In the Shadow of Death, Part 2

2 Comments / In the Shadow of Death /

This post is a continuing story begun in a previous blog, about Alan’s struggle with love, trust, and healing as his wife appeared to be dying from metastasized breast cancer in the face of a promise they both hold in their hearts for her healing.

This second email came a few days after our first exchange.

From Alan on April 28, 2019 (two days after first email):

Lynn is still suspended between heaven and earth. She told me a few days ago she was ready to “leave” and I asked her why. (Just a few days prior and all along the journey she has said she is believing God will miraculously heal her). She answered my “Why?” with, “Because it’s God’s plan.”

I later took her by the hand and walked her to the door and said, “It’s okay, Lynn. You can go now. I’ll be along sometime.”

I thought she’d pass to the other side, but she is still in limbo. I think her body is not at the place of shutting down yet, even though she is ready.

So, I’m giving her water and juice as she needs, fluffing her pillows and staying with her. A lot of folks have dropped off as the journey has gotten more difficult, which is why your encouragement means more than I can articulate.

I still believe for a miracle in this realm, I feel as long as she is breathing, there is a chance. But, if she wants to go, I want her to go in peace. I will be devastated but will thank God she is with Him.

My Response:

I don’t’ know where I got this line in my head, but it has been a personal mission since I heard it—“I’ve done one thing in my life—I’ve loved a woman well.” Regardless of what else happens in and through my life, at its end, I want to be able to say I loved the woman God gave me well.  And even more importantly, I want to hear her say that I have.

You, my friend, are doing that. You’re loving a woman well, giving of yourself even in your sorrow and pain without anything in return. Bless you!  Bless you!  Bless you! So many stories don’t end as well as we are led to believe. We all want painless, easy passings into the life beyond. But death is a bear for most people. They linger far longer than we think they would, even when it seems like there’s no sense in them staying.

But dying has its work too, I think. It is shaping you and her for the transition she’s about to experience. So, just keep hanging in there, Alan. This is what love means. This is grace to the fullest when you feel it the least. May God give you all the strength and courage you need to love this woman well until there’s no more to love, on this side….

I write with tears in my eyes for you, Alan. I have a sense of how hard this must be for you. I have tasted a bit of that pain, but fortunately, not yet with my beloved.  Loving her through this process is a great work, perhaps the most significant thing you’ll ever do. May you have joy and peace that is beyond the moment and may it overwhelm your heart.

Joy beyond the tears, joy greater than the pain.

From Alan on April 30, 2019:

I am without adequate words to reply. I have no idea how you feel about the present day “gifts of the Spirit,” but let me assure you the Holy Spirit gave you the words that are like an arrow to the center of my wondering–why the lingering? Why not a healing? What is going on?

I thank you so much for being sensitive to Him, to write as He leads. You have been used by God like a huge hypodermic needle full of grace and love to encourage me… to help me go farther than I could fathom. I am blown away.

I’ve got the God-is-sovereign friends fighting the take-dominion-over-the-cancer” friends, fighting-the-have-you-tried-juicing-these-11-vegetables friends all vying for my attention. God has used you to blow all of that away and let me see that I have hope in Him – regardless of how this all ends. (I cringed writing that because I want it to end with her healed and living to 80, celebrating our kids getting married, having grandchildren and all of those things).

Trust me; there is nothing noble at this point in my asserting, “His will be done.” But, in the end, that is what I want, no matter how awful the future seems to be when I imagine it without my sweet Lynn.

Wayne, God has used you beyond my ability to say. Thank you so much! When so many things are vying for your attention, that you would let yourself be used by God to help me is an amazing blessing.

My Response:

I sensed Father’s voice in both emails I sent you.  That’s actually why I sent them. I felt they were more from God than me, but happy to be some fingers a keyboard for him, if that’s what is happening here.

Sadly, Christians are notorious for giving lousy counsel in the throes of death, more interested in making them feel better than in comforting people who are going through pain. I hope someday we learn simply to weep with those who weep…

To be continued…

Read Part 3 here. 

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In the Shadow of Death, Part 1

27 Comments / In the Shadow of Death /

Last April, Alan wrote to me from what he feared would be his wife’s death bed. They were struggling because they both had a firm conviction that God was going to heal her. She had been diagnosed in late 2014 with metastasized breast cancer and given only months to live. Though she had defied those odds by years, her disease continued to progress relentlessly. Why wasn’t God healing her? What more did they need to do to make the difference?

Disease, healing, death, faith, truth, love, mortality, and eternity all converge in death’s shadow, where our emotions are rawest and where it isn’t always easy to separate reality from illusion. Do you keep praying for healing, or take advantage of those last days to have the tender moments to say good-bye to each other? If we do say good-bye, are we demonstrating a lack of faith that will nullify the healing we want? There are no easy answers here that will easily fill in the blanks. Discerning God’s purpose and resting in it can seem all but impossible given an outcome we want so desperately.

That contact began a lengthy email conversation over the intervening months as he let me into the tenderest part of his heart. I wanted to provide a safe place where faith and honesty could walk together as he navigated the uncertain days ahead. With his permission, I want to share that exchange with you, which still continues to this day. I’m going to do it in multiple posts over the next couple of weeks to let you live through the story with us and the things we’ve been learning together, walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

This struggle is all the more complicated when people believe that God is still active today and that he still heals the sick and raises the dead. I believe that. God does make himself known through miracles, gifts of wisdom and discernment, and healing. I’ve seen God do outrageous miracles throughout my life. I’ve also been in many situations where healing seemed so important, but one didn’t come despite the ardent prayers and belief of those involved.

It is not always easy to understand why God doesn’t give us all the miracles we think his love would guarantee, especially when someone we love is at death’s door. We can quickly turn on him, thinking him unloving, or condemn ourselves for not doing enough for him to act. All of this comes into question during our conversation and the events that unfolded. We’ll all face it, with people we love and eventually with our own mortality. Learning how to transit the Valley of the Shadow of Death trusting a loving Father will make those days far easier.

It all began one day in April with this email:

From Alan on April 26:

I have been crying out to God for mercy as my beautiful wife, Lynn is literally at death’s door. She was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer three days before Christmas in 2014. The oncologist said it had spread all over her body and gave her 2 1/2 to 3 months to live. But she is still here, and I literally thank God for every day.

Still, I have prayed daily over these four plus years for her complete physical healing, which hasn’t come. Sadly, last December, a scan revealed that there were “places in her brain” where cancer had spread. She declined in a matter of a few weeks, and I had to call in hospice whose nurse said, “She will likely be gone in two to three days.” That was in early February.

Since then, she rebounded remarkably, going from being bedbound to walking around without assistance. We were so hopeful that the miracle of complete physical healing might be any day. It was weird, Wayne, because I could not understand why God did not just heal her all the way. Nevertheless, every night before bed, we would bump fists and say to one another, “Another day!”

Last week she plummeted medically and lost her balance. I preach on my podcast and in opportunities where I am asked to speak, Isaiah 53 and the horror Jesus endured for our healing. I genuinely believe miracles are for today and that the Word is true. I share things that I have learned through your ministry, and I do believe He loves me.

She told me a couple of days ago, “You need to let me go.” I was devastated. Up to this point, she was all-in for being healed in this realm. (I know she will be healed when she steps fully into the eternal realm, but we both were believing for her physical healing now in this body.)

Through tears, I walked her to the door and told her, “Go ahead, Lynn. Enter into your rest. Listen as God says to you, “Well done.” I guess her body is not ready yet to shut down even though she is ready to leave. The last three days have been brutal, watching her decline more and more, still asking God for a miracle, and wanting her suffering to end either by that miracle or by stepping into eternity.

So here I am, an ordained minister, a veteran Christian, and a crying, broken mess. It would not be so difficult if the statements in Scripture were not so affirmative. “Speak to this mountain and believe” “Ask anything in My name, and it shall be done” “By His stripes, you are healed” “If any two of you agree it shall be done” and on and on.

I find myself having thoughts like, “Why doesn’t it work?” I ask God, and He is silent. I know He is not a genie, but I find myself thinking if we can’t trust these healing Scriptures, why even bother to ask? I know the answers I would give to someone in my position, it just seems so much more difficult to walk through personally.

Wayne, it’s incredibly hard. The Bible says, “the two will become one flesh,” and I feel like I am being ripped apart brutally.

My Response:

Your email broke my heart this afternoon. I am touched by your need, the passion you have for Lynn, your confusion at the healing Scriptures that seem to put God’s power at our disposal, and the horror of standing at death’s door with the love of your life. I can’t imagine… My heart really goes out to you and please know that I am praying for you in this most trying of circumstances.

I have no answers, as you well know. Just a compassionate heart and one that will hold you and Lynn before the Father today. I know God heals. I have witnessed some extraordinary miracles in my life, and I’ve also seen people die in the face of the most ardent, sincere, selfless prayers. As far as I can tell, there is no rhyme or reason as to why this one and not that one, at least that we can see from here. I do know God heals. I also know that healing is not at my desire or even diligent prayer. Yes, the Scriptures are confusing. I know they mean something, but am pretty sure it isn’t what we are first inclined to think.

I also know it is exhausting for people to try to get healed, or to try to get a loved one healed. Even trying can rob us of the precious moments we could have with them if indeed they are the final ones in this life. In the end, I know that all of my life, and that of my loved ones, is in his hands. Not everything he does will make sense to me in the confines of this age, but will in the age to come. There lies our hope. Whether Lynn rebounds or slips more directly into Father’s hands, is not ours to control.

It sounds like you’ve loved her well. Keep on loving her to the end. Her healing was never in your hands. You’ve had to walk a most painful journey, and my heart goes out to you. If I weren’t in Norway at the moment, I’d give you a call just to express that more personally and to let you know you are not alone at this moment. That God understands ALL your pain and disappointment in these circumstances, and his love will swallow them all up in time.

Hurt with him. Grieve with him. Hold your question before him. He will get you through this. Faith does not rest on the outcomes we want most, but a Father’s love we can trust even when don’t understand.

Please keep me posted on what unfolds here. I’ll be praying for you both, that the comfort, power, and fullness of God’s presence will be your strength and refuge every day.

To be continued…

Next post in this series

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So, Why God?

2 Comments / Encouragement /
This is a copy of our quarterly newsletter sent out earlier this month. If you didn’t get one and would like to stay in touch with what’s going on around Lifestream you can sign up here.

“Would you follow God if there was no hell?”

Someone asked me that a few years ago and my immediate reaction was, “Of course, I would.”

If they’d asked me that forty years before, however, I doubt I would have answered with such certainty. Back then, my relationship with God was more confusing. We talked about God being a loving Father, but only for those who did everything he wanted. His holiness was his most terrifying feature, and the best reason I was given to follow him was my fear of the consequences if I didn’t. Threatened with eternity in flames was all the motivation I needed to try and do everything I thought he required to stay in his good graces.

I wanted more than anything for God to like me and bless me by keeping me from harm. Looking back now, I realize I was not in an endearing relationship with my Creator as a beloved child; I was caught in the Stockholm Syndrome with God. Like the victim of a kidnapping, I sought to ingratiate myself to the one I feared more than I loved.

Even worse, I could never be sure if I’d done enough. Fear and shame were constant if unwelcome companions. I was always aware of my shortcomings and failures, and everyone else’s around me since the standard he commanded is that we would be as holy as he was. If that’s who he is, who wants to be like that?

That, however, is not the relationship God had in mind for us, and it is not the relationship that will transform us into his image.

Jesus didn’t seem to live with his Father that way, but he was perfect. And he did call his Father, “our Father,” and told us these things so that our joy might be in him and that would make his joy complete. No one I knew, however, lived that way. To us, God was a demanding deity, and we lived every day under threats, obligations, and a constant demand for perfect performance.

People who live with God this way cannot experience the fullness of life in him and cannot effectively share his love in the world. Fear cannot produce it. Jesus showed us he was not the most terrifying presence in the world, but the most endearing. Love was the capital of his kingdom, not obligation and guilt.

So, back to our original question. Would you follow God if there were no hell? Fear of hell was just about the only reason people got saved when I was young. No one wants to jump through all those religious hoops unless the consequences of not doing so are dire. Whatever hell is, I don’t doubt its existence, where finally sin devours its prey. I’m just not convinced fearing will be enough to save you.

Receiving his love is salvation from all sin wrecks in this world, and in the one to come.

We need a more compelling reason to invite our children, friends, and even strangers to consider God’s reality better than, “You’re a horrible person and God is out to get you if you don’t repent.”

God is not the executioner in the redemption story; he’s the rescuer. Sin is leading us to destruction. Our self-preferring natures pull us into the darkness. But salvation, according to the new covenant, does not come to people looking to appease an angry deity, but to those who engage an affectionate relationship with the Creator of all.

Unfortunately, many people have confused God himself with the religion we’ve created in his name, and that makes it difficult to let God into their lives. People in relative ease often keep God at a distance. They take in just enough Christianity to soothe their conscience, and to satisfy their fears of the afterlife but don’t want too much of him because he might intrude on their pleasures.

People caught in tragic circumstances, or deep pain often call out to him, seeking relief by promising God they will do anything he wants if he’ll just help them. Especially when he doesn’t answer them the way they hoped, they begin to doubt his existence or doubt his love.

Neither of these leads to a satisfying connection with him. That’s why only a few people engage God regularly, making him part of the decisions they make and how they treat the people around them.

I sat on a deck in the high Sierras surrounded by pine and cedar trees with a young man who did not grow up with any spiritual influence at all. “What if there is a God who made all of this, who loves you more than anyone else you’ve ever known, and he wants to walk with you as you explore your life in his Creation?”

He looked up at me and smiled, his eyes misted with tears. “I would love that.”

Who wouldn’t?

So, why God? Why follow him instead of just living life the best we can and doing what makes us happy?

Here are five great reasons for wanting to know God that have nothing to do with fearing hell:

First, because God himself is the most engaging presence in the universe, full of life, laughter, joy, and wisdom more precious than wealth or any other friendship. If you haven’t experienced him this way, I’m sure I got a bit of an eye roll there, but honestly the things he adds to my life fill it with wonder.

Second, because this world makes no sense without him. All that is real is not visible. I have sensed his fingerprints in the Creation and his presence in the seeming coincidences of life—meeting a person at just the right time or having wisdom drop in my heart from a conversation, sentence in a book, or a song lyric. I’ve sensed his calling to me from a very young age, and inside him, I find the courage and meaning that makes my life complete.

Third, because navigating successfully through a broken creation is beyond our best resources and wisdom. Self-indulgence leads to the corruption and injustice that stains our world and harms people I love. How do you navigate circumstances you can’t control that seem unjust? How do sickness and tragedy make sense inside God’s love and his ultimate purpose to redeem the world back to himself? Without his active input in my life, I only consider how things affect me, and that’s a painful way to live in this universe. He has a way of causing the sufferings of this world to fold into a plan of our transformation and his redemption that is spectacular. I wouldn’t want to live without it.

Fourth, I am powerless to resist my unseemlier appetites and desires, if he does not give me the wisdom to untangle them, the strength to refuse them, and the fullness to disarm what they prey on in me. Without him, I’m adrift in a world of indulgence, with him I can learn to say no to those things that add more pain in the world and yes to a path that leaves more grace in it.

Fifth, because I want to be part of something bigger than myself and my own existence. God not only Created this planet but now moves it to its ultimate redemption. By showing us what it truly means to be loved and to love, I can become part of that unfolding purpose and encourage others on that path as well.

Far from being the kill-joy religion makes God out to be, or the excuse for our injustices to others, God becomes a valued companion in this journey called life. When you know who this amazing God is, “Be holy as I am holy,” is not the most fearsome command in Scripture, but the most engaging invitation. When you know him, you will want to be like him.

And if you want to be like him, it’s great to know he has provided everything for that to happen. All I have to do is learn to live in his love, and he’s the one who teaches us that, too.

Now, I know people will read this, frustrated that their relationship with God doesn’t feel like that. Despite their prayers, Bible reading, church attendance, and trying to be good, God still feels like a distant deity rarely involved in real circumstances of their daily existence. I lived a long time there myself, so I understand. The five things I’ve described above are the fruit of a long trajectory in learning how to live in his love. It doesn’t happen overnight, with a snap of the fingers or an ecstatic Jesus encounter.

Learning how to lean into his reality and recognize his fingerprints about us is a lifelong quest, perhaps the greatest adventure our humanity offers. Our appetites can betray us, our intellect often deceives us, and the world so easily distracts us with its amusements and its fears. Cultivating the inner life to become increasingly sensitive to the ways Jesus makes himself known does take some focus and participation from us.

If you don’t know how to do that, find someone who does and ask if he or she will help you. Don’t look for a miracle cure, but someone who can help you see God’s fingerprints in your own journey and the realities his Spirit is offering you to take you further down that path.

Try not to get discouraged when it doesn’t happen quickly or as easily as you might hope. Ask God to connect you to a person or two with a similar hunger. Please don’t give up, because it does take a while. This life is not like going to Disneyland; it is a real engagement with the Maker of heaven and earth.

Knowing him starts in small ways and over time grows to become the most valuable part of your life.

If you want some resources for this journey, check out He Loves Me, Transitions, and Engage.

Upcoming Travel

My planned trip to Kenya this July had to be postponed due to road construction in the areas I needed to visit. So, I’m getting extra time this summer to be home, give attention to the projects God has put before me, and to take some vacation. This fall I am contemplating trips to Atlanta, GA, Damascus, VA,  Michigan, and Florida may be on tap for this fall. You can keep checking my Travel Schedule, or if you’d like to be notified if I’m planning to visit your area, you can sign up on our email list and include your address.
In Case You Missed it…

Here are some of the podcasts and blogs that have generated the most interest over the last couple of months.

Podcasts at TheGodJourney.com:

Wayne’s blog at Lifestream.org

Water In the Desert

We are so grateful for those of you who joined us in helping out our Kenyan friends this spring. First, a school for orphans and impoverished children that we support had their water cistern compromised during a flood where their sewage spilled into their water supply. This cistern not only served the school but the nearby community that has no source of water. The government was ready to close down the school. Thanks to many of you, we were able to help them drill a new well. And even that turned out better than we hoped. During drilling, they tapped into an unknown water source with water so plentiful and pure that government inspectors recommended they bottle and sell it. So, we also helped them build a bottling plant, and soon the future needs of the school will be met by their own enterprise.

Also, our friends in Pokot suddenly were confronted with a new tribe of people that heard about their food and water and came a long way to seek help. Enough of you gave to help them bridge the four months they needed to until a future harvest. They were effusively grateful for the generosity, so many of you showed to help them at such a critical time. I’m continually amazed by the impact this website and podcast have had on a desperate corner of the world.

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The Joys and Pain of Collaboration

29 Comments / Behind the Scenes /

I owe you an apology. For the past few months, I’ve been talking about a book I was working on with a friend from France. I told you we were hopeful for a September release, and now that isn’t going to happen. It is now quite unlikely at this point that you will ever get to see the manuscript I was working on with her. For reasons I still don’t understand, her family has pulled out of the collaboration and cut off communication with me.

I told you a few weeks ago that I was on a familiar road collaborating on a new book, though I hoped this one had a better outcome. Well, it didn’t. Unfortunately, that uncharted road quickly became a road with which I’m all too familiar. It’s hard to talk about these things and protect people I love, but I’m already getting a lot of questions I want to try and answer.

One week after I finished working on the manuscript, the author wrote me to say how incredibly grateful she was, especially thanking me for the last line, which I gave her from another novel I was writing. It fit so perfect in her story. She compared me to a diamond maker who brought the brilliance of a story she created. After I sent the approved manuscript to the editor, however, I got a disturbing email. It contained suspicions about my ulterior motives. Her tone had shifted dramatically as she told me in subsequent emails that she wanted control of everything in France and would not follow through on any of her assurances over the past eight months.

Collaboration is always a risk, and all the more so here because of the geographical distance and the language barriers. When I was hesitant, she repeatedly assured me that God was in this and that she would honor our work together. I thought the beauty in her story was worth the risk. I have a seven-year friendship with her and her family, a deep love for them, and eight incredible months working on this book with her. I am confused but not devastated.

Of the dozens of collaborations I’ve worked on, only two have gone off-track and ended valued friendships. Interestingly enough, however, they have all followed the same pattern. Other voices get involved who wanted to profit from the collaboration. They start by making accusations about my motives, then assert whatever control they can to take over the project. Finally, no matter how much they have said in the past, they now have a fresh word from God telling them not to continue. Of course, there is no way to discuss anything after that, which is why people pull that trump card. The reason it rings so hollow with me is that people who hear from God are more grace-filled and apologetic, especially when it’s a complete change of their prior assurances. Finally, they cut off any further communication and raise the drawbridge on the friendship by telling me not to contact them directly.

So, I’m there again and I don’t have the foggiest idea why. This is an abrupt end to what had been a delightful season in my life. I only wanted to help a friend get her wonderful story more widely read in the world, and gave her the best I had to help make that happen. However, she has now decided to revert to her original story and discard all I had done to help re-write it and get it published here in the States. It makes me sad to know there’s a beautiful manuscript in the world that you may never see. I still feel God was in this process, and that somehow fear and darkness have cut in to send it sideways.

People are already asking me why I do this when it can turn so hurtful in the end? I’m crazy, I guess. I believe in the power of collaboration. Everything is better when multiple people bring their various insights to give a more rounded picture of God. Scripture teaches that God gives gifts so that through the whole of the body, “the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.” I think the enemy freaks out where brothers and sisters collaborate in love and sacrifice. I don’t think God intended for any of us to go it alone. I know what The Shack would have been like if Brad and I hadn’t put sixteen months into the re-telling of that story, and I know you would never have heard of it if we hadn’t.

My friends are also asking why I don’t get people under contract at the start, to guarantee they will follow through, before spending so much of my time and money on a project. The answer is simple. I don’t know how to collaborate without shared tenderness, honesty, and faithfulness. I thought we had that here until we didn’t. I have no idea at the beginning how any collaboration will turn out and what will be fair for everyone. I just figure if people keep walking together in agreement, we will get to see what Father has in mind. The results can be fantastic.

The other reason I don’t make contracts at the start is that they don’t work either. I have signed agreements with people and companies who violate them every day. The only way to enforce a contract is to be willing to sue dishonest people. I’m not that guy. I learned a long time ago if someone doesn’t respect their word, they won’t honor their signature either unless threatened to do so.

Will I stop collaborating? No. I’m pretty sure it’s in Father’s heart. I try to be careful to do it where it is a blessing, not when people end up despising me. I don’t enjoy being used, or having my word tied to someone else’s capriciousness. What I don’t know is how people will change in the process, especially when I’ve finished what I said I would do.

For now, I’ve switched tracks. Before this newest book came into my life, I was already working with those two delightful people pictured above on a book tentatively titled The Language of Healing: Creating Safe Environments to Talk about Race, Politics, Sexuality, and Religion. With me in that photo is Arnita Taylor, a mom to two sons, a former staff pastor, a leadership coach, and an encourager I met last year in Dallas, Texas. The other guy is Bob Prater, a father of three, also a former pastor, long-time friend, podcaster, and an encourager to marginalized people in Bakersfield, California. I can tell you my life has been deeply and permanently changed for the better by these people and the process of collaborating with them.

We’ve been working on this book for almost 18 months. We had all the pieces in place, but it wasn’t reading as smoothly as any of us hoped. Both of them were able to come to my home this past weekend, and in long, exhausting, laughter-filled days, we went through every word of the manuscript and made it read so much better. We are all thrilled with how it has turned out and hope to release it early in November this year.

Here are three paragraphs from the Introduction to whet your appetite:

This is a book for those who are tired of being spun by politicians and media and having their personal relationships destroyed by differences over religion, race, sexuality and politics. It’s for those who want to find ways to communicate and cooperate beyond our most deeply-rooted differences, realizing that in the shared spaces of our society we have more to gain through mutual understanding than the politics of polarization.

The hope is that everyone who reads this will gain a little more awareness about themselves. You don’t have to agree with everything here, but if you can at least acknowledge the validity of varying perspectives and communicate about them more generously, you can help repair the rip in our societal fabric. Just maybe something you read will encourage you to more harmony and peace with your family, colleagues, and friends. Even better, you may learn something here that will give you the insight to solve a problem or repair a broken relationship.

We all win if you take one of the chapter topics to explore more deeply. We all win if your level of understanding increases even slightly. We all win if you take this book into a book club and have your own conversation about differences in our culture. We all win when these chapters are used as discussion starters in college classrooms or used in high school civics. We all win if you learn to listen better to people who see the world differently than you do.

No, we haven’t signed any contracts yet. Given our time this weekend and the depth of love we have for each other, I’d be surprised if this one goes sideways. I know, I’ve been surprised before!

So, we’ll see what happens. I guess you’re in this with me, too.

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Sometimes It’s Right in Front of Us

18 Comments / Church Life /

I received an email last week from a friend in Israel. He mentioned how much he and his wife were learning to relax in Father’s love and care, but then added a hunger that had gone unfulfilled in their hearts:

During this time, the Lord taught us a lot and fed us with his love. We still have not found a group that we could call our home. We continue to pray for it. I have never felt such an acute need for simple communication and friendship.

I took note of his hope that some group would become home for them. I understand that hunger since we’ve all been schooled in the idea that we all need a fellowship we can call home, but it isn’t true.  So, I wrote back, “I don’t know that you need to be looking for a group to call your home. Let Father, Son, and Spirit be your home, and then you’ll be free to love others without needing anything in return. In time, some of those you love will love in return, and then you’ll find people who can enjoy the simple joy of friendship. Finding fellowship is a process to follow, not a group to find.”

Not everyone is ready to listen to something like that. Thankfully, he was, and it drew his heart to a work God had done before in them:

Thank you for writing me that my home is in the Father. Something inside me clicked and everything I have worried about lately finally came together as a puzzle in my head.

When my wife and I received an update in His love, our life became a daily adventure in Him. Every day, I got up and the first thought that arose in my head was “More.” I felt like a child who was circling behind the hands of the Father, and who is so happy and filled that he said again and again, “More!” In our life,     new people constantly appeared with whom we shared our path. We started spending more time with our children, having breakfast every Saturday, and spending time.

But at the same time, pressure was growing in the church we attended. We did not fit into the system and it spat us out. Unfortunately, then I did not understand many things that the Father revealed to us. I was not ready. We understood that Father called us to go out, but we were not ready to remain without a church in the way we’d known it. We were afraid for the children, afraid that they would not have friends. And besides, I thought that we needed to find a church with good, correct, deep, Christ-centered teaching.

In our new congregation, the meetings fell on Friday evening and immediately killed our dinner time and reading the Torah. It turned out that on Saturdays they had a youth ministry and we no longer had breakfasts with children. In addition, we were loaded with various ministries and endless conferences and seminars. And we are always in a hurry somewhere, but at the same time we had almost no close relations with anyone. More recently, we gathered with people at our home. We all had fun and joy, chatting, eating and studying the Bible together.

Because of my studies, we decided to stop the group for a while. I also stopped conducting classes in the children’s ministry. And now every Friday, I try to sit out the ministry. The only thing that inspired me is communication with my old friend.

After what you wrote to me, I realized that such a life we had before. We just let the Father fill every day and shared this love with others. But then we wanted to find or create a group and everything began to die. A thought came to me to stop coming to these church meetings. Just live filled with Him and loving those who are near. I will not make any quick decisions. I will ask the Father to show me if He really wants it.

He already had what he was looking for, but it didn’t count because it wasn’t the specific kind of group he was looking for. There are so many ways Father can connect us with his family. You can find that connection in a congregation if you’re not too worn out by the program, or you can find it elsewhere as you learn to live in his love.

Sometimes what we want is right in front of us; it’s just not in the package we were expecting.

______________________________

If you need help finding the church Jesus is building in the world, that’s why I wrote Finding Church. We often look for her in all the wrong places and get frustrated when we feel alone and isolated. She is all over the world, growing in his glory. She just doesn’t always look the way we think she should.

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“My Worth As a Woman”

1 Comment / Marriage and Family /

I couldn’t believe anyone would want to interrupt their vacation to drive all the way from San Francisco, just to have lunch with me. That’s a six-hour drive!

I had met this couple a year or so ago. Now, they were visiting California from the east coast and wanted to know if we could share a meal together. I try to do that whenever I can, but I don’t schedule those very far out because of the craziness of my travel schedule, and I can’t be obligated here locally if Father invites me into a situation elsewhere in the world. So, I tell people who ask, “Let’s just trust that if God wants us to be together, he will arrange it so a hole in my schedule will fit a hole in yours.”

It’s astonishing how often it works out as it did for them a few weeks ago. In the course of having lunch at my favorite local BBQ joint, they were sharing some of their story with me. The wife had been raised in an abusive, legalistic environment, made all the worse by a father who didn’t know how to love his daughter. They were schooled in some of Bill Gothard’s teaching, which I often refer to as Senior Pharisee School. I understood a bit of what she meant since I had a brush with a less-intrusive form of the same stuff that reduces the life of God to a set of rules and processes that have little room for grace and transformation.

In the middle of her story, she slipped in a sentence so gently that it almost got past me without realizing what she said.

“I discovered my worth as a woman hearing you talk about Sara.”

I don’t know that I have ever received a more meaningful compliment. I was deeply touched by her words and all the more because they were unforeseen.

It has never occurred to me to talk about Sara for that reason. I do it because our growth in relationship is one of the best parts of my story. I love what God has done in us over our forty-four years of marriage. Yes, we’ve had our more selfish and disconnected moments. We’ve fought through misunderstandings, bitter feelings, and differing perspectives to keep finding a way to “us.” That process hasn’t been easy or painless, but through it, we’ve both changed significantly and in doing so have come to love and appreciate each other more deeply. I talk about her because we decided years ago that the best way to help people was to live in the open and not create a false notion of who we are as people.

To think the Spirit had used my talk of Sara to breathe into this woman’s heart that she was every bit as precious to Father as anyone else, and as valuable in the world as reflections of his grace and mercy in the world—thrilled me beyond words and all the more beautiful because it was unintentional.

That’s what some call ‘collateral beauty.’ It’s the opposite of collateral damage. It’s when the Spirit does something, “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”  

And there, in Ephesians 3, Paul loses it and exults, “to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.”

Amen.

Talk well of those you love; you never know who’s listening or what it’s doing in them.

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More Uncharted Roads

6 Comments / Behind the Scenes /

First, a great quote:  In last week’s podcast, I read a quote taken from a June 2019 Atlantic article entitled, Abolish the Priesthood. An incisive read on its own merits that has application in the Evangelical church world as well, it contained this quote:

The first reference to the Jesus movement in a nonbiblical source comes from the Jewish Roman historian Flavius Josephus, writing around the same time that the Gospels were taking form. Josephus described the followers of Jesus simply as “those that loved him at the first and did not let go of their affection for him.”

What a wonderful identifier of God’s people in the world! I’ve been chewing on that sentence for the last couple of weeks.  It sums up well the aspiration of my heart and allows me to follow the nudges on my heart.

A few have asked why I’ve not posted much here of late. The short answer is I’ve got two books on final approach and am giving all my time to getting them ready for editing and publication. One is my collaboration on THE CITY, a novel written by a French housewife about how we learn to live in the Father’s kingdom. Sara and I have known the family for over seven years, and I have been working with Claire to brighten the story and add some of my insights to the English version. This has not been easy knowing it didn’t turn out so well the last time I tried to help someone. In the end, however, I really felt as if Jesus was asking me to do it again, even if it all goes wrong. Though I have better assurances and a better relationship this time, no one really knows how the future will play out. But this is a book I want in the world, and I think Jesus does too.

Early feedback from a few people who’ve read it for me has me astounded. Although I don’t expect anything close to the numbers we had with THE SHACK, I do believe this story is as transformative. This story touched in my heart, what THE SHACK touched in my mind. This story will help people discover how the love of God will transform the way they live in the world. I can’t wait for you to read it.

Kyle and Jess Rice from Torrington, WY

And to publish it, I am helping a young couple from Wyoming start a publishing company. Kyle and Jess Rice, whom I interview on today’s podcast, have been friends for several years. I love their passion for Jesus and their desire to help others live in the reality of Father’s affection, and they want to unfold that message in a way that resonates with people in their 20s and 30s. We’ve talked for years about collaborating together, and now we’re actually going to head down that road. They will publish THE CITY and THE LANGUAGE OF HEALING, which I’m also finishing up with two co-authors, Bob Prater and Arnita Taylor. That’s a joy too! We actually had some publishing companies seek us out on these titles, but in the end, I didn’t want to put them through the Christian publishing machine, and all that means. I’d rather give wings to them as Jesus leads us and release them into the world to travel as far as he desires. It’s a risk, it always is, but I’m excited to see what he might do.

On the local front, I’ve been asked by a team in our community to help process the twin tragedies we had here in Thousand Oaks, CA last November. On a Wednesday night, our city faced a mass murder at a local country & western hangout, and the next day we were confronted with two wildfires that did extensive damage to our community and surrounding ones. Several community leaders hope to bring this city together by letting people share their stories under the banner of “Finding Strength Together.” Over the last few years, I’ve had a growing desire to find a way into this community and serve it, beyond the relationships I already have. I’m thrilled to be invited into this collaboration and use my gifts to help others tell their stories as part of a process of healing.

So, that’s why I’ve not blogged much, why I’m horribly behind on my email, and why I won’t be traveling much this summer. I do have a lot of family obligations at home this June, but was planning on heading for Kenya the first two weeks of July. However, due to road construction in the areas I wanted to visit, we’re going to postpone that trip to a later date.  So, I have the time to help launch a publishing company and complete these two titles for a Fall 2019 release.

Two years ago, none of these projects were visible on my horizon, except Kenya of course. I love the way he brings new things into my life out of nowhere, and then nudges me into projects that enrapture my heart as well as enlighten my mind. They’ve also allowed me to get to know people better that greatly enrich my life.

So, times they are a’changin’ here. A fresh wind blows and draws me down uncharted roads. Come with me if you want; pray for us, if you will. This will at least prove interesting.

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Kenya: Springs Garden Mineral Water

2 Comments / Kenya /

If you are following our continuing saga of helping people in a specific region of Kenya, you know that we had to drill a new well a few months ago or see a school closed down that was helping orphans and children living with drug-addicted parents in a place called Forkland. A flood last December polluted their former well with their sewage and was no longer usable. This school has been run by a woman after the tribal violence as the only hope to break the poverty and bondage of children in this area and make a generational shift in a place of great need.

The new well went 340 feet deep and hit an aquifer of pure mineral water that is under intense pressure. Not only is it enough water for the school and the surrounding community who also use that water, but health officials also recommended bottling it for sale since the water is of the highest quality anywhere in Kenya. This is an answer to prayer in so many ways. For every need we’ve sought to help in Kenya, we have also started an enterprise they can utilize, not only to hire people who need jobs but also to fund ongoing needs. The orphanage/school we started is supported by a petrol station we built. Other needs in the Kitale area are being funded by a grain distribution company we launched there. This bottling plant will help provide for Forkland school as well as outreaches into that community. The overflow will also be helpful in future needs in North Pokot.

July 2020 will complete our five-year project to make the tribes of North Pokot that we’ve been serving, sustainable without outside help. We have drilled wells, started irrigation projects, opened schools, helped with health care, and funded microloans to help create new businesses. By all indications, they should be able to use their creativity and industry to care for themselves beyond that.

This bottling plant is the next step in securing an income stream for Forkland School, help with the impoverishment of the surrounding community, and the overflow will be able to help new people groups in Pokot.  But for that, we need an additional $42,000 to start the enterprise. This includes empty bottles to get the enterprise going, as well as training for five months and a conduit for distribution. If you can help us fund this project in whole or in part, I would be incredibly grateful.

Also, this month, we need an additional $18,000 to feed a new tribe that came two months ago to try to find some resource. Their women and children were dying, and no other aid was available to them. They sought help from the tribes we are assisting in North Pokot. We gave them food two months ago, and they need two months more to get them to harvest time. So, in addition to the $10,000 we send every month, we need an additional $60,000 this month.

Your help is appreciated more than you know. All contributions are tax-deductible in the US. And, as always, every dollar you send goes to the need in Kenya. We do not (nor do they) take out any administrative or money transfer fees. Please see our Donation Page at Lifestream. You can either donate with a credit card there, or you can mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560 Newbury Rd Ste 1  •  Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

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Living Lighter

5 Comments / Behind the Scenes /

Yesterday at lunch, a dear friend asked me what I had learned in the last ten years in my exploration of Father’s affection. I first started thinking of lessons or truths I had gained, but then my mind quickly went to how differently this journey allows me to live. I am less worried about achievements, more present with the people I’m with at any moment and have far less angst to convince people of anything. That allows me to live with a lighter hand, with the freedom to not be so worried about how I’m being perceived that I can’t respond more simply and freely to others around me.

Nowhere has that produced fruit I enjoy more than in my relationship with this woman. Today Sara and I celebrate forty-four years together—forty-four incredible years! For us, this is not an endurance project, staying together because we said we would. Every year of the last twenty has been better than the year before. We find ourselves today celebrating our love, our partnership in negotiating life together, and our presence with each other as we endure the challenges and pain of growing older together. This woman makes my heart beat faster when I see her, adds so much beauty and texture to my life and models a self-sacrificing love for our family that makes life so precious.

No, it has not all been puppy dogs and rainbows. Over those forty-four years, we’ve also had the days-long, painful, and frustrating conversations that have helped us learn to love more deeply. We’ve hurt the other by selfish actions and miscommunicated in ways that have challenged that love. We’ve acted selfishly and lived to regret it. We’ve disagreed over critical decisions to great frustration. But through it all, we’ve learned that a heartfelt apology can heal anything. We have found our way to solutions we could both embrace wholeheartedly.  We’ve endeavored to live in a way that the other is never our victim, but always our valued partner. We’ve made room for God’s work in the other, allowing them to change by changing along with them. We have been with each other in our worst moments and seen the darkest recesses of the other’s soul and become the other’s primary cheerleader for more freedom in the love of Jesus.

Truthfully, he’s the real hero in this marriage, giving us insight and courage to keep doing what love led us to do. We don’t see these forty-four years as an achievement of our discipline and commitment. That could have won us a life-long marriage, but it also could have been lifeless endurance. We see these years as a triumph of grace. Somehow, Jesus has held us in this relationship and taught us to love the other like the other needed to be loved. We’ve confronted the relationship-sabotaging weaknesses of our flesh and found his strength to embrace the healing. Neither of us is the same person that we were on the day we stood before family and friends and pledged our lives to the other, but I love the woman Sara is becoming even more, and I’m sure Sara loves the current me more, too.

I can’t imagine this relationship getting any better, but I know it will. No doubt, there’s still more freedom ahead for both of us, and our relationship is the first place we get to celebrate it. There is no one I’d rather be with than this woman, no one whose wisdom I regard more highly or whose presence sets my heart at rest more completely.

Those who think longevity can lead to boredom have not tasted a relationship like this. I feel bad for those whose marriages don’t endure the painful bits, where selfishness rules instead of where love serves. My heart breaks when I hear of abuse or neglect that has shredded a couple’s affection for each other. No one deserves to be victimized by another, especially the person closest to them. We were created to be loved and though we can only find that first in the Father himself, seeing it reflected in another human being who knows all your secrets and still adores and admires us, is a gift for the ages.

I am grateful for Sara and the courage she has shown to keep growing as a person and to always make room for me in her life. I’m grateful to God for holding us through the darkest storms and giving us his wisdom to resolve our conflicts and embrace the other more wholeheartedly. It’s the delightful fruit of learning to live inside of love, and I want that for everyone.

Don’t just endure life with your spouse; let Jesus keep teaching you how to love more freely, and thus more lightly. It will take you through some dark and challenging waters, but doing so is its own reward.

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Do You Want to Be a John?

4 Comments / Encouragement /

If you haven’t read So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, you may not get the reference, nor the wonder of the comment. For those that haven’t, that story is about a frustrated staff pastor meeting someone he thinks might be John, Jesus’ disciple, still living in the 21st century.  Do you remember when Jesus told Peter that if John were to live until he came again and that it should not matter to Peter’s journey? Now, Jesus didn’t say he would live that long, but we thought that an excellent idea for a story. What if a first-century apostle were still living today? What would he think of what we’ve done to Jesus’ kingdom in the 2000 years since?  That story has been read well over half a million times in the 14 years it’s been out. This is a story we never thought would go beyond a website.  

Anyway, I was in Europe over the last couple of weeks, starting in Norway, then taking on a YWAM class on the east coast of Italy, before ending my trip with two stops in Switzerland. Except for my time in Switzerland, all the people I met on this trip were new to me. What a trip it was, too! I am blown away by the people I get to know in my travels. Wherever I go I meet some of the most compelling people who are sorting out what it means to live loved and responsive to Jesus rather than just working Christianity as a system of thought. I love that. I love the conversations I get into and the things we discover together. I never know where those conversations will lead and almost always see something new about this God I love in the process.

I also meet some of the most courageous people on the planet when I travel, those that have more passion for a relationship with God than they have experience at it. Despite incredible struggles and doubts, they continue to open their heart to recognize the connection God wants to have with them. Yes, they are frustrated that it seems to be beyond their reach, and yet they continue to ask, seek, and knock on the door. I know it isn’t easy. I know it can lead to years of frustration when the desire is not immediately fulfilled the way we hope.

For humanity to connect with the transcendent God is no small task. Everything broken about this world seeks to diminish his voice, obscure his reality, and make us feel all alone in the universe. Look at all Father has done, including the cross, to make that connection. So, it doesn’t surprise me when it isn’t easy or doesn’t happen quickly especially for those who have known significant trauma in their lives or been captive in legalistic systems as a substitute for knowing him. It isn’t easy for us to learn to give up trying to make happen by our own efforts what only he can do by his Spirit. And he will do it, even if it takes most of our lives. 

One man told me on this trip that he wondered if this kind of relationship is only available to specific people like the men and women of God in the Old Testament. “If that’s true,” I told him, “then traveling the world and telling others they can have it, too, would be the cruelest thing I could do.” He agreed. I don’t travel, though, because of my need for income, or to satiate my ego. I wouldn’t do what I do if it weren’t to help others experience the same reality in him that I do. If it isn’t real for all, even the “least” of them, by however we choose to measure it, then it isn’t real for me either. That’s what the new covenant was for, to help every person find that connection with the God who loves them more than anyone on this planet ever has or ever will.  

And that brings me to why I wrote this blog. I had a brief conversation in Switzerland that was repeated in an email when I got home:  “You may remember when I said that ten years ago I always wanted to have someone like John by my side to answer all my questions. Today, I want to be someone like John, encouraging and helping others to discover and live in the heavenly Father’s love.” I love that. In essence, that’s the simplicity of the Gospel. Find your reality in him, and then find a way to help others discover that reality as well. 

I remember when we were writing that book, that I yearned to be someone like John, too. We wrote way above our heads when we sculpted out that character and put the best things in his mouth that we’ve ever heard or thought. Even Sara would recognize how beyond me John was when I was writing for him. When she would get home, she would make the observation that I’d been working on that book again. When I asked how she knew, she would respond, “Because you’re always a better person when you’ve spent the afternoon with John.” It was our little joke, but she was right. Writing for John was aspirational. 

Who doesn’t want to be a voice that opens a door in the heart of those who are endeavoring to discover what is true about God? Who wouldn’t want to be the cheerleader rooting on those who are about to give up in the misery of a difficult life? Who wouldn’t want to be a friend who can help others recognize the fingerprints of God in their heart?  

Yes, in the early days we want a John who can help us recognize how Father makes himself known to us. As we grow, however, we can become that John for others. We need so many people who can help others learn to recognize God at work in them. We do that by asking God to give us away to those who want to know him, by looking for those who are struggling in their faith and befriending them, by walking with God, not just for the wisdom we need, but for the wisdom others might need as well. 

It’s a noble aspiration—to find God with increasing fullness and to help others find him too.  

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