something that actually produces peace, this episode is your next step.
Episode Summary:
Most of us are operating from a worldview built on scarcity, control, perfection, and self-protection — and we don’t even know it. In this episode, Daron Earlewine, PJ Towle, and Darren Cooper unpack the four tenets of the connection or kingdom worldview: abundance, mystery, fallibility, and others-focus. This is not motivational content. This is a lens-changing conversation rooted in scripture that will challenge how you see God, yourself, and everyone around you.
This is Part 2 of a two-part series on worldview, curated from the teaching of Jamie Winship. If you missed part 1 of the conversation, it covers the separation worldview, built on scarcity, control, perfection, and self-protection.
Key Takeaways:
- God is looking for conduits, not hoarders, and what you do with what you have right now is already a statement about what you believe
- Mystery is not the enemy of faith; it is the invitation into it. Compassionate curiosity changes every relationship you have
- Your failures are not final. God was never more concerned with your performance than with your connection to him
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Daron: When you come into a relationship with God, you are washed in the blood of the lamb and you become the righteousness of Christ. So when he sees you, he sees you through the righteousness of Jesus. Created on purpose and for purpose.
Welcome back to the Daron Earlewine Podcast. I am your host, Daron Earlewine, here with the co-hosts with the most.
PJ: “With the most?” I always feel like I’m too much.
Daron: You say “the most” and you mean it in the very best way.
PJ: Thanks, I appreciate that.
Daron: PJ, welcome back. And Producer Coop, welcome back.
Darren: Hey, hey. Glad to be here. Digging these conversational episodes. We’ve had a couple of these now. I think we accidentally reinvented the Daron Earlewine Podcast.
Daron: You guys gave the idea and I was like, let’s try it. And then I realized I enjoy this ten times more than sitting around by myself talking to the camera.
PJ: And I feel like having us here gives the audience a different perspective to help them understand the content a little more.
Daron: Different perspectives, different life experiences. And I feel like I’m learning more as we’re having the conversation. So I appreciate you guys.
We are in part two of this podcast series on worldview. If you missed the first episode, stop this one right now. Go back and listen. We talked about this concept I learned from Jamie Winship about a year ago — the idea that there are only two worldviews that exist: separation and connection. You could also substitute the word “kingdom” into the idea of a connected worldview.
Last episode, we went through the four tenets of the separation worldview: scarcity, certainty, perfection, and self-focus. We talked about how, just in a thirty-minute conversation, you could see how those things permeate our emotions, our thoughts, and our decisions in every single way. I hope that episode was an eye-opener for you.
Darren: It was a potentially demotivating episode if that’s the only option.
Daron: That’s exactly why we’re doing part two. If you heard that first episode and thought, “That is so me and I hate it” — there is a new way. You might even call it the way, the truth, and the life.
And this is what I love about discovering these things. Maybe Jesus has just been some religious figure in a book to you. I hope through this podcast you are discovering what I have discovered and continue to discover every day — that Jesus is everything. He really is the way, the truth, and the life. And we are not even talking about where you go when you die. We are talking about the way you live your life right now by truth, and you have life to the full. You actually experience love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control as the essence of your life.
So let’s talk about what the connection or kingdom worldview actually is. The four tenets of this worldview are: abundance, mystery, fallibility, and others-focus.
Abundance
Let’s start with the first one — it starts from a place of abundance. Basically, the idea is this: there is enough. God is generous. There is enough, and we live in an overflow.
PJ: That is a tough thing to believe, especially if you grew up in or around ministry. You were told all the time there wasn’t enough.
Daron: And sometimes almost told that if you were really faithful to God, you were probably more of a martyr. Like God didn’t really want to bless you too much. And then there are all kinds of perversions of this on the other end. Don’t worry, I’m not about to give you prosperity gospel. But out of pushing that away, you can easily find yourself accidentally in a scarcity mindset, just trying to run from the extreme you see and don’t want any part of.
And here’s the thing — looking at the world, there is enough food for everybody. Someone might say, “No there’s not. Kids are starving right now all over the world.” And the question is why? Is it because there is not enough food on the planet? No. Maybe it is because the people who control the food on the planet operate from a scarcity mindset. They realize that if they control the flow, they have power. And what happens? People starve — not because there is not enough food. There is enough. The problem is separation.
There’s enough time. There’s enough food. There’s enough money. There’s enough love. There’s enough grace. There’s enough relationships. There’s enough opportunity. There’s always enough.
And when you start living from that place, one of the first things it gives you is freedom. Over the past year of actually putting that worldview on and saying, “There is enough,” one of the next levels God has been bringing me into is this: He wants to give me abundance.
PJ: That feels bad. Like, I must be doing something wrong if God is giving me more than I need.
Daron: Right. But that is not how I treat my kids. I love to bless my kids. And so once again, when I step back from that place, what am I doing? I’m separating. And I think the thing about connecting with God, with myself, and with others is that God is actually looking for people who can handle a massive influx because they are committed to a massive outflow. They are conduits.
People say, “There is enough money for everybody, Daron.” Yes. There is enough money for everyone. But there is an outflow issue. There is a scarcity mindset and a self-focused mindset where people pray, “Lord, bless and help that person.” But then when someone comes in need, they say, “But that’s my last loaf of bread.” And that is the separation mindset at work.
I don’t believe a bag of gold has ever fallen out of the sky in answer to prayer. The way God seems to meet needs is this: PJ has a need, God gives an abundance to Coop, and Coop — motivated by love and connection — says, “Let me bless you.” And then God goes, “Hey, give Coop more because it’s flowing.”
So the challenge is this: What are you doing right now that demonstrates an abundance mindset? Let’s use money. “I’ll give when I get more.” You’ll never have enough. When you make thirty or fifty thousand dollars a year, what are you doing now that proves, first to yourself and then to others, that you actually believe there is enough? Do you set aside a certain amount to give away? Do you sponsor a child? Do you tithe, even when it stretches you? Because that is you showing up and saying, “I believe there is abundance even when I do not feel it.”
Darren: It’s an act of faith.
Daron: Exactly. Psalm 23, my cup overflows. John 10:10, I have come that you may have life and have it to the full. Romans 8:32, he who did not spare his own son — how will he not also graciously give us all things? Second Corinthians 9:11, you will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion.
We fight so hard against the weird prosperity version of Christianity that we miss what the scripture actually says. My cup overflows. And think about what that really means. Not “just barely enough.” Overflow. That is what God wants to do. But so often we push it away.
PJ: I think the reason we push back on prosperity is because what we have come to see as prosperity gospel is actually separation. Even in the church. That’s why the word is abundance — not prosperity. When I hear “prosperity,” I hear abundance for me. I deserve the Cadillac. I deserve the fancy sneakers. What you’re describing is overflow coming in so that I can blast it outward.
Daron: That’s exactly right. And here is where the whole thing began. When God starts his relationship with humanity through Abram, the ancient understanding of gods was that they were local, angry, needed to be appeased, and were against you. Then Yahweh shows up and says, “Abram.” Personal. “I know you. I have chosen you. Here is how this works. I am going to bless you — not so you can hoard it, but so you can be a blessing to the world. So that people realize there is a God who is for us, not against us. Near, not far. Who created us on purpose and for purpose.”
That does not have to be just financial. I don’t have enough friends? Actually, there is an abundance of people you could be in relationship with. You know how you get good friends? You be a good friend. Connection.
I want to share a story I may have told before. At the start of my sabbatical two years ago, I was given an opportunity to go to this incredible refuge retreat in Wyoming. Chef-cooked meals three times a day. Fly fishing. Hiking. Horseback riding. Completely gifted to me — I had not paid a cent to be there.
After the first day, I was walking to my cabin after dinner. Ninety miles to the west I could see the snow-capped Yellowstone mountains. And I said, “God, thank you for this. I’m doing so much better than I deserve.”
Which feels like a humble, worthy thing to say.
And in that moment, the Holy Spirit stopped me and said: No. This is how I love my kids. And you are my son.
I stood there with tears running down my face looking at those mountains. And it was one of the first things that began to break me free and put on the connection worldview. God saying, “I made you worthy. Yes, you are always doing better than you deserve — but that is not the point. I am abundantly blessing you because this is what a great dad does. I am blessing you with abundance so you can bring abundance to other people.”
That is where it has to start. Abundance.
Mystery
The second tenet is mystery. And if you grew up in church, this one is going to challenge you more than anything.
Mystery says God is knowable but not controllable. Faith requires humility — and I love this word — wonder.
We are juxtaposing certainty with mystery. PJ, tell me one thing you know for certain that you really understand about God.
PJ: I don’t know as much as I think I know. I mean… that he loves us?
Daron: Okay. How does that work, PJ?
PJ: I don’t know.
Daron: That is unsettling, right? You don’t actually know much for certain. And that is the point. What do you do when you don’t know? You connect. Draw close to me. We talked in a previous episode about hearing from God, knowing who he says you are, and learning to hear his voice. I don’t understand God. “I know. Just keep connecting. I’ll reveal myself.” I don’t know about this situation. “Stay curious. I’ll show you.”
And even with other people — I could get curious about PJ and discover that he is a mystery too. And if I stay connected, I get the joy of the discovery.
PJ: The discovery is the journey. That’s the point, right?
Daron: Exactly. Isaiah 55:8-9, my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways. Deuteronomy 29:29, the secret things belong to the Lord. Romans 11:33, oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. First Corinthians 13:12, now we see only a reflection as in a mirror.
Mystery cultivates humility, dependence, and reverence. I want to stay in that place of compassionate curiosity. When I don’t know, I humble myself and connect. With myself, I stay honest. With others, I stay curious. I lean into the mystery.
Darren: The first time I heard you say “compassionate curiosity” was when we were going through a hive together last year. Before all the Jamie Winship stuff, even. And I heard that and thought, if I operate that way, it changes everything — with clients, with family, with my wife, with friends. Because if I am compassionately curious, I cannot be separate. There is something to be discovered. Why would I stop the investigation?
Daron: Right. How much stuff is there to learn?
Darren: Abundance.
Daron: You can never know it all. Which brings us to the third tenet.
Fallibility
Fallibility says I am imperfect, I am in process, and I am deeply in need of grace. What is failure? It is learning.
Name anything great you have done in your life. Walking. How did you learn? You fell constantly. Riding a bike. How many scars do you have from that? And once you learned, you had freedom — you could ride to your friend’s house, get a paper route. How did you learn? By failing, over and over. How did you learn the language you speak? You sounded like a beginner for years.
Different streams of Christianity have different takes on this. I grew up in the holiness tradition.
PJ: Same.
Daron: Be perfect as God is perfect. We even had some interesting theology about a second work of grace — entire sanctification — where you could sin but would never knowingly sin. And I’ll tell you what, me and many of my friends, when we were asked at our district ordination meeting whether we had experienced entire sanctification — we all lied.
PJ: Knowingly or unknowingly?
Daron: Think about how broken that is. I am afraid of being rejected by the people who are supposed to declare me worthy to be ordained as a pastor. I know I am imperfect, but I know perfection is the standard. So I lie to them, saying I am made perfect, knowing I am not — just so I am not separated. Because that is what we believed: when we fall short, God gets really mad and he separates from you.
But that is not what God does. He runs at you down the road. Like the father in the prodigal son story, lifting up his cloak, coming to find you.
Darren: I want to bring something up because I think someone else out there might feel this way. When you say “imperfect people,” you can easily go down the path of “I am just the worst, I have no ability, I am the scum of the earth.” And it can become a shameful thing. Some traditions create that, maybe unknowingly. A very shame-filled version of this. But the way you presented it felt grace-filled. Like, “Oh — that feels better.”
Daron: Right. Paul said he was the chief among sinners. But he did not say, “And so God has separated from me, I’ve been rejected, I am on my own, no one is coming.” That is not what he said. And here is the thing — if you teach the Bible from a separation worldview, that is what you end up teaching. Because how you see anything is how you see everything.
You can read the vine and the branches in John 15 and, if you read it through scarcity, certainty, and perfection — you get: if you do not bear fruit, I will cut you off and burn you in the fire. And that sermon will preach. You can smell the fire, right?
PJ: I can smell it. It’s on your clothes.
Daron: And it took us all the way to Christian haunted houses called Heaven’s Gates, Hell’s Flames. Bringing teenagers in to scare the shame of God into them. Make you feel so terrible about your imperfection, about your failure, that God is about to separate from you. And the way it was taught, his wrath almost sounded like his joy.
And then Brene Brown — and I love her work — draws the distinction between guilt and shame. Guilt says I did wrong. Shame says I am wrong. And the great motivator behind shame is disconnection and rejection. God never deals with us with fear and shame. Conviction? Sure. Invitation? Absolutely. Forgiveness? One hundred percent.
Someone will say, “You’re giving people license to sin.” And here is the truth — God kind of did give us license to sin. It is called free will. And what he says is: here is the end of the story, here is what this produces, but if you want to go there, I am not going to stop you. I have heard it said, I don’t think God sends anyone to hell — I think he just lets them go. If you have spent your entire life choosing separation from God, why would you suddenly want to spend eternity with him?
The plan was always connection. Second Timothy 1, The Message version says: We had nothing to do with it. It was all his idea. A gift prepared for us in Jesus long before we knew anything about it.
Christ was the Lamb of God set apart before creation. He knew we were going to struggle. And he was not actually that broken up about it — because he is more concerned about connection than performance.
Darren: What’s the father’s greatest desire?
Daron: I just had this conversation with my own kids last week. I said, “Here’s what I want your number one instinct to be when things go wrong: call me. Run to me. You think I’m going to punish you? No. I am the safest place you can go in your worst moment.” Why? Because all I want is to be connected to you, son.
That is the heart of fallibility in the connection worldview. When you walk with Jesus and you fail — what do you do? You learn. And then what? You keep walking toward him. You’re yoked with him. Walk with me. Learn from me. The Message says it this way: learn the unforced rhythms of grace. It is not about perfection. It is about connection.
Others-Focus
And that leads us to the fourth and final tenet: others-focus. Selflessness. Love.
No longer self-protecting, self-promoting, self-focused. You become self-emptying. Others-focused. Love.
Matthew 22:37-40, love the Lord your God, love your neighbor as yourself. Philippians 2:4-5, look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. John 15:12-13, love one another as I have loved you. First John 4:20-21, whoever loves God must also love his brothers and sisters.
Other-focused living is not optional. It is the evidence of a transformed life.
Think about this. Every day you wake up and go, “I’m 48. Have I wasted my life? Do I have enough time?”
There’s enough.
“I don’t know exactly what I’m doing.”
Stay connected. Walk with me. The Holy Spirit will guide, direct, and teach you. He will tell you about the future — what you need, when you need it. My word is a lamp to your path. Not a spotlight. A lamp. Here is the next step.
And here is the thing — if God told you everything he was going to do with your life in the next ten years, you would either not believe it or you would believe it and be so terrified you still would not do it. So he gives you the next step. It is a mystery. Keep walking.
Darren: I am just breathing really deeply here and I have this real sense of peace. I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t have to know it all. There is always going to be enough. I just want to go help somebody with this.
PJ: That’s what love does.
Daron: Right. When they say the gospel is good news — it really is. You hear all the folks who have been church-hurt, who have had stipulations put on them and been wounded deeply. That is real. But when you break it down this way, you go: yeah, I should probably go tell somebody this. Because it would really help them. And so you start to see some of Jesus’s own words come to life — “go and tell” — and you think, yes. Because that is good news.
This is the kingdom. What I love about what Jamie teaches, and what I’m challenging myself with through Rogue Collective and Blackbird Mission, is this — I’m not interested in inviting people to become Christians in the sense of joining a club. Jamie puts it this way: all the religions, all the denominations — they’re just gangs. Protecting their turf. And he spent twenty-six years in the Middle East watching Muslims encounter Jesus, hear from Jesus, begin following Jesus. And the point was not “now do it our way.” The point was: welcome to the kingdom.
This is how the kingdom of God operates. I don’t want to invite people to a gang. I want them to get to know Jesus. Step into the kingdom. Because you have two choices. You can live your life with a separation worldview — with fear, rejection, and shame. That is all it produces. Or you try these glasses on.
This is called the kingdom. Abundance. Mystery. Failure. Love.
Darren: You’re going to think about this episode for a while. Probably need to watch it two or three times.
PJ: Connection glasses.
Daron: As we wrap up, I want to close this one in prayer. For us in this room and for everyone listening. That we would walk away with that compassionate curiosity — and step into the next step of purpose, connected to him.
Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for this medium, this conversation, this opportunity for something timeless and eternal to be accessible to so many people, in so many places, for a long time.
Today we got to step a little further into the mystery of an eternal truth: the God of the universe loves us and wants to be connected. That was your whole plan from the beginning. And Father, that is hard to believe. It is hard to receive. We need your help. We need your grace. We need your truth.
I pray for everyone listening. Whatever point of the separation worldview hit them hardest, whatever tenet has the biggest hold on them, I pray you would give them insight into where that worldview began to take shape. Was there a moment? A conversation? A memory? Give them the courage to go back to that place and ask you: God, what do you want me to know about this? I started to believe this about you. I started to believe this about myself. I started to believe this about others. What do you want me to know?
Tune their minds, their hearts, their emotions to hear your voice. Speak the truth over them about who they are, about who you are, about your love and your faithfulness. Invite them into the mystery. Into the abundance of your love. Let them see that their failures are not final — they are just part of the process.
And God, I pray that as a result of this episode, we would echo the words of Jesus and see your kingdom come and your will be done. In marriages. In friendships. In families. In businesses. In schools. In dorm rooms. In workplaces. In every sphere of life our listeners walk in. Your kingdom come, your will be done.
And from the abundance of that overflow, Father, let it flow into every relationship and every room they step into. Because this is good news. And all good news is meant to come to us on its way to someone else.
Open our eyes to someone this week, maybe even today, where we can say: hey, have you ever heard of a connection worldview? And through that conversation, God, walk into the room and invite someone new into the kingdom. Into this connection. Into this relationship with you.
Jesus, you are the absolute best. Thank you that you are for us, not against us. Thank you that you are near, not far away. You are connected. You always will be. You created each one of us on purpose and for purpose. Empower us to step into the next step of that purpose, connected to you.
We love you. You’re the best. Amen.