Encouragement

Powerful Word in Times of Trouble

“There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” (Proverbs 18:24)

Dave Coleman was one of those friends for me. He was a man of immense wisdom, rock-solid integrity, and deep love. I don’t know why he took a liking to me, but he’s one of those friends where the conversations always go deep, and the affection builds over a lifetime. He helped me discover how to live the life behind He Loves Me and was my co-author for So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore.

More importantly, he was there when I was betrayed by my co-pastor, giving me comfort and counsel that steered my heart into a better reality than I might have seen otherwise. He was there through the lawsuit over The Shack and encouraged me to find my home in the truth and not worry about the lies being told of me. And two summers ago, he held my heart through the rejection of a lifelong companion that came out of nowhere.

A few weeks after we talked, he sent me this prayer and admonishment. This was August 2021, still eight months before Sara’s trauma exploded. I wish he’d been there for that, too, but he passed away in November of that year.

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.

Those words have been taped to my computer since receiving them. There is so much in those words that have held my heart, even through the painful days of last spring, as if Dave were comforting me from the grave. Why am I sharing them today? Over the last few days, I’ve found myself sending them to almost a dozen people who needed to hear those exact words in their context. I figured others might need to hear a similar word for their heart. It is as true for you as it continues to be for me.

It’s a beautiful thing for the Father, who is rich in mercy, to speak kindly to your heart and to comfort you at the foot of the cross where the only way to liberate yourself is the prayer of forgiveness in recognition that most people doing hurtful things have no idea what’s motivating their behaviors. And when the Accuser, even in the other voices he uses, tries to erode your confidence in Jesus’s work in you, it’s time to lean in more with more urgency and depend on his grace.

 

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Good news! The renovations on our home are nearing completion. This has taken a bit longer than we thought it would starting out, but this is Sara’s dream. To see it come together now as a place for us to live a life we love and to share our lives with others brings a profound sense of joy. Sorry, no pictures yet. We will in time, but much still needs to be cleaned up and completed.

So, we’ll be moving and settling in over the next couple of weeks. Don’t look for much new stuff here for a bit, though we hope to keep the podcast going on Friday, which is the best way to follow my life these days. All that God has been teaching us and doing in our hearts have found their way into my conversations with Kyle. I can’t begin to tell you how rich these last two years have been. They have had more trouble than we thought we could bear but also a profound grace and Presence that has held us safe and opened our hearts and minds to some unique insights that have touched us deeply.

Our journey over the past 16 months will come full circle next week. We’ve been through an exodus from trauma and a home we loved, took a sojourn through the wilderness of Sara’s trauma, and the healing that came out of it in our RV last fall and our apartment this winter and spring. We will soon move onto a new land of God’s promise—an oasis for our hearts and all who Jesus sends us in this season. We have no idea what any of that means, but we could not be more excited.

 

The Trajectory of Transformation

After four years and a dozen conversations, Jake is finally relishing the fruit of the transformation that has happened in him over that time. Their final conversation celebrates so many wonderful things I enjoy when people I know move away from Christianity as an obligation into a meaningful relationship with a Father who has genuine affection for them.

Some of my favorite observations of that trajectory shift are summed up in their last moments together:

It was easy to remember how frustrated John had made me in those early days. The more I listened to him the more my life kept falling apart.

John smiled. “I never told you to do one thing. I simply made some observations, asked some questions, and gave you some options. The choices were all yours.”

“I realize that, but they didn’t always turn out so well.”

“How could they? You had two desires that conflicted with one another.”

“What do you mean?”

“You had this incredible hunger to know God and follow him. But you also wanted to be circumstantially secure and well-liked. Those just aren’t compatible with following him. We are safe because he is with us, not because our circumstances are easy, and trying to get everyone to like you only made you less of a person than God made you to be. When you started following what God put in your heart, the other kingdom had to collapse. It was inevitable, if not enviable.”

This Sunday will be the last gathering of the Jake Colsen Book Club, where a group of us are walking through So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore. I have not read this book since I completed it in 2005, so I have been fascinated to remind myself what’s in that book. It’s also been a chance to relive working with Dave Coleman, my co-author, who passed away 18 months ago.

This book still contains the critical lessons I want people to know when they are ready to embark on a different journey—outside the walls of Christan obligation to discover an endearing, growing friendship with the loving Father. We’ve had a lot of fun exploring the themes most dear to my heart.

This has been a fluid group, and you’re welcome to join us even if our final time is your first one. We are gathering on Zoom this Sunday, May 21 at 1:30 pm PDT. We will cover the final chapter of the book, as well as open up to any questions or discoveries from anywhere in the book. Anyone is welcome to join us, even if it’s your first time. We will also stream it live on my Facebook Author Page, but if you want to be part of the conversation, you can get a link to the Zoom Room by emailing Wayne and asking for it.

You can view our last discussion on chapter 12 here.

The God-Shaped Life

It’s the most amazing process in the universe—how Jesus finds us in the twistedness of our sins, doubts, fears, and illusions. He rescues us not only by his death on the cross to cleanse our sins but also to invite us into a friendship with him that untwists what has been damaged in our hearts. Do you know what it’s like to live increasingly untwisted in a very twisted world? It is the essence of joy and freedom, even in the chaos of the brokenness of others around you. Instead of being pulled into darkness by them, you can offer them a way into the light.

As Sara and I read I Peter recently, a phrase jumped off the page at me and took my breath away. Here’s how Eugene Peterson in The Message translated what Peter writes about obedience to God: “Let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness.”

Does that not capture your heart with great hope and promise?

Who wouldn’t want a life shaped by God’s life? I’ll tell you who—those whose views of God were shaped in religious settings where he was portrayed as the angry author of onerous rules and where holiness was a standard impossible to reach. There’s nothing more difficult than trying to get someone schooled in legalism to be excited about the possibilities of his blazing holiness. They think the fire comes when you haven’t done enough and that his holiness means we suppress who we are to follow the rules. Nothing could be further from the truth.

But for those of us who know him, we hunger to live in his reality, where his affection sets our hearts at rest, and we get to discover who he really made us to be. He lives without fear of the future and without a doubt that he will prevail over the darkness. He is the safest place for us to be at our most broken. Imagine what your life would be like if it were shaped by his life.

Over the last year on The God Journey, Kyle and I have been sorting out what a transformed life looks like. How does living loved change the way we think and engage the world around us? We’ve used a chart to consider how God reveals himself in our tangled-up mess and engages us in friendship. With every revelation of himself and his wisdom to each of us, he invites us to know him. As we learn to listen and believe him, he lifts us above the pain and chaos of this broken age so we can grasp God’s reality that pulses with joy and wonder.

In him, we begin to discover what it means to live inside the Trinity with Father, Son, and Spirit. We learn what love is by how he treats us and then watch it rises in our own hearts for him. We see how his work is so much better than our own efforts and to rest in God’s work and his agenda. And finally, we discover the playful wonder of how God interacts with us, even in our most painful moments. Like a father playing with his children, we become ever more endeared to him, laughing through our joys and weeping with him in our pain.

Now it becomes unthinkable not to believe him, and when we believe him, we will find ourselves following him. This is where we are drawn into a way of living shaped by God’s love, wisdom, and character. In the I Peter verse above, notice that God does the shaping. That’s not our job; we would be incapable of it anyway. We only do the letting. I don’t have to change anything about me to make God happy; all I need to do is let him have me, and that exchange over time will begin to transform me from the inside. This is not following the rules to make him happy; it’s enjoying his life as it liberates me from the illusions that twist my heart in knots. He is always drawing me into that life. My choice is either to go with him or resist him, replacing his wisdom with my own and letting my fears drive my actions.

Discovering how to let him draw us is such a different trailhead from all we were taught to do to try to earn God’s favor. This is where Christianity has gotten discipleship so incredibly backward by creating systems of thought, ritual, practice, or discipline and imposing that on how we think or live. It would be great if it worked, but it doesn’t. No matter how much it is based on truth, it is still an artificial construct like David trying to put on Saul’s armor. It never fits and won’t change us. Our cookie-cutter, mass-produced attempt to make Christians in the world continues to fail when we could instead invite people on a transformative journey with a loving Father.

Helping people discover how to recognize and respond to God’s fingerprints in their day, and his whispers in their hearts are the real work of discipleship. Finding a relaxed pace inside his love will do far more than our old zealous attempts to conform our lives to his ways through human effort. Learn to listen, believe, and follow as you grow to know him, and his fruit will be borne in your heart.

So what does that God-shaped life look like? I’m sure it can be described in many ways, but the following five terms express it well for me. I gleaned these from Scripture and from observing those in my life who have lived multiple decades in an awareness of his love. They provided an excellent completion to the above chart Kyle and I have been working through this year. (You can see the chart above or download it here. And, if you want to listen to those podcasts about that chart, you can do so by following the reverse of the list here. These would make a good study for personal enrichment or even small-group study.)

Here are those five attributes that give evidence of a God-shaped life:

  • Sincere Love — Not flattery, pretense, or mere niceness, but the heartfelt impulse concern for those you’re engaging and the ability to help them discover what’s true as much as their hearts will allow.
  • Resilient Trust — A growing confidence in God’s goodness and faithfulness through the chaos and disappointments of life. Everything that comes at us is an opportunity to discover what he is doing in it, knowing he has the best in mind. It may ebb when challenged, but it always comes back stronger.
  • Generous Compassion — An awareness of the needs of others, especially those on the margins, that touches our hearts and opens the doors to make available our time, emotional support, and physical resources available to others.
  • Tender Authenticity — Never less than honest, but always in a form best able to find access to another’s heart.
  • Bold Humility — Never lording over, never pressuring anyone to accept our view, but also not shying back from stating the truth plainly, even with people who might take offense to it.

Please keep in mind that this is not a list of the ways we’re supposed to behave or traits we are supposed to mimic. The wonderful thing about the God-shaped life is these attributes increasingly emerge in you as you grow freer in his love. You cannot produce these characteristics by your own ingenuity. They can’t be taught in a seminar or codified into a workbook. This is the fruit that grows out of a life spent in God’s presence, discovering who he really is and how he engages you and the world around you.

We have covered the first two characteristics on The God Journey and will cover the remaining three in the next few weeks. I hope you find them helpful to your journey.

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Some other items of interest:

Sara and I finally have a move-in date on our remodeled home. We’ll be moving back to Newbury Park on May 30 and setting up our house, where Sara plans an extraordinary garden. And the dogs will love having a yard again. We can’t wait to share this home with others who want to come hang out with us.

The final gathering of the Jake Colsen Book Club will be held Sunday, May 21, at 1:30 pm PDT. We will cover the final chapter of the book, as well as open up to any questions or discoveries from anywhere in the book. Anyone is welcome to join us, even if it’s your first time. We will also stream it live on my Facebook Author Page, but if you want to be part of the conversation, you can get a link to the Zoom Room by emailing Wayne and asking for it. You can view our last discussion on chapter 12 here.

Next up, we’ll be starting a Book Club for He Loves Me over the summer. Stay tuned for details.

A Love Stronger than Our Greatest Fear

Today, Sara and I leave for a bit of a working vacation out to Hawaii. We’ll be sharing with a fellowship in Honolulu next Sunday (April 30), but we’ll mostly be on Maui, savoring God’s work in this last season of our lives and preparing our hearts for what lies ahead.

Before we go, I wanted to leave you with this amazing dream, which can be of great encouragement when you find yourself facing one of your greatest fears. It was sent to me by a good friend, Harvey Mast, who lives in Ohio. He had this dream nearly four years ago while volunteering with a ministry helping women who had been sexually trafficked. He sent it to me recently, and it deeply touched me. It can be interpreted at so many levels and can redirect our focus to the only thing that matters in times of fear. With his permission, I’m publishing an edited version to see what Father might want to reveal to you.

(And my dear sisters, please don’t be put off by this male-as-rescuer story. I know that is a struggle for some since it can be a tiresome cliché. However, Harvey is a man, and this is his dream. I hope you can put yourself in the same place of fighting through your worst fears to help others trapped in theirs, male or female.)

I stood with a group of friends in front of a castle. This was a magical castle, but dark magic ruled inside. There, your worst fears become your reality. Two young girls had wandered into that castle decades ago, and now fear held them captive at the top of the tallest tower where it was so dark no light could penetrate except the warmth of real love.

Many well-meaning, brave young men had tried to rescue the princesses over the years, but all had failed. Entering two at a time, they went to the winding staircase with their romantic ideas of love. Eventually, their fears would overwhelm them, and their screams would echo through the castle as they made a hasty retreat.

With each failed attempt, the lowest section of the staircase would crumble to ruin. Only time would repair the stairs enough to try again, which could often take up to ten years.

As we stood at the castle entrance, time was mending the last step after another failed attempt. “Who will go now?” The question reverberated off the walls. A great silence fell on the crowd. Would anyone risk their greatest fears and another ten years in hopes of rescuing the two lost princesses? It would take two, for each girl needed a separate escort out.

I looked around for someone else to step forward and face his worst fears for the love of another. To my dismay, no one did. Tears began to form in my eyes as I thought about those two young girls trapped inside, and I couldn’t stop myself from stepping forward. “I will go,” I said and waited for another to join me on this quest. Would the love of my Father burning inside me be greater than my greatest fears? I believed it was true, but this would test that for sure.

Soon, a good friend stepped forward to go with me. We entered the castle and started climbing the staircase like many others had. The first fear that came was the fear of failure. “What if we fail and these precious little girls are lost in this hell for another ten years?” I halted at this thought, and this gripping fear weighed heavy on me. I could feel myself shrinking in size.

I continued climbing, now a bit slower. “Who am I to think I could rescue one of them?” was my next fear. I had all but stopped now, and the castle walls seemed to close in on me. “I don’t even know them; what if they are afraid of me?”

Soon I was standing still, paralyzed by these gripping fears. I could no longer see anything in the pitch-black air, not even my friend I knew was beside me. I could physically feel the darkness.

“Father, help me,” my heart whispered as fear roiled inside.

Why did I even come? Oh yes, it was his love inside my heart for those girls. I could feel that warmth again, still burning in my chest. As I paused, I looked down at my feet, hoping to see the next step. I could see it. A warm glow about my feet illuminated the step before me, and I knew this was the way forward. As I took that step, another appeared and another, and before long, we were moving upward again.

Every fear I had ever faced, and even new ones, seem came at us with a vengeance the further we progressed. My focus had shifted to the warmth of His love inside of me, and it was more significant than all the dangers surrounding us. Eventually, we could hear the girls’ voices as we approached the tower’s upper levels. We called out to them, explaining that we were coming and encouraging them to hold on to hope. As we did, this hope grew in us as well. Our pace quickened.

Soon, we reached the top of the staircase and found the room that imprisoned them. We could hear them but not see them until we ran into them in the darkness. We exchanged names, and the glow brightened slightly. I could see one was of Asian descent. She looked up into my eyes and spoke her greatest fear. “How do I know I can trust you?”

An answer came out of my mouth before I had time to filter it. “Why, it’s simple; this is where love led me. Right here.”

“To me?”

“You needed help, didn’t you?” Her fear receded slightly as she hugged me around my waist with her tiny arms.

But they were both still afraid to leave. Their fears had captured them and did not want to face them again in this horrible place. We tried to reason with them, assuring them we would be with them the entire way, but they were reluctant. We could only invite them, realizing we may very well be going back down alone. I don’t know how I would have been able to leave them alone in this place.

We explained that this warm light around our feet was the Father’s true love’s light coming from within us. He is the Father of Light, and he loved all of us so extravagantly. It had shown us the way step by step as we made our ascent and was always greater than our greatest fears.

Though they, too, would be facing their greatest fears as we descended the staircase, they could also have the warmth of his light. They both agreed to come with us if they could walk alongside one of us and learn to focus on love.

“Of course,” we answered.

One step at a time, we made our way downward. Fear assailed each of us unrelentingly, but we simply followed the glowing warmth until we found our way out of the castle.

The girls, whom we thought to be around ten years old when we met them, transformed to their rightful ages as they crossed the threshold into the sunlight.

Instead of being overwhelmed by the voices that scream at you from the uncertain darkness, focus on the warmth of Jesus’s love already inside you and see what next step illuminates for you. Then you, too, will discover that Father’s affection is stronger than our greatest fear. It’s a journey that will not only set you free inside from anything this life can throw at you, but it will also show you how to be a part of God’s redemptive work for others.

We all know the power of fear and how impossible it is to ignore it or manufacture more trust through our own strength. And we all need someone to go with us, not just telling us to “trust more”, but willing to sit alongside us as we learn to let love rule our hearts.

And when you need help, follow this advice from a young woman whose book I am reading at the moment, Cole Arthur Riley’s This Here Flesh:

Find those who tell you, “Do not be afraid,” yet stay close enough to tremble with you. This is a love.

It truly is…

The Day God Died

Twenty-eight years ago, my relationship with God shifted on this one discovery—Jesus did not die to appease the wrath of an offended God. Instead, he died holding our sin and shame in the all-encompassing presence of the Father until it was consumed in his love, and our redemption was won.

As we approach this Easter season and commemorate his death and resurrection, I am overwhelmed with gratitude that I was able to hear a more complete story of the atonement than the one I was raised to believe. I cringe to think how the crucifixion story will be told in so many places over the next couple of days and the double-talk many preachers will have to employ to make their vengeful deity appear loving. What Jesus did was not to ward off an angry Father but to open the way into a love so rich and deep it will transform everything about the way we live and think.

I wrote an article in 2010 to summarize what I share about the cross in He Loves Me, Transitions, podcasts, and in countless conversations around the world. Until we get the Atonement story right, we will never be able to see our Father for who he is and come to him with confidence. I am reprinting it here to remind us all that salvation was a work of redemption by a gracious Father.

Something about the story made me cringe every time I heard it, and since I grew up a Baptist, I heard it a lot: To satisfy His need for justice and His demand for holiness, God sentenced His own Son to death in the brutal agony of crucifixion as punishment for the failures and excesses of humanity.

Don’t get me wrong. I want as much mercy as I can get. If someone else wants to take a punishment I deserve and I get off scot-free, I’m fine with that. But what does this narrative force us to conclude about the nature of God?

As we approach Easter, the crucifixion story most often told paints God as an angry, blood-thirsty deity whose appetite for vengeance can only be satisfied by the death of an innocent—the most compassionate and gracious human that ever lived. Am I the only one who struggles with that? The case could be made that it makes God not much different from Molech, Baal or any of the other false deities that required human sacrifice to sate their uncontrollable rage.

We wouldn’t think this story an act of love from anyone else. If you offend me, and the only way I can forgive you is to satisfy my need for justice by directing the full force of my anger for you onto my own son by beating him to death, you probably wouldn’t think me worth knowing. You certainly wouldn’t think of me as loving. And this solution ostensibly comes from the God who asks us as mere humans to forgive others without seeking vengeance. Is He demanding that we be more gracious than He is?

Many of the Old Testament writers did look forward to the cross as a sacrifice that would satisfy God, and they used the language of punishment to explain it. But the New Testament writers looking back through the redemption of the cross saw it very differently. They didn’t see it as the act of an angry God seeking restitution, but the self-giving of a loving God to rescue broken humanity.

Their picture of the cross does not present God as a brutalizing tyrant expending His anger on an innocent victim, but as a loving Father whose Son took the devastation of our failures and held it in the consuming power of His love until sin was destroyed and a portal opened for us to re-engage a trusting relationship with the God of the universe. The New Testament writers saw the cross not as a sacrifice God needed in order to love us, but one we needed to be reconciled to Him.

One of my best friends died of melanoma almost two years ago. Doctors tried to destroy the cancer with the most aggressive chemotherapy they could pour into his body. In the end, it wasn’t enough. The dose needed to kill his melanoma would have killed him first. That was God’s dilemma in wanting to rescue us. The passion He had to cure our sin would overwhelm us before the work was done. Only God Himself could endure the regimen of healing our brokenness demanded.

So He took our place. He embraced our disease by becoming sin itself, and then drank the antidote that would consume sin in His own body. This is substitutionary atonement. He took our place because He was the only one that could endure the cure for our sin. God’s purpose in the cross was not to defend His holiness by punishing Jesus instead of us, but to destroy sin in the only vessel that could hold it until—in God’s passion—sin was destroyed.

Perhaps we need to rethink the crucifixion in line with those early believers. God was not there brutalizing His Son as retribution for our failures; He was loving us through the Son in a way that would set us free to know Him and transform us to be like Him.

Now that’s a God worth knowing.

All that God did in his Son was because he wanted to invite you out of the bondage of sin and shame to a tender place he prepared in his heart for you. Don’t see a terrifying God behind the death of Jesus, but a Father weeping in his love for all his lost children.

What incredible lengths they went to so that we could enjoy life inside their love!

 

The Trust He Wins in Us

I’ve watched too many Christians struggle to trust God more as if that is something they are supposed to do. If you’ve ever been down that road, you know that it leads to a vast wasteland. We can only pretend to trust him more, and that will fail us when we most need it.

Trust is not something you can demand from someone; it is the natural byproduct of knowing that someone loves you deeply and acts for your greatest good. We don’t give trust; Jesus wins us into it. So the question is never, “How do I trust him more?” The question is, “How is Jesus winning me into his trust today?”  That’s the road you want to venture down.

And you won’t see him winning your trust as long as you’re trying to get God to do what you think is best for you. That will only lead you to disappointment upon disappointment. Focusing our trust in him on a specific outcome is not trusting him at all. It’s only using him to get what we want.  

Jesus has something different in mind by teaching you to love what he loves and to follow him. There you will discover that he is constantly working around us in a way that wins us into his trust. We become increasingly confident that his way is best and that he is continually working to lead us into his freedom. That’s what chapter ten of So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore covers.

Here’s an excerpt as Jake is just beginning to recognize that process:

“That’s the trust he’s building in you right now, and those deals falling through are part of it. Through moments like this he wins our trust. And it’s obviously working.” John said.

“What? Why would you say that?” I asked, not at all feeling like it was.

“Because you’re not as angry as you were when we first met. You’re in a desperate situation now, you’re concerned, but you’re not angry: That shows some incredible growth.”

And for the first time I realized that God had changed something enduring inside of me. I wasn’t burying my anger. It just wasn’t there, even in my disappointment.

“That’s how God wins your trust. He’s not asking you to do something despite all evidence to the contrary. He’s asking you to follow him as you see him unfolding his will in you. As you do that, you’ll find that his words and his ways will hold more certainty for you than your best plans or wisdom.”

Today, Jesus is at work in you to grow your trust in him and his Father. He wants you to know that his power and wisdom are at your disposal for all he is doing in you and how he is working in the circumstances you’re caught up in. Learn to recognize how he is working, and you’ll find your trust growing gradually no matter what you encounter.

We’ll discuss this amazing process at the next gathering of the Jake Colsen Book Club, which will be held this Sunday, March 5, at 1:30 pm PST. This is a change from the previously announced date . Anyone can join us, though you’ll have to work that out in your own time zone. We will also stream it live on my Facebook Author Page, but if you want to be part of the conversation, you can get a link to the Zoom Room by emailing Wayne and asking for it.

You can view our last discussion on chapter 9 here.

The Man of Sorrows

(The graphic above was taken from the cover image of A Man Like No Other, art by Murry Whiteman with text by Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings)

It’s hard to imagine that these words would describe the most authentic personification of love to ever live on this planet, but this is how Isaiah foretold it:

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. (Isaiah 53:3)

The fullness of God’s love was despised and rejected by many who knew him. Incredibly sad!

Jesus often talked about joy, and he wanted his joy to be in us so that our joy would be complete. Nevertheless, he also felt the pain of a fallen Creation and suffered from it himself. Even loving to the full, that love proved disquieting to the agenda of many, and thus he knew the undeserved rejection of those he loved. When I think of Jesus and suffering, I’m so immediately drawn to the events of his Passion that I skip over the pain he held each day while he was here, much less the pain he and his Father have held since Creation’s fall.

Only recently (for reasons I’ll share in the future) has my heart become attuned to the agony of God that beats through the cosmos beneath the strains of the joy and victory of his redemption. Oh, he will win, and one day the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our God and of his Son. I can hardly imagine what that day will be like! Until then, God’s joy is also accompanied by undertones of anguish that he feels for the lingering injustices of humanity, the war and conflicts that devastate countries and destroy friendships and families, the sexual abuse of powerless victims, the despair of suicide and its impact on loved ones, malnourished bodies, natural disasters, and the betrayal and greed some trade on to the exploitation of others.

The writer of Hebrews told us that Jesus’s agony went beyond the crucifixion and was laced throughout his days. “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears…” This was more than Gethsemane; this seems to be a regular undertone to his life and may well explain his weeping at the tomb of Lazarus and his anguish in Gethsemane. It certainly was not for the loss of his friend whom he would momentarily raise from the dead, but for death and suffering in the cosmos itself. And if so, he may still carry that agony of a lover for the wounds of his beloved.

Redemption was always in sight, but that did not mitigate his empathy for the wounds of his Creation. The Redeemer comes to our rescue with tears in his eyes, and an ache in his heart for all that “fallenness” has done to us. And when redemption happens, his ecstasy overwhelms his agony. For those of us living before the days of the restoration of Creation, we taste that agony as well in what we suffer and what we behold in others. So when I hear of the devastation of earthquakes in Syria or Turkey, starvation throughout East Africa, needless destruction in Ukraine, or delusion throughout the West, I have a place to put that now. I can hold the world’s pain with God in the hope of a victory yet to come. It has changed the way I pray and the way I walk with others through their own difficulties. You’ll hear more about that in future articles here.

For now, it is enough to be reminded that those who love deeply will hurt deeply. Every lingering pain can be a reminder of the as-yet unredeemed Creation and a touchstone with God’s passion for redemption. When we hurt with others, we are reminded that God bears our pain as well. When we are rejected by people we love, we find comfort that God knows that too. Jesus knows that all too well. Sharing my pain with him as he shares his with me is also part of living loved.

You cannot love and avoid pain. Love allows you to sit in the suffering, your own or someone you care about, and watch for how God moves redemptively. If you run from pain, you’ll find yourself often running from love, and, ultimately, from God. If you can embrace the reality of God-with-you in your suffering, then it will not consume you. It will also allow you to see more easily his way forward until ecstasy triumphs over agony.

____________________

Other Items of Note 

  • Our next Wrestling with Trauma conversation will be Sunday, February 26, at 10:00 am. PST. Email Wayne if you’d like to join a small group to provide a place for people to explore their trauma or to find ways to help others they love deal with trauma
  • The next Jake Colsen Book Club session will be held Saturday, March 4, at 1:30 pm PST. You’ll have to work that out in your own time zone. We will explore Chapter 10: Won to Trust, as we consider how Jesus teaches us to trust him and what he wants for us, rather than trying to get him to give us the outcomes we want for ourselves. We will stream it live on my Facebook Author Page, but if you want to be part of the conversation, you can get a link to the Zoom Room by emailing Wayne and asking for it.

 

Suffering Means You’re Human

Jesus promised us so much joy and victory following him that it can be disorienting to encounter enduring times of pain and suffering. I’ve known many followers of Jesus who wrestle more with the perplexity of how God could have “allowed” them to suffer than the suffering itself would have demanded. It at least adds another layer of pain to whatever we face.

In our quest to live comfortable, happy lives, we forget that plenty of Scriptures also talk about suffering and how God inhabits them to further his work in us and his purpose in the world. Why else would we need a refuge, a deliverer, and a Redeemer? When the Psalmist said that God delivers us from all of our afflictions, doesn’t that mean we had to be in them first? And that deliverance almost always has more in mind than just removing it.

Any follower of Jesus needs a worldview that includes pain and trouble as much as joy and laughter. It doesn’t mean God causes our suffering or even allows it in any volitional sense. They are the result of living in a world out of sync with its Creator. You will no doubt encounter both along your journey, and learning how to rejoice in good times and how to lean into him through difficult ones will be critical to God’s unfolding love in your heart.

As part of ours this summer, Sara and I read Waymaker by Ann Voskamp. We found a lot in this book that touched us and expanded our view of God. This brief section was one of those, talking about the complexity of love and pain in a fallen Creation.

Love lives at peace with pain, and the two will never divorce. Because to love is to be tender enough to know suffering, to be vulnerable enough to know hurt, and the only way to divorce your way from pain is to divorce yourself from any love.”

The destiny we all ultimately dream of is a destination where we are ultimately seen, safe, soothed, and secure! Even nightmares of loss and tragedy and grief can still become an unexpected awakening to tender dreams, if there are ways—even in the dark places—to be seen and known, safe and secure . . . Wherever we are always accepted and never alone, never abandoned, our deepest dreams can come true even in the midst of nightmares.

I had high hopes of waking to a dream different from both of our mothers. No graves. No slammed doors or cold wars, no lightning-bolt diagnosis or stalking depression, no abandonment or estrangement, no cascading job loss or piling bills or empty arms. No trauma from the straight-out-of-nowhere tragedy, the unlikely addictions, the turned distractions, the knife-in-the-back betrayal, the flat-out rejection, or the entirely suffocating personal failure you can’t escape because you can’t escape out of your own skin. Why do we think that our life will be the one that finds a way to easier roads? Why in the world did I? It’s when we expect life to be easy that it becomes hard.

Buy the lie that your life is supposed to be heaven on earth, and suffering can be a torturous hell. But life is suffering, and suffering is but the cross we bear, part of earth’s topography to cross on our way to heaven. I wouldn’t know it for years: Screens sell pipe dreams. Every screen is trying to sell the lie to you-from Hollywood to Netflix to Instagram–the lie that all you have to do is buy this, work out like this, wear this, style it like this, believe this, pursue this, get a career like this, find someone like this, and you, too, can find the way to a perfect life, just like this. But buy any perfectly filtered and marketing-framed illusion, and you end up painfully disillusioned. Regardless of what Instagram or all the glossy ads are shilling, your suffering isn’t some unique anomaly; suffering is the universal experience of all humanity. Suffering doesn’t mean you’re cursed, suffering means you’re human. The question isn’t “Why is there suffering in my life?” but “Why wouldn’t there be suffering?”

Because such is life in a broken world. The question is, “What way will you bear your suffering?” I didn’t know it then, and I am still learning this now: Life is really hard because that is the reality of being alive.

When you can face suffering, knowing it does not prove God loves you any less or is punishing you for some reason, then you are ready to grow through your darker seasons and love others more fully in theirs.

_______________

Other Items that might be of interest:

  • Sara joins me on the podcast this Friday since Kyle was out of town. We’ve got news about where we’re going to live next and, more importantly, how Sara’s journey has continued to unfold.
  • Sara and I are now making plans to host a trip to Israel in late January and early February 2024. It will be a ten-day trip in Israel, with an option to add on 3 days in Jordan and a visit to Petra. We hope to have the details out in a week or two. If you’re interested in going, please email me, and I’ll send out more information to you as we get things nailed down.
  • The next session of the Jake Colsen Book Club will be held Saturday, February 18, at 11:00 am PST. You’ll have to work that out in your own time zone. We will explore Chapter 9: A Box by Any Other Name as we talk about humanity’s relentless attempts to put the living, breathing bride of Jesus into a box we think we can manage for him. We will stream it live on my Facebook Author Page, but if you want to be part of the conversation, you can get a link to the Zoom Room by emailing Wayne and asking for it.
  • The next Wrestling with Trauma conversation will be Sunday, February 26, at 10:00 am. PST. Email Wayne if you’d like to join a small group to provide a place for people to explore their trauma or to find ways to help others they love deal with trauma

When Trauma Comes Knocking

Joy in life comes not from trying to control your circumstances but by being ready to respond with God’s heart in whatever happens to you.

When people ask us what we have in mind for 2023, part of me laughs inside. We rarely get to live according to our plans; life is too chaotic for that. Tragedy, relational breakdowns, trauma, or even an unexpected need can kick all your hopes and plans to the curb. Then what do you do? Do you hide in your anger frustrated that life didn’t go your way, or do you lean into Jesus and find the Way he will guide you through the darkness?

When last year started, Sara was already in a desperate fight for her life when a childhood trauma she didn’t even know was exploding to the surface like a re-awakened volcano.  I, completely unaware, was working on a new book as well as traveling again after COVID had subsided. Through a shocking set of circumstances last April, I discovered my wife was in real trouble. At that moment, everything came crashing down around me, and only one thing mattered—seeing how Jesus wanted to rescue my wife and follow his lead in whatever he wanted from me. If Jesus had not been in that mess with me, I don’t know how I would have survived it. His insights and peace in the face of such great despair, rescued us and brought incredible healing to Sara’s heart.

Admittedly, it was a very narrow road filled with pain for both of us. That’s why I was so blindsided a few months later when Sara told me that she wanted to share her trauma story publicly. In her struggle and desperation, hearing other people’s stories had been a lifeline to her and she wanted to be that voice of encouragement to others. And, wow, has that ever happened, not just in the podcasts but in hundreds of conversations during our RV trip around the U.S. and continuing in emails and phone conversations!

I’m still unsure what direction God has for us in years to come, but part of it will be helping people deal with trauma. It’s been so encouraging to see how others have come to recognize the signs of trauma in their own reactions, or in the life of someone they love.

Here is a sample of the overwhelming feedback we’ve had:

I listened with painful tears as the Redeeming Love podcasts began. This is as real as a God journey gets. It will help so many traumatized people by validating their pain and directing them to a loving Father who is in them and will help them walk through it.  (Australia)

I recently went through a situation with someone that was confusing and frustrating for me. However, I took into account that the person’s behavior could be linked to trauma, which turned out to be the case. If you and Sara had never shared your stories, I probably would have gotten angry and gotten into a fight with them. Instead, I tried to give the person space, keep an open mind, and take them seriously. This helped bring healing. I think that a lot of symptoms of trauma came up because I was no longer an obstacle. (unknown)

I really want you to know those podcasts cracked me open, and something landed deeper in my heart toward my parents through your personal story. You helped me grieve with God for what happened to my mom and dad, and to gain a clearer understanding of them as humans doing the absolute best they can. What magnificent love is available to us, through each other, from God, forever and ever amends! Wowza. (Oklahoma)

I was molested by my dad’s best friend starting at age 15. It makes me nauseous to even type that. I have thought I had dealt with it, but only through you two sharing these stories did I realize that I’ve only shoved it down. I’m realizing how much all of this has affected my actions and reactions to things and people, and my relationship with Father. (Texas)

I still meet some old friends who have no idea what happened to us last year. We hadn’t seen them and they hadn’t been following my blog or podcasts. While I don’t expect all my friends to stay up with my personal life, there is no way for them to understand my journey now without appreciating what Jesus walked me through last year. Sara and I learned so much, and it changed us so much that we stand in a very different space than we did a year ago. None of it was in our plans, though all of it is now part of our story.

Sara and I often wondered on our trip whether or not we had retired. It’s a joke since in many ways I retired almost thirty years ago in that I have been free to do the things I love to do—write, podcast, sit with God about the pain in the world, and hang out with people exploring their life in Jesus. That was even more true when we resigned our salary at Lifestream two years ago so we have no obligation there. I’m unsure what I’ll write next, but Kyle and I have already discussed where The God Journey might travel this year. There is so much we want to unpack together about what Jesus doing in our lives and how we can interact with our listeners.  Stay tuned, and if you haven’t been listening for a while you might want to re-engage. I have a feeling this next year is going to take us down some very different roads that will help you learn to live more deeply in Father’s revelation.

Sara has some shoulder surgery scheduled next week so we’ll be laid up here for a bit, but she wanted to continue the conversations about trauma that we had on our trip. We don’t have an agenda, just a desire to interact informally with those who are dealing with trauma in themselves or someone they love. We are going to have some occasional Zoom sessions to see where those conversations might go. They are going to be small, each limited to only twelve people, though we’ll try to have enough of them to eventually include all who would like to join us.  We are not experts at trauma, just a couple who have survived it and have a sense of how Jesus can lead people through it. We do know this:  There is no grief so deep that God cannot share it with you and walk you through it to a greater glory and there is no trauma so entrenched that God cannot root it out and break its hold on you. Join us if want to to ask some questions about what we shared on the Redeeming Love podcasts or to explore your own struggles with trauma. You do not have to listen to the podcasts to join us, but it would certainly be helpful.

Our first Wrestling with Trauma conversation will be held this Saturday, January 14, at 11:00 am PST.  You’ll have to do the math to figure out what that might be in your time zone.  Like the Jake Colsen Book Club, we’ll be moving these around to different times to help accommodate people in different parts of the world. If you’d like to join us this week, please email me for the Zoom link. We’ll be limiting it to the first twelve who request a link, but don’t worry, we will have more. These are not teaching sessions, nor will they build on each other. Each will be a conversation to serve those who join us.

And for those who are interested in the next Jake Colsen Book Club, we will hold the next discussion on my book, So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, the following Saturday, January 21 at 1:30 pm. This one will be on chapter 7, When You Dig a Hole For Yourself, You Have to Throw the Dirt on Someone. This chapter deals with how religious performance destroys relationships by making them competitive rather than living inside Jesus’s love for others. You can also email me if you’d like a link for that or you can listen live (or after) as we stream it on my Wayne Jacobsen Author Page

I’m excited about what 2023 might hold, and all the more, because I have no idea what will come my way. I do, however, have a relationship with Jesus that I know is real enough to carry me through the darkest places.

Sara and I want nothing more than to help you find that reality in your own journey.

When Christmas Doesn’t Find You Joyful

We hope this finds each of you in a season of great joy and with a growing hope for what he might have in mind for you in 2023.

Sara and I are celebrating a great redemption in our lives as this year comes to an end. Against all odds, God delivered us from certain tragedy and set our feet in a new place that delights our hearts with joy. When last year began, I had no idea in four months’ time, I would confront the worst tragedy of my life, and six months later, I would find myself in more joy than I could contain. I can only imagine what this Christmas would have been like for us if God had not rescued my wife and restored our relationship.

So, our hearts go out to those for whom these days are painful and lonely. For reasons I’ll explain more later, we are discovering that God can seem more present in our sufferings than he does in our delight. What’s more, it is easier to probe his heart and our own in the fellowship of suffering than we can when all is well.

So, if your heart is joyful this season, celebrate with abandon.

If your heart is heavy, lean into a Father and a Savior who know your grief better than anyone. Please don’t repress it, stuff it down in a box, or pretend to make others around you feel more comfortable. Instead, hold your pain with Jesus. Let his presence find you in your grief or anguish. There is no pain or trauma so immense that he cannot hold it with you and be your Way through it.

Remember, the story of Jesus’ birth was not just angels singing to shepherds or wise men bringing expensive gifts; it also included the fears of a young maiden far from home, giving birth in a stable, and the murder of innocent two-year-olds by a paranoid king.

Emmanuel—God with us—means he is with you, especially in the chaos of a broken Creation. He is your light in the darkness, your refuge in times of trouble, and the safest lap in the universe to fall into. He can turn your mourning into joy, but that rarely comes quickly or easily. Unfortunately, Christmas Day doesn’t coincide with our personal seasons of joy.

So if you’re feeling lost and alone this season, embrace this reality: You are deeply loved by the Father who created you, and you are not alone even when you most feel like it. There is a presence in you that he wants to teach you to tap into and find your comfort and courage when things look bleakest.

And please don’t be afraid to reach out to a friend and ask them for the help and encouragement you need. We weren’t meant to bear the dark roads by ourselves.

So wherever this season finds you on your journey, honor what’s going on in your heart and mind. And we pray that Jesus will be born afresh in you, and it will give you hope.

Wayne and Sara

Writing the Final Chapter

Sara and I are currently in Arlington, TX, for a couple of days, and then we’ll begin writing the final chapter of our RV trip around the U.S. And what a trip it has been. The team is still together; the joy continues to grow. If you haven’t listened to Wayne’s Happiest Day Ever, you might want to give it a listen. It sums up better than I ever could here what is transpiring on this journey.

We appreciate all those who have been praying for us, following our journey here, spending time with us at various spots, and most of all, for your encouragement and prayers. We have had some magnificent conversations on this journey, including one I recorded with a friend in Oklahoma about A Caring Heart and a Listening Ear, which you’ll be able to listen to this Friday at The God Journey.

The confirmation of Father’s work continues to come from so many places. One lady sent this to me after an evening in her home with a group that gathered for conversation:

In listening to Sara tell her story over a relatively short amount of time, I noticed from the first podcast to the later ones how much you could tell her story started to make sense just by how she was talking. It was as if the pieces coming together caused her sentences to go from slightly disjointed fragments of thoughts to beautifully cohesive sentences.  It was like a timeline of healing represented in gramma.  “Sara the Brave” is my new forever perception of her. Keep healing, Sara!

Mine too! For her to tell her story so openly and honestly has opened a massive door for others to trust us with their stories and unresolved pain. The Creation has so much brokenness—people wounded by abuse or delusions. This is why Jesus came, not to give people a get-out-of-hell card, but to save them from broken-heartedness, to free them from oppression, and to dispel the lies that drove them into the darkness.

This experience has been a Godsend for us this season and reshaped our hearts for whatever is next. We begin the last leg of our trip this Friday as we depart the Dallas/Fort Worth areas for our apartment in Southern California. We still have some stops on the way home, but our trajectory has changed once again due to the unseasonably cold weather. We’ll be cutting across the bottom of the U.S. with a stop to visit Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico and catch up with some dear friends along the way. Our final stop will be near Phoenix, AZ, November 21-22.

As we make our way home, we will complete this chapter and be ready to begin another. What will that look like? We have no idea at this point. We set out on August 22 from our former home in Newbury Park, CA, without a plan or itinerary. We thought we’d be home by October 18, but as it turns out, we won’t get there until November 24.

This entire experience with Sara has deepened our walk with God and each other. I’m hopeful that will continue as this story continues to unfold. We have both discovered so much about ourselves, his life in us, and how to hold people’s pain in an entirely different way. We have learned to live more in the present than trusting our familiar patterns and rely on Jesus’ direction rather than our plans. (If you’re curious about some of that, Kyle and I have been talking about most of it on the podcasts this fall.)

Will I finish the book I started before all of this, or travel as I had been before? Will we settle back in Newbury Park? What will become of Lifestream or The God Journey? All those questions are still in Father’s hands. We may come back to those things, but it will be with very different hearts. And we are also open to an entirely different way of living to accommodate what Father has for us in this next season of our lives.

We are excited to see how that will turn out and probably won’t know for some time. We know this—we will continue to follow Jesus as best we see him and love the people he puts in our path so that they can come to know Jesus the way we have and experience his freedom for them.

There is no greater joy than the adventure of following him and encouraging others as they seek to do so as well.

Just a couple of quick notes before we get back to life on the road—

First, the need for $168,000.00 in Kenya has been met. A dear friend called me to say he’d pick up whatever we lacked for those children. I’m deeply grateful to all who again contributed to this dire need. Two nights ago, Sara and I watched an NBC news story about the horrible drought and starvation occurring in the northern reaches of Kenya. We are grateful to have been a small part of God’s provision in such an impoverished region and thankful to hear that other resources are coming into the area.

Second, as you think of Christmas gifts for family and friends, keep in mind the possibility of sharing some of the books I’ve been involved in. Live Loved Free Full is a daily devotional with inspiring thoughts to invite people into a relational engagement with God each day. He Loves Me continues to touch new hearts every year with the relationship people have wanted to find with God. In Season offers a farmer’s view of John 15 to help people discover what it means to abide in Jesus organically. And, A Man Like No Other is a powerful portrayal of the life of Jesus in art and prose that invites people to see Jesus outside the distortions of religious interpretation and fall in love with the person he is.

Finally, Sara and I want you to know that the joy and freedom we find in Jesus are available to each of you. He is no respecter of persons. His course may be very different for you, but he is the Way for you too, and he can carve a path through the pain, fear, and struggles you endure.  To that end, you have our prayers and support.

 

 

 

The Gift of Sight in the Valley of Pain

Two nights ago, I sat among giants.

Five people, each of them, had come face-to-face with a conflict between their consciences and the system of power that held the keys to their salary and advancement. And they each chose to follow their nudging consciences growing deep within them. For three of them, it was a recent experience.

And it cost them—relationships with “friends” and family, reputation, salary, and immediate fulfillment of their ministry aspirations. They were threatened by people they had previously admired, ambushed by those who could easily use deceit as a weapon, and rejected by those who had previously affirmed them.

Their choices led to dark days of pain and agony. Falsely accused and isolated, they second-guessed their consciences and questioned the God who had not intervened on their behalf against those acting in unGodly ways.

But in those long days of darkness, their hearts grew. They began to see the difference between human power and God’s authority. They came to see the full fury of a religious system more obsessed with power than truth and healing, even for their own people.

When they saw through the illusion of power and how far it would take them off course from the passion they held for Jesus and his people, they discovered that grief and disappointment can lead them into a rich vein of God’s wisdom and that enduring the affliction of others would only increase their compassion for the broken and wounded.

Some were still in the throes of that process, but I was touched by each person’s heart and honored to hold their stories and honor their choices. Two were black men who expressed the added pain and exploitation of the racial realities behind the choices of white leaders who had exalted them and then turned on them. One was a woman with little power to resist the manipulations of the men who decided her fate. Their added powerlessness multiplied their pain and negated their attempts to be treated graciously.

And yet, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of their desire to choose authenticity over expedience and truth over comfort.

I heard the exact words reverberating in my mind that Jesus spoke to the disciples one afternoon in Matthew 13, “To you it has been given to know the secrets and mysteries of the kingdom. . . . ” Others would have to content themselves with parables they didn’t understand because they choose the illusions of reputation and power over the pathway that leads to life.

I’ve been honored to meet many such people throughout the last thirty years of my journey. Each time, I’m reminded of Jesus’s words,

Count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds.

I know it doesn’t feel like joy, which I suppose is why he said, “Count yourselves blessed.” At the time, it doesn’t feel like a blessing. However, being lied about, insulted, or excluded by those you love is not the end of your journey; it’s the trailhead into a journey for which your heart has truly hungered.

Follow your conscience beyond the wall of illusion, and you will find the rich, fulfilling reward of a life well-lived that will be worth whatever price you had to pay to get there.

And all of heaven applauds.

Glad That’s Over!

What a crazy weekend! We packed up 47 years of married life and had to find a place for those things in an 1100 square foot apartment, a 330 sq ft motor home, and even after we gave loads of stuff away we still needed to rent some storage bays. Thanks to the help of some dear friends, we got it all buttoned up and hit the road in our “Living Loved” RV at 2:30 on Tuesday! (Yes, we were both exhausted when we took that photo minutes ahead of hitting the road.)

It took us a while to get out of LA traffic, navigating around five accidents, but we finally arrived in Barstow. It’s a trip across the desert today to Flagstaff, AZ. We are on our way.

Our hearts are full and our future uncertain. First, we’ve got to get to a retreat this weekend in Colorado, and then our schedule is wide open. We will spend a week or so in the Denver area to see our son, head north to Wyoming to see Jess and Kyle, and then perhaps turn eastward through Iowa and into the Midwest. The reason we are posting our location is so that people in the area can contact us if they want to connect as we go through their area.

I’ve begun sharing short videos of my thoughts and reflections on Reels on my Instagram feed from time to time. If you’re not linked up there, you might want to be at: “wayneatlifestream”. They also cross post to my FB Author Page.

And, yes, we are overwhelmed with email from the Redeeming Love podcasts at The God Journey. We will get them answered, but give me some time. Sara and I have been deeply touched by your love and compassion, as well as supportive comments. It’s not easy to go public with some of the things we’ve been through, and yes some people are already weaponizing this story make judgments against us. It still amazes me that people can hear that story and not have compassio for what Sara went through, regardless of what you may not like about me.

In the last gathering of The Jake Colsen Book Club, we discussed how love and honesty are a threat to those living in the darkness. It’s why so many feel the need to hide their story or lie to family and friends just to maintain their relationships. In the long run, it just isn’t worth it. Any friendship you have to lie to keep isn’t truly a friendship. You can view that conversation here.

Our hearts are overwhelmed with so many of you who have also suffered from traumtizing events that went unrecognized or untreated for far too long. So many have told us how little patience their Christian friends have to hold their story and their healing, growing weary of hearing about pain from “so many years ago.”  “Can’t you just forgive, and forget?” they are often asked. They don’t understand that traumatic abuse—whether it be sexual, emotional, physical or neglect—twists something in the brain that changes the way they see life in the present. Without processing those past events in a safe and secure environment, their brains won’t heal. Having someone walk with them in their darkness is one of the greatest gifts they can be given.

Even if you haven’t suffered trauma, learn about it. There are amazing resources available to help you understand your own trauma, or hold the trauma of your spouse, friends, or even strangers who need a safe place to explore their healing.

Here are some of them:

And if you don’t care enough to learn about trauma, please don’t try to help someone struggling with it and certainly don’t put them off by your impatience. I’ve listeend to Sara process her struggle over and over again, as she gains greater footing in Father’s freedom with each re-telling until it no longer impacts the way she lives today. For those who have no tenderness and only want to make accusations, you have no idea how you how you are working against God’s desire to bring them into healing and freedom. What they need is your love, mercy, and support.

And for those of you struggling with dark places in your past, don’t ever give up finding a path to healing. Father has one for you. Trauma is something that happened to you in the past; it doesn’t have to own your present or your future. Our hearts are wtih you in your struggle that you will find all the healing God has for you and supportive voices to walk with you.

Well, time to move on today. I’m going to miss those “office days” of yore, but for now there are more important things on the front burner.

When God Seems Boring…

I had this email exchange a few months back with a friend in Nigeria who hit a dry patch in his journey. I’m sure he’s not alone in this struggle or his questions, so I thought I’d share that conversation here:

I’m going through a crisis in my life right now, and I would have to admit that it’s tearing me apart and turning my world upside down. I have never felt so lost.

In the past, I used to wonder why people didn’t just have a relationship with God and why they always said he wasn’t conversing with them. I would usually respond, “You don’t know what you’re doing. Just sit there and read the Bible. That’s what relationship with him is.”

Recently I started to discover that reading the Bible and spending time in God’s presence may not be what relationship with Jesus is all about. I used to feel like he doesn’t love me anymore because of my past mistakes. But recently I’m learning to trust his love for me. I’m handing my weaknesses over to him so he can help me with his strength. Thanks to your series Embracing His Glory, I’m learning to see how powerless I am towards sin and how deeply I need his hand to transform me to the person he desires.

I’m not proud of my decline in my relationship with him. In the past few weeks, my quiet time has been of less interest to me.  Sometimes I get back on my feet and so enjoy it. Other times, I just fall asleep from beginning to end. I feel God’s sadness, trust me, and I’m so angry at myself for making him feel that way.

When I was 16, I would always carry my Bible and buy new notes and write down whatever God was teaching me. I always looked forward to my quiet time and would read the Bible every day. Unfortunately, my parents became so legalistic you would wonder if they were modern Pharisees. They loved God, but they feared him more. Initially I wasn’t affected by this new turn they had taken, but it later did. They brought in rules that began to kill my relationship with him. Rather than something I enjoyed, my quiet time became something I had to do to earn God’s blessings or  to be safe.

That lifestyle haunts me now. So when I sit for my quiet time to read the Scriptures, it’s a rule for me, not something I love and enjoy anymore. I told God I just want him back in my life. Why do I find it difficult to enjoy my time with God? Why do I find it difficult to spend time with the Bible and just pause to listen to him at his feet?

My response:

A lot of things could contribute to this. Keep this in mind, though—God invites us to walk with him out of endearment, not obligation. It sounds like your devotional times became an obligation, and that will always kill them. God wants to walk with you through life, not become an obligation to be satisfied three times a day.

As I read this, it sounded like you ended up with a relationship with your Bible and your quiet time, and those aren’t as exciting now. Perhaps, God has let those dry up so that you could lean into a relationship with him that is close and endearing. Don’t think something is wrong because those times have grown tedious. It doesn’t mean God is boring; it just means you’ve outgrown the form you’d been using. It’s just like going to grade school. It was challenging when you were there, but you would be bored if you went back today. That doesn’t make it wrong, just that you’ve grown beyond it.

I suspect God is stirring something new in you, He’s inviting you into a different journey, and you’re still trying to resurrect the old journey, or at least feel bad that it doesn’t happen the same way. Loving God isn’t complicated. Inviting Jesus to walk with us isn’t fulfilled by doing something three times daily. The Bible is a magnificent resource for discovering who God is and how his purpose unfolds in the Creation. But Jesus left us his Spirit to guide us into all truth, not a book. I think all of this is shifting in you, which may be disorienting for a season. This could be God’s doing to set you free to enjoy him, rather than his life in you being a chore.

Relax. Enjoy what you see of him each day. Read the Scriptures as he draws you to them. Speak to him all the time about your joys, worries, concerns, and need for insight. Watch as his truth surface in you, even at times you’d least expect it.

He responded to my email a few days later:

Oh my God! This cleared the doubt I had left in my heart. Wow!

The day I sent that email to you, I spoke with a friend and she was going through the same struggle that I was. So, I shared your response with her and she felt God had just confirmed what we are learning in the last few days through your words.

It was only a few days ago that I sat to read the Bible very early in morning and I whispered these words in my heart to God: “Father, I’m tired of everything. I know the Bible so well, but I don’t know you as I desire to. I’m so far from who you are. Please help me to behold you as you really are.” As soon as I had whispered that to him, something happened. It’s as if everything in the Bible was pointing to Jesus. I sat to read John, not hoping for anything at all: I just wanted to behold Jesus, though I didn’t know how.

Honestly, I remember hearing you on your podcast correcting someone who referred to the Bible as the ‘Word of God.’ You gently told him, “Scripture holds God’s words, but only Jesus is the Word of God.” I disagreed with you. How could Scripture not be the Word of God? Now, some years later, here I am, crossing my legs with a sigh: “Wayne is correct.”

Even my walk with Jesus didn’t begin that way and yet it only took a few years before I found myself depending on the Bible for almost everything. It was my guide. If I didn’t read it for three days, I would feel so bad. I would feel that I hadn’t touched God’s word for a while. I know it’s healthy to read the Scriptures as God unveils himself, but that wasn’t the case then.

Since my friend and I are on a similar journey, this is about the two of us. She and I are starting to follow Jesus anew, this time as the Word of God, the One God is speaking to us. More important, we are so grateful to find that Father confirms the truth of himself that he is unveiling to us. We are glad to know we aren’t going crazy.

When God seems boring, I’m sure it isn’t him at all. He’s incredibly endearing, hilarious, insightful, and gracious. Every day with him is an adventure, and when he seems boring to me, it usually means I’ve lost sight of him and am just mindlessly going through the motions of superficial, religious activities. It’s one thing to read He Loves Me and be touched by it, and quite another to spend the day with Sara and me and discover who I am. God wants us to know him; the Bible is a poor substitute for that knowing.

If you, too, are hungry for him, keep looking for him. Scripture won’t be enough. Church attendance won’t be enough. Even fellowship with good friends won’t be enough. He wants you to know him, see him, and feel him surge in your heart as you negotiate your day.

As someone told me a couple of weeks ago, “It’s not your piety he loves; it’s you!”

And if you want help sorting out how the Scriptures fit more effectively into a relational journey, you can check out the free video series, The Jesus Lens.

The Unintended Consequences of Well-Meaning Prayers

(First, a personal note:  It finally caught up to me. I’m blaming my visit to Disneyland last week to celebrate a granddaughter’s graduation from middle school though I don’t know for sure if that’s where I got it. But early Monday morning, I came down with symptoms of COVID-19, and a test later that day confirmed it. I’m doing OK for the most part, except for an extremely painful sore throat and being forced into quarantine away from those I love.)

If you’ve been listening to the podcasts at The God Journey, you’ll know that the last three months have been quite a ride—from the brink of despair to the heights of great joy. If you’re missing that story, you can hear the first two of seven podcasts under the label: “Redeeming Love.” It’s the story of the enemy’s attempts to destroy our marriage to God’s victory over a trauma we didn’t even realize Sara had in her past. The first one aired on July 8, titled, The Unforeseen Circumstances, and the second is called What Sara Faced. The rest will follow on subsequent Fridays.

At the lowest point in this story, a close friend of mine saw how much pain I was in and held it with me. That night in a dream, he saw Jesus sitting on a park bench, so he went and sat with him. He then asked Jesus if there was anything he could do to take my pain away.

Jesus turned toward him and answered, “I can’t take his pain away without taking away his love for Sara.”

He shared that with me the next day, and I immediately knew it was a prayer I didn’t want Jesus to answer. If I were in excruciating pain because of my love, I would rather endure the pain than lose the love. And it made me think of other prayers I have prayed, not realizing the result I wanted may be at the expense of some greater good I wanted even more.

We want pain to go away; Jesus wants love to triumph. We rarely recognize the cost involved in the things we ask of him. While we seek comfort, he’s drawing us into the truth that will be our ultimate joy. That’s why if you only seek comfort in this broken world, don’t expect that it will lead you to God’s fullness. Some of his greatest gifts reveal themselves in our moments of pain and vulnerability.

Fortunately,  Jesus didn’t take my pain away and instead used it to re-shape my heart with what I needed to walk a different road he was asking of me. You can hear that in the podcasts as well. All of that has led Sara and me to far more spacious places of freedom and love than I could ever have imagined.

Paul was right, “momentary, light affliction” can work in us “an eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17). No, it didn’t feel light or momentary at the time, but given what it has produced and who it helped rescue from the darkness overwhelming her heart, it seems so now. Who would have thought that those days of agony would bring such incredible healing and redemption?

I will never view prayer quite the same way again.

On an unrelated note, the next gathering of the Jake Colsen Book Club will be held Sunday, July 24 at 1:00 pm PDT. You’ll have to work that out in your time zone. We will cover Chapter 4 on why accountability is a horrible tool for discipleship and transformation. You can get a link to the Zoom Room by emailing Wayne and asking for it.

 

 

Love Seasoned over a Lifetime

A good friend of mine, Jack Gray, passed away last week. That’s him with his wife Margaret alongside Sara and me when we first met them in 2004. Many have heard me talk about Jack over the years. He was born in Scotland, served as a missionary surgeon in the Congo at the time of the revolution, and then lived out much of the rest of his life in New Zealand. I had numerous opportunities to correspond with him as well as visit him twice.

Though I came to know Jack late in his life, his life, character, and passion deeply inspired the trajectory of my own journey. He was a man of profound wisdom, gracious generosity, and a joyful spirit that touched many worldwide. I miss knowing he is in the world, but grateful that he has reached the gateway for the most incredible adventure any of us could take—an eternity in the presence of the Jesus he loved and a reuniting with his beloved wife. He was a remarkable gift, and it is all the better for having had him among us.

Advancing age tests the mettle of a person. Some grow more loving and tender, while others become more fearful and angry. When Dave Coleman was a hospice chaplain, he told me it was his experience that 80% of Christians were afraid or anxious about facing death. I have had three close friends and “older brothers” pass away in the last eighteen months. In their 80s and 90s, they were all men whom Father’s love had sweetened over many, many decades. It’s impressive to see what living at rest in the love of Jesus does to someone’s character over time and how it is reflected with such tenderness and confidence at the end of their days.

Jack turned ninety-nine this past February. He recorded this video a couple of weeks before he died last week. It reveals those things most in his heart as the veil between this life and the next grew thinner.

JackGray.mov

(If the video doesn’t play, click on this link: https://vimeo.com/727491540)

After his days in Africa, Jack began to find his rest in the Father’s love. He was expelled from the country during the revolution and told me he was home in Scotland in deep depression because he had failed God. “How had you failed God?” I asked, incredulous at the thought. He said because God sent him there, his faith was not strong enough to stop the revolution that got him expelled. In time, he came to see how that thinking was wrong in so many ways and thus began his encounter with a Father’s love that transformed him over a lifetime.

Jack was one of the heroes of the faith, and his life touched many people as a surgeon, hospital administrator, friend, and passionate follower of Jesus.

I have another video I’d like to share. It came to me on the same day that Jack’s did. This is from Ukraine and it’s by a man whose family I met and whose fellowship I enjoyed when I was in Kenya in 2019. Here’s that video, which shows how they are coping with this conflict by serving others. I hope these days of war and torment will spark a similar journey in them to discover a Father bigger than their expectations and a love more significant than their unanswered questions. I pray they, too, will be able to grasp how wide and deep the Father’s love is for them even in such horrific days.

God can hold us in any storm and help us endure the most excruciating trial until his glory comes—whether in this life or as we pass on to the next.

_______________

If you want to listen to two podcasts that I recorded with Jack Gray, you can do so from our archives at The God Journey.

If you want to help Misha and his team in Ukraine, you can pray for them and help by raising funds as they coordinate relief efforts for travel, housing, food, and basic necessities. You can help them at the Reliant fund:  https://reliant.org/ukraine.relief.fund

 

 

Where Love Thrives

Love can only thrive where truth reigns.

Thirty-five years ago, Sara and I had some friends over for dinner. At the end of the evening, as we walked with them to their car, the husband pulled me aside to tell me something. “Do you know that you talked about yourself all night and what you’re excited about but never once asked about what I’m doing?”

I was embarrassed beyond words, but fortunately, I didn’t retreat to my defenses. I thought through the night and realized to my horror that he was right. I told him he was right and how sorry I was to be so focused on myself.

As painful as it was to hear, his comments were a wonderful gift to me and changed my awareness of others in every conversation I’ve had since. He didn’t have to tell me that, and he took a great risk in doing so. He could have just let the relationship whither in my selfishness, but he loved me enough to tell me the truth and let me see his disappointment. It not only gave me the opportunity to change but deepened our relationship.

Many Christians I’ve met over the years fall into the mistaken notion that in relationships “nice is better than honest” and are afraid to be genuine for fear of whatever backlash may result. There’s often good reason for that in a conformity-based culture where those in authority respond in abusive and hurtful ways toward anyone who dares to disagree with them. Perhaps that’s why so many people are always saying what they think the other person wants to hear instead of being honest.

Without genuineness and vulnerability, however, relationships stay superficial and become fraught with tension. You’ll find yourself avoiding people you haven’t been honest with, perhaps even blaming them for your fear of what truth might uncover. And it’s true that not everyone is worthy of your honesty or deserves access to your heart especially if they crush it with their own selfishness.

But the real power of relationships and the environment that nurtures them comes where people are vulnerable and genuine. Brokenness and fear grow in the darkness, healing and joy do so in the light. That’s why Paul wrote, “… speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.” Growth only happens where what’s true can be expressed in gracious and tender affection.  I know that’s almost a lost art in the 21st Century, but it’s worth recovering. Affection will die when people care more about ‘getting along’ than they do engaging in honest conversations.

So, it behooves us all to learn to be genuine in our engagements with people, and for us to learn how to be a soft place for the vulnerability of others. Sure, it’s a risk, every time, but without it, you’ll never discover the depth, beauty, and power that arises from being heart-felt relationships. You can start in small ways with people you trust to hold your honesty well, even if they may not see eye-to-eye with you. That way you can discover who is safe for such conversations, and I suspect there are far more of those than your fears want you to believe.

IN OTHER NEWS…

The Jake Colsen Book Club

The next meeting of the Jake Colsen Book Club to explore the content of So You Don’t Want to Go To Church Anymore will meet this Saturday, July 2, at 1:00 pm PDT.  The third chapter deals with Christian education and how it indoctrinates us into behavioral conformity as the process for discipleship when it is precisely the opposite of that. Growing in the life of Jesus is a transformational reality inside his affection, which explains why our attempts at self-effort conformity always fall short.

We stream these live on my Facebook Author Page for those who don’t want to be in the Zoom discussion. If you want to be in the conversation, please email me one week before each session, and I’ll send you the link you need to join us. There will always be reminders on my blog a few days before our scheduled time. You can subscribe to the blog at the top right of my blog pages.

The links change with every session and you have to get the current link by emailing me before the Zoom session begins.  You’re welcome to join us for all the sessions or only for the chapters that most interest you. You’ll need to sign up each time to have a spot in the Zoom room.

 

Kenya

Some of the children and their new dormitories at Forkland School

Three months ago 300 children were suddenly abandoned at the Forkland School we have supported for many years. It is an impoverished community with lots of drug and alcohol abuse. We helped them when a flood ruined their cistern by digging them a new well. Gratefully, it hit a huge water source that enabled them to supply the community with free water as well as bottle it for resale to support the school.

A few months back, we helped them buy the land next door, which the state required them to do to keep caring for the number of students they had. Then a couple of months ago these children were abandoned on their doorstep. We helped feed them for a few months before they were required to build dormitories. Due to the generosity of one man, we built dormitories and a dining hall for their use.

However, expenses for the care, feeding, and education of those children total about $6500 per month.  We did not want to get caught in an ongoing expense here, so we appealed to them to look for a more effective solution. They presented us with a proposal to add $75,000 to the grain enterprise we set up with those we work with in the area as a way to generate that revenue every month going forward. We could use some help to offset that cost to help these orphaned children have a hope and future.

As always, every dollar you send us gets to the people in Kenya, and all contributions are tax-deductible in the US. We do not take out any administrative or money transfer feesPlease see our Donation Page at Lifestream. Just designate “Kenya” in the “Note” of your donation, or email us and let us know your gift is for Kenya. You can also Venmo contributions to @LifestreamMinistries (or use the QR Code at left). Finally, we also still take checks mailed to Lifestream Ministries • 1560 Newbury Rd Ste 1  •  Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or, if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

 

Let Me Read to You

People are constantly asking me if any of my books are available in audio format. Many of them are and, except for The Shack, I’m the one doing the reading. So, if you want me to read one of my books to you, you can order from the links below:

 

 

The Revelational Adventure

Every day I wake up to the amazing adventure of walking with God through whatever might unfold in my day. Sometimes that is full of joy and wonder; at other times, it’s an unforeseen calamity that challenges me to the core of my being. Following him, as best I see him each day, is the only way I know to navigate life. Keeping an eye out for his fingerprints in what’s happening around me, recognizing his impulse in my heart, or discovering a new thought playing with my mind, opens doors into options I’d never considered before and sets my heart at rest in events I don’t control.

So, it pains me when people talk of following God as a painful chore to keep from getting into trouble with him. That’s not how Christ lived, nor does it fit the character of the Father he described to us. He wants his joy to be in us so our joy can be full. Our God lives to his pleasure, and he wants to show us how we can live in the fullness of ours when it is untwisted from the lies of darkness. This is a journey into the life that really is life, unraveling the chaos and brokenness of this fallen world and giving us access to a life of love, rest, and play inside a growing friendship with the God who created you. It is the best way to live even through life’s worst moments.

I no longer have to sort out “the big picture” or try to “wrap my head around some strategy.” I can simply seek and follow, one step at a time, and find myself coming out in more spacious places of his grace and wisdom. That’s the revelational adventure—learning to recognize what new insight he’s giving me and believing his ways are valid.

Over the past few weeks, Kyle and I have been talking about this process on The God Journey podcast. We don’t explore this subject every week, but we are painting a picture of what it means to follow him. Even when he asks us to “lay down our lives,” it is for our joy as much as his. Selfishness is a barrier to living free, but only he can show us how our sacrifice can fit into his purpose of bringing light into the world.

Following the slightest nudge he gives us carries us into the life of his Spirit blowing all around us. Without that, we are pulled by the gravity of chaos into the weeds of frustration, hopelessness, and misery. When you feel the darkness spreading its clutches over you, remember that God has a way for you to rise out of it and catch the wind, just like a kite soaring skyward. This is the transformation that living loved offers us. Don’t miss it.

If you want a further explanation of how we can live more attuned to him, here are the first four podcasts we’ve done as part of this series.

  • Transformation #1:  Windblown – Recognizing how the chaos of this age is constantly trying to drag us into the darkness while his Spirit keeps inviting us to live above the chaos going on around us with the lightness of his joy and power.
  • Transformation #2: Reveal – This journey does not begin with doing what we think is best for God but in his revelation to our hearts of his love, wisdom, and strength. “What is God showing me today of himself?” “What wisdom is he putting in my way to guide me today?” or “Who is he giving me to love today?” become the most critical questions to pose to him each day as we sensitize our hearts to how he might answer them.
  • Transformation #3: Ponder – When we think God reveals something to us, how can we know it’s him? Pondering the growing revelations with him, Scripture, other brothers and sisters, and seeing how they sort out in our circumstances, is an important part of the process of internal transformation. Pondering anchors his revelation in our hearts and minds, helps us discern what’s real and not real, and lets us see the possibilities he holds in his heart.
  • Transformation #4: Believe – As we affirm what God is revealing to us, he is winning us into his trust. Believing what he shows us and becoming convinced of his character toward us is what lifts us into the reality of his life that he wants for us. Believing is not another religious work he demands of us; it’s the fruit of recognizing him in our lives and growing to know that his ways are always best for us.

We are drawing a chart as we unpack this journey and you can see it below. Father, Son, and Spirit are in the upper left, and we are at the lower left as we’ve been twisted by the brokenness of this age. We have no hope of untwisting ourselves enough to soar in his Spirit, so God initiates that process with us by revealing himself to us in bits and pieces as we look to him throughout our days. Belief takes root in our hearts as we recognize what he is showing us and ponder it. That’s what allows us to catch the wind of the Spirit as he draws us into his reality and the promises of glory, purpose, truth, fruitfulness, fulfillment, etc.

Without that, the gravity of our brokenness will continue to hold us in the weeds, where darkness, futility, fear, anger, frustration, and scarcity define our lives. God wants to lift us out of the weeds and draws us into the unfolding revelation of his Spirit. That comes from hearing and believing what he shows us is true. It can really be that simple.

There’s so much more we will add here in the weeks ahead on the podcast. I know charts can make things appear to be too mechanical for something genuinely organic. So, please don’t get lost in the diagram or try to implement it with human effort. Let it help you imagine what’s going on in your heart and mind as God makes himself known and then invites us on an adventure with him that will allow you to live in the flow of the Spirit instead of being shipwrecked by our demands and struggles. God knows what’s best for us in every situation and wants to help us recognize what he’s revealing in our hearts, and then we’ll be free to believe him enough to watch his glory unfold in us. Learning to live in this freedom is a lifetime process that starts slowly as it finds traction in how we think. Then, look out.

 

We will continue to explore other facets of this revelational adventure in the weeks ahead. Since you’ve heard it over the years, I know some of you don’t regularly check in with the God Journey much anymore. But you might want to check back in for these episodes. I’m excited to see how this framework has encouraged others to a more relational approach to their faith. It also expresses well how I am learning to follow him. I hope it helps you too. This approach is also finding its way into the sequel I’m writing to So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore.

 

Life at Father’s Pace

Three years ago, in the woods of western Virginia, I heard a man say, “Life moves at the speed of relationships.”  I immediately resonated with that. My life has traveled mainly at the speed of achievement. Get that book done, that podcast produced, or that trip scheduled. Of course, I made time for relationships around that, but I moved at a breakneck speed throughout most of my life. Though I’ve been comfortable with it, I know not everyone around me has.

A few weeks ago,  as I happened to be pulling some weeds in Sara’s garden, I hurriedly reached for a weed that was just a tad out of reach. I didn’t realize that, however, until I lost my balance in the reach and had to move my foot to keep from falling. When I did, I stepped on one of her flowers and crushed it. Internally, I felt like I had crushed something in Sara’s heart. No, I didn’t mean to, and indeed, Sara wouldn’t have compared that flower to her heart, but that’s what I felt when I looked down at the dying iris.

“You need to slow down.” The words crossed my mind instantly. The message was clear to me. My rapid pace is crushing something in Sara. Since then, “Life moves at the speed of Sara” has become part of my vocabulary. And it applies to everything I do, from driving to preparing dinner to my conversations with her and others. At first, it felt painful. I even do it when Sara isn’t with me because I want to practice for when she is.

And you know what I’ve discovered? I actually like living at a slower pace. I trip on stairs less often, make fewer mistakes, and am more attuned to what’s happening around me or someone else might be feeling near me. Dare I say it? It’s made me more sensitive to God’s ebb and flow in my life. Who would have thought?\

Last week on the podcast, Kyle and I discussed how we can run so fast through life that we don’t allow Jesus to catch up with us. I’ve long thought people who keep busy all the time are running from something inside, afraid some pain or loneliness might catch up with them. I know I did some of that in my younger days.

Then last week, as I prayed with some people, this subject came up again. Someone expressed it this way, “Maybe we could live at the speed of Father.”

Ding! Ding! Ding!  

Jesus did. He only did the things he saw the Father doing or said the things he heard the Father saying. (John 5:19)

That thought has wandered to many places in my thinking. I’ve had so many people tell me they don’t ever hear or see God, and I’ve been through seasons of that myself. But could that be because we tend to move ahead of him, racing through life? We beg him to do what we want instead of slowing our pace to recognize what he’s already doing? To see someone, you must be behind them, moving at their pace. Maybe the next time someone tells me they can’t see God, I might remind them that they might slow down and let him get ahead of them. You can’t follow from the front. Maybe that’s what it means to wait on God; it’s allowing him to catch up to us and move in front so we can see him and embrace his work.

I’m going to be exploring this for some time. Is that why we’re told to wait upon the Lord? It’s not an exercise in patience but a reality. Our human tendency is to race about in fear and anxiety, which puts us way ahead of God’s pace. That’s why he seems so slow to us or so hidden. He’s not on that frequency. His work is much more deliberate, incubated in love, not fear, in trust, not anxiety. He’s also doing real work inside while we try to plater cosmetic fixes on the outside.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this will change me.

Remember the poem I ran on this blog a couple of weeks ago, Allowing My Past Catch up to Me? Maybe it’s not just the traumas of our pasts that we’re outrunning; perhaps it’s also the love of God, or maybe the treasure of his wisdom. If we don’t slow down to the Father’s pace, we will keep missing the incredible roads he wants to invite us down. Is that why he speaks in a whisper and sows his fingerprints so subtly into our days. Slowing down enough to recognize him is part of learning to navigate our lives at his pace instead of the frantic anxiety of our flesh.

That’s why we’re told to be still and know that he is God (Psalm 46:10, or to find those “unforced rhythms of grace.” (Luke 11, The Message) Slow down; take a deep breath now and then and learn to quiet the pace of your mind and heart. Then, it won’t be so difficult to know what he is doing in you.

That’s where I’m growing right now, and I already love its fruit growing in my heart.

____________________

The Jake Colsen Book Club

We began our Jake Colsen Book Club last weekend to explore the content of So You Don’t Want to Go To Church AnymoreYou can see the recording of that conversation here. We’ll be covering chapter 2 on Saturday, June 18, at 4 pm PDT. We will bounce them around so that people in different parts of the world can join us. The first one was weighted toward Europe and Africa; the second toward Australia, New Zealand, and Asia.

We stream them live on my Facebook Author Page for those who don’t want to be in the Zoom discussion. If you want to be in the conversation, please email me one week before each session, and I’ll send you a link to join us. There will always be reminders on my a few days before our scheduled time. You can subscribe to the blog at the top right of my blog pages. The Jake Colsen Book Club will use a different link each time, and you’re welcome to join us for all the sessions or only for the chapters that most interest you.

When Serving Turns to Exploitation

I’m going to lift a quote from an email I wrote to my webmaster the other day about some changes being made for one of the platforms we use to get out information.

“It seems all these platforms start to serve a need people have, then end up exploiting people to fill a need they have.”

As soon as I typed it, I realized how ubiquitous that is to almost everything human, from business to bureaucracy, websites, and even religious institutions.

Almost all start to address a critical need. Facebook, at its beginning, provided a unique tool to keep family, friends, former classmates, and colleagues updated on each other’s personal lives. It was great to see pictures of grandkids, college roommates, and vistas from all over the world. Then, they monetized it, and instead of serving me the things I want to see and read, they twisted it with all kinds of algorithms, advertising, and hoops to jump through that don’t serve me well; they serve Facebook.

I’ve noticed that with websites as well. I’ll be reading something I’m interested in, and almost immediately, a pop-up window will obscure my reading and beg me to sign up for their newsletter or offer me a free “gift” if I give them my email address. We’ve been blessed not to do that at Lifestream or The God Journey because we haven’t needed to monetize it. We offer our content free and figure if people want to sign up for notifications or download a free audio or book, they can do it without harvesting their data for our purposes.

Monetizing the kingdom alters its nature and its message.

Hasn’t that happened in religious institutions? Many start with a genuine desire to serve people. Over time, however, the success of the program becomes more important than helping people with their needs. The mission shifts. It’s no longer what we can give to you; it is what we need from you for the ministry to survive. Instead of feeling served, you feel exploited, even if “for your own good,” as some say.

“That’s just sound business practice,” others might argue.

Precisely. That is my point. Mammon or kingdom. Only if you trust Father to provide for you can you give as freely to others as he has given to you.

The Gospel is a gift!  It’s always a gift. When it ceases to be a gift, it ceases to be the Gospel. Monetizing it changes its nature. I wrote an article about this years ago, mentioning the power of Alcoholics Anonymous. It has altered the lives of millions of people. Why does it stay so pure to its mission? Because it has remained free. It is a decentralized organization that continues to inspire those who’ve been helped to willingly help others without cost. There are no membership dues, no staff to pay, and no books to purchase. It’s people helping people—willingly, graciously, and freely.

I wonder what the life of Jesus would look like today if the Gospel had never been organized and monetized for the benefit of a few at the expense of the many.

 

 

What Is He Showing You?

My friend, Luis, shared with me a dream he had where he and Jesus were sitting on a park bench. Jesus asked him why Jonah did what he did. After Luis offered some of his thoughts, he finally turned the question back to Jesus. “Because he made it about himself.”

Those words have reverberated in my heart ever since, at just the right moments.  In the difficult circumstance in which I find myself now, it is so easy to crash into the weeds of my grief and sorrow that are so self-focused. I hear his thought cross my mind when I do, “Don’t make it about yourself.”

Those words are like an updraft I talked about in our last podcast, Transformation 1: Windblown. The chaos of a fallen creation and the self-centeredness of our flesh are the gravity that draws us into darkness. I can feel it now in my sorrow. There’s an agony and distress that holds space for God’s work in my life and in the life of those I love, and there’s self-focused anguish that drives me into despair and overwhelming pain.  “Don’t make it about yourself” have been words of life that lift me from the darkness of hopelessness and bear me upward into the realm of his Spirit.

And what’s even stranger. While I need those words about not making it about myself, I can see circumstances where Jesus would be speaking just the opposite to someone else. That would be especially true for those who hide their inner pain by serving everyone else around them.  Jesus might say to them, “Don’t focus on others just now; we need to focus on you.” He may be wanting them to learn self-compassion for him to heal wounds they’ve long neglected.

That’s why following principles, even Godly ones, is not the same as following Jesus. It’s easy to sort through many principles, find the one we like, and implement it hoping it will fix our pain. However, until we know what he’s doing in us and follow him, we become the victims of our own limited wisdom. As we recognize the nudges that draw us into his work rather than fall victim to our wisdom, we can soar above the weeds into the wind of his Spirit. (For more on that analogy, listen to the podcast linked  above.)

Throughout most of my life, I was told that if I followed Jesus, he would bless me. Of course, that’s true, but most of us assumed or were taught that his blessing would fix all of our challenging circumstances, meet our needs, and answer our unselfish prayers. It doesn’t take long to figure out he doesn’t work that way, and that mistake can lead us to doubt his character or question our performance.—two terrible outcomes for the journey he invites us down.

Following Jesus does not save us from the chaos of a broken creation. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us that the sun and rain come upon the just and the unjust. He also told us not to consider those who died in the tower’s collapse at Siloam were any more deserving of death than those who escaped. God’s goodness and the world’s chaos fall on those who follow him and those who don’t. His blessing allows us to navigate the chaos that would allow his glory to be more fully formed in us and make us more compassionate for hurting people.

Live by the Spirit, and you can soar with him through the most brutal events life can hurl you. Fight for your way, and you’ll crash into the weeds, angry and disillusioned.

I was with a friend recently going through a stressful time with challenges and uncertainties in his circumstances. As I often do, I asked them what Jesus was showing him?

As most respond, he told me he was praying the answer would show up and trying to apply some Scriptural lessons he had learned.

“But what is Jesus revealing to you about this particular circumstance and how he wants you to go through it?” I asked again.

“I haven’t heard anything from him,” he answered awkwardly.

It’s a conversation I have too frequently. At the heart of the Gospel is this reality: God is coming to find you and invite you into a relationship with him to reveal his glory to you and then through you. That’s the trajectory of a transforming life. Somehow, we’ve traded the incredible adventure of following his ever-present direction for desperate prayers that often go unanswered or cling to our own best wisdom as we apply the Scriptures we think will work for us. On our best day, those won’t be enough.

We need insight from him that shows us a way through the chaos to the life he has for us. It reminds me of something someone said on a podcast with me about dealing with darkness. When the night begins to surround us, it’s easy to chase after the light hoping to catch it.  Think of trying to do that with a sunset. You can pursue the sun westward all you want, but you’ll never catch it. The fastest way through the darkness is to turn east and run toward the rising sun you can’t see yet. Jesus is the only one that can show you how to do that.

So, when the world’s chaos crashes against you with all its fury, don’t think “escape at all costs.” Instead, look to the One who wants to deliver you from its clutches and shape the trajectory of your life through it to his greater glory.

Find that thought he’s giving you that draws you out of the chaos and follow it to the rising sun in the eastern sky.

Kenya, and the Beauty of Silence

I almost want to apologize for the picture at the top of this blog. I know these pictures are used gratuitously to make people feel guilty and give to overseas mission outreaches. I’ve never done that, and that’s not why I use it here. This is one of the orphans we are helping at the Forkland School, one of 300 abandoned there by parents who could no longer care for them due to alcoholism and the deepening drought. It’s a heart-breaker for sure, and I wanted you to hold in your heart a bit of that pain with me. Whether you are able to express generosity here through some excess finances or prayer, both are needed.

We were able to send some money along to help them at this time, though they will need more. The need is ongoing, and they are requesting another well in Bungoma that will help that community get through this drought. but there is joy and gratefulness because of those who were able to help them. You can watch this video of Michael celebrating with the children. (43 seconds)

And I thought I’d leave you with this quote I had in my inbox the other day that I find significant.

The tongue is our most powerful weapon of manipulation. A frantic stream of words flows from us because we are in a constant process of adjusting our public image. We fear so deeply what we think other people see in us that we talk in order to straighten out their understanding. If I have done some wrong thing (or even some right thing that I think you may misunderstand) and discover that you know about it, I will be very tempted to help you understand my action.

Silence is one of the deepest disciplines of the spirit simply because it puts the stopper on all self-justification. One of the fruits of silence is the freedom to let God be our justifier. We don’t need to straighten others out.

Source: Richard J. Foster, Seeking the Kingdom

We waste so much time making sure someone doesn’t say anything bad about us. It wastes so much time trying to correct the manipulation and lies of others. These are far better left in Jesus’ hands and we get on with just living as authentic a life as we can and don’t worry about those who seek to be destructive. As Dallas Willard said toward the end of his life, “I am learning the discipline of not always having to have the last word.” It’s a great freedom. Let Jesus have the last word and invite him to shape this in your heart; he’s the only one who can.

Finally, if you want to help the children in Kenya, we are still collecting money to send their way. As always, every dollar you send us gets to the people in Kenya, and all contributions are tax-deductible in the US. We do not take out any administrative or money transfer fees. Please see our Donation Page at Lifestream. Just designate “Kenya” in the “Note” of your donation, or email us and let us know your gift is for Kenya. You can also Venmo contributions to @LifestreamMinistries or mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560 Newbury Rd Ste 1  •  Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or, if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

Not Everyone Has to Understand You

In interacting with some people about my last post on All Heaven Applauds, I realized I had left out something that’s incredibly important that will help you deal with people who lie about you to discredit you.  I’ve added it to the original post, but I also wanted to call attention to it here as well for those who already read the original post.

After learning to forgive, this may be the toughest one. Just remember, these are not things you can do on your own, but as we take our pain and grief to Father, he can teach us how to genuinely walk in these realties. It will take time to find real freedom here, just continue to give him access to your heart and your feelings as his love overwhelms the pain and leads you to the joy he has for you in spite of it.

Fifth, find comfort in being misunderstood. If you want to walk this journey, you can’t correct everyone’s lies. This is hard because religion taught us we are validated by other people’s perceptions of us. That’s a lie too! You don’t have to try to convince people of what’s true. Doing so will drive you nuts. People who traffic in falsehoods are not interested in understanding you or accurately representing your motives. They enjoy their attempts to diminish you and you’ll only give them more ammunition to twist into false accusations. Find your peace in the fact that God knows the truth and that he will eventually get the last word on every lie.  The misunderstandings of others are part of their journey. There may be a time to confront, but God will show you when and how, even though the outcomes will rarely be what you hope.

When you have the freedom to embrace the love of people who truly care about you, you’ll worry less about the judgments of those who do not.

The Call of the Bride

“Listen! My beloved!
Behold, he is coming,
Climbing on the mountains,
Leaping on the hills!”
Song of Songs 2:8 

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come!”
Revelation 22:17

Lift up your heads, O gates,
And be lifted up, O ancient doors,
That the King of glory may come in!
Psalm. 24:7 

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come!”
Revelation 22:17

Let the sea roar and all it contains,
The world and those who dwell in it.
Let the rivers clap their hands;
Let the mountains sing together for joy
Before the LORD;

For he is coming to judge the earth;
He will judge the world with righteousness,
And the peoples with equity. (Psalm 98:7-9)

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come!” (Rev. 22:17)

“And his winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Luke 3:17)

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come!” (Rev. 22:17)

Jesus said, “Look, I am coming soon! ” (Revelation 22:12)

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come!” (Revelation 22:17)

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with Me. (Revelation 3:20)

And the Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.”

And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; and the one who wishes to take the water of life without cost. (Revelation. 22:17)  

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come!”
Revelation 22:17

He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” 

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. (Revelation 22:20)

“You Won’t Find Me Here”

I love how God works to invite us into his reality, even over the course of years of frustration and pain. I get emails like this because something I wrote or said plays into it, but I am more excited about how Father finds us and draws us into his life, even if it takes years.

I’m 57 years old writing from Australia. Two years ago my wife bumped into an old friend with whom I had shared many hours of conversation about our disillusionment and eventual exit out of the institutional church. Many years had gone by since last seeing this friend and she invited him over. We talked at length and he left me a copy of your book So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore. I had long stopped reading any Christian material for reasons which will become clearer later, My faith was intact, but events of the past had left me disillusioned, suspicious, and very cynical. I also observed that it was a fictional story and I felt indifferent about it at best.

Soon after, on a Sunday night in August 2019, I went to bed and started to read. I was intrigued, the conversations were not what I was expecting. I was being drawn in as familiar insights and conclusions I had come to myself out of deep frustration years ago were being plainly identified and openly discussed. We had been involved in some Pentecostal churches including a split, starting a new one with fellow survivors and I had also started theological college training. Life was meant to come together here with a sense of purpose and meaning, In reality, it led to total disappointment, Something in all of this felt wrong, God was missing! The contrived efforts to hide or ignore this were hard to watch. It felt hollow and empty, and I grew increasingly disillusioned with all of it.

I dreaded Sundays and it took me days to recover. I questioned how do people keep doing this and not ask “is this it?” And here I am training to be a part of this! I had been craving a deeper relationship with God, but by the mid-nineties, I was so depressed and mentally drained I left my theological degree 2/3rd’s through. Further adding to the confusion was this thought about my church, so loud and persistent it was almost audible. It was simply “you won’t find me here”. I found this both puzzling and disturbing as I had neither the confidence nor the courage to understand this because I thought it had to be wrong. If this was God then I can’t do it anymore, I had to move on for the sake of my family and sanity. Feeling an outcast and shattered that this was where the journey ended, I shoved my faith in the basement of my mind and walked away, I was done

Fast Forward to 2019, and a family crisis that involved false accusations against me just as I began to read your book. In a matter of seconds, I had gone from looking at spiritual issues I had tucked away for years, to a sudden explosion of conflict, and the realization that my life might be over. Everything unraveled; I went into shock physically shaking, my mind dissolved into chaos. I felt utter despair.

Then, other thoughts came. You know what’s going on here. Look at what you were reading. This is no coincidence; it’s a counter move, an attack. It felt evil, but I so did not want to go there, no way! Next, I became suddenly aware of this intense feeling of the presence of God physically around me. I knew it was him, I recognized it immediately, it was unmistakable and that seriously pissed me off too! like it just added to the torment.

The next day the accusation was withdrawn, but my mind had exploded and I was numb. I hated the idea of making this a spiritual issue, all that familiar cringe-worthy religious terminology made me want to reach for a bucket, I had been there 25 years ago and that road led to pain and disappointment. God’s Spirit though was undeniably and tangibly on me now. Why? And what’s so important about that book?

I returned to the book and read on. What unfolded through the pages had taken so many things I had known and suspected to be true, and it all clicked perfectly into place. I just kept repeating over and over “I knew this!” God had been telling me all those years ago as I recalled the words “you won’t find me here”.

Your book opened and validated something birthed in my spirit 25 years ago that God had begun, but my mind had no self-belief or confidence that I could possibly be hearing God correctly. Institutionally and culturally conditioned from my earliest years the frustration and disappointment of not finding intimacy with God were inevitable. They won’t give intimacy because they can’t! It was such a relief to know I had heard right! Unfortunately, it took me 25 years to find out.

So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore opened up the possibility that God can be known outside of the narrow religious framework I had known since a child. I realized I had always found it hard to trust God, particularly as “Father”. Due to my disfigured image of him, I really didn’t believe he could love me. The doorway into living loved and actually relaxing in the Father’s affection where trust is built on the truth of his character healed a deep emptiness I’d always carried. Realizing God is love, that it flows from him and is not contingent upon my or anyone’s approval lifted a huge weight off me.

Then it got even better. because it’s his love that drives transformation not the straight jacket of religious conformity. I found by resting in His presence I knew He was no longer a distant abstract concept – this was a game-changer.

That presence of the Spirit I felt that night has never left. It’s still tangibly here now as I write. While the last 2 1/2 years have been amazing, they have also been painfully challenging since I needed lots of healing. I spend a lot of time just sitting in His presence soaking Him up, sometimes saying very little, words often get in the way. I had always been an analytical thinker, but this was different. It was like the background landscape of my mind was being redrawn and colored in differently, making some old familiar thoughts look stupid. It’s generated a whole new stream of dialogue as the truth of love, trust, acceptance and no separation took hold. This felt relational, someone who was there even in the pain, not an abstract concept or distant angry deity.

I wanted to tell you that I’m so appreciative of what God does through you Wayne, it’s like you help people find the connection point that eludes them, then step back out of the way and let God do His thing. The significance of this cannot be underestimated, the airwaves, the internet, are awash with all kinds of truth peddlers, many using similar relational language, but much of it appears to be a cosmetic makeover of a well-run system underneath. I know attending a gathering is not the issue, but many people have been blinded by the veil of religion oblivious to the God who is right in front of them. It takes a lot of honest courage to break the persuasive bonds of religion, particularly when it’s subtle and appears logically true with historical tradition and numbers on their side.

Even 25 years ago I wondered how many believers on life support would survive if the machine were turned off. It is why your books, Lifestream and The God Journey continue to be such an important resource. Finding the beginning of the trail and starting down the path often lacks any outside assurance or validation, with so few cheerleaders. Thanks again Wayne, I read He Loves Me, Finding Church, and Beyond Sundays, All incredibly helpful, but also critical in reaching those like myself who just needed to find the connection or even the permission to believe the voice of dissatisfaction, just maybe the Father drawing them to himself.

The God Journey podcast, past, and present, has been such an encouragement, I have loved the conversations you’ve had with Kyle over the last year, particularly the subterranean move that’s going around the world giving an increasing sense that God is up to something quite different and possibly unprecedented. This is not just thanks from us but also an encouragement that what you do continues to make a significant real difference around the world.

Two and a half years down the trail the connection is real and just keeps growing regardless of circumstances.

I thought his story might encourage many of you, too.  Yes, there is lots of pain behind his story—years of frustration and disillusionment.

Of course, I don’t think my book did all of that. In stories like this, I’m convinced that something I wrote or said only serves to tap a deep well that has already been bubbling up unseen for some, and it isn’t going to be denied. Any number of other books or conversations could have been the catalyst for Father to satisfy that hunger. It’s significant, too, that the offer of a book also coincided with a crisis, which opened the door to some fresh thinking.  That is often true for many people. Sometimes we get stuck in comfortable, though fruitless, patterns, and only when life deals us a severe blow are we disoriented enough to look over where Jesus has been all along.

Then, the glory comes. In the midst of pain and crisis—Presence! If this man’s life is like mine, I doubt that’s the first time Father has made himself known. It’s just that our heart and head weren’t in a space to be able to recognize him and respond, especially if we’ve been shackled by the lies of religious performance.  But now, a different journey unfolds where we can walk with him through the things that concern us and find what we’ve always been seeking.

I hate that it took twenty-five years for this man, but it may be a reminder to us to not give up on our hunger because we’ve been disappointed in the short run. Can you hold your hunger to know him long enough for him to do the work to fulfill it?  For most of us, it won’t take twenty-five years, especially if we stay on the hunt—always watching to see where Father’s fingerprints are making his presence known. But even when it takes that long, the fruit of it is no less sweet as you can read above. We may think that’s a lot of wasted time, but I suspect that Father was working all along to prepare a heart ready to know him.

Even in a paralyzing crisis, he could recognize the challenge of darkness to distract him yet again from the work of Jesus. But this time, it didn’t succeed. He saw the threat alongside a new door that was opening and chose the door instead. I love that!

God wants us all to find him in his fullness. If what you’re doing isn’t working, consider that you may not be looking yet where he actually is.  Keep your heart open.  He’ll win this in you, too!