Behind the Scenes

I want to introduce you to My Friend Luis. He’s a close friend of mine, and we share our story in a new, immersive, story-telling podcast that launches today. Episode One premiered last Friday on my podcast at The God Journey and debuts this morning on its own website.

I’ve heard many amazing stories in my life and been part of some amazing ones myself. This one was worthy of putting into a limited-series podcast that will play out over the next twelve weeks. It unfolds God’s glory in so many ways. I can’t wait for you to hear it. New episodes will drop on Tuesday mornings. You can view the trailer here.

My Friend Luis celebrates an extraordinary life and the unlikely friendship that developed between a law-and-order Republican and an undocumented immigrant living in California.

Born into abuse and poverty in Mexico, Luis survives through insurmountable odds. Through a series of almost unbelievable encounters, Luis navigates a pathway beyond his circumstances with an undeniable hunger to make a better life for himself than he knew as a child. In the course of that journey, he comes face-to-face with the God who had been pursuing him all his days.

As the son of a Sun-Maid raisin-grower in California, I found himself on the other side of the quest for better conditions and pay for farmworkers and despised those who came across the border illegally and the burden they added to the economy.

Despite their twenty-year age gap and their differing cultures, they crossed paths in 2008, and a friendship began that has transformed both of their lives in ways they would never have imagined.

Here’s what others are saying after hearing the first episode:

“I am just captivated by this story! Now I think I see why Wayne was excited about 2021… This is much more than a Podcast! I’m sending the website link to friends and family.” — Jack

“Loved this!!! Can’t wait to hear the next one!” — Harvey

“I heard two voices in my head while I was listening. The first voice said: “It’s his own fault, he tried to come here illegally and suffered the consequences”. This is the voice I used to believe was God’s (standing up for justice, consequences and all that). The second voice said: “This is my son, with whom I am well pleased and love dearly.”  This is the voice I now know is Father’s and the voice of grace = true justice. I can’t wait for the rest of the story and see God unfolding through it!” — Isaac

“Ooh, love it!  It’s going to be a great story … Planning on listening with my sisters. Didn’t realize it was going to be so professionally done … Trailer is superb!”  — Jaq

“I am so looking forward to hearing his whole story! Maybe people would have different perspectives, hearing the life of someone who comes from a country where there’s a lot of corruption and seems like surviving is a daily struggle! Wayne, so glad you’re sharing Luis’s story with us.”  — Nellie

Give the first episode a try. You won’t be disappointed, except for having to wait a week for the next one. You can view upcoming episodes there as well as subscribe to them on your favorite podcast feed. I hope you find it as worthy a story to listen to as I found it to tell. If so, please review this story at iTunes and other podcast outlet and pass the link out to your friends or share on social media. We’ll be grateful.

My Friend Luis is a production of Blue Sheep Media in association with Lifestream.org.

I was just notified late Friday that my new book. Live Loved Free Full will not be available by the end of the year as we were originally promised. We knew we were on a tight timeline to get this out by January, and unfortunately, it didn’t all come together as we had hoped.

Our printer is blaming the delay on health restrictions due to the coronavirus, an influx of books late in the year, and now their holiday schedule. I am very sorry to tell you that our release date has now been pushed from December 22, 202o to January 15, 2021.  I know that’s particularly disappointing to those looking forward to starting it on January 1 and those who were giving it as a Christmas gift this year.  I’m a bit bummed for you, too, but we will do what we can to make up for the delay.

Fortunately, the reflections in this book don’t have to be read in order starting January 1. You can really start any time during the year and follow the cycle around since the book doesn’t build from a beginning point to an endpoint. I hope this could be a treasure to comb through year after year as it helps center your heart daily in the realities that matter most. However, for those who wanted to start on January 1, I will post the devotionals on the blog until the book comes out.  I’m not sure how we’ll do that yet. We may post one each day or post a few at a time, but you will have access to them.

And, if you bought it for someone as a Christmas gift, here is a coupon you can print out and wrap for them, so they will know it will soon be on its way.

Finally, I want to thank those of you on my Launch Team who will help us get the word out when the book is available.  I’m also deeply touched by the comments some of our advance readers have made about the book. This is what I had hoped these reflections would do. We can still use more people if you would be willing to help us get the word out.

I’ve never had so much fun recycling. We do it, of course. We live in California, and you can’t take everything to landfills. We recycle everything we can, including banana peels, which go back to making compost for Sara’s garden.

But my own writings? It really hadn’t occurred to me even a few weeks ago until a series of God-ordained events and conversations helped me discover a way to do that.  A few weeks ago, we debuted A Breath of Fresh Air, taking short quotes from my past articles, blogs, books, and podcasts and mailing them out three times a week to those who wanted a bit of encouragement. The response has been overwhelming, not just with people subscribing but with the timeliness of those quotes with events in many of your lives. If you’re not on our email list, you can sign up here.

Last week we began posting different quotes on my Instagram account on three different days of the week. The same woman who has been selecting quotes for A Breath of Fresh Air has been putting some art to them as another way to put some wonderful things into the air.  You can see three examples in the graphic above. We’re trying to work out the process to have them cross-post on my Facebook Author page but haven’t fully sorted that out yet.  Hopefully, it will do so tomorrow. If not, you can subscribe to my Instagram feed here or find me there as wayneatlifestream.

Finally, I’m just completing a daily devotional we hope to fast-track for the end of the year. We’re calling it Live Loved, Full & Free. A college person we had worked for me a few years back went through my Living Loved articles and my blog posts and put them into 365 short, daily readings. I love how she broke those down into individual thoughts and tied them together in a way that can enhance the daily trajectory of a life wanting to follow Jesus.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working through that material, updating it and adding some new insights in hopes of getting it in print by the end of the year.  I’ve had this in my files for a few years, but I haven’t moved on them because I didn’t have a sense that the time was right. Now, I know that it is, just by how much re-reading some of them has refocused and reinvigorated my own journey.

Some of my best thoughts over the past couple of decades have gone into my semi-regular blog posts, but I’ve always lamented how quickly blog posts vanish into the ether. Blogs have no endurance; books do.  I can’t wait to share some of these re-purposed encouragements to a more vibrant journey.

I’m really grateful that others have encouraged me to cull through the vast content on this website and find ways to let it live again in the hearts of people who will find it valuable.

I look forward every year to our time in the Sierras where my 95-year-old father lives. I love everything about this area—the pines and cedars, granite boulders, the blue water of an alpine lake, a starry night sky clear enough to see the Milky Way with ease, wild lupin, the crunching of dirt, pine needles, and sticks underfoot, and the scent of buckbrush wafting on a gentle breeze. My dad and I saw a deer with a young fawn the other day scurry into the trees.

No place on earth beckons my heart as much as the High Sierras.  For me, this is one of those “thin places”, where the distance between the temporal and the eternal doesn’t seem so distant, and it’s a bit easier to sense God’s presence in the Creation and my own heart.  I think clearer here, listen better here, and I’m sure that’s aided by trying not to do too much “work” here. These are our days of vacation and restoration.

We also have a lot of fun with family—long walks with Sara, a conversation with my dad, or enjoying my daughter and her family as they come up to spend a chunk of time with us.  We enjoy playing in the lake, enjoying games in the cabin, and swapping stories over dinner.

That’s why things have been quiet here and why I’m backlogged on answering emails. I’ve got little time or inclination to spend lots of time on a computer here. I did, however, just finish a re-reading of Ruth and how God does such good work out of the messes we make. God didn’t want Israel to intermarry with nonJewish people in their area. Nonetheless, they do. One man moves to Moab and his sons marry Moabite women. After a number of years, the father and both sons tragically die. Because of the faithfulness of one of those wives, Ruth,  to her widowed mother-in-law, God graciously opens a new door for her. She marries Boaz, a wealthy Israelite, and then she becomes part of the lineage of David, and ultimately of Jesus. I love that about God. He is able to work amazing triumph out of great tragedy, even those of our own making.

Here are some other things that might be of interest to you:

Tomorrow (Tuesday), I will be joining a live Zoom session tomorrow at 2:00 pm PDT with my coauthors of A Language of Healing for a Polarized Nation, Bob Prater and Arnita Taylor. You won’t want to miss this one.  Lisa Vitello, an actress and facilitator of CultureBrave will guide us through a conversation about Chapter 13, Sharing the Table. Lisa hosted a release event for our new book in Los Angeles when it came out last November. What was planned as a two-hour session went on for almost six. She asked us some of the most incisive questions we’ve encountered to date. It will be a joy to speak with her again.

Language of Healing Live is a continuing series of bi-weekly video conversations to help people learn to live more generously in this divided world. You can view previous ones here.   We will be streaming live at the Language of Healing Discussion Group on Facebook, and I will attempt to post that feed on my Wayne Jacobsen Page there as well.  Join us there live, or watch the video after, which I’ll post here when we’ve finished.

Just a reminder that Part 10 of Embracing His Glory will drop tomorrow over at The God Journey. This is a continuing series about learning to live loved and transformed by the work of Christ. If you haven’t been in on it, start at the beginning. It will make more sense. That will be the last new podcast at The God Journey until I get back to the office. I hope it is helpful for you.

Finally, we are still needing some help with Kenya. The hope is to drill two more wells for two neighboring tribes to the ones we helped over the last five years.  A couple of weeks ago, I wrote in more detail about the need and why we want to help to protect the resources we’ve already provided to other tribes in the area. The picture at left shows some of them the aid we were able to immediately send them for food, medicine, and protection from the coronavirus.  We have taken in about $34,000 of the $71,000 we need to provide aid and drill the two wells there. As is our custom, Lifestream does not take out any administrative or money transfer fees. Every dollar you send us gets to Kenya, and all contributions are tax-deductible in the U.S. Please see our Donation Page at Lifestream. You can either donate with a credit card there, mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560 Newbury Rd Ste 1 • Newbury Park, CA 91320, or phone us at (805) 498-7774. 

We never take for granted the people who read these posts and carry us on their hearts as we continue to do what God asks of us in the world. We are blessed by your love, sustained by your prayers, and grateful for your generosity.

This morning we head off in our rented RV to visit our son in Denver. Road Trip!  We are doing this instead of flying so we have our own little coronavirus protective bubble as we traverse four states. So, we have a few miles to cover and a chance to visit with him. Thus, things will be mostly quiet here at Lifestream, though we have new podcasts already set up for The God Journey.

Tuesday, I began a new series I’m really excited about. It is called “Embracing His Glory.” These will be a series of 15-20 minute audio presentations of something I’ve been wanting to share for some time. About six to eight months ago in a fresh read through the book of John, I felt like something had shifted in my heart and I was reading John’s book with fresh eyes, revealing more clearly the process by which Jesus shares with us the Father’s glory. The first one went up yesterday and more will follow in the Tuesdays ahead.  I anticipate 12-13 of these. This is something I first shared publicly in Tulsa on my last stop before the coronavirus hit.

The reason I’m so excited about this is not that I finally figured something out. It’s actually just a fresh way to express what has been going on in my life the last twenty-five years as I’m learning to live loved in the world and the transformation that happens in us as we do.  It’s exactly what Paul wrote about in 2 Corinthians 3—

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

That Scripture has always intrigued me, even in the old days when I felt the journey was not so much from glory to glory, but from pit to pit—one bad experience after another with long gaps between where God’s glory would be revealed. But the last twenty-five years has been different, not that all my circumstances have been easy, far from it, but through it all the glory of God continues to unfold in my life. It wasn’t what I expected with all the bells and whistles of signs and wonders, but something deeper and far more transformative in the way I engage the world around me.  I thought I’d let you know here, in case you want to follow with me over there.

Sara and I are really looking forward to some time together on the road (sixteen hours each way) and even more so our time with Andy.  If you’ll keep the email load light for the next week, I’ll be grateful. If not, you’ll have to be patient. I’m not sure when I’ll get caught up. When I get back, my dad is having a surgical procedure, so I will be with him through that. But we’ll get back… someday!

God was opening what could have been some incredible doors for A Language of Healing for a Polarized Nation before the pandemic shut everything down. People were planning book groups, we had an opening to get this message onto college campuses, and we were asked to do workshops in churches and communities to help people explore a more generous way. So, since those opportunities are on hold and people are limited in building new relationships especially with people in their out-groups, we are taking the message on-line in a series of live conversations to explore a language of healing. Starting this Tuesday, we’ll begin an every-other-week schedule of inviting fifteen people into a conversation about some specific aspect of this book and stream it live as we do.

We have a list of guest-moderators who will put us through our paces as we explore various aspects or applications of the book. Language of Healing Live will begin at 2:00 pm Pacific Daylight Time this Tuesday, May 5.  People will be able to watch the recorded version after. Watch this page and my Facebook Author page for details as to how you can listen in live.

Our first topic will be aimed specifically at people in their late teens, twenties, and thirties and the challenges they face in navigating a polarized world. Kyle Rice of Blue Sheep Media will be our moderator and all three authors—Bob, Arnita and I—will help answer their questions. We are still looking for a few young people to join us in the Zoom room, so if you’re between the ages of 15 and 39 and who have read the book, please let me know if you’d like to apply to be on our panel.

A few other notes:

• The Jesus Story just posted video #7 as we talk about The journey of Abraham to begin a process of redemption for fallen humanity.
• I’ll be a guest Monday morning in a live conversation for “Grieving Parents Sharing Hope Together.” The topic will be Anger and Grief and I’ll be hosted by Laura Deihl who helps families deal with death. We will go live at 11 am PDT/2 pm EDT. You can get more information at their website, and find the show at http://www.youtube.com/gpshope.
• Finally, tomorrow (May 1) I will air a unique podcast at The God Journey, with a woman who cheated on her husband and found the grace to own up to it and walk out of that betrayal to a journey of hope and healing for herself and the marriage. It’s a beautiful picture of how God can reach into our darkest moments and bring redemption and lead us to compassion for others. You won’t want to miss it.

Finally:

I was listening to a podcast the other day and heard this nugget:  “Love does not require agreement; it only requires understanding.” Understanding someone else is where compassion grows. You don’t have to see things the same way to care about people especially those who are still groping in the darkness.

We certainly live in interesting times. We are experiencing a worldwide event that will shape our planet in ways we can’t even conceive yet. This pandemic has sent most of us to our homes, restricted our travel and extended family time, and put many jobs and businesses in jeopardy. The economic fall-out from this pandemic may last for decades to come.

Going into this season, I thought that self-isolation might be a time of rest for me. Not able to travel and being home here with Sara would give me time to rest and see what’s next for me. But almost immediately, other opportunities began to open up through Zoom. I had become familiar with it while we were writing A Language of Healing for a Polarized Nation with Bob and Arnita, but had not had time to explore all it could do. When my grandchildren’s schools were closed, I discussed doing a workshop for them, helping them learn to appreciate and interpret the Scriptures. Before we could even start, I couldn’t be in the same room with them, so I turned to Zoom for The Jesus Story. Now we have quite a few other families going through that conversation with us. 

That helped me explore it even more, mainly because I had to use it for ongoing episodes of The God Journey. I know it’s not a perfect platform. Still, it has opened new doors for communicating with people around the world, not only for podcasts but also just to help and encourage individuals on their journeys like I did when personal visits were allowed. Now groups are asking me to meet with them on Zoom so they can ask questions and process their own journeys. We even started to experiment with an After-Show for The God Journey so that listeners could interact about a recent podcast. We had almost forty people join the last one. I am more engaged with more people than before the pandemic. Who would have thought?

Here are some of the conversations I’ve had recently that you can participate in if you like:

• A FaceBook Live event with Rod Tucker, a pastor in an urban setting in Michigan, looking to help a group of people live and love in a needy part of town.
• A podcast with The Fields Brothers about the transitions in my life that happened as God unhooked me from religious obligation and drew me into a greater connection with him.
• Last week’s podcast at The God Journey was called Why Won’t God Love Me? It was a conversation I had with someone in the UK who had little sense of God’s love for them, even though they saw him love others through them. Many people related to his struggle, and last Sunday afternoon, I hosted my second God Journey After-Show. We had over 35 people join us from all over the world to share their observations and experiences. You can listen to that After-Show here.
• And, The Jesus Story #6 aired this week, covering the Creation and Fall of humanity.

I’m sure your life has changed, too, and will continue to in ways you cannot yet conceive. I am asked a lot how I see this pandemic shaping the church or if it portends the end of this age. I don’t have a clue, and honestly, I don’t even find myself curious. The best way to be ready for anything is simply to follow the nudges he has for you today and to love the people he puts in your path. I find myself increasingly suspicious of those who prophesy apocalyptic outcomes from this pandemic with such certainty, especially when it fits so neatly into their desired outcomes. We just don’t know. Rather than try to figure it out, perhaps we could just let it unfold, finding our comfort in the God who is with us, rather than any imagined outcome we’d prefer.

God has got this. He’s got you. He’s been through this before and knows how best to help us through it. I find it far better to draw close to him each day, follow him as best I see him, and err on the side of loving others as I am loved by him. His glory will unfold even out of pain and tragedy. He continues to bring order out of the chaos of a broken world. If you start expecting a specific outcome, though, you may miss what he’s actually doing.

I pray that you, too, will find greater freedom in this season. Look for the unique ways Jesus might be guiding you in this season where your regular routines have been disrupted. 

You just might discover him in new and profound ways.