Two friends. One three-hour conversation about the biggest question there is. Shawn Zajas believes Jesus is the way. Adrian Lefler had an experience at 29 that convinced him the divine is bigger than any single religion. Neither is trying to win — both are trying to get to what's real.
This isn't a debate built to score points. It's an honest, exploratory, and genuinely warm conversation between two people who respect each other and refuse to flinch away from the hard parts. If you've ever wrestled with whether Christianity is "the only way," why a good God allows so much suffering, or whether you can actually KNOW the truth or only experience it — this is a conversation worth sitting with.
Adrian grew up devoutly Mormon, served a mission in New York City, and then had a mystical experience that cracked the foundation of everything he'd been taught. Over the next decade he tore his belief system down to the studs and rebuilt it from his own encounters with the divine — landing somewhere closer to non-dual mysticism, panpsychism, and "we are all one consciousness experiencing itself." Shawn comes at it from the other side: a follower of Jesus who cares less about denominations and doctrine and more about knowing the living God, spiritual warfare, and loving weak and broken people the way he believes God does.
WHAT WE GET INTO:
• Is Jesus the only way to God — or one map among many?
• The problem of evil: if God is all-good, why does He allow suffering? Is God BEYOND good and evil?
• Leaving Mormonism — what actually happens when your whole community is your faith
• A "born again" experience at 29 that felt more real than reality itself
• Consciousness, panpsychism, and the idea that the brain is a "tuning fork" for God
• Do miracles require God to "break" physics — or are we already at the center of it?
• Angels, the unseen realm, and spiritual warfare • How do you decide what's true — personal experience, or the Bible?
• Why Shawn had to be broken of "the Shawn show" before he could actually see God
• Grace vs. works, performance vs. being loved, and the danger of Christian culture without God • Following a living God who won't sit still for your theology
Whether you're a Christian, deconstructing, spiritual-but-not-religious, agnostic, ex-Mormon, or just fascinated by the biggest questions of meaning, God, and truth — pull up a chair. It goes to some uncomfortable places and stays kind the whole way through.
CHAPTERS:
0:00 Cold open
0:41 Two men, two starting points
7:45 Leaving Mormonism — a crack in the foundation
10:36 The experience at 29: "born again," but bigger
22:57 The problem of evil: is God beyond good & evil?
31:05 Can God be love without a choice? Law vs. intelligence
46:21 Miracles, consciousness & panpsychism
51:10 Angels and the unseen realm
57:23 "We are literally gods"
1:05:08 How do you know what's true — experience or the Bible?
1:14:14 When it stopped being the "Shawn show"
1:26:06 The greatest love story ever told
1:34:47 "You are the ocean"
1:39:47 Holding his son: "nothing greater than that"
1:56:05 Loving weak & broken people over performance
2:14:29 Follow the living God, not the snapshot
2:21:33 "Shawn, I'm your rope" — true abundance is light
GUEST:
Adrian Lefler 👉 https://www.youtube.com/@Byte-Sized-Podcast
HOST:
Shawn Zajas — Wholehearted. Conversations for anyone who's ever felt too far gone. [Wholehearted links — website / socials: TODO]
If this stirred something in you: you're not too far gone. No matter what's died in you — come back to life.
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