For your summer reading pleasure, I’m adding a second recommendation to the one I made yesterday. This one is only available as an e-book and at 92 pages almost qualifies as a short story. What I hate about short stories is that if you get attached to the characters, they end too soon. This ends way too soon for me. There is so much more that could have been done with this set-up and there was so much more I wanted to know about the characters in it. But that aside, this is a worthy tale of life in the 21st Century and how technology can so easily distract us from the reality of life itself.

Written by Dr. Stephanie Bennett, Within the Walls on the surface is a story of technology and our humanity. It pits the power of once well-meaning institutions against what is best for the individual. This story confronts us with the possibility that our digital lives doesn’t necessarily enhance our human experience, but can in the end dehumanize us by luring us away from the substance of life itself. What happens when someone begins to see through the illusion, and why do others feel it important to hide the truth at all costs and thus preserve the illusion?

The story is set in 2071 sometime after a nuclear event has destroyed much of the world. Twenty-nine year-old Emilya loves here work as a creator of virtual vacations, until an inner uneasiness begins to plague her. Something is wrong, but what is it? Soon she finds herself ostracized at work and the questions only grow. Then she finds a strange letter from her deceased mother that had never been sent to her. Questions continue to pile up that launch Emilya on a quest for truth that upends her world. Clues that others who’ve gone before her and left behind become the bread crumbs she must read correctly. As an added delight the writings of Jacques Ellul, the French philosopher and Christian anarchist, help bring depth to her pursuit.

Ms. Bennett is a gifted communicator, who quickly grabs our attention and enmeshes us in Emilya’s story. I was rooting for her to find the truth and hopeful that in doing so we’d get some valuable ideas about making space away from the media’s ever-present demands, to find some measure of engagement with what is more transcendent.

Here’s an excerpt:

We were looking for a spacious place where the mind could wander free—-where we weren’t tethered to walls and the constant flow of information. We wanted to use technologies, but started to see that we were inadvertently creating a society that was unfit for human beings. We were creating this new world. It was horrifying to see that we developed these new tools, instead of using them to our best advantage, we were letting them use us!

On the surface this fast-paced novella challenges our view of media and how it seeks to dominate our our attention. However our media rarely lives up to its promise and few question what it crowds out that may be far more meaningful. That, alone, makes this story worth reading. But for those who dare, there’s a more subtle story here of how our mechanized, religious approaches to God have distorted our view of life and robbed us of more relevant engagements with God and his creation.

Thought-provoking, engaging, and satisfying, this story does not disappoint, except in its brevity. And for me to say so, tells you how much I enjoyed this story.

You can order it from Amazon Kindle here. (Within the Walls by Stephanie Bennett • 92 pages • $5.00 • e-book)

There are a couple of new fiction books out I think many of you will enjoy, and because they are self-published, you may not hear about them if you don’t hear about them here. I’ll post up another one tomorrow, but the first has a controversial title (to say the least), but you’ll find out why it’s entirely appropriate when you read the story. It’s about a man living in the painful reality of his own illusions, who is offered a different way to process his struggle.

Written by MC Lang, a friend of mine from Canada. (Yes, I did try to get him to change the title, and no, being a friend doesn’t necessarily get your book reviewed here. I only mention books here I think this audience would be genuinely interested in.) There are many books that I enjoy personally, that I wouldn’t necessarily recommend to others for various reasons. This is the story of a man who is caught in the painful perceptions of his own illusion and has the opportunity to see through them and grasp reality. But which way does it lie? Who can he trust, and what will that reality cost him?

Mike Adams lives a solitary and unassuming life, until a near-death experience shatters it. Awaking as if from a dream, Mike finds himself lost in a bizarre reality where nothing makes sense and two mysterious strangers seem determined to pull him in opposite directions. Arrested at the crossroads of this uncertain new path, the tug-of-war for Mike’s soul hangs in the balance as he struggles with what is real and what is true. As the race for an answer climaxes, Mike is thrust into a world where physical and spiritual realities collide, and the stage is set for an encounter he will never forget.

I wrote this paragraph as an endorsement for his book:

This is a first-rate parable where the line between our material and spiritual worlds blur. MC Lang invites us along for an extraordinary tale of a very common man whose comfort is shattered by the words of a stranger. But that only opens his eyes to a reality greater than he’d ever dreamed. For anyone on a spiritual journey The Bastard Tree will enlighten, inspire, and encourage you to follow the only voice that makes sense in a broken world.

I meant every word of it. I think you’ll enjoy thinking through this book and the themes it wrestles with.

You can find out more about it here: http://www.mclang.net/the-bastard-tree/. You can also order it from Amazon here. (The Bastard Tree by M.C. Lang • 290 pages • $14.99 • paperback)

Tomorrow I’ll going to offer you another…

It has been a while since I have given you an update on Kenya and I continue to be amazed at how many hold this in their heart. I get asked about it wherever I travel and contributions continue to come in to help, even though I rarely mention it. I am honored to be standing alongside my brothers and sisters in Kenya in their care for those who have nothing, not even a family. They also care for seventeen other orphanages in the immediate area, and many have taken other children into their own families, to help care for them. Perhaps as many as 15,000 mothers and fathers were killed in the violence that followed their disputed elections six years ago.

And beyond that the people at IGEM (International Gospel Equipping Ministries) work with over nine million believers throughout Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and other neighboring countries, helping spread the gospel and equipping people and congregations to live in the love of the Father. The needs they face every day are overwhelming, and yet they continue to demonstrate such joyful and teachable hearts. Who would have thought God would give us such a connection in the continent of Africa. Please keep them in your prayers, as Father leads you.

We not only built the orphanage over a year ago, but also committed to provide for food, staff, and education for more than seventy children. There isn’t a lot of new information each month to capture people’s imagination. This is just the steady task of following through as these children live and grow. It started out around $2500.00 per month, but because of the declining Kenyan schilling, we now need to send $3,000.00 per month to provide the same help we sent a year ago. We have continued to do that each month, whether or not the contributions have come in from others. We would greatly appreciate some others helping us as Jesus might lead you.

If you feel called to help us support these children either with a one-time contribution, or a monthly donation, we (and they) would be grateful. If you want to know more about this project or the AIDs recovery home we also support in South Africa, you can see our Sharing With the World page at Lifestream. You can either donate with a credit card there, or you can mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560-1 Newbury Rd #313 • Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

Jehovah Tdsnikki! No, you won’t find it in the Scriptures, but you can’t walk with God long and not know that he often sneaks up on you. This season of our lives had totally taken Sara and me by surprise, first in the confusion and pain it brought, and then in the greater joy and freedom it has since produced. The work continues to unfold and getting a bit clearer, but I’m still giving it plenty of space at this time in my life and kicking other projects down the road.

I appreciate those who have written words of encouragement, prayed for us, and even those who didn’t write so my email load would not be so great. The two weeks we spent together in France and Ireland (pictured at left) were incredibly healing and refreshing, especially the three days we had all to ourselves in Paris. We’ve never had more fun together, never talked more deeply and casually together, and never loved each other quite this way before. It has surprised us in ways we can’t fully express. We thought our marriage had been such a joy all along, but the last few weeks has exceeded anything we could have dreamed of. It’s as if we went through a cave and discovered a whole new country we never knew existed. And it is a wild and wonderful place!

I’m sure we’ll talk more some day about the details. This hasn’t been so much a lesson in marriage, but God peeling back another layer of Sara’s life and through it challenging me to love her differently. I’m pretty sure that whenever one spouse goes through a season of change at God’s hand, the other has to change as well to make room for it. If not you’ll find yourselves growing apart instead of traveling together. Fortunately Jesus is showing us how to traverse this new land together, which has allowed me to be inside Sara’s heart in a way I’ve not been before, and in a way she never knew she wanted or needed. There is a lot of hard work going on here, especially in my beloved, but the early fruits of that has already delighted us both.

We have found our way into a different kind of loving that has revolutionized our relationship and already brings us great joy. We will talk about it some day when Sara is ready, but for now we are still learning the joy of living it. It has made me even more excited about God’s ability to keep walking us into wholeness and for our life together to continue to be a place of discovery, growth, and change. It reminds me that God is not interested in giving us a placid life to make us comfortable, but to continue to draw us more deeply into the reality of his life and his way of loving. He is far more interested in shaping us than he is making our circumstances peaceful

I’m glad to still be learning. I’m blessed that God had more joy for us yet in this unfolding journey, even if the gateways into that are painful and disorienting.

He rarely does things the way I want, or in the time frames I might enjoy. But he does do all things well!

Et ce matin, nous disons au revoir à la France aime! (And so, this morning, we bid a fond farewell to France.)

I have been here two weeks, and Sara for one. We have had an extraordinary time at every place we stopped along the way. It has seemed so long ago since my first top in Boeil-Bezing, then to Azille, Angers, and finally to Paris, but there were so many delightful conversations and people to meet along the way. I am so blessed to get to meet the people I meet and see how God is stirring people all over the world to live beyond the emptiness of religious obligation and find a true relationship with the Father by the help of Jesus.

Then Sara and I had three of the most amazing days together in Paris. Though big cities are not my thing, being with Sara is. There’s so much we got to explore about Paris that we missed on our first trip here fourteen years ago, and so much more we got to explore about each other at this stage of the journey as we walked the streets of Paris, or the gardens of Versailles. What an awesome “retreat” we got to have, just the two of us. I love so much the person Sara has been, the person she is, and the person God is still making her to be.

And now we are off to County Wicklow, south of Dublin in Ireland. We have dear, dear friends there who have walked alongside us for many years now and have seen us through more than a few highs and lows. Others are coming in from elsewhere in Europe for some discussions together. We’ll also meet some new brothers and sisters here who wanted to connect while we’re passing through. And I love that God continues to invite the two of us more deeply into this adventure together.

So, it’s set up the ol’ marquee in the field, light the barbie (Oh, I guess that’s Australia), and let’s see how this Jesus is revealing himself around the world.

I am finishing up today in the south of France. Tomorrow I’m taking a train from Narbonne to Paris, to meet Sara who will be arriving from the States. We will be catching another train to go out and spend some time in Angers with some brothers and sisters who invited us to come. After four days in Angers, we will return to Paris for some private holiday time before we head over to Ireland and gather with some dear friends there.

Yesterday, Joni posted a comment on my previous blog that posed a question I thought many others would like to hear an answer to. So, Joni, I’ve taken the liberty of reposting our comment here, and adding my response at the end.

Love your transparency as always. Are you guys working on a marriage book together? Thought I heard that somewhere sometime in the past. Must be sweet to be so loved by Papa. This is what pastoring looks like, sharing the struggle of the journey is so helpful. I know in my own marriage as we age I am really seeing with more clarity why the marriage metaphor is the one He chose to reflect our relationship with Him. Between my marriage and parenting He really teaches me well and loves me beyond my wildest imagination. I hope you get hit with a little Cupid in Paris Wayne and find a little romance with Sara in the city. Thank you so much for keeping it real with us.

I don’t know that I believe in this Cupid guy, but we are looking for a whole lot more than a little romance in Paris. It is Sara’s favorite city and this time is God’s gift to her.

To answer your question, however, we’re still working on the MARRIAGE together! Once we get that sorted out, we’ll think about a book. 😉

Seriously, though, we’ve talked about doing a book for some time on this topic, and have begun to collect and organize what God has shown us over the years. But then we go through a yet another season of God peeling off a layer of the onion, and our relationship shifts yet again to a much deeper reality. So, we’re never sure when we’re actually going to be able to write it—that we’re deep enough into this journey, especially when we’re writing on the joys of life-long loving. Ideally, I guess we would finish the book the day before one of us passes away! That would take an immense sense of timing, and by then the end of the age may be upon us and the book would be irrelevant anyway.

So, yes, we are working on a book, but I have no idea when we’ll be able to release it. We wouldn’t have wanted to have finished it last year, with what’s going on now. This is the BEST part of our journey together and we are learning the best lessons that in many ways are the culmination of so many things we have only seen in part before. I am so excited about what he is doing in us at the moment and know it will be an important part of the story for others in time.

So, we will have to see when and if we actually get the book done! As with most things I want to write about these days, the living of the reality in his work is so much more profound, then trying to describe it for others. I trust the Spirit will nudge us on the day he wants us to actually finish writing this book if it is on his heart.

I just found out my book, So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, is about to release in Italian. Imagine that! Maybe it will find its way into the Vatican! Wouldn’t that be fun. Maybe it should be called So You Don’t Want to Go to the Cathedral Anymore! That’s the book cover at left.

I’m at LAX headed for France today and a weekend with people in the southern end of the country. As excited as I am about spending some time with some good friends of mine and meeting some new people, it was tougher leaving home today than any other trip has been. Sara and I have just had two of the most glorious two weeks together sorting out this new stage in our journey. Fortunately she joins me in a few days and as part of this trip we’ll be taking some time away just for us. I’m really looking forward to that, as is she.

We may talk in more detail about what’s going on in us up the road. I’m sorry to have frustrated some of you by being so nonspecific and I know more than a few of you have jumped to conclusions that were not accurate. What we are discovering are not the obvious things people worry about from childhood traumas, but it is allowing a new part of Sara to emerge and we are already enjoying the firstfruits of what this means in our love for each other. While we still have some miles to go together in letting Father shape all that he wants to in this season, it would be an understatement to say we are both excited about the Father’s work here. We thought we had an amazing relationship before, and in many ways we did. But now we’re finding some new places in each other’s hearts to explore together and I find myself both overjoyed and shocked that after 37 years of marriage there are still new places to discover. Who would have thought?

I’m so glad our marriage has never been static. We’ve never just settled in to a pattern of living that just allows us to coexist together. We’ve managed to stay on a journey with God that helps us keep expanding as individuals, and which has, in turn, meant we’ve had to keep expanding in our hearts to make room for the other. I’m blessed Sara keeps doing that for me, and I keep wanting to for her.

All told, this has truly been a joy. Yes it was birthed in some pain and confusion, since it caught us both off-guard. But as Sara said the other day, it feels like everything is new. And it does, which is hard to explain after all the time we’ve been together and all the joys we’ve already shared. We’re both glad the journey continues, that God’s grace is limitless, and that love can keep growing with each passing day.

So I’ll count the days until she joins me… Thanks for all the love and prayers so many of you expressed for us. Please know that we are at rest in the Lord’s working and grateful for all that has unfolded in recent weeks.

I have not updated this page recently and may not do so all that frequently for some time ahead. Tomorrow Sara and I will celebrate our thirty-seventh wedding anniversary. I can honestly say that I have never been more in love with this woman, never more appreciative of what her gifts and wisdom have added to our journey, and never more joyful at being in her presence. Though we had no idea where this journey would take us thirty-seven years ago, I am so grateful that God’s work in each of us has brought us closer and closer together.

For the past seventeen years Sara and I have openly shared this stage of our journey in books, articles, podcasts, and teachings. We have answered every email sent to us and have continued to make our lives available to people around the world in personal conversations whether it be here in the States or in far-off lands. We have been blessed to know so many people and for people to have opened their hearts so widely to us. All that travel, however, has meant that Sara and me spend many days apart. She has embraced that with incredible grace and is so generous in helping me share with the world the realities of living loved.

A few weeks ago, our lives took an unforeseen turn. It seems God has chosen this season to bring to light some painful experiences from Sara’s childhood that she didn’t even know were there, and to bring her to a more spacious place of freedom. And in the process our relationship has had to change to make room for his working. It began while I was in Russia and shook our marriage to its core. Sleepless nights, misunderstandings, long emails, and prayers took us through some painful places, but helped us connect at a far deeper level than we ever thought possible. For now, she needs me in a way she has not in the past and I have no greater joy than being exactly what she needs me to be right now and I am giving my heart fully to that.

I doubt that will change substantially what God has asked us to do in the world, but does mean that that work will rightfully take a back seat to what God is doing in her and in us! I am alongside Sara now in a way I never imagined and in the process I’m learning so much about the nature of God’s kind of loving, both in how Sara loves me, and in how I’m finding great joy in loving her.

Victor Hugo was right, “To love another person is to see the face of God.” When we lay down our wants and needs to envelop another person with compassion and honor, we get to see a reflection of God glory that is full of wonder. I’ve been invited to love Sara at a deeper level than I knew she needed, or knew I even wanted. Doing so has drawn us closer together, but also revealed Father’s love to us in some practical ways. Here’s some of what we’ve been learning:

You might be tempted to guess what circumstance lies behind these words, but you’d probably be wrong. I’m protecting her by not saying more than I am sharing here. This will be her story to tell in time and if she wants. Your prayers are welcome during this season, but I wanted you to know that Sara and I will be taking more space together in days to come, which may limit my availability for other things. So if my blog doesn’t get updated regularly, if we skip a podcast or two, or emails get backlogged, please know that there are more important things afoot for both of us right now.

I hope you’ll be patient with us during this time, because without apology I’m going to put her first and the work God is doing in the one I love like no other.

While I am finishing up my time in Russia, the latest Living Loved Newsletter has just been posted at the Lifestream website. You can find it by clicking on the link here:

https://www.lifestream.org/current-issue.php

(If this URLs does not show up in your email as a link to our site, just copy and paste it into the window of your browser and hit ‘return’.)

The title of this issue is, Betrayal, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation, and talks about how we respond when relationships go bad. Living loved in a broken world, means others won’t share that same love for you. If we don’t learn how to deal with others who regard relationships expendable, and whose brokenness sometimes spill over into our our own lives, we won’t know how to have healthy relationships with those who are not healthy themselves. What is the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation, and what is our part in that process when others hurt us. Does reconciliation mean we have to trust again? Drawn from the lessons of Scripture as they’ve been hammered out in Wayne’s experience, you’ll find this article an encouragement to your relational blow-ups and knowing how to navigate those moments when love between brothers and sisters does not win the day.

Also you’ll find a book recommendation that Wayne is excited about and that many people have thanked him for recommending, letters from other readers that will encourage your own journey, and the latest information about what we’re doing here at Lifestream.

You can read it online, or print your own downloadable version. We hope it inspires your own journey in drawing closer to Jesus and reveling in his life.

I arrived in St. Petersburg, Russia on Thursday afternoon and had a chance to do a bit of touring yesterday while getting to spend time with the couple who invited me here. What a great day! Saw lots of incredible palaces, cathedrals, parks, and monuments. I’m always amazed by such sights, what man can build and construct even 300+ years ago, but almost always by authoritarians indulging their own fantasies at the expense of the people. There’s a set of mixed emotions for you…

For the next three days we are going out to the countryside to meet with believers from this area and beyond who are in various places of learning to live loved and know who the Father is. I thought you’d enjoy reading something they have written about themselves. This is the group I’ll be spending time with here in Russia:

I thought the below might give you a beautiful glimpse into the heart of our gang. It’s a little hand out meant as a reminder to love and respect one another as we gather together….

We are very different!

Among us are those who worship in evangelical churches, and there are those who are more charismatic. Some meet Sunday morning in the walls of an Orthodox cathedral, and others in the Lutheran or Catholic sanctuaries. Some identify themselves as a church community, and others are together in home groups. We sing different songs, say different prayers…

We are so different!

But we have one Father, and we are brothers and sisters, so at our gathering, we will rejoice together in what unites us, and we will respect our differences.

We will appreciate (hey, let’s even celebrate!) the uniqueness of each person and their special relationship with our Father.

We respect the manner in which faith is expressed in one another, even if the form is different from that to which we are accustomed to.

We are indeed very different!

BUT…we have ONE Father who wants His children to love one another (Jn.13: 34.35) and be in unity with one another (John 17: 21).

God loves harmony not sameness. All of us in different places and sometimes by different means are learning what it is to know the Father through the work of Jesus and be transformed by it. If we could all embrace this reality the body of Christ would be a healthier family. We are all different, and we don’t have to be threatened by those differences, nor stake out a claim that our way of doing it is better than someone else’s.

Paul’s words in Romans 14 are powerful indeed. These are from THE MESSAGE translation:

Forget about deciding what’s right for each other. Here’s what you need to be concerned about: that you don’t get in the way of someone else, making life more difficult than it already is. I’m convinced—Jesus convinced me!—that everything as it is in itself is holy. We, of course, by the way we treat it or talk about it, can contaminate it. (v 13-14)

So let’s agree to use all our energy in getting along with each other. Help others with encouraging words; don’t drag them down by finding fault. You’re certainly not going to permit an argument over what is served or not served at supper to wreck God’s work among you, are you? I said it before and I’ll say it again: All food is good, but it can turn bad if you use it badly, if you use it to trip others up and send them sprawling. When you sit down to a meal, your primary concern should not be to feed your own face but to share the life of Jesus. So be sensitive and courteous to the others who are eating. Don’t eat or say or do things that might interfere with the free exchange of love.

Cultivate your own relationship with God, but don’t impose it on others. (v 19-22)