Wayne Jacobsen

There is no more important question any of us will answer in our lifetimes, than who is God really? Is he an abusive bully demanding the universe do his bidding, or is he an affectionate Father inviting us into the fullness of his glory? How do we answer it? We sort out the story of Scripture, we look at the reflection of his nature in Jesus, and we let the Holy Spirit unveil him in our hearts. It’s a process that takes a life time. But having been one who lived in the fear of appeasing God every day to one who has lived with a growing awareness of his affection over the last twenty years, I can say sorting that out is life’s greatest adventure. And finding a way to live in his affection 

Last week I exchanged some email with a lady who is sorting that out in her own life. I thought others of you might enjoy reading over my shoulder as this life awakens to a greater reality. This is Joani’s original email:

I’m just finishing He Loves Me and chapter 22 discusses the difference between “save me” prayers and “God glorify you name” prayers.  On page 178 you write, “This is the prayer the Father always answers, ‘Father, may the purpose for which you have created me and placed me where you have in the world be fulfilled completely.'”  How is asking God to fulfill His purpose in us different from evangelical songs asking God to “use” us? I think it’s in your Transition series where you discuss God “using” us as a putrid idea, and you used your daughter coming to you saying, ‘Dad, use me,” as an example to verify “use me” as unhealthy.  I agree with you.  The idea of God using us does seem unhealthy.  

How would you distinguish between the prayer of “God’s purpose” and “God’s using?  I read your prayer on page 178 as passivity but not the “Relax, I’m your heavenly Father and have the best in store for you” kind of passivity. I read it as a prayer of passivity where I’m basically a doormat for God. I come from an abusive background, and have not been won into trust about passivity. Passivity has been a terrible experience in my past. Passivity means I have no voice or value so I’m resisting this prayer of passivity.  So what is the context for the idea of God having a purpose for us? 

My response: Wow! A doormat for God? Don’t know that I’ve heard that expression before. I guess it all depends on how we view God. If he’s a demanding taskmaster who wants to ruin our lives with his “purpose” or exploit us for his gain, then you’re right.  It’s a pretty disgusting notion. But if he’s the Creator, who loves us more than anyone ever has or will and wants us to be a part of his incredible purpose to redeem the world to himself and help set captives free, then who wouldn’t want to be part of that?  I don’t see God’s “purpose” as our obligation at all. I see it as an invitation to fulfill all that we were created for before sin and religion twisted us up.

So I don’t know that your question is about vocabulary here, but about how we perceive God and our place with him. That may be shaded by your background for sure.  I understand why being used by another person or deity for their purposes would be pretty disgusting. But if he knows you better than you know yourself and he wants you to know absolute fulfillment and joy and would never ask anything of you that would violate your personhood or compromise your freedom. Who wouldn’t want to discover what he’s about in the world and join him in it? God’s giving beats our trying to get any day… 

Joani responded:   

You hit the nail on the head about the issue not being about vocabulary. The issue is whether or not we know him, and you’re right — if we know who God actually is then why wouldn’t we want to join him on this journey!  And after reading your email I realized more clearly how I still see God as the family and neighbors I grew up with. In essence, I see God as a dictator, absentee father, bully and constant rule changer so that I never have a chance of succeeding. What an appalling view!

I was brought to tears with your sentence, “. . . (he) . .  would never ask anything of you that would violate your personhood or compromise your freedom.” I found that absolutely remarkable! I didn’t know that about God and putting it in such terms was both eye-opening and heart-wrenching (in a good way).

I’ve almost always viewed myself as insignificant or inconsequential — as a cookie-cutter person or generic box of macaroni (for lack of a better illustration) to be kicked around. I’m starting to see that’s no longer acceptable. I can’t hold my son, for example, as significant and loved by God and claim I’m not.  I haven’t been trying to be stubborn or set myself apart. I was simply thinking like the stray dog — unable to trust or receive love. 

You said in a different way what you’ve always been saying about God’s love, and it’s what I needed to hear.

My heart goes out to people like Joani who are sorting out how God really thinks about them. I know it isn’t easy to see something in your heart that your mind doesn’t fully embrace yet.  I know how discouraging and how scary to think of God as an abusive Father who will exploit you instead of one coming to set you free. So much of religion paints him that way, as an offended, angry deity always disappointed in us. And because of our shame it is easier  to believe that than that he is an affectionate Father delighting in them each day and drawing them ever-more surely into the reailty of his love.

But we have to see that struggle as his more than ours. When I read Joani’s email, I am so encouraged because I see God is unraveling her old way of thinking and that she is getting her ready to see his love in a way that will capture her heart. Every word of her emails breathes with that reality.  

What I wrote her next, I’d want to say to all of you in this same struggle:  

“God is moving something in your heart to a place of greater freedom. It may be taking awhile because the brokenness runs so deep. And I do understand how easy it is to get discouraged with the passing of time and still battling the darkness. But you need to see this not as your responsibility to change your own thinking, but as Father at work in you to win the heart of a daughter he so loves. The struggle is understandable. We’ve all been through it, though certainly at different depths and through different experiences. But you will get through this.  He is winning your heart from unworthy conclusions about him that others have given you to the reality that only he can give.

“He is making himself known to you. As best you can each day, try (however fleetingly) to relax into the trust that he is doing this in you not asking you to do it yourself.  He knows how lost you are.  He knows how painful it has all been, but your desire for him and the reality of his love will win out.  He’s at work already.  The day is at hand.

So when you get discouraged and are overcome with tears, let them flow. It is all part of draining the old lies and wounds and letting you see beyond that into the richness of his love for you. And when you sense that love let the joy flow. It runs in fits and starts as the old gives way to the new.  Let the process play out.  Don’t try to rush it and don’t judge yourself for it not being fulfilled yet. This is in his hands and there’s no better place for it.

His love for you has always been there and no less true today just because you can’t see it clearly. But you when you do you’ll find great joy in your Heavenly Dad.

I’m praying for you…”

And for those who want further help learning how to let God build a relationship with you, Wayne offers a series of short videos to help coach you into responding to what he is doing, rather than trying to get there in your own wisdom or strength. They are called Engage. They are free and you can find them here.  

“Have you talked to Pastor?”

Everytime I hear ‘Pastor” used as someone’s first name, I cringe inside.  My yuck meter goes off because using titles for each other is one of the things Jesus asked us not to do.  Why do we continue to violate it every day?  

I got this quesiton in my inbox the other day:  

Matthew 23:8-112 reads, “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant.

For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

My Question is how does this apply to today?  And does using titles so as to not offend make sense in Scripture?

How do I apply this today? I don’t use such titles for myself and I don’t use them for others either. If someone is going to be offended if I don’t call them “Pastor” or “Reverend,” I don’t spend a lot of time with such people.  Their love of titles is a demonstration that they don’t have the heart of Jesus.  I’m not saying they are not saved, simply that they are not living very deeply in his reality.

People say they do it only to show honor, but isn’t that exactly what Jesus is talking about? Titles separate us from each other, putting some in a special class.  Jesus wanted us to understand and appreciate that God alone stands above, and all his people stand alongside each other.  Pastor, elder, apostle, may describe a function God has given us in the body; it is not and never can be our identity. Once it is, everything gets twisted.  

It isn’t easy negotiating an unknown and potentially serious medical condition especially when you are the mom of young children. A friend of mine is facing that challenge. It’s been going on awhile and still the doctors still aren’t sure exactly what she’s facing. She wrote me this week about being overwhelmed with the fears of what it could be and the weariness of dealing with the symptoms and tests.  My heart hurts to her and many others I know facing similar circumstances. As I prayed for her my mind was drawn back to an email I’d just read from Patricia in Wisconsin. In fact, it had come in two minutes before the one I received from this young mom.  

It told an amazing story that I thought would encourage this mom and perhaps give her some insight as to how to deal with the latest round of tests.  Here’s what Patricia wrote:   

I hit a bit of a wall a few weeks back waking up feeling as if there was a black cloud hovering over me. I asked Jesus, “What is it that I’m not getting about your love for me? ” I asked him to show me. I was pretty discouraged, Wayne, not understanding why. I headed out the door to water the flowers. Being with flowers always seems uplifting. Stretched across the walk was a big snake. Although I assumed it was non-poisonous, my reaction could be described much like when you slam on your brakes when someone suddenly cuts you off in traffic. Frightened, I stomped my foot and the snake quickly slithered into a space between the walk and the front porch. Great, I thought, now it’s in the basement! I had a vision of it hanging from a pipe the next time I needed to make a trip downstairs.

 

Just then Jesus seemed to speak to my heart. “You become afraid, stomp your feet driving your fear deeper inside.” The next morning I went out to water the flowers and once again there was the snake stretched out across the walk. This time I turned my empty bucket upside down several feet away from it and sat down. I had an interesting conversation with Jesus about my fear. The next morning the snake was there and the day following that. I began to say good morning to the snake. Although I didn’t feel the need to drape that baby over my shoulders I appreciated it’s presence. I began to view the snake differently.

 

By the end of the week he was gone. So was the discouragement. I was left with a deeper, more authentic relationship with Him.

Our fears only grow greater in the darkness and our view of God much smaller. I love this story of the snake and the fact that Patricia would sit down near it and have a  conversation with God about her fears. I love how that engagement changed her view of the snake and her connection with the Father who loves her so much. When people encounter difficult circumstances, some try to ignore them, others dwell on them with fear and panic. What would happen if we sat down with God in the face of our fears and talked it out with him? I’ve often heard preachers or worship leaders telling us to lay down our fears when we come to him. In their minds admitting to fear is proof we have no faith. But that is only denial. It takes far more trust to bring our fears along as we sit or walk with him. 

So I sent this story to the young mom facing the scary medical diagnosis, with this encouragement:  “You and God can find some deep, deep fellowship staring down your fear and finding out that your whole life is in Father’s hands. It has always been. So is everyone else’s. And those are pretty good hands to have it in, regardless of the outcome.”

She wrote back saying my email had begun to draw her into different space. “Your last email made the tears fall… I talked to God… felt like I was flinging myself into his lap like my kids do when they are hurt and scared. I want those deep conversations. I’m tired.”

Awesome. What other option to any of us have? We can’t change our circumstances. We can’t win over our fears. We can only sit down in the midst of them and let Father do what Father does best—draw us into freer space.  Fear only makes God seem more distant.  He is not.  It’s not in his nature.  If we take the time to sit with him and let him sort out it out. He knows how to handle it all and make himself known to us.  As he settle us in his love our fears lose their power as we know we are not alone and that the one who is in us is greater than any circumstance confronting us.  

What else are we going to do, throw a tantrum and drive our fears under the porch where they only becomes even scarier?