It’s Time

Chapter 21: And Then the End Shall Come

(Note:  First, I am thrilled to announce that we’ve secured the necessary funds to rescue the water enterprise in Kenya. Thank you for your generosity once again.  And now, here’s the last chapter of It’s Time: Letters to the Bride of Christ at the End of the Age. Whether he comes in the next fifteen years or the next one hundred and fifty years, how do we live in light of his return? We have already released the first part of this book in print, and now we will combine it with the last part. You can also access the previous chapters here.)

 

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It has been 2,000 years since Jesus promised to return. How do you keep your hope up that he will? Do you ever wonder whether we’ve missed something here? Since I don’t have a clue when he might come, I don’t see how it’s relevant to the decisions I have to make today.  

Janine, office manager and grandmother in Ireland

Hi Janine,

That has been my dilemma most of my life. In my younger days, people talked about him coming before I would graduate from high school. I dreaded the idea of judgment, and I didn’t want my life cut short here. As so many predictions of his return came and went without effect, the hope of his coming fell into the background, irrelevant to how I lived.

If we knew he was coming in two years, wouldn’t we make different decisions than we would if we knew it wasn’t going to happen for another fifty? Perhaps that’s why we don’t know. Anticipating his return is a matter of the heart, hoping in the final resurrection, rather than information for financial or career choices. I’ve known many who thought they had it figured out, only to make horrible choices that ruined their lives.

As these days have darkened with growing polarization, global conflicts, natural disasters, and environmental challenges filling every news cycle, his coming now seems almost a necessity to rescue us from ourselves. Now, I cannot wait for the moment when the same Jesus who walked the hills of Galilee, surrendered his life to the cross, rose victorious over death, and revealed himself to countless people throughout history, will bodily reappear on planet Earth. He, whom we’ve only known by presence, will become materially present, and we will know him as fully as he has always known us.

At his coming, Jesus will expose the dark powers that rule the earth, and the old order of those who compete for influence and power will dissolve into nothing. Kings, presidents, prime ministers, dictators, and CEOs will all lose their power, national identities will be obliterated, and suffering will cease at last. Though I have lost sight of it at times, I’ve never doubted that he will yet come.

That’s when God’s work of redeeming Creation will reach its climax. In the blink of an eye, all we have known will be reconstituted into a new heaven and new earth that will abound with his love and life. What we’ve known in glimpses, we will see in fullness when sin, fear, and pain are abolished.

Creation has longed for it since humanity crashed into the wall of its waywardness. The day of his coming is why the Psalmist pictures the trees singing for joy, the seas resounding, and all Creation rejoicing: God is coming to judge the world (Psalm 98). I know many of us were taught to fear his judgment, but Creation doesn’t, and I don’t anymore. On that day, he will set right all that has been corrupted on this planet.

The end of this age will also be the beginning of a new and better one. Jesus will take his rightful place as Lord of all, and Creation will thrive in a justice born of love and tenderness. The oppressed will go free, sickness gone, the lies we’ve believed will dissolve in the light, and we will forever be with him in his eternal kingdom. To those who find their fulfillment in the world, that day may be tragic. But for those who have found their home in Jesus, it will fulfill every unmet desire and unsatisfied dream.

 

Why Is He Waiting?

One of the great mysteries of human history is how slowly God appears to move by our perception. God’s purpose seems to unfold at a painstaking pace. People have navigated the darkness of human fallenness for centuries, and Israel bore 1500 years under the weight of a law they could not keep. The early followers thought his return was imminent over 2000 years ago. Even in the Incarnation, God was not in a hurry. Jesus came to rescue the world as an embryo in the womb of a maiden, then spent thirty years as an infant and young man before he began to share the glory of his kingdom and prepare for his atoning death.

All we’re told is that he came “in the fullness of time” (Galatians 4:1-5). Paul didn’t explain all that meant, but he compared it to children under a tutor who had become heirs and no longer needed to be schooled. Jesus didn’t come the first time at some arbitrary date, but only when events on the earth allowed the Incarnation to play out to maximum effect. Perhaps human culture had to grow in its capacity to appreciate grace for him to open the door of salvation. Before that, God used law and punishment to control humanity’s destructive instincts. And yet today, many who claim to be Christians still struggle to embrace his love as the transforming power of the universe.

I suspect his second coming will also come in the “fullness of time.” I doubt he is waiting for a prescribed date, though, by his foreknowledge, he would know it. I’m sure there are many factors that will determine when this planet is ready for the final act of redemption. Peter told us that any delay is a sign of his great patience to redeem as many as possible (II Peter 3:8-9). Perhaps the world must grow darker yet, or he’s waiting until our only hope is in him, not what we can do to fix the planet.

Jesus must reign, Paul writes (I Cor 15:25-27), until all his enemies have been subdued under his feet. Then he will abolish all rule, authority, and power and present the kingdom to his Father. Does that just happen at the end of the age, or is it a work he’s been doing behind the scenes? Honestly, I don’t know, but it does seem the forces of evil still prevail in human history.

Or it may be that the Bride herself has something to do with it. What if he stands at the door of the world even now, waiting for an invitation from the redeemed to step across the threshold? The bullies have taken over the house, and the world is in chaos. They know that those final days will be filled with pain, but they invite him anyway. “Lord Jesus, come quickly.”

I wouldn’t be definitive about any of this. We make a grave error when we assume we know the motives of God. Paul reminded us not to judge each other’s motives because we often don’t even know our own (I Cor 4:1-5). How much more difficult would it be to guess what motivates God beyond the fact that he loves us deeply and is taking the surest route to redemption?

 

Revival First?

Many of my friends are anticipating a worldwide revival before his appearing, like the Great Awakenings of old. They will chase all over the world if they hear any sign of one.

Am I looking for a revival? Not in the same way. While I would love to see a fresh outpouring of his Spirit to draw people to himself, I have no preconception of what that might look like. Most of what we call revival is people groveling in the shame of their failures through public repentance, rather than coming alive in his love. It’s easy to forget that all movements of God go to die in the structures we create to contain them.

Where I see people focused on revival through prayer networks and prophetic words, the life of Jesus is mostly absent. Their focus is largely on their own success and their efforts. They manipulate obscure passages of Scripture to bolster their hope and exploit crowds of people with false comfort. They find comfort in outlandish “manifestations” that are easily manipulated by crowd dynamics. I’m reminded how wrong the Jewish messianic expectations were when Jesus first came. Looking back, we can see how clearly Scripture mapped out these things, yet we often forget that we do so through the benefit of hindsight.

Jesus told us not to seek revival somewhere else. “The kingdom of God will not come with observable signs. Nor will people say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘There it is.’ For you see, the kingdom of God is in your midst” (Luke 17:20-21).

I already see a fresh wave of God’s Spirit inviting people to a deeper touch with Jesus. Those he is stirring are not looking for a man to follow, a certain type of euphoric gathering, or the political power to dominate the culture. Instead, they are coming alive to God’s presence within them. They are learning to rest from their own labors, either to draw closer to God or to become more righteous. They are growing confident in his love and talk of Jesus as a real presence who is leading and guiding them.

This work of God is decentralized and lies beneath the radar of those looking for outward signs. These people are rising simultaneously all over the world because it is a work of the Spirit, not a fixation on a human leader, author, or influencer. As the Spirit of God draws them back to first love—how deeply they are loved by God—they become more at rest in him, freer to love others and more attuned to his voice as their life unfolds.

There’s a huge difference between being led by the Spirit and living by principles, no matter how good they may be. Seek revival, and you’re guaranteed to miss him because he will come in ways you won’t expect. Follow him, and you’ll find yourself an increasing part of God’s redemption in the world.

 

Living in Redemption

How do we live in anticipation of his return? I’ve seen too many people, focused on the immediacy of his second coming, forgo college, quit their jobs, and abandon their responsibilities because they think they won’t matter. That may be why God doesn’t reveal the time of his Son’s appearing. If he did, we would make poor choices based on our own presumptions rather than following his lead.

Anticipating his coming doesn’t fix on a date. The early Christians were invited to live that way thousands of years ago. Expectancy about his coming helps us hold on to him in the unfolding circumstances of our lives, to endure the unendurable, and to find his calming voice in times of trouble. It is less about our material concerns than it is yielding to his kingdom growing in us. Embracing the assurance of his ultimate victory will sharpen our priorities in the present.

Many seek to promote fear with false conspiracies and geopolitical predictions. They know how easily they can manipulate our fears to seek vengeance for the “other” and to seek retribution for those we perceive as our enemy. However, the end of the age is not about vengeance from God’s perspective; it’s about redemption. Give in to vengeance against evil, and it will blind you to God’s love, replacing it with hatred for those who aren’t like you and make you a party to the us vs. them theatrics that are tearing our world apart.

Redemption can happen wherever God’s love encounters the chaos of a fallen world. That’s what Jesus did in his living and his dying. If you truly anticipate his redemption at the end of the age, you will embrace it as it appears in your life today. You’ll wake up looking for ways God’s love in you can touch the agony of human failure and pain around you.

So, instead of trying to control the chaos of darkness or even defeat it, you can leave that to Jesus, whose task it has always been. Yours is to learn to live in the chaos, looking for ways God wants to make his love known in us and through us. Who is he giving me to love today, and how can I support them as they traverse the chaos? Where is he asking me to lay myself down to help alleviate the sufferings of others so that love can do its work?

For most of my life, the only strategy I had in facing the chaos of darkness was to ask God to fix it, whether that meant healing my diseases, changing my misfortunes, or punishing those who caused me grief. When he failed to do so, it was easy to question his love for me or if I was doing enough to merit the fix I wanted.

Now, I’m learning to negotiate the chaos around me inside his redemptive purpose. Isn’t that what Jesus did? He didn’t fix all the chaos around him, but submitted to his Father’s purpose in the lies of the Pharisees, the brutality of Roman rule, and even the betrayal of his closest friends. So, now I ask, how does loss draw me closer to him? How does my pain open a wider door into my dependence on his love? How do the unjust actions of others reveal the darker places still in my heart?

Yes, I talk to him about healing my cancer. I would love that. But when he hasn’t done it yet, I ask how he wants to walk with me through it. He can heal it at any time, but I have lived long enough to know that his miracles are not at our beck and call, and he has many other ways to love us when we are tormented by darkness.

That kind of love rearranges our hearts from the inside, making us more loving, gracious, and a comfort to others. Watching for his redemptive hand around me each day has become an adventure that sets me at ease in crisis and shows me how to sit with others in their pain. I don’t have to fix them; I just get to be present as love does its work.

And I anticipate with joy the day when all the chaos and conflict will be overturned by Jesus’s final redemption. I also look for that in every circumstance I encounter. Where does love lead me, and how will gentleness and kindness help me discover the better version of me?

I now understand that the work of redemption cannot be reduced to institutional programs or political agendas, where we strive to impose virtue on the reluctant. Jesus didn’t use such tactics, nor did he teach his disciples to do so. Those who seek to dominate this world in his name have no idea who he is. His kingdom is an invitation, never an imposition. People emerge from the darkness when they experience a love greater than themselves. You don’t learn that from books or in seminars, but only by facing your challenges with the love, courage, and wisdom of the Spirit.

I don’t know how he will sort out his redemption in the world. I don’t know how he works out justice in the life to come. I don’t know how he will make up for the incredible damage some people have suffered at the hands of others. Not all accounts get squared in this life, that’s for sure. How does the villain find his justice, and his victim her recompense?

But I know him, and I entrust all my unanswered questions to the Father I love and to Jesus, who will get the final word on everyone and everything. He is loving, kind, and fair in ways I could never imagine. I look forward to the day that all of this will finally make sense. What was life all about here, and what will eternity look like when chaos is no more?

 

Come, Lord Jesus!

Janine, we began this book with the call that it’s time for the sons and daughters of God to be revealed. Whether Jesus’s second coming is just around the corner or still a hundred years out is not in my purview. But it is for me to live the redemption I hope for in the way I treat people today.

Won’t you join me?

These pages carry a gentle invitation to draw into the deep places where our love and trust in him aren’t based on us getting what we want, but the simple and profound magnificence of his presence in us. This is how Jesus prepares us for whatever may come. Too many followers of Jesus are playing the world’s games, thinking they are following Jesus. They have been deluded by the lie that the kingdom comes by coercion. Their wounded hearts look to lash out at their perceived enemies. Their only hope is to be loved back into life, where the tactics of darkness hold no sway.

Throughout my preparations for this book and its writing, I have been gathering twice a month with a team from across the world. We gaze with him at the world as he invites us to learn love more deeply and share it generously, especially with people we have mistakenly seen as our enemies. We hope many others are doing the same.

We are learning many of the things you’ve read about in this book. We are continually drawn to the great need in our world for followers of Jesus to be more deeply tuned to his Spirit, finding their direction not from human reasoning, but by catching the wind of the Spirit. His victory is coming, and his grace will be sufficient for every challenge we face.

We share Creation’s joy for those who reflect God’s glory in the world. The time of his coming may be at hand; the time for us to reveal his love definitely is.

“Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.” (Revelation 22:20)

That phrase makes my heart soar in a way it hasn’t before. I’m convinced we live in the moments before the dawn. Certainly, darkness seems to rule everywhere we look, but for those with eyes to see, the skies have already begun to brighten ever-so-slightly on the eastern horizon.

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Order Part 1 of It’s Time from Amazon in Kindle or paperback, or read previous chapters online.

Chapter 21: And Then the End Shall Come Read More »

“A Tender, Urgent, Spirit-infused Call”

First, I want to thank all of you who helped us save the petrol station in Kenya, which supports impoverished families near Kitale. As of last Friday, we were short almost $5,000 from reaching our goal. Someone called that morning and wanted to provide whatever we still needed. So, we had all we needed to help our friends. You have so often amazed me with your generosity, and it spills over into great thanksgiving to God for how he has helped us time and time again intervene on their behalf.

Additionally, I would like to share with you a review I received from Citi of Books regarding my new book, It’s Time: Letters to the Bride of Christ at the End of the Age. They have captured the heart in both the content and spirit of what I wanted this book to convey. For someone not associated with my book or familiar with what I do at Lifestream and TheGodJourney, I’m blown away by their gracious words:

Wayne Jacobsen’s It’s Time! is a tender, urgent, and Spirit-infused call to the heart of every believer who dares to ask: What if Jesus is coming back sooner than we think—and are we living like it matters? In this moving collection of spiritual letters, Jacobsen writes not with fear or fanaticism, but with deep love and prophetic insight—guiding Christ’s followers into readiness not just for His return, but for the kind of radiant, resilient faith needed in these final hours.

Drawing from the imagery of the Bride of Christ, Jacobsen paints a portrait of a people set apart—longing not for escape, but for intimacy with the Bridegroom. His tone is pastoral and poetic, rooted in Scripture and overflowing with wisdom born of experience and prayer. As he walks the hills near his home and listens to the whisper of the Spirit, he passes on that whisper to us—reminding us of what it means to live faithfully in an age clouded by darkness and deception.

This is not apocalyptic speculation. It’s spiritual preparation. With honesty and clarity, Jacobsen reminds us that whether Christ returns in 10 years or 150, there must always be a generation willing to:

  • Love beyond self-preservation
  • Shine brighter than the lies of the age
  • Walk in unshakable trust amid the shaking of nations
  • Anchor hope not in outcomes, but in God’s sovereign story

What makes It’s Time! so compelling is that it doesn’t scream for attention—it sings. It calls quietly, yet powerfully, to the Bride of Christ to awaken, to prepare, and to live as though eternity is nearer than we think.

Wayne Jacobsen has given the global Church a gift: a love letter from heaven echoed through the voice of a faithful servant. It’s Time! is not just about eschatology—it’s about transformation. It’s about what kind of people we’re becoming as we wait, watch, and witness. Whether you’re weary, wondering, or wide awake, this book will call you higher—to readiness, to holiness, and to Jesus.

Don’t just read it. Respond to it.

Because maybe… it really is time.

Wow! I am so grateful.

I’m currently writing the final chapter of Part 2, and then the book will be available in its entirety.  If you don’t have your copy of Part 1, you can order it from Amazon on Kindle or in paperback. The ebook is only $4.99, and the paperback is $7.99.

“A Tender, Urgent, Spirit-infused Call” Read More »

Chapter 20: Stand By

Chapter 20: Stand By

Note: This is the twentieth in a series of letters written for those living at the end of the age, whenever that comes in the next fifteen years or the next one hundred and fifty years. We have already released the first part of this book in print. You can also access the previous chapters here.  If you are not already subscribed to this blog and want to ensure you don’t miss any of them, you can add your name here.

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I was hoping you would give more practical advice about what we need to do if this age is coming to an end. We can’t just sit around and wait. Don’t we have to do something?
Tyson, a farmer and father in the plains of Iowa

Hi Tyson,

Let’s imagine two warhorses in a pasture. Both are equally strong, but one stands quietly, grazing on the grass at his feet. Every so often, he raises his head and looks around, ensuring all is well. Then, he continues eating. The other stomps his feet on the ground and snorts into the morning air. He’s agitated and nervous, running one way, then another.

Which will be most valuable to his master when he comes for him?

Obviously, the first one. He does not need to bluster because he knows what he is capable of doing. He stands ready for whatever his master might need and does not wear himself out with his fears and insecurities.

My Greek professor in college told me the Greek word for meekness is a word picture of a warhorse at rest. Strong and fearless in battle, he is calm and controlled outside of it. Xenophon, the Greek warrior-philosopher, used that word for warhorses, not referring to their toughness in battle but rather to their standing calmly when they’re not. Meekness is not weakness; it is incredible strength without aggression, arrogance, or anger.

No wonder the meek will inherit the earth. That’s the way Jesus was. Though he held all power in his hands, he was gentle and tender, never having to prove it. I’m sure it took more strength and character to stand before the false accusations of the Pharisees and unjust tortures of Roman guards than to level them all with a legion of angels.

When the Time Comes…

That’s the picture I want you to have, Tyson, as we talk about those alive at the end of days. They will be like warhorses at rest in the company of their Master. They will act when he directs, not lash out in fear or anxiety.

This seems particularly important when Scripture talks about the end of time.  After a series of visions that revealed a broad sweep of the future, right up to the end of the age, Daniel was overwhelmed. “When will these things be?” Daniel asked the angel who had appeared to him, and what was he to do about them?

The angel answered, “Go your way, Daniel, because the words are rolled up and sealed until the time of the end. Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked . . .  But as for you, go on your way until the end. You will rest, and then you will arise to your inheritance at the end of the days.” Daniel 12:8-13

It’s a constant refrain throughout Scripture—don’t fret about the days to come, especially the last days. There wasn’t anything Daniel could do about it at the time, and he needed to entrust it all to God. Whatever part he had at the end would be revealed to him when the time came.

There’s immense curiosity about end-time prophecies, and many want to understand what they need to do before he comes. They want instructions and provisions well in advance of when they are necessary, I suspect, to reassure themselves. But God doesn’t work that way. It seems our trust is more important to him than any advance strategy. We talked about this in the last chapter—living with enough of Jesus on the inside that we’re free to roll with his leading as life unfolds. That will serve us well now and in the days to come.

Be Ready in the Moment

That’s what Jesus told his followers.  “But before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you. They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. This will result in your being witnesses to them. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.  You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. All men will hate you because of me. But not a hair of your head will perish. By standing firm, you will gain life.” (Luke 21:12-17)

All of that certainly happened to the disciples in the first century. It isn’t always easy for us in the Western world to remember that this is happening today and is likely to grow even more so as the age comes to an end. So, what can we do, according to Jesus?

  1. “Make up your mind not to worry beforehand.” Anxiety is such a part of the human experience, especially when we confront potential difficulties of the unknown. But we can decide not to go down that road and bring ourselves back to confidence in him whenever we feel the tentacles of worry reach out for us. By focusing on him and his power, we can lean out of anxiety into trust.
  2. Don’t be shocked when close friends and relatives betray you. Most humans cannot muster faithfulness to a relationship when their personal expedience is at stake. Now is the time to practice doing so whenever people treat you unfairly or accuse you falsely.
  3. Stand firm in him and what you know to be true against every onslaught of darkness, regardless of what others might say about you. He will protect you, and in doing so, we’ll find his life and joy coursing through our veins.
  4. Let the words you need come to you in the moment. You do not need to practice what you’ll say to defend yourself. He will give you words that will be irresistible and incontrovertible. If we have already planned our answers, we won’t hear his. I know it’s hard, but we’ll be better armed in difficult moments if we trust him to show us the way, rather than scripting our words in advance.

We don’t have to wait until the end of days to develop these spiritual muscles. Practice them now in whatever circumstances or challenges you face today. Since we have no idea what will unfold or what our part in it might be, preparing for specific events is impossible. But we can cultivate a relationship with God strong enough to hold us through anything that comes.

We have a great heritage of previous generations of followers of Jesus who stayed true to him despite persecution and threats. His grace and presence have always proved sufficient for the darkest days. It’s why Paul was singing in a Roman prison after being unjustly beaten, and it opened the door for God’s love to flow to the jailer and his family.

To stand firm means we trust the truth we know about Jesus and his love for us, no matter what our circumstances or emotions may be telling us. We all have those moments where angst tries to displace our trust in God. Returning to what we know to be true by relying on the Holy Spirit will ground us in trust. It means risking everything that God is who he says he is.

We Have to Do Something

When the Egyptian army bore down on the children of Israel with chariots and weapons after letting them go, Moses encouraged the people of Israel. “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:13

How hard was that? They could have panicked and fled for their lives, but the Egyptians would have slaughtered them. Standing still before the approaching army would allow them to participate in God’s plan to free them and demonstrate his greatness in the face of overwhelming odds. That lesson was critical for them if they were going to trust God enough to lead them into the Promised Land.

Scripture often encourages us to stand firm and wait for God to act rather than resorting to our own devices and ingenuity. That’s not easy for many of us, preferring to do what we can see to do, which often makes matters worse. Busyness and activity give us the illusion of productivity and safety, but that’s all. If we trust his love enough to wait until he calls us to act, we will find options we never would have contemplated.

The urge to do something, in the face of threat or fear, is one of the most significant deterrents to our life in Jesus. So many bad decisions happen in that moment between feeling threatened and God revealing his solution. Some of the worst things I have ever done on God’s behalf started with someone saying, “Well, someone has got to do something.” Immediately, that focuses on ability and wisdom, rather than standing firm until God reveals his. Beware the person who preys on that impulse by giving you things to do on God’s behalf instead of waiting for him. Follow Jesus, not your frustrations.

Life at God’s Pace

To help my wife heal from the traumas of her childhood, I’ve had to learn to live at Sara’s pace, which is much slower than my own. While pulling weeds one day in Sara’s garden, I hurriedly reached for a weed that was just out of reach. I didn’t realize that, however, until I lost my balance. Moving my foot to keep from falling, I stepped on a stalk of beautiful irises and crushed it. Knowing how much she loved those flowers, I felt I had crushed something in her.

“You need to slow down.” The words crossed my mind instantly. That’s where God began to teach me that my rapid pace wasn’t helpful to Sara’s freedom. Since then, “Life moves at the speed of Sara” has become part of my vocabulary. It applies to everything I do, from driving to preparing dinner to our conversations. I discovered I actually like living at a slower pace, making me more attuned to what’s happening around me or what others are feeling.

Slowing to her pace also helped me recognize how much I outpace God. I’d already noticed that he seemed to move slower than I would like, and many of my prayers were trying to get God to catch up to my ambitions or hopes. Learning to live at his pace, which is even slower than Sara’s, took some time. Waiting on the Lord isn’t a test of patience; it’s the recognition that we move more rapidly than he does.

When we’re having trouble seeing God or listening to him, maybe it’s because we are rushing ahead of him. Have you noticed he is far slower at doing things than any of us would like? His work is much more deliberate, incubated in love, not fear, in trust, not anxiety. He’s doing real work inside while we try to get him to plaster cosmetic fixes on the outside. Jesus invited us to follow him, which means we must walk a pace behind him. You can’t follow from in front. Then we can do what we see Father doing, just as Jesus did.

That’s why we’re told to be still and know that he is God (Psalm 46:10), and to discover “the unforced rhythms of grace.” (Matthew 11:29 MSG)  Both require us to slow down and enjoy his pace.

In the Meantime…

So, how do we live with the end of the age in mind? Some have encouraged people to sell their goods and move into communities off the grid. I know people who have quit their jobs and gone on an evangelism binge because they think the time is short. But none of these ever bear fruit unless they come at his leading. We don’t know when the end is coming, so don’t make life-altering decisions until it is clear what he’s asking of you.

Like the warhorse at rest, we don’t need to be anxious about the days to come or devise a plan to cope with what might happen. Jesus indicated that those who would be most ready are not those focused on the date, but simply living in his goodness each day. That means loving your spouse and others around you, caring for your family and for others who cross your path, and growing in God’s goodness while encouraging others to do the same.

When you live at rest in God’s goodness, you’ll find the renewal that will keep you ready whenever God has something for you.

  • Actively look for ways to engage others near you—family, co-workers, neighbors. Practice hospitality, generosity, graciousness, and getting to know others, and all the more as the world convulses in the final birth pangs. People will need help with fear and uncertainty. Getting to know them now will make it easier to help them then.
  • Find the rhythm that lets you marinate in his love, recognizing it through your struggles and resting in the growing confidence that he will care for you.
  • Practice learning to listen to his thoughts and nudges in the challenges you face.
  • Let him keep untwisting what sin, the world, and trauma may have done to you. Discover the growing freedom that trust will lead you to experience, and how it will demonstrate his glory to the world around you.
  • Pray for other followers of Jesus that they will not be led astray by those who want to “do something” or are intimidated by others’ voices. Pray they will have the courage to trust what they hear, even if it contradicts the comfort of their friends and family.

Tyson, you don’t need specific instructions on what you should do if this is the end of days. He will show each of us what our part is when the time comes. He is preparing a bride for what is not yet. Now we need to learn to stand by, waiting for his instructions.

So, come sit with Jesus often and gaze with him at world events as the future unfolds. There’s no better place to bring your heart to stillness in the face of the unknown and to ready your heart to respond to him whenever he calls you.

Confident in his wisdom and power, you can be like the warhorse at rest until the time comes. Fearless about what may come, you’ll be quick to respond as redemption reaches its fulfillment.

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Order Part 1 of It’s Time from Amazon in Kindle or paperback, or read previous chapters online.

Chapter 20: Stand By Read More »

Chapter 19: Children of the Day 

Note: This is the nineteenth in a series of letters written for those living at the end of the age, whenever that comes in the next fifteen years or the next one hundred and fifty years. We have already released the first part of this book in print. You can also access the previous chapters here.  If you are not already subscribed to this blog and want to ensure you don’t miss any of them, you can add your name here.

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How can you write with such conviction about these things when you hold to a point of view a lot of other Christians don’t share? Don’t get me wrong, my heart is in sync with almost everything you’ve written, but I’m always second-guessing myself because I know so few people who see it the way I do. 

Marcellus, basketball coach and father of two in Virginia

Marcellus, 

First, if I had followed the Christian crowd throughout my life, I wouldn’t know Jesus the way I know him today. I didn’t start out to be a nonconformist. In my early days, I could work Christianity as well as anyone, and I so much wanted its affirmation. But the choices I was presented with kept knocking me off that path, either because I couldn’t compromise something I knew to be true or because Jesus invited me in a different direction.

That used to frustrate me. Why couldn’t I fit in like everyone else? It wasn’t because I thought I was wiser; I just could not do otherwise. I love that you second-guess yourself if that doesn’t overwhelm you or dissuade you from following him. Humility, as I wrote about earlier, is a gift, especially when we recognize that we only see in part. I hope this book encourages people like you to follow their heart without the arrogance of thinking they have all the answers. There’s much I don’t see and don’t know, but I try to follow where he leads. 

At the same time, I don’t mind expressing what I see as honestly as I can and entrusting it to the reader to discern what is true. I know many will reject much of this book, but I am not trying to convince people who are locked into Christianity as a religion, but rather to encourage those who seek a more authentic faith in Jesus than what it can sustain.  

Jesus warned us that the broad road leads to destruction; only the narrow path leads to life. I can’t help it if few people want to follow it. Twelve men went into Canaan to spy out the land, but only two thought God big enough to give it to them. No one would face the giant Goliath, except David, the shepherd boy. Jesus miraculously fed five thousand people, who abandoned him the next day when he spoke words they didn’t understand. At the end of his ministry, Paul said that “all in Asia” had deserted him, including some of the New Testament’s key congregations. 

What it takes to embrace genuine life doesn’t seem to sustain crowds. Even Jesus wondered if he would still find faith on the earth when he returned (Luke 18:8). Resisting the darkness to keep our faith in him is challenging for any of us. It is not easy to deviate from the crowd and suffer the judgments of others. Because we mistakenly measure success in this kingdom by crowd size, book sales, or Internet followers, the temptation to distort the life of Jesus for popularity and money is ever-present, and the person succumbing to it can convince himself that God is leading them.  

Whenever the person of Jesus is displaced at the center of our faith so that we follow a program or agenda in his place, we are on a road to disaster. That’s why finding our affirmation in the acclaim of the masses won’t draw us more deeply into him. Following him in whatever he reveals to you is not a matter of thinking you’re better or wiser than others; it is simply being genuine with the light you see. That will serve you well in the days to come. 

 

Children of the Light

Paul warned us that the Day of the Lord would come as a thief in the night, taking many by surprise. “While people are saying, ‘Peace and security,’ destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.” (I Thessalonians 5:1-3)

Those are ominous words and have been used to terrify many in Christianity’s relentless strategy to manipulate people’s fears. But Paul didn’t stop there: “But you are not in the darkness so that this day should overtake you like a thief. For you are all sons of the light and sons of the day; we do not belong to the night or to the darkness…. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him. Therefore encourage and build one another up, just as you are already doing.” (I Thess 5:4-5, 10-11)

“Live together with him” is such a beautiful phrase. That’s the theme of this book. We get to live with him no matter what comes, and he will take care of us. While we live in a time of great darkness, we don’t belong to it. We are children of the day. Our hope is firmly staked in a kingdom that embraces a reality far beyond this age. 

The kingdom doesn’t come by human strategy and cannot be fulfilled by our religious institutions. Jesus didn’t give his followers an organization to protect, but his Spirit to follow. Yet, on the day he ascended, they were still looking for him to take control of the world on Israel’s behalf. If not now, when? His answer invited them to look in a different direction. “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.” (Acts 1:7)

Those preoccupied with prophecies and dates are looking at the wrong horizon—where the sun sets, not where it rises. Children of the day have their eyes fixed on a different dimension where the kingdom of God thrives. Though it hasn’t yet come in its fullness, that is still their primary citizenship, and they are loyal to that kingdom above all else.

Instead of looking for political fulfillment, Jesus told them to wait! And wait they did, until the Spirit came upon them. They learned at the outset that God didn’t need them to bring the kingdom, but only respond when he does. What amazes me about the book of Acts is that nothing happened by their strategic planning or prayer meetings. Filled with the Spirit, they responded to what Jesus was doing around them. That’s what it means to live as children of the light. 

Peter and John weren’t looking to heal a lame beggar at the temple; the opportunity crossed their path, and they were ready to respond. Afterwards, they weren’t tempted to start a supernatural ministry school to train others to repeat what they had done as a new evangelism strategy.  

It wasn’t Peter’s idea to take the Gospel to Gentiles. God set up the circumstances through dreams and visions that Peter willingly followed, even beyond his prejudices. When the Spirit fell on them, Peter recognized that God had incorporated them into his kingdom. Then he had to come back and explain it to his fellow Jews, who were appalled at the story they heard. 

Paul’s journeys did not result from structured itineraries, but from his willingness to follow the Spirit along the way. Everything helped shape that journey, from avoiding persecution to dreams that changed his plans. He even found passage to Rome as a prisoner, falsely accused by the religious leaders in Jerusalem, who had hoped to murder him. 

Jesus wanted his followers to watch him work and respond rather than substitute their ingenuity and planning. They didn’t become champions of the political or religious world. They didn’t fit into either and were persecuted by both. They were lied about, stoned, imprisoned, and martyred, and yet the life of Jesus found a way through it all to reveal himself to the world. 

Children of the light are not perfect people, but sensitive followers of Jesus, with a trust in him stronger than their own perspective.

 

Succumbing to the Night

It isn’t easy to live as children of the light when everything about this world seeks to draw us back into the darkness. It can happen so subtly that we don’t even realize it, until we feel empty and lost. Jesus warned his followers that the end of days would be particularly challenging to keep our hearts embedded in the light. “At that time many will fall away and will betray and hate one another, and many false prophets will arise and mislead many. Because of the multiplication of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.” (Matthew 24:10-12) He added that the very elect would be deceived unless he cut the days short. 

Whenever we abandon love for any other agenda, we are easily deceived by power, just like the Pharisees. They had divided the world into those who were acceptable to God and those who weren’t. They were more concerned about law than life and found it easy to hate those who were not like them. That’s why they didn’t recognize God’s Son when he stood right before them. They got caught up manipulating the politics of the day instead of looking for a city whose builder is God. 

We already see false prophets leading God’s people astray, putting their hope in a political leader who advances their desires. Even though he is the moral opposite of Jesus Christ, those prophets have anointed him as the political savior of Christianity, and by doing so, their love for God and others has grown cold. Those who follow them are playing in the realm of human power and have lost sight of the day. 

They still give lip service to Jesus despite losing touch with his nature and love. They are so preoccupied with the quest for power to fulfill their ambitions or seven-mountain mandate, thinking the eternal kingdom can come by coercion, manipulation, and arrogance. And don’t think the same dynamics aren’t at work in the political left. This is not a contest between liberal and conservative, but between darkness and light. This is not about what policies you prefer, but the fear and anger that an elite class manipulates to gain power over a nation. 

The majority Christian view has almost always been on the wrong side of historical crossroads—from crusades and inquisitions to colonial conquest and slavery to racism and Apartheid, even to Hitler’s rise in Nazi Germany. Whenever Christianity aligned itself with the power of empire, it was seduced into tactics of the night, forsaking the priorities of God’s kingdom. There was a day when you could engage the democratic process without compromising participation in Jesus’s kingdom, but that’s nearly impossible today. The amount of money, lies, and anger that are part of our process on both sides negates the love of Christ. 

That’s why many feel they just don’t fit in anymore—not to the religious environment they grew up in or the political party they championed at a younger age. Over the last thirty years, Jesus has been calling his bride back to himself, raising up followers who can see through the illusion of Christianity as a human-built religion made up of doctrines and regulations that emptied the cross of its power. 

Sadly, some of those have gone on to try to recreate their own systems promising a more authentic experience and have been found wanting. But others have spent time in the wilderness of faith, looking for the truth and community that only Jesus can provide. That has taken many of them out of the institutions in which their faith was nurtured so that it could grow. They have been scorned and mocked, the quality of their faith questioned because they no longer conformed to the expectations of their family and friends. 

In the process, however, they have reconnected to Jesus as a real presence. Their faith sent roots deep into God’s character and nature. Trusting in his love for them, they know how Father’s love holds them in the storm and how his presence and wisdom can guide them through anything. They have become children of the day without the fear or anger that others can manipulate.

 

Simeon and Anna

Children of the day were like Simeon and Anna when Jesus first came—two elderly people who hoped they would see the Messiah before death. Sure enough, in the temple courts, they saw an infant barely a month old and recognized in him the salvation of Israel. They saw in that baby a reality that more educated minds couldn’t recognize in a thirty-something man who had been healing and teaching throughout Israel.  

They were tuned into a reality others could not see. Many in Israel were so focused on overthrowing Rome and claiming their country back that they missed him when he came with a greater redemption than political change could accomplish. They were not ready to embrace the infant at the temple, or the itinerant preacher who spoke wisdom they could not manipulate for their ends. 

In the last days, people like Simeon and Anna will wait patiently for a promise against all hope. They will see the signs leading to his return. They will see him standing at the door, ready to fulfill in his own humanity what God had in mind from the Creation of the world. The darkness of those days won’t overwhelm them because their eyes are fixed on a brighter light. 

The final chapter of redemption’s story is about to be written. This is a contest for the soul of the universe, pitting love and light against selfishness and darkness. Some live oblivious to this conflict, while others are discerningly aware. 

In preparation for those days, he is calling a people who will bear his glory in the world. They will be known for their love and for upholding God’s justice in treating others with graciousness and compassion.

 

Comfortable in Uncertainty

The greatest joy of finding security in the presence of Jesus is that people no longer seek it from worldly circumstances. Confident in his love and care, they realize he can guide them through anything. Their comfort is set to his presence, not their desired outcomes. 

Years ago, I began to meet people who were comfortable with uncertainty. I was intrigued because it seemed so foreign to me. My Type-A personality was more inclined to manipulate my circumstances, or more honestly, trying to enlist God to do so, for whatever I desired. It just so rarely worked because God was not invested in my agenda. Living that way was exhausting, borrowing anxiety from future events that never happened and for which there was no provision.

I was intrigued by those who could take each day as it came. They didn’t have a lot of resources in earthly terms, but didn’t seem to need them. They were confident that God would give them what they needed when the time came. They learned to hold their fears of the future in suspicion because they could rarely foresee accurately what was to come. Never panicking, never manipulating, and never fearful, they walk with a growing trust in the Father. 

Through crisis and tragedy, they had learned that God was faithful to provide for them each day whatever they needed.  Worrying about the future became unnecessary. They came to see that God’s grace, like his provision, is served up in daily doses. We can be so distracted by our imagined future that we miss how he wants to guide us today. 

These were the people I wanted to be near, for they were at peace in times of extremity, able to listen and respond to Jesus’s leading. Also, they reflected his character invitingly, being people of compassion, integrity, and gentleness. Being with them constantly refreshed me and made me long to learn how to trust God like they did.

All the while, Jesus kept inviting me to find fulfillment in his desires and purpose instead of mine. That also came through moments of extremity and frustration when he provided answers I would never have contemplated. My anxieties began to whither, and with them came the exhaustion of serving them. 

Children of the light are comfortable in uncertainty because their confidence is in the nature and character of Jesus, not their circumstances. How do you learn to live this way? It won’t come from a book; it will come from interacting with him through your anxieties, scheming, and struggles. As you learn how unhelpful it is to try to control the outcomes of your own life, you’ll discover a better life awaits. 

Slowly, a growing trust in Father’s love will push aside the need to have circumstances turn out the way you prefer. Instead of being frustrated about what he isn’t doing, you’ll watch him care for you through times of struggle and pain in ways you’d never have imagined. On the day you realize he knows best about everything in your life, you’ll find yourself comfortable in the uncertainties of life.

That will allow Jesus’s character to find a home in you. Without the anxieties of what may come, you’ll be more present in the moment with his compassion and kindness toward others. Then you’ll not only live in that light, but you will become the light for others to see the glory of God’s goodness. 

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Order Part 1 of It’s Time from Amazon in Kindle or paperback, or read previous chapters online.

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Chapter 17: Embracing God in Your Pain

Note: This is the seventeenth in a series of letters written for those living at the end of the age, whenever that comes in the next fifteen years or the next one hundred and fifty years. We have already released the first part of this book in print. Or you can access the previous chapters here.  If you are not already subscribed to this blog and want to ensure you don’t miss any, you can add your name here.

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To be an evangelical in rural France is to be a minority of minorities. Even my family has ostracized me. You talk about God using our troubles to transform us, but I don’t see how he does that. I’ve spent my entire life avoiding pain, asking God to end it when it comes, and being angry when he doesn’t. How can I come to appreciate God at work in my suffering?

—Jean-Paul, a young father living in the Loire Valley in France

Dear Jean-Paul,

You ask a critically important question. It has taken most of my life to discover how to embrace God in my suffering. Like many, I grew up with the silly notion that God would protect me from pain. I could quote Scriptures that seemed to suggest it, except for persecution, of course. And, since I live in America, that isn’t supposed to happen.

So, whenever I felt in pain, I would ask God to take it away. Rarely did he, which led me to doubt his love, the quality of my faith, or whether the Bible was true. Even the culture was enamored with the question of suffering. How could a loving God create a world with so much pain?

He didn’t, of course. The suffering in our world does not come from him but from the chaos of a creation out of sync with its Creator and the weakness of humanity with arrogance, greed, and selfishness. Calamities happen, people will take advantage of you; sickness, disease, and injury are a constant threat, and daily needs can overrun you. Looking back, I am amazed at how I missed all the Scriptures about how God works in incredible ways through suffering and that those who walk by faith will often find more trouble because they’re walking against the ways of the world.

So why didn’t I hear more teachings on how to suffer graciously or find what God is doing through it? It seems we would rather hope for a quick miracle and deal with the frustration of it not happening than embrace suffering. Some of the most painful conversations I have are with people who genuinely believe that if God loved them, he would ensure that nothing bad could happen to them that he wouldn’t immediately fix.

So, thanks for your question, Jean-Paul. Let me take a stab at helping you transit pain in a way that brings God’s goodness out of it. Finding God’s love at the extremity of human suffering is a sacred gift. Here are the thoughts that help me when troubles come.

 

Invite God Along

I know that seems simple, but it’s easy to push God out of our suffering and try to handle it with our own strength. We do that in several ways. The most common is to blame him. Whether you think he orchestrated or just allowed it won’t matter. How do you run to someone for aid and comfort when you think they’re the source of your pain? He certainly isn’t, but many think he is. However, he can walk us through it, even utilizing it to do a deep work within. 

Another way we push him aside is to try to ignore our pain. Denial and overcompensating with coping mechanisms will crowd him out as well. Embrace the pain you’re in and invite him into it. This is where the children of the New Creation can shine brightest. When you find redemption in the difficulties of this world and demonstrate what it is to be his beloved child through it, the world is yours.

Finally, we push him away by only thinking that our circumstances will be resolved through healing or miraculous provision. Many people mistakenly set their perception of God’s love based on how he answers their prayers or resolves their circumstances.

That’s not to say we won’t rant and question him when we are surprised by pain but don’t expect many answers there. When we treat God as our adversary, hearing him say, “I’m sorry you’re going through this,” is nearly impossible. And knowing he’s empathetic to our struggle allows us to lean into his care and listen to his heart. So, hopefully, when trouble hits, we can find a way to settle into his love and invite him inside our pain. The fellowship of suffering is deep and intimate.

Embracing God at moments of extremity always involves surrender, laying down my fears and accusations, and being determined to find out how he loves me through this. Whether it is a marriage breaking up, grief, cancer diagnosis, betrayal of a friend or family, or needs bigger than my resources, I find a place of surrender to him. “If possible, take this cup from me, but if not, I choose to trust you through it” is where I best recognize him.

It allows my heart to stay open to a miracle should he desire it but, at the same time, honor the pain that has entered my life. When God is no longer your adversary or even the reluctant Father who won’t give you what you want, you’ll realize that no matter how dark things get, he is working for you. From his experience, Jesus knows the pain that life can deal out and how it is to find his Father in it. When you do that, you’ll begin to see his way through it and the fruit he is developing in you.

He can show you if you suffer from reaping something you have sown. If you suffer because of your arrogance, indulgence, and selfishness, he will still be with you, leading you to repentance, humility, and further freedom. However, undeserved suffering opens doors into the depths of God’s heart. That’s why Peter warned the early Christians to take care to ensure they don’t deserve what they suffer. Hardship caused by the sin or injustice of others opens a greater pathway to God’s heart.

 

Embrace Hardship as Discipline 

One of the things that helps me face suffering comes from Hebrews. “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children.” (Hebrews 12:7) If you think of that as chastisement, you’ll miss the point entirely. He’s not referring to an angry father punishing you because of his disappointment; this is a loving Father who uses the brokenness of this world to teach us the discipline of his ways.

Every trouble we encounter is a training ground to deepen our walk with him. God recycles everything, even the injustice of others, as a tool to draw us more deeply into his way of thinking. What you go through today prepares you for what may yet come down the road. We always hope our current moment of suffering is our last, but life in a broken world will continue to throw difficulties at you, and all the more as we come to the end of the age.

Those of us raised in more comfortable circumstances usually have a real aversion to pain. We’ll do anything to avoid it. And our only approach when it comes, is to seek immediate relief, even trying to enlist God’s help to do that. None of this prepares us to manage our pain redemptively.

Paul had a different approach. Listen to how he negotiated the horrible things that befell him: “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” (2 Cor 4:8-10) Paul drew a fantastic distinction between what could happen to him and what Jesus could do with it on the inside. 

Hardship offers us a doorway to transformation as well as a doorway to anger and bitterness. If we can embrace whatever suffering comes our way and, more significantly, embrace God inside of it, we’ll find the door to life. The writer of Hebrews adds this, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of justice and peace for those who have been trained by it.” (Hebrews 12:11)

A friend from South Africa and I recently discussed how love cannot be learned as a technique without being experienced. He added, “But we can learn how to lean deeper into love, accept suffering as the training ground to diminish the ego, and so learn how to let love flow out even to those who hate us and those who spitefully use us.”

That is a powerful way to live. None of us like to have our ego diminished, but that is how we learn to love in this world. Even Jesus learned obedience amid loud cries and tears through the things that he suffered. (Hebrews 5:7-8) How important would it be for us to learn the same way? Don’t waste your pain; let it change you, leaving you more surrendered to the God who loves you more than anyone else ever has or ever will.

If you want his glory to be revealed in you, learn to embrace hardship rather than run from it. “Rejoice; inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” (1 Peter 4:12–13)

 

Ask Answerable Questions 

The first question we are prone to ask in times of trouble is, “Why?” Why me? Why didn’t God protect me from this? I have discovered that ‘why’ questions almost always lead down a darker road of grief and doubt. In my experience, they are usually impossible to answer because our finite perspective is too limited for a satisfyingly logical answer.

I used to challenge God with those questions before I learned to live in his love. “Why are you doing this to me?” “Why won’t you give me a miracle to take it away?” I have even prayed vengeance on those who have caused my anguish and, by doing so, lost sight of love. Thus, for all my whining, I never got a helpful answer.

I discovered a few years ago that I had stopped asking such questions without realizing it. Two decades ago, I was talking to a friend who wanted me to explain why God allowed his wife to leave him. It was then I recognized how long it had been since I raised that kind of question with God, and it felt awkward. That’s when I realized my questions had changed from why to where or how. “Where are you in this pain?” “How are you making your love available to me here?”  “How do you want me to navigate this trial?”

Answers to those questions seep into my heart over time. I switched to those questions because they were more answerable. They allowed me to grasp his love and wisdom rather than seeking some contrived justification unbefitting his character.

 

Stay Inside the Day

We add to our suffering whenever we get too far ahead of ourselves. Pain is best managed one day at a time. Rather than worrying about how long it will last, it is far better to ask, “Do I have what I need to get through today?” That’s all we are promised. Grace is meted out in daily portions. Jesus explicitly warned us not to worry about tomorrow, for today has enough challenges of its own. (Matthew 6:34)

When I was diagnosed with a fractured vertebra and the cancer that caused it, I was shocked. I had no idea this was coming. As my doctors charted out my next few months, including back surgery and a lifetime of chemotherapy, it was too overwhelming to consider. I intentionally decided to take on this challenge one day at a time. What do I need to get through this day?

Did I pray to be healed?  Who wouldn’t if you believe he does such things?  But I did not put all my hope in a miracle I couldn’t guarantee. So, I would talk to Jesus about healing, but I would look for his leading to walk through each day of this. I certainly was not going to try and earn it.

That meant I would do whatever I saw to do each day. Sara and I made decisions about our medical options, and when that became back surgery, I did what I could each day to manage the pain and keep looking to him. I left my questions in trust with Jesus, and I knew he would answer them when I needed them.

Also, staying inside the day allowed me to look for his presence, joy, and beauty each day. If I wait for joy until a miracle, medicine, or endurance has its work, I’ll be worn out with sorrow. Each day, find something that brightens your heart by getting out into nature or gazing at it through your window or video. Listen to music that calms you. Talk to people who inspire you.

 

Don’t Go It Alone 

None of us were meant to bear our struggles alone. Invite your community along for the ride as a source of encouragement and wisdom. This is not posting your need on Facebook or submitting a prayer request to the congregation’s website or bulletin. Invite three or four people to walk through the crisis with you.

Ideally, these relationships are already close. You have offered them the same presence during their struggles that you now ask of them. You know they will talk to Jesus about you and allow him to put Scriptures or other encouragements on their heart. Hopefully, you will check in with each other every few days.

With my recent cancer diagnosis, I had three friends located in three different countries who I knew were suffering from this same disease. Their empathy and information were a calming influence as my own journey unfolded.

Protracted suffering or a chronic condition can provide a unique challenge here. Ensure you are not just using your friends as targets of grumbling or complaining. You can be honest about that too but don’t stay there. People who want to be alongside you will be exhausted by hopeless complaints or only praying for a miracle that is not coming. You are looking for a conversation about how God navigates your heart through it, so there is hope and encouragement. That may not be an easy road to find, but community will make it far easier than going it alone.

 

Look for Ways to Be Redemptive

Just because you are in need doesn’t mean you have to focus all your attention on yourself. Pain is easier to negotiate when you can find ways to bless others.

Every day, I’m reminded how much Sara discovering her trauma has reshaped the trajectory of both of our lives into such an incredibly beautiful space. It has been excruciatingly painful, but I love the fresh air here, clearer perspective, and greater trust in Jesus through uncertainty. And her ability to encourage others in similar struggles helps her navigate her own.

When I see how holding my pain encourages others to navigate their own, my heart rejoices, and my endurance is enhanced. As you discover his goodness during dark days, look for ways to share it with others. Here’s where suffering does its most beautiful work. When we are less focused on ourselves, the load becomes easier to bear. And having traversed deep waters, you’ll be able to stand with those who face them as well.

When you suffer injustice from others, you’ll never want to do it to anyone else. When you are lied about or betrayed by someone you love and don’t grow bitter, you’ll never want to do it to anyone else. When you’ve suffered heartbreak, disease, or grief, you’ll have more empathy to offer others and wisdom as well.

 

Don’t Forget the Glory to Come

In the verse preceding Paul’s statement about the Creation longing for the children of God to be revealed, which is the theme verse of this book, he wrote,  “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18)

Suffering in Christ always gives way to glory. That’s why it’s worth it, Jean-Paul, to embrace Jesus in our pain and suffering. Not only can he get you through it, but he will leave you a better person in its wake. While we can often see how that bears fruit in this life, we don’t yet know how that will reveal his glory in the ages to come.

But I suspect it most certainly will.

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Order Part 1 of It’s Time from Amazon in Kindle or paperback.

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What Others Are Saying about It’s Time

I hope this means my new book hasn’t gone to the dogs already. People have been sending pictures as well as comments, so if you haven’t ordered a copy yet here’s what others are saying about my new book, It’s Time: Letters to the Bride of Christ at the End of the Age.

“Thank you for your latest book, It’s Time. I can’t think of anyone else I would choose to write such a book! I will be sharing it liberally and recommending it wholeheartedly.” Tom in Texas

“Every chapter has brought comfort and encouragement to my heart!”  Mary in Missouri

“Your new book is so perfectly apropos for this moment. I am reading it slowly, meditatively, and prayerfully.”  Mark in Oregon

“My wife rarely reads any Christian literature, but as soon as your book arrived, she picked it up and expressed how happy she was to read it after reading the first few pages.  I am savouring each chapter, and it is an excellent read. It is so refreshing to read something that doesn’t try to line up all the dates and prophetic ducks.” Len in Canada

“I want you to know how much I am enjoying it and how my spirit is resonating with your words. They paint such a beautiful picture of Jesus’ love for his bride and his purposes at the end of the age.  Thank you for publishing this book.” Kim on Instagram

Thanks to those who have already written to me about this book. I appreciate your thoughts. If you don’t have your copy, you can order it from Amazon on Kindle or in paperback. The ebook is only $4.99, and the paperback is $7.99.

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Chapter 16: The God-Shaped Life, Part II

Note: This is the sixteenth in a series of letters written for those living at the end of the age, whenever that comes in the next fifteen years or the next one hundred and fifty years. We have already released the first part of this book in print. Or you can access the previous chapters here.  If you are not already subscribed to this blog and want to ensure you don’t miss any, you can add your name here.

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I love what you started with Francesca. I, too, am tired of trying to change myself and want to see God take shape in me. Is that what Paul meant when he wrote about the renewing of our mind? 

— Gilbert, a 22-year-old seminary student in Chicago, IL

 

Hi Gilbert, 

Exactly. The renewing of the mind is the process by which he takes shape in us. Popular culture today would probably refer to that as the rewiring of our brain, which is a much more powerful image. 

We know now that people who were abused as children suffered trauma that wired their brains to react to circumstances differently than those who have not had trauma. That’s why trying to get them to act differently is fruitless. They live under the constant perception of threat and react by fighting, flight, or fawning. 

Without minimizing people who have suffered horrible trauma by abuse or war, I wonder if God views our sins and failures like I have come to view Sara’s childhood trauma. There’s no blame, only compassion to help her find freedom. 

We were all born with a self-preferring nature in a hostile world. Without Jesus, we were helpless against the power of sin, even when we tried to do better. Furthermore, sin caused us to feel abandoned by the God who made us. Those are classic characteristics of trauma—a lack of agency to protect ourselves and a feeling of abandonment by the one who is supposed to care for us.

So, yes, Jesus wants to rewire our brains so we no longer react to the lies of darkness and self-indulgence. That’s why Jesus didn’t live trying to follow the rules. Instead, he lived with a mind shaped by his Father’s affection. That allowed him to grasp the truth about himself and his world. 

Because he thought differently, he saw people and circumstances as they really were. That’s why he was tuned into their needs and could treat them with compassion, tenderness, and humility. You can’t substitute law, rules, or guidelines for that. It’s a glorious process that goes far deeper than a mere behavioral change. We cannot do it for ourselves; he has to do it in us.

As Jesus settles us in Father’s love, we will be able to recognize the truth of what’s going on around us. We’ll respond out of his love and trust instead of reacting out of our doubts and fears. We won’t need God to tell us what to do at every moment because we learn to think the way he does. Transformation in our actions begins with our engagement with God. He rewires how we think, which will change how we live—naturally and organically. We don’t bring our effort to that process; we only have to offer a willing heart and the patience to see the process through.

As an added benefit, when we realize we can’t change ourselves, we won’t fall prey to the misguided notion that we can change others. We can encourage them both by our words and example, but forcing people to do what we think best will only backfire. Paul was so committed to that process that it felt like giving birth. “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you,” Galatians 4:19

Watching Jesus take shape in us is a miraculous process, often rising out of difficult moments when we give way to his leading instead of saving ourselves. As our trust grows in him, he is formed in us and makes himself known in the world.

The last chapter discussed how that produces sincere love and resilient trust. Now, we’ll look at three other characteristics that evidence Jesus taking shape in us: generous compassion, tender authenticity, and bold humility. Just remember, this is not what we pretend to be; it is what we become as he takes shape in us.

 

Generous Compassion 

I suspect deep compassion was humanity’s default setting before the fall. When unexpected adversity befalls people, almost everyone still displays it. Something deep inside us responds with empathy and concern for people in need, enough to move us to action if we have the means. The problem is that it is either short-lived or provoked by tragedy.

We pass people daily with deep wounds and needs without truly seeing or stopping to help. It’s often too overwhelming to add other people’s pain to our own. Generous compassion is not a generalized feeling of love for the masses; it is the fruit of loving “one another,” each person God gives us, one at a time. It is sacred to be touched by the need of another human enough to call us to action. 

So, how does walking with Jesus allow this generous compassion to take shape? 

First, the more we walk with him, the more clearly we’ll see how much he cares for us. When we no longer fight to get through the day, we will be more aware of others. We’ll finally see them for the first time because we’re not so absorbed in ourselves. That alone will stimulate our compassion and help us see the needs of others alongside our own.  

Second, as I come to know a generous Father, I will want to join him in his generosity. For a long time, overwhelmed with my needs, I didn’t see God as generous. He seemed to withhold what good he could do for reasons I didn’t understand. However, as I became more conversant with how he works, I saw his generosity every day. He did not necessarily give me everything I wanted, but he was always there to provide what I needed in abundance. How do you not share that?

Third, as Jesus untangles our fears and doubts, we have more emotional space to take an interest in people. No one will blurt out their needs to strangers, but they will open up to people with whom they are comfortable. Their struggles will easily touch us as we get to know them and offer whatever we can to alleviate their pain. We can hold their hurts, offering a caring heart, a listening ear, emotional support, time, or money. 

Fourth, we won’t block compassion as it stirs us. We’ve all learned tactics to help us push away compassion as it surges in us. We look for ways to blame others for their needs or comfort ourselves by minimizing their pain. But when we let compassion grow, we’ll know how to respond to them. Even when we are suffering at their hand, we will be able to respond like Jesus and Stephen did when they were being unfairly executed. “Forgive them; they do not know what they do.” Even the failures of the worst perpetrators are driven more by ignorance than intention, which opens the door to forgiveness. 

The early English translations of the Bible described Jesus as being moved by “bowels of compassion.” This expression is not used much today, even though most people feel empathy or compassion in their guts. We obviously can’t engage every person whose path we cross on a given day, but we can recognize in our own bodies when Jesus gives us compassion for another person. 

That’s why in the parable of the sheep and the goats, those caring for Jesus when he was naked, hungry, alone, or imprisoned had no idea they were doing it. “When did we see you that way?” It wasn’t an act; their actions were driven by compassion. When you see Jesus inside needy people, you can’t help but respond to them. 

Learn to recognize God’s generous compassion toward you, and sharing it with others will become second nature. 

 

A Tender Authenticity 

Who doesn’t want to live an authentic life?  How often have we walked away from conversations frustrated that we were too afraid to say what was on their minds, caving into what others might have wanted from us? We want to be accepted by people or at least not allow their judgment to feed our self-condemnation.  

Thus, we lose our ability to be genuine and honest as we play the games that seek to “win friends and influence people.” Unfortunately, that means we live as chameleons, trying to impress people instead of being true to our authentic selves. That’s a lonely life because no one knows who you really are. 

One of the best gifts about being affirmed in the Father’s love is that the opinions of others carry less weight. Both Jesus and Paul warned us that when we seek the approval of others, we won’t know the truth about anything—God, ourselves, or the situation we’re trapped in. Inside his love, we get to discover who we really are, and we’ll find we no longer need others to think well of us.  

The freedom to live authentically is a great gift, but by itself, it can make us obnoxious. In learning authenticity, many often overcompensate, speaking arrogantly or brashly so no one can appreciate what they’re trying to say. That’s why tenderness is so essential to add to authenticity. Though Jesus was truth itself, he took great care not to break a bruised reed or snuff out a smoldering wick. (Matthew 12:20) He didn’t want to add pain to the weakest or most marginalized members of society. 

Tenderness allows us to be authentic in the world and not damage others. It rises in us from Jesus’s example in the Gospels and in how he treats us. He is always faithful to himself but reveals no more than his audience can hear. He only resorted to stringent rebukes when his gentler overtures did not open a door, and even that fell on deaf ears. 

I don’t want my authenticity to overrun others or my speaking truth to cause another to stumble. The power of truth is most readily received when it comes with gentleness. It is hard enough to hear without our demeanor making people defensive instead of open. Can you imagine the freedom in any circumstance to be authentic and have enough love to be tender even toward those trying to harm you? 

In every encounter, we can look for that sweet spot where we never have to be less than ourselves. At the same time, we can approach everyone with a tenderness that will open the widest door to productive and fruitful relationships. 

 

A Bold Humility 

In our culture, boldness is associated with pushy arrogance, and humility with being a cowering wallflower. Neither serves Jesus or his purpose in the world. 

The people who have the least to say are often the first to speak up when an issue arises. They either crave attention or think of themselves as experts at everything. Just as often, those with something meaningful to say sit back, unwilling to fight for a place. As a result, we hear plenty of meaningless noise and little true wisdom.

In these last days, it is time for the wise to be bold without losing a sense of humility. They may get drowned out by more selfish voices, but their words will be there for those who have an ear to hear. 

Where does this boldness come from? Boldness on God’s behalf rises because love cannot remain silent in the face of abuse, deception, or destructive behaviors. When you care about those victimized by darkness, you will want to help them see God’s light. However, this boldness will be a thousand times more effective if it rises from a humble heart. 

And where does this humility come from? Anyone on the adventure of getting to know God realizes they don’t possess all the answers. They have been wrong so often that they hold lightly what they think they know now. While they are confident in what Jesus has taught them, they know they cannot force it on others. They have learned through numerous failures that truth in God’s kingdom comes as an invitation, not a demand.

Inside Jesus, we have nothing to prove, nothing to gain, and nothing to lose. Although they recognize that they have no power or responsibility to change the world or anyone in it, they can still point to the light in ways that give even their detractors the best opportunity to see it. Truly authentic people can speak the truth gently, often with a provocative question or an insightful observation. 

Paul wrote that when he spoke to people, he set “forth the truth plainly commending ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:2) His goal was not to convince but to be as clear as he could and leave it to the Spirit and to conscience to convince and convict.  That’s the humility we need today. Their boldness will put truth into play, but with a humility that allows people to hear it.

 

Here’s the miracle: the more God takes shape in you, the more you become who you truly are. He doesn’t take you over; he expresses himself through you in the way that best befits who he created you to be.  

All five of these characteristics overlap in so many ways, creating a symphony in which God reveals himself to the world. That’s the strength of character God wants on display in the world. I could have summed all this up with the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Anyone who reflects genuine love, resilient trust, generous compassion, tender authenticity, and bold humility will undoubtedly be a gift in a tormented world. 

 

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Chapter 15: The God Shaped Life, Part I

Note: This is the fifteenth in a series of letters written for those living at the end of the age, whenever that comes in the next fifteen years or the next one hundred and fifty years. We have already released the first part of this book in print. Or you can access the previous chapters here.  If you are not already subscribed to this blog and want to ensure you don’t miss any, you can add your name here.

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I try so hard to be a good follower of Jesus, but that only lasts for a brief time before I find myself giving up and sliding back into old habits that make me feel condemned. If the last days are coming, how will I ever be strong enough to make it?
—Francesca, bakery owner from the Tuscany region of Italy

Francesca,

I began this book with the inclination that it is time for the sons and daughters of God to be revealed. According to Paul, the Creation yearns for their appearing with eager expectation, and so do I. Today, there is much confusion about God’s nature because many people who claim to know him do not reflect him well.

This revealing will not primarily be through a supernatural sign or success on the world’s terms, but by the authenticity of a person’s words and the grace of their character forged through life’s hard realities. Instead of being driven by the same motivations as everyone else around them, they are tuned into something deeper, making them beacons of God’s love and light, healers in a time of anger and division.

This has already been happening all over the world, and though they may have remained obscure for now, the time is coming soon for them to be revealed. If you have not found this road yet, Francesca, and yearn to reflect God’s glory in the world, now is the time to discover how that happens.

I hope it will help you to know you’re not alone in your struggle. Many people have tried to produce God’s character on their own, some growing frustrated enough to quit while others find a more productive process. Performing for God harkens back to the days of law, when people struggled to live up to God’s expectations and, failing to do so, got swallowed in condemnation.

He does understand why we go down that road. The process of conformity is the way the world works. As children, we learned the rewards and punishments intended to shape our behavior. Those continue right into adulthood in school, on the job, in life, and even in misguided religious efforts. The best we can produce on our own is self-righteousness, which is even worse than unrighteousness.

In the previous chapter, we discussed Jesus being the firstborn of a new creation. If you want to be part of that generation, you stop working from the outside in and live from the inside out. Let me show you how that works.

 

Not Actors on a Stage

Most religious teachings encourage us to act differently, to shed sinful behaviors and embrace godly ones. It’s easy to cull through Scripture and find all the things we should be doing. If you don’t really love, at least act lovingly. If you struggle with sin, stop it. If you are impatient, pretend you’re not.

However, Jesus didn’t come for a generation of actors. In fact, the word translated hypocrisy from the Greek is literally a stage-player, one who pretends to be someone they are not. That’s why Jesus challenged the Pharisees, “You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.” (Matthew 23:25-26)

Conformity focuses on the outside, transformation on the inside. When the inside is clean, the outside will be too. That seems to be the hardest lesson for humans to learn. We constantly pursue how we should act instead of cultivating an inner life that transforms us. It may be because this process requires patience. It may be quicker to pretend, but it is not sustainable. Jesus wanted us to be liberated from false motivations that scar our lives, such as greed, fear, people-pleasing, and selfishness, and find our passion inside of him.

How do I know if I’m acting? If you walk in condemnation because you think Jesus is disappointed in you, you’re trying to act. If you have something to boast about in your spiritual maturity, then you are acting. True transformation leaves us with nothing to boast about and with no desire for others to think us special. All we’ve done is engage him, and the transformation is his doing. God is not interested in a Wayne-shaped life for God, but in a God-shaped life in Wayne.

The Father’s kingdom rejects conformity as a process and instead opens a better door that changes us from the inside. A caterpillar isn’t conformed into a butterfly. How could it? You can take a caterpillar, put it in a butterfly mold and smash it with a rubber mallet, but in the end, you would only be making a crushed caterpillar. For a caterpillar to become a butterfly it must go through the incredible process of metamorphosis where it becomes totally different.

For Jesus to demonstrate his glory through you, it has to be a genuine expression of what’s true inside. To do that, he wanted us to focus on him rather than on external behavior. People who look like Jesus in the world do so because they walk with him.

 

Believing What You Hear

As you discover what it means to be alongside him, you’ll recognize how he reveals himself to you. This will be less about what you should do and more about showing you the truth about him, yourself, and life as it comes at you. Having his perspective will illuminate the path he has for you.

Initially, his priority will not be to make you a reflection of his glory but to rescue you from darkness. He wants to win you into his love and let you find your security in him so that sin, the lies of darkness, and even trauma will lose their hold over you. As you become more settled in his love, you’ll discover that transformation has already begun.

The essence of a transformed life is walking close enough to recognize how Father, Son, and Spirit interact with you, and when we believe what they show us, we’ll find ourselves living differently. Once he reveals himself, however, we must be obedient and follow, right? Not so fast.

Here’s the step so many people miss. Before you obey, learn to believe what you hear. That’s how Paul described it in Galatians 3. All transformation comes from believing what he reveals to us, even if it takes some time to grasp it. That’s why Jesus doesn’t give us directions nearly as often as he gives us insights. The God-shaped life doesn’t often come in words and directions, but in a growing perception of God’s nature and the desire to be like him. It is less about principles to follow as it is a person to know, and then we will think differently in the situations we face and the people we meet.

Those insights are often challenging because they are not how we usually think or see. But as we meditate on them and come to embrace them, they will change the way we think, which will, in turn, change the way we live, making us obedient without trying to be. Embracing his perspective won’t just help us at the moment, but it will also inform us for a lifetime.

 

A Life Shaped by God’s Life

The hardest thing for a conscientious believer is to let God do the shaping. There’s something in us that wants to do it ourselves, apply our best efforts, and yet, doing so will not produce the fruit of his kingdom. We can only make external changes that seem fake and will not stand the test of time.

Listen to how Peter wrote about it, “Let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness . . .” (1 Peter 1:15 MSG) The gravity of Father’s presence in you will continue to pull you toward a God-shaped life. The process will happen naturally as we learn to stop resisting that pull. Often, we don’t even notice the changes in us until they’re already happening. Suddenly, we notice we’re not responding in the ways we used to in times of extremity or mistreatment.

Living loved inside a relationship with God is the environment in which this shaping occurs. People will see him in us because we’ve been with him, and he’ll express himself uniquely in each of us because he created us differently. He doesn’t want to subvert your personality, but bring out all the colors of its beauty when it is no longer being twisted by the lies we tell ourselves.

All we go through—every bit of our joys, sufferings, or disappointments—are recycled inside God to shape his image in us if we walk with him through them and do not get angry or disillusioned. As I watch Jesus take shape in people, I have noticed five characteristics of their lives. In this chapter and the next, we’ll explore these five attributes: sincere love, resilient trust, generous compassion, tender authenticity, and bold humility.

This could easily be a list people feel pressured to mimic, but I don’t offer them that way. They are simply how people who are finding their home in Jesus lived. They are not something we have to achieve, but what we’ll recognize as he takes shape.

 

A Sincere Love

“Love one another as I have loved you.” (John 13:34-35) Jesus said that this alone would draw the world’s attention and reveal his followers. Almost every one grows up in a fallen world learning to take care of themselves, often at the expense of others. As we let Jesus care for us, we’ll find that love is not complete without being shared.

Sincere love is not how we choose to feel toward others; there’s no pretense in it. Affection for others rises from the inside. It is genuine, honest, and caring, and it endures even in the face of the other person’s weaknesses or wrongdoing toward us. It’s just how a healthy parent loves their children or grandchildren; they don’t have to try. It’s just there, even when they are being difficult.

The more we know of his love, the more we will live others-focused lives, not using people for what we want but looking for ways to help them. This will extend not just to fellow believers but also to all kinds of people; his love is not tribal. We don’t just see our needs, but theirs as well and we will seek to treat each person justly. Where another touches your heart, their suffering becomes your suffering, their joys your joys.

How does that happen? We learn what love is from God himself. Watch how he treats you as the perfect definition of love. He doesn’t always tell you what you want to hear and doesn’t always give you what you think you need. But he is always there letting us know we are loved as he lends us his support and wisdom.

His love is like a river, the deeper you are in it, the more it will carry you in its flow. Sharing that love with others is the only natural recourse to experiencing it yourself. True love cannot be contained; it will go out to others. As we see others like God sees us, caring about them is unstoppable. When you realize what God overlooks in you daily, you’ll begin to overlook it in others.

To the degree that we feel special to God above others or feel entitled to more of his goodness, we are still responding out of our insecurities rather than the beauty of his love. The more I feel cared for by him, the more I want to share that with others. Those who are loved well love well. That’s how Jesus designed it to work.

 

A Resilient Trust

Trust is the quiet confidence that God sees me where I am, loves me deeply despite any evidence to the contrary, has a greater purpose for me than I understand, and has a way for me to navigate my circumstances no matter how desperate they are. It is also called faith, though trust conveys a more relational experience.

By resilient, I mean that this confidence prevails over every circumstance I might face. That doesn’t mean our trust won’t be challenged at times by crisis. Rather, it means that our trust will grow bigger than any challenge to it. So, instead of doubting God’s love, our struggles invite us more deeply into him. Even if through many tears, we can discover how he is with us in the darkness and how we can traverse it with his peace.

Trust is never hinged to any desired outcome; it is based only on God’s nature and presence. People who haven’t learned to trust are easily frustrated and angry that life hasn’t served them well. Those who learn to trust him can weather anything, and their faith will only deepen.

How does that trust grow relationally? For me, it began as I started to see my life through his eyes. I used to be so self-focused in my relationship with Jesus that my disappointments at unanswered prayers spawned doubts about how much he cared about me. As I began to find my life in him, however, it was easier to see how God was working even in my more difficult moments and that his love was greater than the outcomes I wanted.

My confidence in him grows as I watch his faithfulness to me beyond my misunderstandings, mistakes, or failures. I spend less time trying to get him to change my circumstances and more looking for how he wants to change me through them.

When I saw what he is able to do even in my most desperate moments, I was hooked. He does know best about everything. Now, I realize that pain and suffering are a normal part of our experience in this world. Every writer in the New Testament said so and that out of such times, God will shape our perseverance, character, and hope. These treasures are more valuable than comfort or ease.

So, when tough times come, it is easier for me to pause and wait for my perception of Jesus’s goodness to catch up to my circumstances. I don’t feel the need to fix anything with my frantic efforts until I discern how he might be leading.

Francesca, trusting him, come what may, is the greatest safety net of all, and it will change you in ways you can’t imagine. Nothing can touch us when our confidence is in his ability to walk with us through anything and to lead us into his joy and beauty.

Sincere love and resilient trust are great expressions of our life in him. Next time we’ll look at three other expressions of God taking shape in us.

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Chapter 14:  By Every Word…

Note: This is the fourteent  in a series of letters written for those living at the end of the age, whenever that comes in the next fifteen years or the next one hundred and fifty years. Once complete, I’ll combine them into a book. You can access the previous chapters here.  If you are not already subscribed to this blog and want to ensure you don’t miss any, you can add your name here.

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As I watch you deal with your cancer diagnosis, I love how you process your circumstances with God. It seems he’s involved in almost every decision you make. How can I learn to live like that? I try to listen for him to speak, but I rarely hear anything that I think is him. 

Bart, 52-year-old surgeon in South Africa

Bart, 

What a great question! The most important thing any disciple of Jesus can learn is how to sense and respond to the entreaties God makes toward them. Admittedly, this is more art than science, and no amount of proof-texting Scripture will let you know how to respond to the next circumstance in your life. This requires a sensitivity to him borne of a willingness to follow his lead.  

I know that many people get hung up here, misunderstanding how life in his kingdom works. I don’t hear “voices” all the time in my head, but he has taught me how to engage him as life comes at me and although I don’t do it perfectly, not even close, I am growing in my awareness of what he has in mind as I navigate my life.

It’s like sharing a “conversation” through life, though it is not filled with voices, and it isn’t so direct as some make it out to be. I rarely ask God a question and immediately receive an answer. Learning to engage God’s thoughts inside our own is the essence of the Christian experience but you have to mine it like gold or silver, as Proverbs reminded us. Learning to follow him does not come easily. Trying to pretend it does usually leads us to make up the answers we want and thus, we end up lending God’s name to our agenda. 

Because I know that his thoughts are higher than my thoughts, then my first reaction will not lead me to his life. In chapter 9, I wrote that discerning God’s ways is like putting together a puzzle out of various clues that come to me. That doesn’t mean he is playing me, only that I seem to recognize bits and pieces of what he wants me to know until it resolves in a fuller picture. On the rare occasion, a specific thought crosses my mind that seems Godlike, usually because it is better or worse than anything I would be thinking. And by worse, I mean more risky or more costly than I’d consider, though following those thoughts leads to fruitful outcomes.  

 

 

“It is the Lord”

The disciples had seen Jesus twice since his resurrection. They finally went back to Galilee to resume fishing. On the morning after a fruitless night, they spot a figure on the shore that they don’t recognize. The stranger told them to cast the net on the right side of the boat. When they did, they caught a load of fish so great it almost sinks them. That’s when John leaned over to Peter and said, “It is the Lord.” 

Isn’t that the moment everything changes? No matter what we’re going through, when we recognize him in it, we know all will be well. It doesn’t always come quickly or easily, but when he makes himself known, hope replaces despair. 

It’s hard for me to imagine Jesus not spending more time with his disciples after his resurrection. He came to them on the first day of the week, twice in Jerusalem and then at Galilee. The spaces in between must have been excruciating, but they couldn’t stay with him like they used to.  

That’s a good illustration of how he works with me, too. He does not always respond to my beck and call, but there’s always a moment in any circumstance, even after days or weeks, where Jesus makes himself clear enough that my heart leaps with that same discovery, “It is the Lord.” 

Our task is to watch for him; recognize him; then follow him as he reveals himself. If we want to walk with him in the last days, watching for his presence and following him are not optional. 

 

Not by Bread Alone

After fasting forty days in the wilderness, Jesus was hungry. The enemy tempted him to turn stones into bread. What a novel idea!  There were plenty of rocks around to satiate his hunger. There’s nothing sinful about it; it didn’t violate Moses’s law or any ethical concern. In a few days’ time, he would change water into wine. What’s the difference?  

And yet, he knew not to. Why?  

His first clue might have been the source of the idea—the enemy himself!  It would have been an easy temptation to fall into, except that Jesus was living by a higher source of direction and wanted us to know of it. 

Jesus answered the enemy from Deuteronomy. “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:2-4; Deuteronomy 8:3) Moses reminded the people that the manna they received each morning was God’s way of teaching them to rely on him, not their own ingenuity. Bread wasn’t even the most important part of the lesson, but learning to live by whatever words God speaks. 

That’s as true for us today. We buy bread from the store or mix it ourselves without much thought about where it comes from. For Israel, manna was their primary source of food as they wandered in the desert. As much as they needed God’s intervention every day just to subsist, they also needed his leading to navigate the situations that would come their way. When Israel forgot that, they resorted to their own devices, complaining about food and even fashioning a golden calf in which to invest their hopes. 

Jesus lived his whole life only doing the things he saw his Father doing and only saying what he heard his Father say. He lived “by every word” and, in doing so, was able to navigate his most harrowing circumstances. 

 

The New Creation 

What’s shocking is that he offered the same reality to us. He relied on God’s words as our example. In both Romans and Colossians, Paul referred to Jesus as the first-born of a new creation—a new race of men and women who would come out of the darkness of human passion and come alive in the Father’s kingdom. His life forged a pathway for many sons and daughters to live with the same dependence on God and by doing so, demonstrate his glory in the world. 

That’s what it means to be saved; it is to come out of darkness and dwell in the light of God’s revelation. Salvation was never meant to focus primarily on the afterlife, but on how we live here—awakened into the New Creation where our life is hidden with Christ in God. The life of Jesus is a revelational journey, where he guides us by his Spirit through the joys and challenges of life. 

Many think that our life is determined by the grand choices we make at propitious moments, and while those are not without impact, every circumstance in which we find ourselves is the fruit of hundreds of smaller decisions that established the trajectory we find ourselves in today. Either they led us to the deeper things of God or marooned us in the shallower waters of self-preservation. He wants us to lean into that which is loving, true, gracious, and generous, to partake of God’s passion to let his love flow through us into the world. 

Wouldn’t this change our view of discipleship? It’s not about reading the Bible, time in prayer, church attendance, or even battling our sins. True discipleship teaches us how to recognize him as he’s revealed in us and then take his courage to follow him. It is less about mastering principles, even from the Bible, as it is about discovering a presence to follow. When we substitute obeying principles instead of following him, we’re still following the application of our best wisdom, rather than living by his. 

So, don’t fly off with the first reaction you have to a situation. Take a breath, pause for a day or two to consider how God might have you respond. and longer if it takes time to know. What would it mean to be about the Father’s business instead of doing what you think best? Recognize that struggle within you and then you can see how he wants to lead you.

Those who are learning to live as part of the new creation are motivated inwardly by the wisdom and passion of God, but never draw attention to themselves or try to convince others of what they think is true. They encourage without manipulation, offer corrective counsel without malice or for their own benefit, and love deeply even when that love is not reciprocated. 

 

The Questions We Ask

You can tell a lot about a person by the questions they ask of God. Are they hostile questions to guard themselves from harm or are they open-hearted questions seeking more insight or revelation? It’s not that God doesn’t want to answer the former ones, but that we are not in the frame of mind to recognize him. 

Most naturally we ask the “why” question whenever something difficult happens to us. “Why me?” “Why didn’t God protect me from this?” In my younger days I launched “why” questions at God as if he were my adversary. Confused by the Scriptures I could quote to engineer God’s activity and by him not responding the way I hoped, I wondered what kind of God he was or how he felt about me. 

But as I’ve learned to live loved, the “why questions” have gone away. My questions now often begin with “how,” “who,” or “what.” “How are you making yourself known in this?” “Who are you giving me to love today?” “What is it about your love I don’t know that if I knew it, I wouldn’t be anxious?” The questions that bear fruit are not the hostile questions of uncared-for children, but the honest seeking of what’s real from a beloved friend. 

I hold some of my questions before God for weeks and months until his answers seep into my consciousness. As I look back, I can see how he put the pieces in place that would allow me to connect with his heart and wisdom. Those lead me to those it-is-the-Lord moments that show me the path to follow.  This is less about words to follow as it is about discovering the wisdom that marks a better path, the love to navigate it with those affected, and the courage to trust his insights above my own. 

This comes by learning to think with him and to recognize his thoughts inside our own about everything—opportunities, struggles, unhelpful attitudes, and the grace to move forward regardless of the challenge.  

 

The Environment of Discernment

While we can’t control the nature of those engagements or how and when he makes his way clear, we can incubate the environment in our heart that makes it easier for us to recognize him when he gives us revelation. 

Here are four tools I’ve found most critical in keeping a fertile heart for his appearing. 

First, I immerse myself in Scripture, not as a magic book to find promises that please me, but to recognize that which is important to God. Principles of theology and guidelines for daily living are less important here, than it is to understand the breadth of the Scripture story and what it reveals about God and the way he works. Be careful here. You can find justifications for almost anything in Scripture as we take on some of the misunderstandings of the authors, especially of Old Testament writers. 

God is love, and Jesus showed us exactly how God responds to people, especially sinners. He wants to win people into his love and help them find freedom to live in that love toward others.  People who proof-text Scripture can “claim” anything they desire based on something they can quote. Time will prove, however, that God didn’t give us his words so we could manipulate him. He recorded the history of redemption so we could understand his nature, mostly in the revelation of the Son and then connect with that reality by his Spirit. 

I read Scripture a lot, so I am familiar with the story of God that unfolds from Genesis through Revelation. I also read each day looking for something that will open my heart to God on that day or will shed his light on situations I’m facing. I don’t always find that, but I’m always looking and all the while gaining a deep background in how God thinks and acts.  

Second, I interpret my journey alongside a community of other nonreligious brothers and sisters who are openly sharing their journey in Christ as well. The reason I say nonreligious is because I want to be encouraged in a relational engagement with him and not substitute that for religious rules that are lifeless. This community does not require sitting through endless meetings together but participating in a network of conversations of what others are discovering, receiving their help and wisdom in times of extremity, and to share the revelations we are having from Jesus. 

Not only does this enrich others, but it also gives them the opportunity to be a check and balance on what we hear. Since we each only see in part, the wider wisdom of God comes through the collective insights of other followers. I also get some of this by reading books of people who walked well with God.  

Third, I honor my conscience, which I affectionately call my Yuck Meter. It’s how the Holy Spirit often engages us. Conscience is not what we want to do, but what we feel compelled to do, often against our own self-interest. When I really want to do something but sense inside not to, even if I can’t argue with it in words, I honor that. It is how I learn to be just in my dealings with others, treating them like I’d want to be treated. 

Fourth, what does love lead me to do? It is easy to navigate our lives by the star of self-interest, doing in each circumstance what serves me or my fears best. Love, however, invites us to a different trajectory and dislodges us from our narcissistic flesh. I look at love as a river that flows from the heart of God. When I am in that river, there’s a momentum that leads me to his fairness, kindness, and generosity toward others. It will encourage me to lay my life down for their good rather than do what’s best for me. 

Those who live in love treat others with justness and reflect his character as best they can. Even in failure, they are quick to apologize and make amends however they can. 

Of course, none of these will provide the answer we seek, but all of them will help us create the environment in our own hearts where it is easier to recognize him. But if you haven’t had time to cultivate this environment in your heart, look for him anyway. He is big enough to get his light through to you by whatever means he desires.

I have a friend who was raised in rural Mexico by parents who didn’t believe in God. He didn’t have a background in the things of God and yet God provided for him even when he didn’t know it. When he told me stories of his childhood, he often referred to a man, perhaps even an angel, who encountered him at difficult moments and taught him how to live justly even with his abusive family. Now, God often instructs him in dreams and while he doesn’t have the biblical background I do, the things he discovers are deeply anchored in Scripture.   

Learn to recognize when the thought in your mind, the counsel of a friend, or the presence you sense is the Lord, and follow that leading no matter the cost. He will be enough to guide you through anything you face. 

And then one day, even in the midst of the horrific circumstances of the last days, the sound of a trumpet will fill the skies, drawing every eye upward. 

“It is the Lord.” 

And thus it will be, as the faithful are gathered to him, and finally, the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ, and our revelation of him will be complete and full.     

Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly! 

Chapter 14:  By Every Word… Read More »

Chapter 13: Riding the Wind

Note: This is the thirteenth in a series of letters written for those living at the end of the age, whenever that comes in the next fifteen years or the next one hundred and fifty years. Once complete, I’ll combine them into a book. You can access the previous chapters here.  If you are not already subscribed to this blog and want to ensure you don’t miss any, you can add your name here.

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My life is a disaster. If it’s not car repair bills, it’s sick children or someone gossiping about me at work. Why does life have to be so difficult, especially since my husband passed away? I try to get God to fix things, so my life is smoother, but fail at it. What am I doing wrong?

Charmaine, 32-year-old accountant and single mom in Atlanta, GA

Dear Charmaine,

I’m so sorry your life feels so complicated; you are a single mom doing extraordinary things with your two delightful children. I’m sure you miss their dad every day. Sometimes life is like whack-a-mole, one thing after another. Honestly, however, feeling in control isn’t always the blessing it promises to be.

The most control I’ve ever had was walking onto a football field under the Friday night lights as the head official of a high school football game. That was one of the ways I paid for my university expenses. For the next two and half hours, my word was law. Every decision I made would be final as two teams battled each other. The coaches could yell all they wanted, but all the power was mine, and I loved it. 

When you’re young, everyone else makes decisions for you—parents, teachers, coaches, employers, and older people. Part of the maturing process is to take increasing control over your own choices. In adulthood, depending on whether you’re an entrepreneur or an employee, a homeowner or a renter, chairperson or committee member, people seek out as much power as they can muster. Most divorces are not caused by disagreements over finances, sexual frequency, or other “irreconcilable differences”, but control. Who gets to make the decisions? 

If growing to adulthood is about gaining control, I’ve learned that growing through adulthood is about letting go of the power you’ve gained for a greater good. Better opportunities present themselves when we are not manipulating others or trying to control every circumstance. A maturing marriage will learn to share power so that neither feels like the victim of the other.

So, Charmaine, you’re not doing anything wrong. Life in a broken world will confront us with a host of challenges. Riding the wind of the Spirit is not only about discerning his voice but also about surrendering to our circumstances, knowing he’s at work in them, too. To stay in control, you have to grip tightly and always be on guard; to flow with your circumstances only takes a submissive heart and a listening ear. 

The calamities that befall us now can help shape us to live at the end of the age when our challenges will be beyond us all. You won’t be able to insure, buy, or pray your way out of them. We are already seeing major catastrophes that destroy lives and cost billions to pay for recovery. The things that need to happen to bring redemption’s story to its conclusion are not the things we would choose for ourselves. The only question is how will we live in light of them.

 

Power Isn’t All It’s Cracked up to Be

Those who have learned to give up control and entrust themselves to God’s care and keeping will be able to thrive in the difficult days to come.  

In Revelation, John saw an innumerable multitude in white robes coming out of the tribulation, and one of the elders told him, “For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”  (Revelation 7:17)

Out of much suffering and struggle through the darkest pages of human history, they will arrive in the final Kingdom provided for and comforted, never to suffer again. To survive those days, they will need resilient trust in God that can take them through the darkest of circumstances, still leaning into his care and voice, especially when it disappoints their most ardent expectations.

Those who do will have to let go of the need to control their circumstances and rely on the guidance of Jesus through their fears. We dare not be like the three-year-old toddler who cries when he doesn’t get what he wants instead of learning the ways of his parents, which would be for his own good. Besides, the people who fight for control are rarely pleasant people to be around. They are like that three-year-old, serving their own needs at the expense of everyone else around them and fraught with frustration and anger. 

In my younger days, when I still fought for control, I mistakenly believed prayer was the ultimate weapon for gaining it. You can’t do better than enlisting God’s power to get what we think we need or thwart anyone trying to derail you. I would quote Bible verses about God’s ability to do anything and pray endlessly for what I wanted. It doesn’t take long to realize that prayer is not for meeting our control needs when our unanswered requests start piling up.

“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” (Psalm 23:4) David knew that God rarely wants to do away with the valley but to walk with us through it. The time and energy we waste attempting to use prayer to leverage control of our lives is astounding. I’ve known people to pray in mortuary freezers for multiple weeks, just certain God is going to raise their loved one from the dead. Can God do such things?  Of course he can, but our attempts to get him to do it at our whim will waste time and energy that would be better put toward learning to lay down our lives in love. 

We live in the chaos of an ever-darkening world, and calamity falls on the just and the unjust. We cannot wish it away or even pray it away, but we can come to rest in our circumstances as we ask Jesus to help us navigate them. 

 

The Great Illusion

I found it much easier to give up control when I realized it was only an illusion, and what drove me to seek control was my lack of trust in my Father’s work. No matter what dangers you can mitigate by whatever power you gain, you can’t get them all. Who would have thought four months ago that I would need back surgery and, barring healing, have to navigate cancer for the rest of my life? 

As powerful as I felt walking onto that football field, I was still at the mercy of the weather and the cooperation of the players and coaches. In recent weeks, there have been many people in Los Angeles whose futures have been decimated by the wind and wildfires that destroyed their homes and neighborhoods. No amount of planning or power could stop what had happened. Yes, you can manipulate some circumstances and people, but not all of them, and trying to do so is not how we follow Jesus.

The desire for control is mainly driven by fear, fear we’re not enough, fear that we’ll have to suffer, and fear that God won’t take care of us. If fear is the opposite of love, as I said in the last chapter, then we would instead go where love leads us and not where fear does. You cannot love someone you are trying to control, even if you convince yourself you’re only looking for their best interests. 

It isn’t easy to give up our fears, but that is where love can help us most. Whatever I fear, I need only ask, “What is it about your love, Father, that I don’t understand, and if I did, I would not be afraid. Ultimately, giving up control, or our illusion of control, is about finding freedom from our fears inside his love. 

Without giving Sara all the power over the future of our marriage when her trauma exploded, I would not be inside her healing today. Or, If I had tried to take back my position with the institutional power I had when my co-pastor betrayed me, many people would have gotten hurt, and I wouldn’t have come to know the truth about God’s love that I know today. That’s why community is rare in religious settings because people often fight over power instead of loving each other.   

But let me be extra careful with those of you who have significant, unresolved trauma in your past. You’ll know because you’re afraid of every potential threat. Your amygdala lights up and triggers responses to try to take back control of the situation, even when there is no need to. Asking people like that to give up control is like asking a bird not to sing. You’ll never be able to give up control until you first let Jesus process your trauma with you. Until Jesus disarms the fears that drive your need to control others, you won’t be able to let go of the control you think you need.  

 

Jesus’s Passion

The best example of someone giving up control is Jesus himself. That might have been what his gut-wrenching prayers did in Gethsemane that night. He had to let go of his desire to control the situation coming at him and be at rest enough to follow God’s heart through his anguish for the next day. Remember, Jesus had the power to stop it all at any point. 

Giving up the desire to control what we can has to begin with the same kind of honest, raw, and submissive prayer Jesus offered in the Garden. “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39) He was honest about his reluctance to follow God through all the suffering that lay ahead for him, though he was never deterred from the result. He wanted to find another way to our redemption, but in the end surrendered to the way it had to be. 

That’s the reason Jesus told us to deny ourselves. He wasn’t encouraging an ascetic lifestyle of self-denial but warning us that if our foremost desire is to have what we want we’ll get caught up in the mistaken notion that our business is the Father’s business. When we are no longer resisting our circumstances, it is easier to discern God’s will in them. 

That night Jesus gave himself over to the disciple who would betray him to the others, who would flee from him to the religious leaders, who would lie about him to Pilate, who would make him a pawn in his political games, and to the soldiers who would beat him and then execute him. Choosing not to resist any of it, he found a Father big enough to hold him through it. 

There’s something strangely liberating about not having to resist the painful circumstances that befall us. Trying to change our circumstances when God is at work in them will frustrate us with questions about how hard or how often we need to pray. Letting God walk you through dark circumstances allows all of his goodness to be in play, and when it serves him to change them, he can let us know.  

Sometimes the greatest act of love is to stop fighting, surrender to your circumstance, and see what God wants to do. Persevering in prayer is something Scripture encourages us to do, but not when our desires conflict with his. The time and energy we waste trying to change our circumstances when he is not in it would be better used to grow our trust.

 

Navigating Without Control 

In learning to give up control, I have found these ideas helpful. Perhaps they will be so for you as well.  

1.  Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Jesus could have called a legion of angels to avoid going to the cross. Imagine if he had! When we live by control, we always do what we can to get our way and miss so much that God wants to do in the things we resist. This is where we need to be led by his Spirit rather than by our fears and doubts.

2.   Just because God can doesn’t mean he will. Prayer needs to focus on God’s activity far more than our desires. Jesus only did the things he saw his Father doing.

3.  Don’t make it about yourself. Self-centric thinking is a death-knell to being available to the work of the Spirit. My friend Luis had a dream one night with Jesus and him talking on a park bench. Jesus asked him if he knew why Jonah did what he did. Thinking for a moment, Luis responded that his fear of the Assyrians listening to him and repenting was more than he could bear. He wanted them destroyed, so he ran. 

Then Luis realized he was talking to Jesus, so he asked why Jonah did what he did. What Jesus said next in the dream is the best commentary I’ve ever heard on the book of Jonah, and it is in five words: “He made it about himself.”

Just hearing those words gives me chills. How often have I made it about myself and shaped my prayers and efforts around that? Luis and I stood at a wedding not long after watching the family drama around who would do what at the wedding. Tempers were flaring, and tension was rising. We just sat back and watched. They were making it about themselves when the bride and groom were all that mattered. 

4.  How can I not make it about myself?  Follow what love brings, not fear. It’s hard, I know. Love whispers to us; fear has a megaphone and blasts its agenda in both ears. Quiet yourself in his love and follow that.   

5.  Ask yourself, what is God saying/doing in this? Is there a higher redemptive purpose here than my comfort or getting my way?  My rule of thumb is this: when I don’t know, I surrender to my circumstances, looking for God to give me the wisdom and courage to face them. In other words, he doesn’t have to show me my need to submit to them because that’s my default. If he wants to change them, he can show me that, too.

6. If you’ve resisted some circumstances through effort or prayer, and they persist, then you know God is using them. When I was first diagnosed with cancer, Jesus and I spoke about it often. I’d love for him to heal it without medicine, but despite my prayers and those of hundreds of others, it hasn’t happened. So, I stopped trying to get God to heal me and asked him how he wanted me to walk through the difficult process doctors are using to put it in remission. I use my strength there rather than constantly second-guessing how I should pray.  

Letting go of the need to control is not to become a victim of circumstance. It’s quite the opposite; riding the winds of circumstance is how we find victory over them and watch God work in them for his glory. 

 

Out of Weakness… Strength 

Paul tried to get Jesus to stop a messenger from Satan who harassed him and his ministry. He begged for it to be taken away three times but with no success. Then Jesus told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 

So, Paul concludes, “For Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” That’s someone riding the wind of circumstances instead of being conflicted by them. 

The secret to following Jesus comes by recognizing he works out of our weakness more than our strengths. His strength comes in the midst of the things we beg him to remove. But it is in those times when we are beyond our limit that he appears to do his greatest work in us. 

The more we resist our circumstances, the more they own us and the less focused we will be on what God is doing in them.

Chapter 13: Riding the Wind Read More »