Behind the Scenes

I just received a copy of my new devotional, Live Loved Free Full, in its German translation—Geliebt durchs Jahr, which I think translates to Beloved Throughout the Year. This is the sixth book Glory-World Medien has published of mine, and you can see them all at the bottom of the page for this one.

This is a translation of the description of the book on their website:

Wayne Jacobsen’s book “Beloved!” (He Loves Me) quickly became a bestseller after it was published in 2008. As a result, many have understood and experienced for the first time what God’s love is, how deep it goes and how much it can transform our lives.

With “Beloved throughout the year” there is now practically a sequel in which the author has incorporated his experiences of the last few years; this time not as a non-fiction book, but as a collection of practical suggestions for a life as a lover.

These suggestions want to pull our heart into God’s reality every day and help us to see our world through his eyes, to absorb his impulses and to master our days with all their challenges out of his wisdom.

When Jesus spoke of giving us abundant life, He wasn’t primarily concerned with pain-free circumstances and material blessings. He spoke of an inner life so rich and genuine that it can carry us through life’s difficulties.

This book will help us to do that. A loved, free and fulfilled life is the result of a growing connection with God on a heart level. Let his love be your daily reality, learn to absorb his impulses and experience his peace permeating your life in every situation!

This is a daily devotional with an encouraging thought on how to lean into Father’s love instead of navigating life on your own. If you haven’t read the book yet, here’s the reading for today—February 16.

February 16 – You Are His Delight

I was reading Song of Songs a few weeks ago. I wondered if the bridegroom’s delight over his lover is like Jesus’s delight in his Church. I know how I feel when I’ve been gone from Sara for a few days—the ache in my heart just to be near her again and hold her in my arms. Could this be how God feels about me?

I’ve concluded that what it means to come to be his delight is that God feels for me similarly to what I feel for Sara. His, however, is a billion times greater than mine. He is God and, after all, he has more love in his heart than I can possibly fathom.

And if I really knew he delighted in me like that, wouldn’t it be so much easier to rest in his certain arms, even in the places where I’m most broken and helpless?

I am at my best when I am at rest in his love, and less so when I’m anxious about how he feels about me. If you only knew he looked at you with delight, how much would that change how you go through this day?

You’ve captured my heart, dear friend. You looked at me, and I fell in love.
One look my way and I was hopelessly in love!
Song of Solomon 4:8–15 (MSG)

When you think of living to please the Lord, does it sound more like an arduous chore or an outrageous invitation to live in his pleasure? For most of my life it has been the first, but I think I had that wrong. God lives in the fullness of his pleasure and wants us to join him there as we also discover the fullness of ours. If you want to explore some of my recent insights on this that is once again altering the trajectory of my life in Christ, you can listen to last week’s podcast, Living to Pleasure.

If you’re interested in copies of Live Loved Full Free, you can order the German translation here or the original English version here. A French version is in process as well. I’m so grateful for all the hard work others put in to make these books available beyond the English-speaking world.

As for other translations of my books and articles in other languages, you can find them here. I’ve been fortunate to have some of my things translated into Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, South Korean, Spanish, Swahili, and Tamil. And of course The Shack has been translated in nearly 50 languages around the world, but that one is easier to find.

First, a word about my last blog about the call of the Bride. I didn’t want to say much about it there; I just wanted it to hang out there to see how it resonated with others. I’ve appreciated hearing that so many others have sensed a similar call in their hearts.

That blog post was simply writing down what had happened in my heart in the middle of the night. I was awakened out of a sound sleep on Thursday night outside Nashville with this prayer coursing through my body—”The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.'” I repeated it over and over, and as I held that before Father, other Scriptures came to my mind, that seemed to fit that call in my heart. My heart has been captured by similar prayers in the five days since.

I honestly don’t know what it means. I don’t think it is just about the Second Coming of Jesus. If we want him to come eventually, we will want him to come now to make his glory known in the real circumstances of life—into our doubts and fears, sufferings and temptations, and hopes and dreams. It’s the constant draw of the heart to the groom, not because he doesn’t already live in our hearts. He does. It’s a call to let that love be closer and let his glory be more evident.

And, I think it is a bit of a dog whistle to the Bride around the world. Some have already sensed that drawing in their heart. Others are finding it put words to something they’ve been sensing but hadn’t fully surfaced yet. What would happen if the pulse of that call would rise from millions of hearts around the world and held it before God, “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come'”? No, that won’t induce the Second Coming, but we may see his glory rise in the world around us.

But, here’s the real reason for this blog:

For the past eighteen months, many of you have received a thrice-weekly email called Breath of Fresh Air with a quote from one of my various publications or podcasts. I hear every week from people how those brief quotes have come at just the right moment to encourage people or give them insight into the situations they are facing. For others, they’ve been great reminders to tune their heart to Father’s love and life.

If you have enjoyed those, you have Traci Shyer of Pennsylvania to thank for them. She put all of those together as her way to share the life of Jesus in the world. She also did Instagram memes three days a week, such as the one above. A couple of weeks ago, she informed me that this season of her life is over. New work responsibilities and Father’s shifting call in her own heart are taking her on to other things.

So, thank you, Traci, for how much love and light you’ve shared in the world and how it has enriched so many others. I’ve told her how much I have loved the quotes she’s chosen and that artistic flare she has put to them. Even more, I appreciated her honesty with me when she knew it was time to lay it down. Everything in our hearts is for a season, and saying, “I’m done,” is every bit as important as her originally saying, “I will.” We really don’t have the freedom to say yes to something if we also don’t have the freedom to say “No, Thanks,” or know when our time doing it is done. Nothing in our lives is meant to go on past the vision God gives us for it.

We still have a backlog of her work, so this will continue a while longer. If, however, this is going to continue down the road, God will have someone else whom he would inspire to do something similar with their own creativity and passion. So, if you read this and think, “Hey!  I’d love to do that,” please let me know and we can talk about it.

If not, then we may recycle the quotes or simply let this lie and look for other ways Father might have to encourage. I honestly don’t feel this is something that has to continue indefinitely, so I’m not trying to recruit anyone. I’m just putting the invitation into the wind to see if anyone else feels a nudge. All it involves is picking out some short quotes from Lifestream or The God Journey and finding a decorative way to send them out via our mailing list or social media.

Seriously, no pressure; it’s just an offer.

If you want to learn more about how to recognize God’s work in the shifting seasons of our circumstances or in God opening new doors of opportunity, you might find In Season, Embracing Father’s Process for Fruitfulness, a helpful tool.

Today I say my final goodbye to Dave Coleman, a close friend for over thirty years. I wrote about him and our work together in a previous blog when he passed away. His family has asked me to facilitate the celebration of his life at a memorial service today, and I have no idea how I’m going to get through it.

Death is only painful on this side of the door. On the other side, Dave has already discovered what it means to be face-to-face with Jesus, and he is enjoying the reality of what we can only glimpse from the shadowlands here that we live in. On this side, those who knew him will miss him deeply, his smile, wisdom, and tenderness. I already do. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this service.

In preparing my remarks, I remembered the last email I got from Dave. It showed up late this fall quite unexpectedly one morning and it was simply a prayer—a profound one at that! He had been walking with me through a harrowing situation that involved some people I love deeply.

Here’s what he wrote:

 May the Father, who is rich in mercy, speak kindly to your heart and comfort you with the thought that the only way out of this is to lay it at the foot of the cross…. with the prayer, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”  Do not allow your accusers to stifle in any way your message of God’s love. Just allow this experience to increase your urgency and your compassion and above all to deepen your dependency on His grace.

Dave had known many similar experiences in his own life. The path he commends here is one he has walked many times. Forgive from the depth of your heart, but also don’t let your accusers prevail. Get to the cross and the power Jesus demonstrated there. Forgive like he forgave and then let the pain and loss only invite you deeper into grace and to the great need for more of it in the world.

Amen, Dave. Amen 

Two things happened yesterday, almost back to back.

First, I read the following email from Chelsea, a friend in Idaho:

If you remember my 7-year-old son was very much struggling with going to church, and it’s become clear these past few weeks that I will be staying home with him and having intentional one-on-one time on Sunday mornings. I am using The Jesus Story videos, but a bit differently. I’m not having him watch them, but am watching them myself and then using it as a guide to teach each lesson to my son.

Today was the first one, and we went on a “treasure hunt” in the house to find treasure and drew treasure maps and connected it to the bible being a treasure map to Jesus. It went so well, and I used your examples and visuals but just made it in real life. I got a book set out and explained the books of the Bible as you did with the most important books being the four about Jesus. My son just really understood and was engaged more than ever, and I’m looking forward to doing this each week for the next little bit.  Thought you might enjoy hearing how your series is being used with a younger child.

That’s the best use of The Jesus Story I’ve ever heard. I’d much rather have a child go on a treasure hunt with mom than watching a video of me and my grandkids. I love that she’s using those videos and tools to find a way to incarnate the life of that series in her own home.  Well done, Chelsea!  I hope your example will inspire others.

For those who don’t remember, I recorded The Jesus Story during the early days of the pandemic to give my grandkids a survey of the Bible and hopefully a love for it when they didn’t have much else going on. Through the wonders of Zoom, I gave them a kid-sized package of The Jesus Lens, which I recorded to help adults explore how the Scriptures can be the most important resource they have for sorting out the life of the Spirit in their own lives.

The second thing that happened yesterday is I was on a Zoom call with a mother in her young 40s when she shared how Scripture had been so weaponized against her that she rarely reads it.  As sad as that makes me, I get it. Many think it’s a dull, antiquated book that’s no longer relevant today. Others cringe at the thought of reading it since they have felt obligated to do so and found very little life in it. Religious leaders have weaponized it to bash people with guilt and obligation or misinterpreted it as a rule book for conforming people to their religious systems even if they have to disfigure the Gospel to do it.

It’s such a tragedy too!  The Scripture is still the most fantastic resource in my spiritual journey.  I want it to become one in yours too. Everything I believe about God unfolds in its pages. But you’ve got to read it as the story it is—of God unfolding himself in human history, not as if he dictated each word.  That’s not what inspired means. Not everything it says about him is true, especially in the earlier stories. It tells the story of a people coming to recognize who God is, and sometimes their view of him was wrong or incomplete. However, when Jesus appeared, he showed us exactly what his Father is like and how to make sense of those Old Testament stories.

Also, every day when I read it, no matter where I’m reading, I know I’ll find some clue that helps me realize something Jesus has been speaking to me, checks the motives in my heart that might steer me after my own desires instead of his, or it will confirm a path he already has me on. I’m always excited to see what the Scriptures might unveil to my heart on a given day. No, it cannot replace his Spirit as the one who guides me into all truth but it certainly helps me recognize when I’m being led by his Spirit and when I’m being seduced by my own brokenness.

That’s why a major theme in my life and on this website is to help people reclaim the wonder and power of Scripture. If you haven’t checked out The Jesus Story or The Jesus Lens, you might want to spend some time with them. It may take a bit of effort to move Scripture out of the guilt and obligation side of your life so that it can become the treasure map God intended to help reveal his wisdom and character to aid you on your journey.

For those of you reading Live Loved Free Full, on November 30, you read an exchange I had with Dave Coleman that graciously changed the trajectory of my life. Dave passed from this life and began the incredible journey for which we are all destined on that same morning. I love the way Father does stuff like that. It just seemed another wink from him and his joy in the relationship we shared together. I will miss him more than I can say here even as he delights in face-to-face communion with Father, Son, and Spirit.

Dave Coleman was the wisest man I’ve ever known, not in spouting of platitudes or presenting spell-binding lectures. With a mere sentence or a provocative question, Dave could cut through a situation and reduce it to the simple choices I faced inside of it. He gave of it freely to anyone who would seek him out and he enriched the lives of so many who would come by his home and revel in his wisdom. Dave would always point down the road that leads to life without ever pressuring anyone to believe him or take it. He was gracious and loving even when people didn’t see things the way he did. He didn’t just talk about love; he lived it in his kindness, his wisdom, and in his graciousness. He pastored a Lutheran church for awhile, volunteered as a hospice chaplain and taught the life of Jesus at rehab centers.

He was my closest friend over the last thirty years, walking me through conflicts and betrayals I endured as well as affirming and celebrating what God was revealing to me. I wouldn’t be doing anything I’m doing in the world today without this man’s influence and kindness to me.

Of all the men and women I have met, this is one of God’s most authentic followers. Was I walked away from our first meeting, these words penetrated my thoughts, “This is one in whom there is no guile.”  That’s what Jesus said about Nathanael in John 1. Having known him for thirty-plus years, I can tell you how true that was. He was authentic to the core and never sought to exploit someone for his own gain. He rarely occupied the limelight and was often despised by those who could not manipulate him to their ends or control the life and grace that flowed from his tongue and heart. He and his wife, Donna, have known betrayal as well as the tragic loss of two of their children—one in a tragic accident and one to leukemia. Rather than grow bitter from these things, they grew more tender and compassionate for others in need.

He was a second dad to me in this season of my life. Whenever Sara and I had couldn’t resolve complications in our marriage, how to raise our children, negotiate conflicts with friends or family, he and Donna were there to comfort us and help us see down better roads. And he was always a cheerleader for the work of unfolding grace in my heart, especially when others would lie about me or seek to deter me from Jesus’s leading.

Once, while I was still pastoring, I offered him an opportunity to be an elder in our congregation and the possibility of a full-time position. I thought I was offering him the moon. I was shocked when he declined it immediately. Asking him to explain. “I really can’t,” he said. “But someday, you’ll know.” Fifteen years later, when offered an elder position in a local fellowship that I found myself declining, I had to smile when I remembered his words.  Yes, I get it now.

He was the first to tell me that most human love is merely the mutual accommodation of self-need. People will “love” you only as long as you give them what they want. When you can’t or won’t, they will cut you off. Jesus taught us love is not about getting what we want from others but having affection enough for them to lay down of our lives for their benefit, without thought of what it will cost us.

Dave was my coauthor of So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, and the one who came up with that provocative title. Soon, I’m going to read that book for the first time soon to relive the experience of writing it with him.  That November 30 entry in Live Loved Free Full, is about the time Dave dropped this bomb in my heart: “I’ve learned that whenever my personal well-being is hinged on the response of another person, I will manipulate them.”

I knew that was radioactive when I first heard it. Dave was talking about a sermon I had preached, but I knew if I let that truth into my heart, it would change everything about how I treat Sara, my children, family, friends, and anyone I would meet. That reality is still changing me, and the freedom of learning to anchor my well-being in Christ alone set me increasingly free to love others.

If you’ve been touched by anything God has done through my life, you can be grateful to God that he put this man in m life. Certainly, God has reached out to me through others, but no one has had a more profound impact on the trajectory of my journey.

It delights me to know he is at rest after suffering a long health decline. I look forward to the day when we will sit again in the coming kingdom and celebrate all the grace that we both experienced at the hand of our God and Father. My heart goes out to his family, who will miss him far more than I will. May God’s comfort eventually turn all their grief into the joy of having known this man and been enriched by his time on this planet.

If you want to partake of some of Dave’s wisdom in his seven appearances on The God Journey podcast.  You can find those episodes in our Guest Archive. Especially appropriate might by his reflections on death that we recorded nine years ago. I talked to him a few days before his death, I can assure you that he lived to the end everything he believed and stared down death at rest in the Father’s care.

I just received word that my new devotional, Live Loved Free Full, has just been released in German.  I’m so happy to let my readers there know it is now available in their language.

It’s called “Loved Throughout the Year, with the subtitle “365 impulses to live loved, free, and fulfilled”.  The Publisher is Glory World Medien, which has published many of my titles for Germany.  You can view their Facebook page here or order the book on Amazon in German.

It also allows me to remind others that this would make an excellent Christmas gift for family and friends if you’re still looking for some ideas. And, we don’t have any supply chain issues to delay shipment. You can order as many as you like.

Almost every day, I get an email from someone saying the day’s entry was written especially for them, or it opened doors to some insight they desperately needed. That’s what I hoped for when we put this book out. It is so easy for us to be seduced by the world’s demands or retreat into the rigors of religious performance as we go about our day. It’s easy to forget that Jesus invited us into a different journey. Let the Father’s love wash over your heart today and gain his perspective on the circumstances that confront you. Each day’s entry is designed to help draw your heart into a more relational space to think through your day alongside the Father, Son, and Spirit so that we can lean into their perspectives of our life and the world around us.

It’s like resetting the compass of your heart so you can navigate your life inside his reality instead of the illusions the world presses on us. “Setting our minds on things above,” is what Paul invited us to do. That’s where life, freedom, and love abide.

And not surprisingly, I received an email from someone who felt today’s reading, November 24, was particularly powerful. I haven’t read it yet myself, but I’m going to copy it below for you.

If God’s love could only comfort us in our weakness and could not transform us to live in his glory, it would not be enough. Thankfully, learning to live in his love puts us in the place to see our world through his eyes. Love and truth coupled together is what fuels his transformation in us and helps us navigate this fallen world in his joy and peace.

I grew up believing that the Bible showed us the way to live. We needed to study it, interpret it, and apply it to our lives. Doing so would allow us to live in God’s glory. Only later did I find that process doesn’t work. While it pressures us to act better, it ultimately collapses because our freedom doesn’t come from within. We will either end up blaming God for not doing his part or shaming ourselves for not trying hard enough.

The Bible was meant to introduce us to Jesus and to show us God’s reality that will make sense of the universe and our lives in it. Jesus is the one who prepared the way for us to be at home in his Father’s love and sent his Spirit to guide us into all God’s truth. Our participation in the relationship that Father, Son, and Spirit share together will slowly transform us by showing us what is real and not real in the circumstances we face and the thoughts we have. Transformational love is how God invites us into his freedom and equips us to be agents of his glory in a broken world.

That does not diminish my appreciation for the Bible. It  does show us God’s reality and wisdom but unless he is working that out inside us there is no way to follow all the truth it reveals. Jesus said that we don’t live by bread alone but by “every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Paul in Galatians 3 points out that God doesn’t work in us by human effort but by “believing what we hear.” Instead of conforming our lives to a set of expectations, we actually get to live inside his love and learn to recognize how he reveals himself in us. As we believe what he shows us we’ll discover what it is to live in his life.

Over the last year, I’ve been working on a better way to help people understand how this process happens and how to cooperate with God to bring lasting change in their lives.  I had the chance to share some of this with a group near Baltimore last weekend and ended up using a towel and some paper plates scattered about the floor.  I had never tried it this way before and just as I was getting started a little dog came in and started scrunching up my towel.  That’s when I realized there was a better way to use that towel and we all had a good laugh at the dog’s contribution.

I’m not sure the best way to share this with a wider audience just yet. I don’t know if there’s a book here, a video series, or if we can talk about it on the podcast. I’m excited for the opportunities to explore this process with people to see if it helps them understand how God transforms us without turning it in to some kind of formula. I hope it helps them relax enough into the process that they can participate more freely with him.  If we do, we’ll find our trust growing as will our capacity and awareness to love others. That’s where we will find all the joy, peace, abundance, and fulfillment that Jesus promised us. The few times I have shared it I was grateful that it spawned just the kind of encouragement and conversation that I hoped for.

Later this month, I’m going to share it with a group in Bradenton, FL, New Port Richey, and in Miami, FL and perhaps it will come up in other places I visit as well.   You can hear me talk about this a bit in the video below, which I prepared as a promo for that conversation with Hope4Life in Miami.

If you can’t play the video file, click here.

If you want to join us, please see their announcement below.  At the bottom right is a Zoom ID number if you want to join me live that day.

I haven’t been this excited about a resource to help people since Embracing His Glory, and this does involve a further extension of that material.

_____________

Other Notes of Interest

For those in their 20s and 30s there’s still space available for you to join Kyle and me December 3-5 in Westcliffe, CO for a gathering to celebrate and pray for what God is doing in this age group. We are looking forward to encouraging each other and listening to God together to see how he’s engaging a new generation. You  can get all the details here or register here.

Also, for those interested, I had a great conversation with the guys at Next Level Method Podcast that was recorded this past September. It dropped today. You can hear it on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast or watch it on YouTube.

I just got back from Virginia and Maryland and leave next week for a swing through Florida. I look back with profound gratefulness at every moment on this trip and the conversations I had with so many people, some enduring great hardship and struggle, others responding to Jesus’ invitation to come closer and to follow him in uncharted waters. I loved all of it and had many spontaneous encounters that weren’t on the schedule when I left.  My heart is full, and I’m humbled by the journey Jesus allows me to walk. Here’s one person’s response to that trip:

What a wonderful time of fellowship and newly established friendships I experienced yesterday!  I can’t stop thinking about the ‘uniqueness and specialness’ of our time together as well as the ‘uniqueness and specialness’ of each one who came.  I missed you all as soon as I departed.

Me too! What a joy it was to meet so many people in various places on this journey, all looking for the real meaning of love as God sees it and finding a transformative journey in knowing and following him.  That quote above was the opening paragraph of an email I got yesterday. I often get emails like that after I’ve been somewhere, and every one of them is appreciated. This is the first time, however, that I got to peek at a thank you note to one of my host couples. I’m not going to say which city she joined me in, because what she writes could have applied to all the places I visited and the people who invited me.  Here’s what she wrote to the people who facilitated my time at one location on this trip:

Thank you for opening up your home and creating such a warm and welcoming environment.  Thank you also for the time and money spent on food preparations. Everything—and every means every—was perfect!  There is nothing like being on the receiving end of your generosity and kindness.  I don’t know if you realize just how much of a difference that you make in the lives of people (just by being wonderful, faithful, kind, loving you) but it is significant.  On numerous occasions, people mentioned just how much they appreciated the interest that you take in them. You are gems to many and God is loving many people through you.

These things don’t happen if there aren’t people on the other end who have it on their hearts to invite me and who will prepare a place for people to connect. I am always amazed when anyone takes the risk of inviting me and seeing what Father might do in my coming. It’s so brave. I don’t just hold meetings; I also open my hearts to the spontaneous encounters God might give me along the way. I never go to speak and then hide in my room the rest of the day. I watch for what else God might be doing and who might want my help processing their journey. So, that means they need to be a bit flexible, too, whenever God creates new opportunities alongside the ones they had planned. I’m always grateful for the people who host me and provide for my needs while they open the door to others. It’s a beautiful symphony when it all comes together.

She finished her email with this:

Wayne, thank you for taking and making the time to visit with us. It was so good to connect with you in person. What a delight!  I so appreciated the transparency and vulnerability so many shared regarding the difficult circumstances you and others are facing. It takes courage to ‘pull the drapes back’—and yet, right from the start—drapes were pulled back. I loved it. It was precious, it was unique, and it was special.  The conversations and discussions were rich and deep.  The entire day was perfect!  I appreciate you—your authenticity, genuineness, and down-to-earthness – as well as your willingness to “explore” the kingdom with others.

It amazes me how quickly sharing can go deep in rooms like that. I heard very tender stories of people going through tough challenges but looking to Father’s hand to lead them through it in his love. That isn’t easy, nor is it to share that with a roomful of strangers. These conversations that matter also enlighten and inspire my journey as well. I’m dumbfounded as well as thankful that God allows me to have these kinds of time with people. I did a seminar on A Language of Healing in Suffolk, The Shack with the recovery community near Baltimore, Finding Church in Baltimore and Harrisonburg, and He Loves Me and Live Loved Free Full all over the place. I found myself in a few places sharing the new framework I think Father has given me to help people understand the nature of the journey that God invites us into. This time, it involved a stack of paper plates, a towel, and a discerning dog as I played it out on the floor. I love seeing those “Aha” moments in people’s eyes when something clicks in their hearts that makes more sense of what Father is already doing in them.

Finally, I had so many on this trip telling me to take their gratitude back to Sara for the price she pays when I go. My presence anywhere is as much a gift from her as it is from me, and we are both touched when people recognize it.

I was supposed to hop on a jet this afternoon for a conversation about race at a community college in Texas. Due to a COVID assault on one of the participants, however, it had to be postponed. I’ll miss being there this week because that is one of the healthiest conversations about race I see any major institution risking today. It has avoided both the cliffs offered by the left and the right that do more to obscure the problem than seek the solutions that will help us all. Fortunately, we’ll get back to that at a later date.

For now, I get to reflect on all Jesus did on this last trip and hold in my heart those I met going through a painful stretch of the journey, I also find my heart growing in expectancy for what will unfold at home this week and in my trip to Florida next week.

And don’t you love it when someone takes the time to write a note like this one?

I used to get frustrated when things didn’t work out the way I had planned. Not anymore. I’ve seen God open up so many other opportunities when original plans go awry that now I find myself a bit excited when something doesn’t work out the way I thought it would. I find myself excited to see what else he might have in mind that wasn’t yet in my field of vision. Whether its at home or out on a trip somewhere else, I know his purpose continues to unfold and it fascinates me how else he will make use of that time.

Especially in this age of COVID, travel planning is a bit of a challenge.  I was supposed to leave Thursday to spend this coming weekend in Alaska with people who are freshly considering the difference between the church humans build and the one in which Jesus is breathing his life. I was really excited to be with them, but I’ve been waved off by my hosts. The home I was to stay in is battling COVID and the pandemic has gone wild in Alaska.  Hospitals having to refuse patients for lack of space and there was even a call out this morning for health workers to come to Alaska and help with the overwhelming onslaught of cases.

So, that has shifted my plans accordingly. I will be going to Alaska eventually, just not now.  It looks like I’ll have some extra time at home before heading to Norfolk, VA on October 21 for that weekend, then spend some time Richmond, VA in the early part of the week and finish that trip in Sykesville, MD the following weekend.  I still have a few days in the middle of the week available if anything is on someone’s heart between Richmond and Sykesville.  Just let me know.

Sara and I are on a brief getaway, so my Travel Page has not been updated to reflect this opportunities, but they will be by the end of the week. After that, I’ll be going to Amarillo, TX in early November and then to Florida just before Thanksgiving.  Then, on December 3-5 Kyle Rice and I will be holding The God Journey Gathering for 20 and 30-somethings near Colorado Springs.