Behind the Scenes

No, I’ve not become a rapper!  That photo was taken Saturday morning in a conversation where I was trying to shield myself from the sun. But, I can wear that look!

Yesterday, Sara and I left the Austin area to continue our journey to the east. We’ve added new stops in Pensacola, Atlanta, Jekyll Island, Charlotte over the next month on our way to Richmond and Baltimore. After that we’re considering a stop in York, PA before turning west to Lexington, Louisville, and then on to Denver.

We hold so many great memories from our time in Texas and the people that let us into their hearts. What an amazing time we live in, where Jesus is inviting so many to walk alongside him even if it means uprooting the legalistic performance they were taught! And while that will make some in your family fear for your journey and even attack you for it, it is worth letting his love win you out of the obligation and judgment that define so much of religion, so you can live tenderly and graciously in the world, especially with your detractors.

Now we can begin to orbit a different reality—unmoored from our religious sensibilities we can get to know him and watch how his glory liberates us from the bondages of darkness and invites us into the light where we can be wholehearted in our walk with him.

Here’s how I expressed that journey in the last chapter of He Loves Me:

OF COURSE, NOTHING IN THIS BOOK has any value if it is just an intellectual argument, or if it only spawns a theology of God’s love. It only has meaning if you can learn how to live loved—to awaken to each new day confident that the Father delights over you like a parent over his newborn child.

I could go on and on with other implications of what it means to live in God’s love, and how it revolutionizes everything about the way we think or live. But I think the picture is clear enough now and you’ll be able to recognize the pathway and follow it wherever your Father wants to take you. Believe me, this is a life far better lived than it is read or talked about.

I’ve spent twelve years (now thirty years) mining the width and breadth of the Father’s affection and my life in him grows deeper and richer as the months go by. I keep discovering just how incredible he is and how freely I can live when I’m confident of his affection for me. I’ve seen him change so many things in my life this way, and yet I feel as if I’m just beginning.

You will enjoy far more the process of discovering how he wants to live in you than to keep reading more on the subject.

The life of Jesus is far better explored than explained. You can read and talk about it until you’re exhausted and frustrated; the joy comes in waking up each morning with an eye to discovering how he will make himself known to you on this day and what it will reshape in your heart no matter what you go through.

We’ll be talking about all of this at our final gathering of the He Loves Me Book Club, which will meet this Saturday, April 20, at 1:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time.  We will be focusing on chapters 22 and 23. Chapter 22 focuses on the prayer God always answers and is a huge help for us to discern how he’s inviting us to follow him. The last chapter contains some simple guidance to learning to live loved.

Even if you have not been with us before, you’re welcome to join us for this last study.  If you want to join us in this Zoom conversation, you can get details and the link by liking the Facebook Group Page, or if you are not a member of Facebook, you can write me for a link to be sent each time we meet. For those who just want to watch, we stream them live now on my Lifestream Ministry Page, since a new glitch in Zoom is not allowing us to post them to my Facebook Author Page. I will, however, post it to the Author Page once the conversation has concluded. You will be able to view it there along with  all the previous discussions we’ve had about He Loves Me.

And if you want to see any of our conversations through He Loves Me, you can find them all here:

• Intro and Chapter 1  
• Chapters 2 and 3
• Finish Chapter 3 and then 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapters 6 and 7
• Chapters 8 and 9
• Chapters 10 and 11
• Chapters 12 and 13
• Chapters 14 and 15
• Chapters 16 and 17
• Chapters 18 and 19 
• Chapters 20-21
• Chapters 22-23

Sara and I will soon be packing up the RV and heading out again with our two dogs—the first trip for our new puppy.

The total solar eclipse on April 8 is the catalyst for this trip. I saw one in 2017 with my son in Wyoming as I was helping him move to Denver. It was one of the most moving experiences I’ve had in nature and promised to get Sara to this one, since it is the last one in the U.S. in our lifetime. A favorite author of mine, Anne Dillard wrote a piece about an eclipse she witnessed years ago, and in it she captures the feelings I had myself.  She wrote, “Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him.” There’s nothing like that moment when the sun seems to go out. The stars appear; the earth cools; the birds go silent. It is surreal in its truest sense, and I can’t wait to get Sara to this one.

We’ll be heading south from here, through the southern end of Arizona and New Mexico in the first part of April, finally settling around Wimberley, TX for ten days. We will also be meeting with friends in that area and perhaps some from San Antonio.  From there, it looks like we’re going to make our way to eastern Mississippi along the gulf coast.  If you’re along that route somewhere and want to pull some people together, please let me know.

We’re not sure where we go from there; it will depend on where the Spirit blows us, where the early spring weather will allow us to go, and where there is hunger for us to visit. This is what travel looks like for me now. I spent many years mostly flying alone all over the world to meet wherever hungry hearts invited me for some conversation about living loved, finding the Church Jesus is building, and sharing life together. I usually stayed in people’s homes and enjoyed so much the connections God gave us. But now, since we are now dealing with the aftermath of Sara’s trauma, she likes me to be alongside her in the nighttime hours. So, we go together now, which allows Sara to be a part of it all as well as have some private space to process her journey. This has allowed us to have some amazing conversations with people in homes, restaurants, and parks as we explore the life of Jesus together.

So, if something is on your heart about touching base with us on this trip or a future one if we’re not coming near you, please let me know. For those who have done that for our previous trips, there is no need to, as we keep those on file in case we find ourselves in your area.  We look forward to seeing what God might have in mind for us on this, our third RV trip.   And if you just want to know if we happen to be having a gathering in your locale, you can sign up for my Travel List. Sign up here and make sure to include your physical address so we can contact you if we’re going to be nearby.

And for people we are not traveling near, I also do a lot of Zoom conversations to help small groups (or large ones) process their journeys of living inside Father’s affection, answer questions from my books or podcast, or help in any other way I can. All you have to do is ask, and then we can pray together and see what God might have in mind.

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He Loves Me Book Club Meets this Saturday, March 2

We’ll continue our conversations about He Loves Me this weekend by delving into chapters 16 and 17 this weekend on Saturday, March 2 at 1:00 pm Pacific Standard Time.  We will be focusing on how the death of Christ gives us a basis for growing trust in the Father’s care and how we find freedom from religious performance so we can be transformed by his love.

If you want to join us in this Zoom conversation, you can get details and the link by liking the Facebook Group Page, or if you are not a member of Facebook, you can write me for a link to be sent each time we meet. For those who just want to watch, we stream them live now on my Lifestream Ministry Page, since a new glitch in Zoom is not allowing us to post them to my Facebook Author Page. I will, however, post it to the Author page once the conversation has ended. You can see it there as well as all the previous discussions we’ve had about He Loves Me.

Thank you on behalf of Kenya

Thanks to those of you who have given to help us restore an agricultural project there that was destroyed by brutal winds. It provided water and sustenance for an entire tribe in the region.  To date, we’ve taken in about $8500 of the $12,796 that we needed.

I am truly blessed by the people God has related me to and the conversations I get to experience with people who are passionately exploring God’s reality in their own lives. I have tasted of the manifold wisdom of God as it is scattered in the body of Christ throughout the world and I am grateful beyond words. I also hold those thousands of conversations I’ve had as a trust to share freely with others what Father has so generously brought across my path. I enjoy providing a continual set of opportunities to invite other people into that conversation for our mutual edification and discovery. There is nothing like exploring this kingdom with other hungry hearts.

If you’d like to join me somewhere, here are some opportunities coming up this spring.

Sara and I were supposed to be in Jordan at the end of this month with fifty-five others, but the war in the Middle East has postponed our plans into 2025, Lord willing. So, instead we’re going to San Diego this year, responding to an invitation there by people we have never met but want to explore themes from He Loves Me. If you’d like to join an all-day conversation with us there, here are the details. We’ll be there on January 27 if you’re in the area.

I have a sense that this may mark a change in seasons for us. Having spent the last two years staying closer to home with Sara as God untangles her previously unknown trauma, it appears time to turn outward again with a new book and with some travel to encourage others.  Where are we going?  I’m unsure yet, but I’m not going to assume the invites I had on file before two years ago are still active, so if there’s something on your heart about having me, or Sara and me, come visit at some point, please email me a fresh request and let us know you’re still interested.

We are also planning another RV trip, first to take Sara to see the total eclipse of the sun on April 8, somewhere in central Texas. From there, we are going to see where Jesus might lead us as we wander for a few weeks. We’re not sure if we’re going south and east, or maybe toward the north. That will depend on two things—the weather and any invitations that come our way. So, if you’d like us to consider a visit to your area, now would be the time to let us know. I’m sorry we can’t be more committed at this time but we can trust that if this is something Father wants, he will arrange it as we simply follow him.

Last week, on The God Journey, I took some personal time to share a three-year experience I’ve had praying with a group of people from around the world after an invitation to stand with God against the delusion that is in the world. That includes both the darkness that keeps people’s hearts from knowing God, and the delusion that has distracted so many of my brothers and sisters politically and socially. In that podcast, I share the trajectory of our times in prayer and the things God has taught us as we continue to explore what that means. These sessions have dramatically altered my understanding of walking with God and prayer and were instrumental in navigating the tragedies that have affected my life in that time period. Without the people God put me alongside and the wisdom he shared with us, I doubt I would have responded the way I did, which brought healing and redemption in the midst of the most brutal trials I have ever negotiated.

For those of you who haven’t listened to the podcast in a while, Agreeing with God, might be worth a revisit. Those discoveries will affect the content of these pages going forward. And for those who have heard the podcast, we have scheduled a live After Show for those who want to discuss it for this Saturday, January 13 at 1:00 pm Pacific Standard Time.  If you have an interest in that topic you are welcome to join us. You can stream it live or listen to it afterwards on The God Journey Facebook Page. If you want to be in the conversation, make sure you’ve listened to the podcast and then email me for the link.  (Update:  Here is the link to that conversation.)

Finally, I’ve been facilitating a chapter by chapter discussion of He Loves Me. We meet every couple of weeks and you can get links and up to the minute notifications by liking the Facebook Group Page, or if you are not a member of Facebook, you can write me for a link to be sent each time. These conversations are held and recorded on Zoom. We stream them live on my Facebook Author Page for those who don’t want to be in the Zoom discussion, and you’ll find our previous conversations there. Here is a list so far: 

• Intro and Chapter One  
• Chapters Two and Three
• Finish Chapter Three and then Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapters Six and Seven
• Chapters Eight and Nine
• Chapters Ten and Eleven

Exploring your journey in ever-deepening and loving conversations with others is a powerful part of our life in Jesus. If you don’t have people like that, ask Jesus to show them to you and be intentional about cultivating relationships around you. They don’t even have to agree with you about everything because friendship isn’t about agreement but compassionate care and generosity of spirit.

Finding Church, my take on discovering and living in the church Jesus is building in the world, rather than the facsimile we humans try to build, is now available in the Russian language. You can find more information here. And to celebrate with our Russian friends, Lifestream is offering a 15% discount for any of my books sold through our website until the end of the year. Just enter “Lifestream2023” in the coupon window at check-out. This book is already available in German, Dutch, French, and Spanish.

In addition, our International Page includes all the books and articles others have translated into various world languages. This includes Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, South Korean, Spanish, Swahili, and Tamil. Some resources are free; others must be ordered from the publisher.

Here is an excerpt from Finding Church that will help you understand its theme:

The church of the new creation is more like wildflowers strewn across an alpine meadow than a walled garden with manicured hedges.

I realize such a seemingly amorphous view of the church will make many nervous, especially those who think it their God-given duty to manage a group of people on his behalf or else the church can’t exist. But it can. And I’m not advocating for the isolated, everyone-is-a-church-to-themselves idea. The church takes her expression in relationships we have with others who are also following him—local friendships as well as international connections that he knits together.

We’ll first see it reflected in conversations where Jesus makes himself known. Some of those conversations will grow into more enduring friendships that become part of the fabric of our lives as we serve, encourage, and grow together. These friendships will lead to others, and out of that network of friends and friends of friends, God will have all the resources he needs to invite us to agreement in prayer and collaborative actions to fulfill his purposes around us.

Can it really be that simple?  This is perhaps the greatest stumbling block to people seeing the church for what she is. It’s too simple, they think, or too easy. So they put their trust in the vast array of discordant institutions instead of the work of Jesus. As we’ll see connecting is difficult only because it is far easier than we dare to believe. In fact, you probably have those growing connections with people, even in the congregation you attend. I’m only suggesting that your interaction with them expresses more freely the life of the church than sitting in a pew watching the staged activity up front.

This is my follow-up to So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore. When you see through the frailties of institutions created in our image, you’re ready to discover the relationships in which Jesus’s church thrives all around you.

Don’t forget, from now until the end of the year, we are offering a 15% discount on any order you place from Lifestream before the end of the year. Just enter “Lifestream2023” in the coupon window at check-out.

Consider giving some of these books to your friends and family for Christmas. A Man Like No Other, The Shack, He Loves Me, Live Loved, Free Full, and Authentic Relationships will bless almost anyone who is thinking about the life of Jesus. So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, Beyond Sundays, and Finding Church will encourage people disillusioned by organized religion and seeking alternatives. In Season will enable believers to cultivate a deeper place for Jesus to engage their hearts.

You can find all the books Wayne has contributed to here. And if you order in bulk, you can find even deeper discounts.

When I traveled without Sara, my favorite day was when I traveled home. That’s not as significant when she is with me because home is wherever Sara is, and right now, that is in an RV outside of San Antonio, TX. Nevertheless, it is time to head home to the place prepared for Sara in Southern California, and we are making plans to leave soon.

But in some sense, we are all on the way home, right? Because now home is wherever our Father is and where we can be at home in him. Yes, we get to taste that every day here, but there is a day coming when we get to behold him face-to-face. That was made very real to me last week in a story I tell at the beginning of this week’s podcast.

Everything now is part of our journey home, both from this trip and, in a larger sense, toward that ultimate expression of living in the Father’s heart. We’re not planning on dying any time soon, but we are aware of those things most important as we traverse this season of our lives. From here, it is easier to see what lies ahead and what is most significant and to remind ourselves to relax along the way because if Father isn’t doing the work, our efforts are in vain.

What a fantastic trip this has been! We have had so many beautiful engagements with people, some easy and some more complicated, but Father seems to be opening eyes and engaging hearts in each of them. What I admire most in people I meet is the freedom to contemplate the difficult questions about God and his reality without protecting their false notions of God or his Church. And I celebrate the courage of people to follow Jesus’ invitation into the light when people close to them have disagreed with them or even disparaged them because they can’t yet see the Truth that will guide them to freedom, too.

This has been a tremendous six-week trip, meeting with so many people and taking some significant time to continue our journey of healing as well as celebrate the victories already won. And, now we finally have a plan to head home, Lord willing!

We have had to change our plans since our big, empathetic dog Zoey had emergency surgery on Saturday morning for a flipped stomach. It was all excruciating and almost cost her life. She is recovering well now, however, and we’ll need to stay a bit longer to get her stitches out and get her final check-up. We are so grateful to have her still with us. She’s only seven and has been such a critical support to Sara on this part of her journey.

Thus, we are extending our stay in the San Antonio/Austin area for a bit longer, which works out well because we’ve found some great hunger here for more conversations and relationships, and we are excited to see what these days might hold for us.

So, our homeward schedule will look a bit like this if you’re in the area:

• October 18 — Abilene, TX
• October 19-20 — Amarillo, TX
• October 21 — Gallup, NM
• October 22-23 — Flagstaff, AZ
• October 24 — HOME!

(Notice:  An earlier edition of this blog had all those dates in April because I’m a crazy person. We are actually headed home this month!)

If you’re somewhere along that route and want to connect with us, you can let us know, and we’ll see what we can do.

Wherever life is difficult for you today, remember your true home is not here anyway. You’ll be most at home in the Father’s heart, both as you navigate the challenges of this age and as you look forward to the day when Jesus brings us into the fullness of the Father’s presence.