Become New with John Ortberg

What do you say to yourself when you make a mistake? For many of us, one wrong answer, awkward conversation, or disappointing performance can turn into a harsh verdict about who we are. John Ortberg offers a different response, borrowed from conductor Benjamin Zander: “How fascinating!”

Through stories about music, tutoring, Eugene Peterson, and the disciple Peter, John explores how a growth mindset helps us approach mistakes with curiosity and a willingness to learn. Instead of constantly asking, “How do I look?” we can begin asking, “What can I learn?” That shift changes how we respond to challenges, setbacks, criticism, and other people’s success.

At the heart of this teaching is Romans 8:1: there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. When your worth is secure, you have room to develop your abilities, receive feedback, and try again. Discover a practical way to interrupt self-condemnation, grow through your mistakes, and extend that same grace to others.

Try this today: When you make a mistake, pause and say, “How fascinating!” Then ask what you can learn and what your next faithful step might be.

Find more teaching and daily practices at Become New.

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Music Credits:
Welcome to the World by Sarah Watson
License# MB01XUUTGU633PL

0:00 What to Say When You Make a Mistake
0:18 Benjamin Zander and the Nervous Cellist
1:02 “How Fascinating!”
1:34 Living Without Condemnation
2:31 Mistakes and the Learning Zone
3:18 A Disciple Is a Learner
3:39 Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset
4:49 “How Do I Look?” vs. “What Can I Learn?”
5:55 Your Worth Is Already Established
6:48 Responding to Challenges, Setbacks, and Criticism
7:55 Eugene Peterson’s Rejected Manuscript
8:46 What Peter’s Mistakes Can Teach Us
9:25 Your Practice for Today

Why does God sometimes make us wait for something we’ve asked him for again and again? Jesus tells us to keep praying, asking, seeking, and knocking. Yet the silence can be difficult to understand, especially when someone we love needs help.

John Ortberg explores that tension through Jesus’ encounter with a Canaanite woman in Matthew 15. She comes to him pleading for her daughter, and at first Jesus says nothing. Drawing on New Testament scholar Kenneth Bailey, John considers how this encounter may also expose what Jesus’ disciples think about the woman and whether they will recognize her need. She keeps asking, and Jesus ultimately praises her faith and heals her daughter.

John does not claim to explain every delay in prayer. He offers one question we can bring into the waiting: “God, is there a way you want me to respond?” Prayer can include honest persistence, listening, and a small step of love that is ours to take today.

Scripture: Matthew 15:21–28; Luke 18:1–8; Matthew 7:7–11; Luke 22:31–32

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Music Credits:
Welcome to the World by Sarah Watson
License# MB01XUUTGU633PL

Can you lead with authority and still be genuinely vulnerable? Many of us treat those qualities as opposites. If we want to be strong, we assume we need to protect ourselves from being hurt. But in this conversation with Alan George, John Ortberg offers another picture of leadership.
Drawing on Andy Crouch’s Strong and Weak, John explains that authority and vulnerability are two distinct qualities. Jesus held both. He acted with authority and willingly opened himself to pain for the sake of love. John and Alan explore the temptation to avoid that kind of openness, including the subtle habit of sharing stories that sound vulnerable while keeping what matters hidden.
The conversation then turns toward genuine change. Why can we know what we’re supposed to do and still struggle to become different people? John reflects on Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines and the honesty found in recovery communities: admitting our need can open us to help we could never manufacture for ourselves.
Where might you be protecting an image of strength? And what could become possible if you brought that part of your life into the light?

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Music Credits:
Welcome to the World by Sarah Watson
License# MB01XUUTGU633PL

What can still grow in your life after you’ve been hurt? John Ortberg explores that question through a story author James Michener remembered from childhood: an aging apple tree, eight rusty nails, and an unexpected harvest.

Years later, after heart surgery and other painful health challenges, Michener returned to that image. He resolved to keep bearing fruit. John connects his story with the poetry of John Milton and the lives of Hank and Jan, a couple whose faithful care for one another became a powerful expression of love.

John does not try to explain away suffering. He invites us to consider what love can still look like within it: noticing someone who feels invisible, offering help, caring for a loved one, or doing our ordinary work with God.

The episode closes at the cross, where nails hammered into a tree become part of the Christian story of self-giving love. Your wounds matter. What might God help you grow from here?

Scripture connections: Matthew 25:14–30; John 15:4–5, 12–13

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Music Credits:
Welcome to the World by Sarah Watson
License# MB01XUUTGU633PL

What do you do when God seems absent from your story? 
Maybe you still pray, read Scripture, and show up, but the closeness you once felt is gone. Does that mean you’ve done something wrong? Has God left?
John Ortberg explores those questions through John of the Cross, the sixteenth-century spiritual writer associated with the phrase dark night of the soul. John explains that this phrase can mean something more specific than a difficult season: a time when the pleasure and reassurance someone once found in spiritual practices seem to fade. For some, John of the Cross believed, that season can become part of learning to love and trust God more deeply.
Through the image of a weaned child in Psalm 131, John asks what it means to remain with God even when we are not receiving the comfort we want. He also remembers learning to ride a bike as his father ran beside him. When his father let go, the support felt different, but his father had not abandoned him.
If God feels hard to find right now, you do not need to manufacture a spiritual feeling today. You can bring your honest experience to him and ask for the grace to wait.
Scripture: Psalm 131:1–3

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Music Credits:
Welcome to the World by Sarah Watson
License# MB01XUUTGU633PL