Your Faith Has Become a Job, and Jesus Never Hired You. Tim Timmons on Quitting Performance Christianity and Why We Have to Learn How to Wrestle with God.

Somewhere between the prayer requests, the small group answers, and the service rotation, you stopped following Jesus and started working for him. You know what this feels like: the quiet exhaustion under the faithfulness, the sense that God has become an employer and you have become an employee who can never clock enough hours. Tim Timmons joins me from a place most people never reach: 25 years into an incurable cancer diagnosis, months past the death of his best friend, and more alive in Jesus than he has ever been. Tim is the co-writer of MercyMe's Grammy-nominated "Even If" and the subject of the film I Can Only Imagine 2. We move into the distinction Tim names plainly: working for God is exhausting, and he quit. What replaced it is not resignation; it is something wilder and more demanding, the daily decision to join Jesus in the present moment rather than perform for an audience of One who never asked for the performance. We confront the Christian platitudes that gaslight grieving people, the real distance between surrender and contentment (they are not the same thing, and one of them can be done in fury), and what it looks like to wrestle with God well without letting go. If you have been managing God's opinion of you rather than following him, this conversation will not comfort you. It will ask you to stop performing and start joining, which is harder and more alive. The question Tim keeps returning to across 25 years of manure and mystery is available to you right now: what if Jesus is here, at work, and not asking for your performance? Stop pretending you have already answered it. Guest Bio Tim Timmons is a Nashville-based singer, songwriter, and worship leader who has spent 25 years living with an incurable stage four cancer diagnosis and has emerged not with answers but with something better: a practice. He co-wrote MercyMe's Grammy-nominated "Even If," is the subject of the film I Can Only Imagine 2 (portrayed by Milo Ventimiglia), and recently released Waking Up Again: A Journey of Grief and Gratitude with his wife Hillary. He leads 10,000 Minutes, a nonprofit and podcast built around the question of what happens when Jesus people actually join Jesus in the 10,000 minutes outside of Sunday. Show Partner SafeSleeve designs a phone case that blocks up to 99% of harmful EMF radiation—so I'm not carrying that kind of exposure next to my body all day. It's sleek, durable, and most importantly, lab-tested by third parties. The results aren't hidden—they're published right on their site. And that matters because many so-called EMF blockers on the market either don't work or can't prove they do. We protect our hearts and minds—why wouldn't we protect our bodies too? Head to safesleevecases.com and use the code WINTODAY10 for 10% off your order. Episode Links Show Notes Buy my book "Healing What You Can't Erase" here! Invite me to speak at your church or event. Connect with me @WINTODAYChris on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.