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.

First, an announcement: Our offices will be closed August 5-16 as Sara and I will be on vacation and have no one to cover the office. We will not be able to fill orders during this time, so please order before that date if you need any of our things before we return. Or, you’ll have to wait until after, with our apologies for any inconvenience that causes. Now to some good stuff:

John Lynch is one of the author’s of Bo’s Cafe, one of the best books I’ve read about sorting through brokenness in a marriage through a real engagement with grace. Last Friday as he was going out the door to do a wedding, he posted this on his Facebook status, even though it was up only briefly.

“I perform another wedding tonight. I always wish I could show a DVD of what is coming up. How they’ll deeply hurt each other, selfishly try to win, blaming the other for how their life is not working, how they’ll want to run… until devastated, they each call out to God and learn to trust this new life He’s given them. Then they’ll begin to protect, love and enjoy each other. He adores them. He’ll make it happen.”

I think I understood why he pulled it off. That’s not the kind of picture you want for a wedding night, but it is nonetheless true! Sara and I feel something similar every time we see a young young couple installed as the new associate/youth/singles pastor on staff at a large church. They are so excited to be offered the opportunity; they have no idea how brutally they will get hurt in that process.

But the greatest hurts of all are marriage hurts, I’m sure, and finding a way for both to put the other first is a process often laced with pain. Perhaps marriage is the first relationship where our selfishness really comes into play because you can’t hide yourself 24 hours a day. It’s probably a good thing none of us knew how much pain would be involved or else we probably wouldn’t go down that track and learn what we needed to know to find real freedom. Only when we finally come to the end of our ways and realize that even if we can manipulate people into giving us what we want or think we deserve, it will still not bring happiness.

But there is hope. Did you see it at the end of John’s lament? Through all the selfishness, pain, lies, and manipulation God can still win us into the space where true love flourishes and true life begins. If you’re in the middle of the pain, call out to him. Embrace his love for you and ask him to teach you not how to get others to love you, but how you can truly love others. It’s too bad most people only hear it when they are finally broken and desperate, but even there is a great place to start.

I told this story on last week’s podcast, and a friend of mine typed it up for his Facebook page. I reprint it here (with some gentle edits), because the story is growing in our family to understand something about God’s nature and our own. When we try to defend what God isn’t defending, we only end up hurting people and spoil the very thing God is using to engage them in a relationship that will in time transform them naturally, without having to enforce a lot of rules.

The grandkids were over. We were in Sara’s garden. And Sara had gotten Amy a rake and she was raking up some of the wood chips that Sara has on the pathways in the garden. I said to her, “No, Honey, don’t do that.” And I began raking them back in the path. “They are not supposed to be in piles; they are supposed to be spread out.”

Amy gave me the look, as if to say, “Gee, that’s no fun, Grandpa.” I obviously ruined her fun by telling her the way things were supposed to be. I didn’t want to be that guy!

Later, after everyone was gone, Sara said to me, “You and Julie are funny in my garden.”

“What do you mean?” I asked

“You are always fussing about the kids. Don’t rake that, don’t pick that flower, or walk over there. I don’t really care. I want my grandchildren to really enjoy my garden and I want them to really enjoy being with me. I don’t care what they do in my garden as long as they are not going to hurt themselves or each other, or destroy something. I don’t care if they pick flowers, I don’t care if they rake the wood chips into piles. I can un-rake them easy enough.”

As I listened to her I thought, I don’t care if they are raked into piles either. I was just trying to protect Sara’s garden. I know she works hard to keep it looking nice. But why was I trying to defend something Sara wasn’t defending herself? For her it was about the joy of relationship. She wanted them to have fun in her garden so they would have fun with her.

When I heard her say that I immediately thought of how I often I’ve done that to other people in God’s garden. He’s inviting them into a relationship while I’m trying to make sure they don’t mess anything up. What if God doesn’t care what they mess up while they are growing in relationship with him?

The God Journey Podcast, July 30, 2010

What a lesson! When you put the relationship first, keeping things neat and tidy no longer makes sense. Those things can be fixed easily enough. What God cares about is enjoying his kids long enough until they care about the things he cares about. In the meantime, that might mean some piles get raked up in places he doesn’t need them raked up.

But he can put them back easily enough when we’re done.

And now you know why Jenny’s book, Rainbows In My Eyes has been such an encouragement for me at this stage of the journey. Her pain is far different from mine, and in many ways far more brutal, but her poems (and I’m not a poem guy!) have encouraged me to lean in more deeply into the heart of Jesus and know that he is at work in ways I can’t see.

If you missed my blog on that and some samples from her book, you can read it here. The line between tragedy and triumph is not a wide one in the heart of God. I love how he continues to work in our lives no matter what this world throws at us. And Sara and I have found this book makes a great gift to someone going through difficult moments. We gave a copy the other night to some dear friends who are going through a painful season, and have heard back from many of you how much you have been inspired by her words.

If you want to order the book you can do so at Lifestream if you have a U.S. or Canadian address, or if you’re from elsewhere in the world you can order direct from Jenny’s website: JKRowbory.co.uk.