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I told this story on last week’s podcast, and a friend of mine typed it up for his Facebook page. I reprint it here (with some gentle edits), because the story is growing in our family to understand something about God’s nature and our own. When we try to defend what God isn’t defending, we only end up hurting people and spoil the very thing God is using to engage them in a relationship that will in time transform them naturally, without having to enforce a lot of rules.

The grandkids were over. We were in Sara’s garden. And Sara had gotten Amy a rake and she was raking up some of the wood chips that Sara has on the pathways in the garden. I said to her, “No, Honey, don’t do that.” And I began raking them back in the path. “They are not supposed to be in piles; they are supposed to be spread out.”

Amy gave me the look, as if to say, “Gee, that’s no fun, Grandpa.” I obviously ruined her fun by telling her the way things were supposed to be. I didn’t want to be that guy!

Later, after everyone was gone, Sara said to me, “You and Julie are funny in my garden.”

“What do you mean?” I asked

“You are always fussing about the kids. Don’t rake that, don’t pick that flower, or walk over there. I don’t really care. I want my grandchildren to really enjoy my garden and I want them to really enjoy being with me. I don’t care what they do in my garden as long as they are not going to hurt themselves or each other, or destroy something. I don’t care if they pick flowers, I don’t care if they rake the wood chips into piles. I can un-rake them easy enough.”

As I listened to her I thought, I don’t care if they are raked into piles either. I was just trying to protect Sara’s garden. I know she works hard to keep it looking nice. But why was I trying to defend something Sara wasn’t defending herself? For her it was about the joy of relationship. She wanted them to have fun in her garden so they would have fun with her.

When I heard her say that I immediately thought of how I often I’ve done that to other people in God’s garden. He’s inviting them into a relationship while I’m trying to make sure they don’t mess anything up. What if God doesn’t care what they mess up while they are growing in relationship with him?

The God Journey Podcast, July 30, 2010

What a lesson! When you put the relationship first, keeping things neat and tidy no longer makes sense. Those things can be fixed easily enough. What God cares about is enjoying his kids long enough until they care about the things he cares about. In the meantime, that might mean some piles get raked up in places he doesn’t need them raked up.

But he can put them back easily enough when we’re done.

And now you know why Jenny’s book, Rainbows In My Eyes has been such an encouragement for me at this stage of the journey. Her pain is far different from mine, and in many ways far more brutal, but her poems (and I’m not a poem guy!) have encouraged me to lean in more deeply into the heart of Jesus and know that he is at work in ways I can’t see.

If you missed my blog on that and some samples from her book, you can read it here. The line between tragedy and triumph is not a wide one in the heart of God. I love how he continues to work in our lives no matter what this world throws at us. And Sara and I have found this book makes a great gift to someone going through difficult moments. We gave a copy the other night to some dear friends who are going through a painful season, and have heard back from many of you how much you have been inspired by her words.

If you want to order the book you can do so at Lifestream if you have a U.S. or Canadian address, or if you’re from elsewhere in the world you can order direct from Jenny’s website: JKRowbory.co.uk.

I’m getting an increasing number of emails asking whether or not Brad and I are engaged in a lawsuit with Paul Young over the collaboration we experienced in putting THE SHACK together and making it available to the world. Regretfully, we are though not by our choice. The great sadness I’ve been sucked into through this is the unfortunate and unexpected result of simply helping a friend. For those who love the message of this book I’m sure this comes as a huge disappointment, as it has with us.

I have been in this process for some time, and I’ve had some dear friends and older brothers and sisters who have been carrying this with Sara and me in prayer and counsel. I haven’t known how to talk about it publicly and won’t in great detail because it involves people I love in a process that makes no room for love or grace. But as much as we celebrated the joy of our friendship and what it produced, it is fair for people to know there is another side to the story and remind ourselves that not all things bright and beautiful endure in a broken world.

Our current conflict with Paul is a tragic chapter in the collaboration that produced such a wonderful book about God’s love, forgiveness, and passion for relationship. I’ve always seen that story as a gift God gave and bigger than any of us who were part of it. Paul, Brad and I began this journey as well-intentioned individuals working on a story together at Paul’s insistence. Our time of collaboration in writing, publishing and distributing this book over three years was one of the most joy-filled and spiritually enriching seasons of my life. Unfortunately, a collaboration works only as long as each one in it puts the relationship first.

About eighteen months ago, for reasons that are still unclear to me, Paul cut off all personal communication with Brad and I and stopped participating in our collaboration. Over the next year his new management team began to make an increasing set of demands and accusations. We have made numerous attempts to discuss this with Paul and failing that have offered to have others mediate this conflict (both mutual friends and professional mediators), to address any way he didn’t feel fairly treated, and to deal with whatever personal issues compromised our friendship. Every attempt has been refused without comment.

Nine months ago we were served with a lawsuit. The decision to resolve our differences legally is Paul’s alone and I have been forced into an environment that violates everything I love about relationships and all that Scripture asks believers to do to deal with our differences. I did everything I knew to do to avoid litigation, but in the end I have to respond to Paul’s charges in that venue to protect the commitments we have with others, based on his assurances to us.

Nothing in my lifetime has brought greater confusion or grief to myself and my family and I continue to pray and hope for the opportunity to resolve this in the same spirit of friendship and brotherhood that began this journey. We are encouraging fellow believers to take the Lord’s side in this conflict. He is not for us or against our brother Paul, He is for a resolution steeped in the very things we wrote about together—love, grace, truth, forgiveness, and laying down our lives for each other. I’m sure Jesus yearns for a full reconciliation, but lacking that, would at least appreciate a gracious resolution and peaceful parting.

Someone sent me this quote this morning. I don’t know the man who said it, but I pray his words come to pass for all of us:

“Every friendship travels at sometime through the black valley of despair. This tests every aspect of your affection. You lose the attraction and the magic. Your sense of each other darkens and your presence is sore. If you can come through this time, it can purify with your love, and falsity and need will fall away. It will bring you onto new ground where affection can grow again.” — John O’Donohue

Our current circumstance is the middle of a painful chapter and not the end of God’s story of love and redemption.

As many of you know I’m not a card-carrying, banner-waver for the house church movement. There are lots of reasons for that. It’s not that I don’t love relational expressions of church life, especially those that are house-sized. I love that. But I think something more foundational has to shape our hearts before any expression of the church will be life-giving with others. Until people come together to share a real, relational love of the Father we’re just going to end up holding religious services in a different venue. Thus I’m incredibly passionate about helping people live loved as the incubator for real church life to take hold.

But I have been invited this year to speak at the House Church Conference that meets during Labor Day weekend each year in Dallas, TX. While I do very little conference speaking, what intrigued me about this opportunity was the fact that they knew I was not a house church advocate and yet still wanted to dialog about the deeper issues of how the church takes expression in our lives. I am looking forward to that conversation. If you’d like to join me in Dallas that weekend, here are the details:

You can get more details about the conference and register here. The theme about infrastructure they added after inviting me to come, so it will be interesting to see how we navigate that together. Again infrastructure isn’t one of my passions, but helping people see how they can help or hinder God’s work will lead to some interesting conversations as each of us get to sort out what God is saying to his church today. I’m as much interested in listening to others as I am sharing the things God has put on my heart. I think the open and honest exchange of ideas is the kind of dialog that will help us understand more clearly what God is saying to his church.

I am looking forward to this time of sharing God’s life together with other brothers and sisters who are actively thinking and praying beyond the box.

Sara and I are reading together the book I recommended last month, As Is: Unearthing Common Place Glory is a new book by a first-time author, Krista Finch. We are enjoying it and the conversations that follow.

We were really touched by the one we read a few days ago. In the chapter called, “Garage Sale Giving”, Krista tells the story of an eight-year-old boy who came up to her at her garage sale and wanted to buy a set of dishes. He gave her $10.00 and lifted the heavy stoneware plates. After she got his change he carried them down the street. Moments later a lady burst from a car shouting, “Can you believe it! He just gave these (dishes) to me for Mother’s Day,” shaking her head in awe. “With his own money he saved up. Can you believe that?”

Here’s how Krista ends that story:

Can you believe it? I asked myself again after the masses made their exodus from my makeshift shop of trinkets. As I packed up the unsold items, I smiled. Openhandedness is an unlikely find, I thought. Especially in a world where acquisition and ambition, self and comfort are the goals. Cheerful and unlimited giving is an unlikely find, except in the heart of a child.

And those who dare to be like them.

I’ve known moments living alongside people who function with great generosity for each other, and I’ve known seasons where the people I’m around are grabbing for themselves whatever the can grab. I much prefer the openhanded crowd and want to live there myself.

Have I got a book of hope for you, especially if you’re going through some very deep waters. It is a collection of poems by a young poet in England dealing with a tragedy in her own life and sorting it out with God in her poetry. Her words are brutally honest, at times playful even in her disappointments, but they are full of life and encouragement. Going through a deep place myself these days I found this book a wonderful encouragement to finding God’s love in the midst of excruciating pain and incomprehensible need?

I met Jenny through a book she sent to me when I was near her home in Suffolk England. In it she had written a personal note: “You don’t know me but I just wanted to say thank you to you. I’ve read So you Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, listened to the Transition series and sometimes manage to listen to The God Journey podcast. They are great and have set me off on a journey and anew way of thinking. It’s like discovering the truth that was actually already there in your heart, but hadn’t quite realized it yet. Anyway, this is just a small token of my gratitude.”

The book was titled Rainbows In My Eyes and you’ll have to read the poem called “The Rainbow Bird” to understand why, but that one alone is worth getting this anthology for what it says about the Incarnation and death of Jesus. And you can find out more about the book and Jenny on her website, JKRowbory.co.uk

The story behind the poems is as tragic as the poems are triumphant. On the flyleaf of her book I found the following story:

Jenny Rowbory was born in 1986 in Ashford, Middlesex, and currently lives in Suffolk. During her first year at university in 2004, she became ill with a virus that caused severe M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: inflammation of the brain and spinal cord). M.E. affects all bodily systems, causing Jenny to be bed-bound and unable to sit up because of strain on her cardiovascular system. This book of poetry was produced as a result of a Pearson project to support a young, chronically ill poet. The proceeds from the sale of this book will go towards her medical costs.

Though deeply touched by her story, I was not prepared for the poetry within. Most books I receive with a tragic back story like this one usually do not contain writing of this caliber or with this depth of insight. I am recommending the book to you, not out of compassion for Jenny’s condition, though I’m deeply touched by her need and now pray for her regularly, but because in her poetry she captures the God I know and the honest place of dealing with suffering in the face of a loving and all-powerful God. She is both playful with God and gut-wrenchingly honest. You’ll find in her words language to help deal with your own challenges and desire to engage the Abba Father.

I am clearly not an authority on poetry. I don’t write it and rarely read it, but this book touched me deeply and has encouraged my own journey. We wanted to make it available in the States and had copies sent here to help save you the postage charge for overseas transport.

If you live in England or outside the U.S., please order directly from Jenny’s website, so that she benefits the most from the sale of her book.

If you live in the United States, you can use the link below to order through Lifestream. The money from sales here will also go to Jenny’s medical treatment.

To give you a taste of some of her poetry, I’ve included three of her shorter ones here

Can’t You Be A Magician, God?
© Copyright 2009 by Jennifer Karen Rowbory – Used by Permission

Can’t you be a magician, God,
if only for one day?
Forget about being wise and good
and do exactly what I say.

Can’t our prayers be spells, God,
if only for one day?
The right words in the right order
and bingo! We’ll have our way.

Make me better now, Lord
please no more delay.
I want to force your hand, Lord,
to make my illness go away.

Held
© Copyright 2009 by Jennifer Karen Rowbory – Used by Permission

Pinned here
I kick and scream
try to punch my way out.
But your arms are too strong.

Pinned here
I sulk and ignore you,
try to freeze you out.
But you are too patient.

Pinned here
I spit and abuse you,
try to provoke you.
But your love is too great.

Pinned here I cry,
break your heart with my pain.
But you will not let me go.

Pinned here,
too exhausted to wrestle any more.
In the stillness I see
I’m in an embrace not a headlock.

Christmas
© Copyright 2009 by Jennifer Karen Rowbory – Used by Permission

You are my treasure,
my pearl beyond price.
I forsake all my riches,
my wealth in heaven,
to come and seek you out.

Got this email today and it brightened my heart. I hope it brightens yours too:

July 4, 2010 was a monumental day in our lives. On that day, we both found out: THAT GOD LOVES US! How about that!? It was during our normal devotional time that “we got it” at almost 71 and 72 years old. We got it!

How about all those years in the professional clergy? Oh, yes, we could all ways quote John 3:16, and other related verses, but when God comes in, you can not fail “to get it” and say, “Oh my goodness” it has been there all the time!”

Oh, one other thing, I forwarded the article on Friends and Friends of Friends to a brother whom we have know for years, who is about 80 years old, and was also a Baptist pastor, and he exclaimed: “I have read few articles that blessed and touched me as that one did”, He went on to say, he felt you were really “on to something”.

Is that sound I hear the echo of angel songs in the heavens? Nothing brings greater joy to my heart than hearing news that someone else has discovered just how loved they are by the Creator of all!

It has been a long time since I saw my blog entry page. We’ve been a bit busy. Sara and I arrived in England on Wednesday morning at 7:00, trained into our hotel and got prepped for a business lunch at 12:45. Then we went to see a matinee version of Les Miserables at the Queen’s Theatre in London! As tired as we were from not having had a night’s sleep, the story of redemption—of grace versus law—was deeply touching. We’ve heard lots about it, but had never seen it before.

Then we made our way down to Woking for the weekend and have basked the last four days in the joy of being with brothers and sisters we had not met before who are various places in this journey of breaking free from religious obligation and learning to live loved by the Father. The group in Woking has a marvelous story all their own, from planting a seeker-sensitive congregation nine years ago to dismantling it over the last year and a half and finding their way into a wonderful relational life together. These are people who have known each other for decades, whose children have grown up together and married each other and raising children of their own. We were so enriched by their life together and the things Father is opening up to them.

On Saturday we had another 30 or so people for a wider conversation about what God is doing today to invite people into his reality. We had people there from as far away as Denmark. What an awesome group of people with great questions and insights. Some have paid an incredible price to follow their conscience as God was leading them rather than just fit into the status quo. Two people there had grown up on the same street together more than 40 years ago, live hundreds of miles apart now, had not seen each other for decades and had no idea they were on similar journeys. Can you hear the Spirit knitting the family together?

I had one conversation with the man who had been their pastor through part of the time they were trying to be a more traditional congregation. He had a great answer to those who ask him, “Why don’t you go to church services anymore?”

He said he responds this way, “I have found there are two main reasons people attend religious services, either they really enjoy them or they feel obligated to go. I feel neither at this point in my life.” He said that allows others to stop and think about why they go. If people attend religious services because they enjoy it and it draws them closer to God, or helps them connect with others, then great. If, however, they only go out of obligation then they may get a chance to rethink it. There are many, many ways to experience the joys of church life without attending religious services. It’s just that so many people don’t know that yet.

Then yesterday Sara and I made our way up to Suffolk, in the countryside northeast of England (see picture above). We are with a group of people here who are also sorting out what it means to experience relational community. They moved up here to plant a church some years ago, but God is taking them on a marvelous journey of sorting out what it really means to live inside the life of the Father and to share that life with others. We had a marvelous time sorting through some of the cross last night and in a few minutes we will continue our conversation at a picnic this afternoon by the lake, and at a home later this evening. This is why I travel—to hang out with fellow-travelers who are discovering, often at great personal cost, what it means to live and share the love of the Father.

Then tomorrow it is off to Dorset for a friends and friends of friends gathering similar to what we shared in Ireland a couple of years ago. Many of these people are old friends, others will be new but we are looking forward to the rich fellowship of brothers and sisters relaxing together in the Lord’s love. This is not a conference with lots of meetings and teachings, but time to share wonderful conversations, connect relationally, and celebrate the life of Jesus together.

I am always amazed at the things Jesus invites me to be a part of with him, and this time with Sara too…

Due to Wayne and Sara’s trip to England, the Lifestream offices will be closed until July 7. We will still be shipping Internet orders during that time and checking email, but our responses might be delayed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

No, we’re not sitting in the stands. We’re not even huge soccer (or football) fans. And we’re not even in South Africa at the moment. We are home in California getting ready to leave for England next week.

But St John’s Parish near Cape Town published a magazine called This Life, which they’ve put out throughout the city to spread the Gospel while the country is inundated with tourists for the World Cup. The editor did a two-page spread on our time there last October with quotes from some of our discussions and a brief interview. Yes, that’s us on the bottom right of the cover.

The article is titled, “I’m In Recovery from Religion” and exposes people to some of my books and my passion for people to live in relationship with God. I don’t know that I’ve ever been called “quietly spoken” before, but I like the looks of it in print. Anyway, I thought others, especially our South African friends would like to have a look at it.

The full issue is supposed to be on their website soon if you are interested, or you can download the PDF of our article here.