I am often asked if I know of a retreat or a workshop that will help people find the joy of living loved and connect with the Father, especially for those whose father’s betrayed or abused them in some way. They have never had a flesh and blood example of a loving, trustworthy father in their own lives.

I was just asked that this morning. What I wrote back is something I’d want to say to so many others who struggle with the same thing. They look for a resource to help them find a breakthrough, not even realizing the greatest resource in the world is already in them.

“No, I don’t have any retreats or seminars to recommend to you. To be honest I don’t have much confidence in any formatted ministry to hold what various people might need to make the next step in their lives. God’s Spirit is the best guide I know to help people unlock the broken places in their hearts and free them to know him. So look to him as the primary source of the liberty you seek. See what he leads you to do.

And it may be that he will lead you to one of the best resources God has on the planet—brothers and sisters in whom his life has taken shape. Like “John” in the So You Don’t Want to Go To Church Anymore, they come alongside people who need help with a mixture of questions, encouragement, prayer and love that magnifies God’s reality in the human heart and invites people into freedom. They don’t have a formula to follow here, but are listening with you as the Spirit makes his unique process known that will overturn the darkness in your life and help you learn to trust the Father who will never betray you.

I have no doubt Father has some near you, though you may not even know them yet. Ask God to help you cross the path of one of his “elders” in the family who can help you through this. They will most likely not be a pastor or counselor, but just an older, wiser, brother or sister who enjoy a real walk with God, is at peace in himself or herself, and has a heart to help others who have gotten stuck on their journey.

I got a ringside seat behind the scenes to watch this little movie grow up. I’ve known producers Bobby and Kevin Downes for years and watched them craft this Karen Kingsbury novel into a first-rate motion picture as an indie production. It has been well-received at film festivals and opens this weekend to the general public in selected cities around the U.S. and you can get all the details and watch a preview here.

My part was incredibly small, but I did have the chance to read and comment on various editions of the script and got to view and give my input to various versions through the editing process. We had some great times talking about what might make the story and its presentation more compelling. Though I’ve never read a Karen Kingsbury novel, I found the story in this movie very compelling. What do you do when the troubled birth parents want their child back after he had already been adopted out to a childless couple? This is every adoptive parents’ nightmare, and the story is told in the backdrop of dealing with how to trust God in the face of our fears and the temptation to resort to our own efforts to protect what we love most. It’s quite a dilemma and the story and the movie are well-crafted.

Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino has the lead along with Berry Pepper, and Kate Levering. This is a compelling story and one many of you might find of interest. I haven’t seen the final version, but I enjoyed how it was shaping up in the incredible process of filmmaking. The Downes brothers do a great job of avoiding the Christian cliches and plastic answers that make many faith-based films too one-dimensional and superficial for my liking. I think you will appreciate the craft here and the passion with which they tell this story.

I received this email yesterday and I found my heart not only cringing at the pain my sister has endured, but also overwhelmed with joy that even in such desperate circumstances she has come to discover that her Father had not abandoned her, but was with her as the redeemer in the midst of such ugly circumstances.

Our flesh wants to blame God for the painful things that happen to us, but Scripture is clear: God is not the cause of devastation in our world; sin is! He is engaged in that pain to bring redemption to all involved and lead us into his light and freedom. I’m so glad my sister has found her way into that light and writes of it to encourage others. The journey has truly taken hold of our hearts when we can see the hand of a loving God even a the most devastating moments of our lives.

I just got done listening to the Folly of Judging Motives for the second time. I realized I’ve been judging people and dehumanizing them all my life in order to protect myself. Father has some work to do.

That’s not what caused me to write to you, though. I was writing because something you said toward the end really struck me. You talked about people who have not known God as being loving in their lives and asked how they learn to “live loved”. I’d like to share some thoughts. I was so badly abused as a child that it’s a miracle I lived through it, much less that I can function in society. I was molested, raped, beaten, and forced to participate in an occultic religion that was very anti-God. My perception of God was not good. I thought He just sat on His throne watching, indifferent about the pain around me.

Jesus, however, I did not view the same way as God the Father. He actually held children in His lap, which was one of my favorite stories. Jesus captured my heart at 5-1/2 years old. I never thought things were God’s fault, per se, but He certainly could have intervened. I often felt that I wasn’t “good enough” for God, so I deserved whatever happened to me. I’m 45 now and would say it’s been within the last few years that I’ve been really learning that God loves me without conditions.

A number of things have helped me in my journey. I’ve asked God many times to help me see things in the past the way He does, or I’ve asked Him where He was in those ugly times. As I’ve walked the healing path, He’s been very faithful to me and has answered my questions in beautiful ways. I’ve been allowed to see that I wasn’t alone during those years even if it felt that way. When you find yourself crossing paths with someone in deep pain who’s looking for God’s love, encourage them to ask God to show Himself to them. Also let them know that a sister who understands their pain wants to encourage them not to give up, not to give in to the numbing cold of hopelessness. God will be faithful, and He will draw them to Him.

I wouldn’t trade anything I’ve been through for an “easier” life. My relationship with Him is so sweet and precious. There are times when I don’t feel like I can go any further, but He always gives me what I need. His blessings have far outweighed the pain and suffering I’ve been through. If He will do that for me, He will do that for them. No matter how dark the skies or intense the storm, there is a rainbow somewhere. Sometimes you find it easily and other times you have to look for a while, but it is there.

This is not an intellectual pursuit where the mind can rationalize reasons that God would “allow” such circumstances in our lives. I don’t think there are any rationalizations for that. This is the God-given revelation that he was there and working for our good even in the midst of the nightmare someone else was creating. The only place to find that is where our sister did, in a growing engagement with the Father of all love, who can win this place in your heart.

It may not be as important for you to sort that out in the events of your past, but it is what we need in the painful circumstances we each face today. He is bigger than our pain, and able to work through the tragic realities of our fallen culture to bring triumph out of tragedy, and even make his love known beyond someone else’s failings and selfishness. His work in us doesn’t excuse the actions of others to hurt us, but it does set us free who have been made their victims.

Some of the people I met at the conference in Dallas recently wrote me an email last week. They have recently left a more traditional structure and are involved with a group of people desiring to experience more relational body life. In the email they shared an interesting observation that gets to the crux of how we participate in the unfolding work of God in the world:

We are trained professionally to plan, organize, strategize, evaluate, implement, and re-evaluate, but we have been learning through various experiences that when we rest in Him, He generally brings forth something miraculous. When we let something die, He brings new life. It’s humbling and freeing, all at the same time.

I think the challenge for those of us who have been so trained is to learn how not to grab hold of Jesus’ working around us and try to control it. Real elders in this family help facilitate what he is doing rather than trying to shape it to their liking as many people will press them to do. It is fine line to be sure, but when we live loved there is nothing in us that wants to control Jesus’ work or his gifts. However, where we live in our fears there is all kinds of internal and external pressure to do so.

The essence of the new covenant is that we cease from our labors and live in his unfolding purpose and work. That’s what Hebrews 3 and 4 are all about. I find that that it does not take less wisdom or work to do so; it’s just a different kind of work. It is much harder to live in the moment and respond to what Father does than it is to strike out with our own best wisdom and best efforts when we’re driven by the fear that he is not doing anything, or at least isn’t doing what we want him to do.

The latter leads to exhaustion and only shallow fruitfulness and actually takes us down side trails where it is easy to lose sight of what he’s doing and our prayers beg him to bless what we are doing in his name. Responding to his work in each moment will not only lead to enduring fruitfulness and fulfillment, it will also keep us in the frame of heart that makes it easier to see and follow him.

The freedom in following Jesus comes from no longer trying to get him to do what we want, but to revel in his desires and his working.

Phone calls and emails over the last few days have made me very much aware of all the pain that is in the world and how our only hope is to navigate our difficult circumstances inside the love of a powerful and gracious Father.

Whatever you are facing today, no matter how difficult or tragic, it is so much smaller than the One who loves you and who is at work even in the pain to dislodge you from a false confidence in your own capabilities and invite you to a deeper place inside his grace and power.

I love this reminder from I Peter 3:22 in the language of THE MESSAGE:

Jesus has the last word on everything and everyone, from angles to armies. He’s standing right alongside God and what he says goes!

Jesus may not have the last word on it today, but he will! Our lives are not at the mercy of the flesh of others, or even the capricious events of a fallen world. We live at times in the middle of a chapter, before his work is revealed and life rises out of the darkness. But it is a gift to live there too, not by well-worked biblical strategies for dealing with crises, but by taking each moment as it comes and following whatever light he puts to your path.

Sometimes it is simply enduring in the unfolding circumstance, until his glory comes!

I love the thoughts and words here by a man who lived deeply a journey into life and faith in Jesus Christ:

“As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their “right” place.”

“I know that I have to move from speaking about Jesus to letting him speak within me, from thinking about Jesus to letting him think within me, from acting for and with Jesus to letting him act through me. I know the only way for me to see the world is to see it through his eyes.”

“To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit,l from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play.”

“You don’t think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.”

Source: Good Reads

I thought others of you might enjoy looking over a recent email exchange I had with a brother this week:

From him:

I have been studying and studying God’s word and different interpretations of certain areas of the bible, and it seems that there are so many different opinions on things that I feel like my head is going to explode trying to figure out what is right. Some say speaking in tongues is real, others say it doesn’t exist now. Some say hell isnt eternal, some say it is, and some say that the words Gehenna, Sheol, and Hades paint a totally different picture than what we have been taught. The book of james sure does talk a lot about works, but Paul talks all about grace. I feel so confused because I have a passion for righteousness and truth, but it seems like I have no idea about anything anymore. I feel as if there is no sure way to know the right answer about certain topics like these. I feel like I dont have the answers anymore for those I witness too. I was wondering if you could give me some insight on how to rest in Him. I feel overwhelmed with trying to learn the truth.

My response: Yes, trying to learn the truth can be overwhelming… Better yet, spend time just getting to know the Truth. Inside a relationship with Jesus all these things sort out. That’s why Jesus warned us against getting caught up in doctrines and speculations. I find it best for people to just start with the simplest stories of Jesus and learning what he says about his Father and how we can live in him. All the other things are just principles and doctrines that men have argued about for centuries and none of them has one thing to do with waking up tomorrow, knowing his love and loving those he puts before us….

Him again:

Yes, this helps me very much. Sometimes I get caught up in the wrong things. I am just the type of person who tries his hardest in everything that I do, and its hard to not try to figure out what’s right and then do it to the best of my ability. I just want so bad to hear his voice and to be able to love others the way he did. I guess you would say that I am a perfectionist. I will try to rest in his love for me and let it pour out onto others. Thank you very much.

I loved this exchange because of how easily he embraces a different way of seeing all of this. It isn’t easy. The intellect wants to be in charge and sort out truth on its own best understandings. But Scripture is an invitation into knowing him and when we grow in trust in who he is, we’ll begin to see the truth that really is truth. Even at that we’ll only know bits and pieces. We’re all just scratching the surface of knowing him, but knowing him our hearts will even be content in what we don’t yet understand.

Jesus warned us that truth sorts out in a relationship with the Truth, Jesus himself. If we don’t know him and the security of our love in him, we will twist the Scriptures into doctrines that seem true to the intellect, but are not the real truth. Following them will only lead us further away from knowing hi. Only by knowing him and growing in him can we discover the truth behind the simplest things Scripture teaches. But that is a life-long process, not an overnight phenomenon.

Relax! Enjoy the journey with him alongside.

As I’ve thought about my previous post over the last couple of days, I have come to conclude that the opposite problem also exists, perhaps more frequently than the first.

This is the child who grows up genuinely loved by her father. He takes great delight in her and treats her with great affection. But as she grows she begins to ask things of him that he knows will only hurt her. When he expresses his concerns and his regret over not being able to give in to her, she grows increasingly frustrated. Soon she is even questioning whether he even loves her anymore, or ever did.

As that plays on her mind she begins to see his every act of affection through her jaded eyes and concludes he only acts like he loves her to get what he wants. Now his acts of affection are dismissed as tools of manipulation. Her disappointment grows and eventually gives way to anger. Now she no longer asks, she demands. And when she doesn’t get her way, she pouts.

What she wants has now become more important than the relationship and she begins to unravel it by blaming him for the problem. She’s fine. In her mind, her desires have become “needs” and his refusal to help her only proves what an uncaring person he has become. She ends up saying horrendous things to him and about him to her friends, all to justify her own bitterness and anger.

The father knows better. Her words sting, but he knows they aren’t true. Even in the face of her anger and manipulation he responds with sorrow not anger. He knows she is sliding into the dark space of her own selfishness where lies will rule the day and he is now powerless against her false accusations. No mater what he does, she will only belittle him and dismiss his attempts to affirm is love to her. There is no greater bondage than believing your own lies to be the truth. Even Jesus warned us that when our “light” is really darkness, there is no greater darkness!

Eventually another comes along who promises to meet all her “needs”, and do for her what her father has refused to do. Of course he only does it to get what he wants from her, but she thinks she has found true love. At the beginning she gets what she wants and turns her back on the dad who loves her to follow the boyfriend who only wants to use her.

Of course, over time his motives become evident as he becomes more demanding of her. He pampers her less and abuses her more. He was just exploiting her needs to fulfill his wants and as that reality sinks in she slides into despair. The freedom she thought he offered, only turns out to be a prison of her own making.

What can she do now? She’s too scared to leave him and in her mind has no where else to go. She knows now that she’s made the poorest of choices, but has she burned so many bridges that she has no choice now but to keep on her course no matter how painful? In her honest moments, however, her heart longs for home. She’s too embarrassed and scared to face the father she rejected so brutally.

She’s sure her father hates her now, but she doesn’t know she’s only projecting her emotion on him. This is actually the moment, if she takes the risk, that she can discover how amazing true love really is,

What she doesn’t know yet is that her father still longingly looks out of his window every day hoping against hope that this will be the day she comes home. His heart was broken by her choices, but they made him neither angry with her nor ashamed of her. He only wants her to come home. The moment he sees her coming down the road, he’ll burst through the front door with great joy and rush to her side, welcoming her back inside the affection he had only grown in her absence.

Here’s the truth: You can always go back to the place where you were truly loved and find yourself smack dab in the middle of the affection you may have spurned before. True love always prevails over failure.

I read Psalm 78 this morning, and that is its theme. Regardless of how faithless Israel was, God was ready to draw them into his love whenever they made the slightest turn toward him—and even at times when they didn’t!

I heard an incredible story today and I think it is as true for many of us as it is for the person who sent it to me in an email. I quote:

I feel like I’m meeting my Dad for the first time!

My wife’s best friend is a real-life Jerry Springer show. She hadn’t been talking to her dad for a few years, bad situation. He’s a pretty terrible guy. Anyway, she found out a month ago that he isn’t her actual dad, and that her real dad has been trying to find her for 22 years, ever since the one-night stand that produced her. He has prayed for her non-stop since coming to know Jesus along the way.

Once he found her, he and his family immediately came to from a long distance to meet his daughter. She has a new dad! Just like that, everything she thought to be true about her father was completely WRONG and she had a dad! And her newborn, their first, now has a grandfather! Beautiful.

What a story, and I love his take-away from it!. Many of us have been taught that the God of the Bible is a mean, demanding, angry taskmaster and that if we don’t please him horrible things will happen to us. Try as we might to please him, we were never good enough and we end up feeling rejected and all alone. But that isn’t your Father. That’s someone masquerading as him to abuse your love, devour your joy, and destroy your life.

The Father who is really your Father has been searching for you all your life long. He has been closer than your breath, only you may have missed him with all the pretenders. Stop long enough to behold the Father who has always had great affection for you. That’s beautiful too!

As I start my vacation, I’ll leave you with this:

“Nothing is so strong as gentleness and nothing is so gentle as real strength.”

Ralph W. Sockman

I saw that go by by eyes a few days ago and was really touched by it. Ralph W. Sockman was a Methodist minister in New York City and had an NBC radio program. He died in 1970.

Blessings all! Live gently in the world! There’s enough pain as it is without our adding to it.