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Last week in Nashville I stayed with a family that is unique to say the least. This is my second time being in their home and I think some of you would enjoy knowing them, especially if you’re a frazzled mom or a parent of a child with learning differences. Jay and Theresa Lode are on a great God journey and Theresa is a humor writer whose books have touched quite a few people. She is very active in helping encourage and enlighten parents who find that the conformity systems we put our kids through as a culture do not work for every child, and can be destructive to some. She maintains a blog at The Mother Lode, which offers humorous straight talk on on learning differences and family life. You’ll also find two of her books there, Putting the Fun Back in DysFUNctional, which is as series of humorous observations on family life, and an ebook about A Parent to Parent Chat on ADHD. You can’t hang out with the Lode’s and not get in some good laughs while being encouraged through some of the difficult stretches of your journey.

These two words, “living loved” have come to express the passion of my heart and the sum of how I hope my life encourages people through writing, podcasts or in conversations. For me, living loved is not a mantra or a theology to espouse. At it’s simplest and most powerful, it is a reality to live in.

And I love how much God is sharing that with the world today. There are many voices talking about the love and grace of our Father and how the coming of Jesus changed everything about how we get to live in him. I love that no singular human is leading this parade and that many brothers and sisters are coming to discover it together.

What does frustrate me most, however, is knowing that some who can write or speak in eloquent terms about Father’s love, even moving crowds to tears, do not reflect that love in how they treat others. Living in the freedom of Father’s love shows up in your relationships—and not just those who benefit you, but those you consider the least or the last, or even those you presume to be your enemies. I am convinced that the depth of our character is most demonstrated by how we treat those who disagree with us when we’re most sure that we are right. Do we treat them gently, give them the opportunity to engage, and offer them the same grace we talk about with others? As Jesus said, it is wholly inconsistent for those who have received great love and forgiveness to grab anyone else by the throat and demand their satisfaction.

What I love about living loved as opposed to just talking about it, is that it is transformational. Those who are well-loved, love others well in good times and bad always valuing the relationship above their own perspective. This is not something you can learn by principle, but by embracing God’s affection at the deepest place in your soul. Until you know you are loved you will be sucked into every religious activity and performance treadmill that exists, hoping against hope that you can do the right thing to merit that deep affection from the heart of the Father.

But you already have his affection! The great lie of the universe is that you are not loved by the Creator of all. The question is only do you realize how loved you are? If not, that’s where the journey begins. He wants to teach you that and in the process untwist in you what has distorted his love or has blinded you to it.

I’m off this week to upstate NY to spend a weekend with some dear friends and to share about living loved. But this week we’re going to add something that has been growing in my heart over the last year and that is not just to spend time helping people learn to live loved, but also to spend some time equipping people who are already learning to live loved, to help others learn as well.

I am meeting more people on this journey who are living loved who also have a heart to help others. But if they are not writers or speakers, how do that do that? Since many have thrown out all the conventions often associated with organized religion, they are unsure how their passion to equip others applies outside the box. We’re going to spend part of Friday talking with some people who want to have that conversation. I’m excited about what may come of that. There is a need for far more workers in the fields helping people embrace the reality of living loved.

Surely the best way to equip people around you is by the example we live when we’re not trying and the conversations we have with people who are struggling to discover what it is to live loved. But there is also the need to help equip others with the instruction that sustains that walk and the encouragement to dive in and sample its wonders, without reducing it to principles and boring lectures.

If you’d like to join us in Lowville this weekend, come ahead! I know it’s late notice, but I’ve been heavily distracted by the unfolding circumstances of life. If not, let’s look for more opportunities to have that kind of conversation as I travel about and deal with others.

I’m still in Nashville finishing up with some business meetings today. Brad and I have had some amazing times with people all over the spiritual map on their journeys and have been encouraged and blessed by the choices people are making to live free even in the face of sometimes painful consequences. We even recorded our first live podcast with a room full of people who jumped in with us. We’ll post that in the next couple of weeks. While I always get to spend time on the road with amazing people, I always look forward to heading home. That will happen tomorrow.

I’m sure people are going to get tired of me sharing the needs in Kenya. I’m sorry to do that to those of you who just need some encouragement or provision in your own lives these days. And please, don’t feel any guilt whatsoever if God has not put it in your heart to be of help or if you don’t have the means to do so right now. Like anything else, if God wants you involved it will be a joy to do so, not a frustration or a guilted conscinece. But I got this email this morning and these are boys I know, most of them orphans. I was in their home the man who wrote this letter cared for Kent and I over the five days we were in Kitale.

Receive greetings from Kenya. I thank God for the wonderful time we were together with you in Kitale. Your conference has changed people here and teachings has changed people and there is a great change for everybody here. I want to share with you that I have tried to find your email and I am not familiar to communicate through internet but the secretary has helped me to communicate with you. The director and other people went to the northern part of Kenya near Sudan for preaching to the people there who have not been getting the word of God a long time but the problem is that when they were out almost nine children in the children’s home including one of the workers came under heavy attack of malaria and typhoid. I have tried to communicate with the people who went for the mission through phone but I cannot reach them due to heavy rain , the children have been admitted in hospital for three days now including my little child.

The Doctors wanted the initial deposit of 28,000 Kenyan schillings (about $400.00) before they continue with the treatment and I don’t know what to do. I am sending this information without the permission of anybody and the way I know you as a man of love the time I was with you here. The malaria has gone around the country especially this heavy rain season. These are the names of the children who are admitted: Edwin, Mateka, Deno, Brian, Martin, Sammy, Faith, Nelly, and my little child Enos

God bless you so much as I wait to hear from you,

Hassan

In a posting I put up last week, I also shared another need for mosquito nets and food, totally almost $20,000.00. Really, these people truly have nothing. They have never received money from anyone outside Kenya before coming in touch with us and have so few options. The combination of the violence many suffered two years ago the poverty of their region, and now the rains and diseases that come with it continue to pile upon them. Simply these are life and death issues, and they are so used to death.

I continue to encourage them to look to God and not to Lifestream. He is their provider and he wants them to grow in their dependence on him, not me and my friends. But I also know that this is an incredible opportunity for some of our abundance to flow to a need around the world where every dime actually helps someone subsist today and perhaps find a future to take care of themselves.

We will be sending some money over today. If you’d like to help us with any of these needs, from medical to food to mosquito nets, please see our Sharing With the World page at Lifestream. You can either donate with a credit card there, or you can mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560-1 Newbury Rd #313 • Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

Thank you for your consideration and prayers.

After my recent blog about Buck’s passing, I received an email from an old friend, posing a question that had been on her mind:

I find it difficult to understand why God wouldn’t graciously extend his hand to give Buck more years beyond what he had. Tragedy is something that I struggle with much in the faith. So while most would look at the scenario and say that God is good for giving Buck another 15 years of life, I look at it and say why doesn’t the good God give more? I am reading your book HE LOVES ME right now and the illustrations are helping to grow my faith. But, so often, I look at what is tragic in peoples lives, and have difficulty praising in the midst of circumstance. My propensity is to run the other direction when hard times hit and say that its proof that God’s love isn’t real.

My response: I think God may not have given more because he knows the better portion isn’t in this life. It is in the life beyond.

Would you have enjoyed 15 more years as a 15 year old? It would have seemed crazy right? God has prepared us for something so much better than what we know here. We think of a 69 year old dying as tragic, and it is for those of us who miss him, but from God’s side of things I’m sure it doesn’t look tragic at all. He’s finally brought my friend into the life he created him to live in without the distortions of the flesh or the stain of our sin. So from God and my friend’s side of this it is all glorious and our hope is that we will be joining them soon ourselves.

The tragedy is for us here now. And in the midst of that tragedy I don’t think God wants us to praise him for the tragedy, but to learn to lean into him because he’s bigger than any tragedy and can work amazing good even out of a the most horrendous things. His work still goes on. His purpose in our lives is not thwarted by the deaths of others. He still embraces us here as he continues to prepare us for the greater life he has for us all.

Our limited perspective is the problem here. We only see what’s here. Scripture says there is much wisdom in realizing that our time in this age is like the morning dew on the grass. It is brief in the grand scheme of things. It is not the whole thing, only a bit. We don’t have a clue what lies beyond the veil and how much life in this world with flesh, human ambition, limited sight suffocates that which God has really made us to be.

All of his aspirations for us, and all the healthy ones for ourselves, will never be fulfilled in this life.

Well, I’m off to the Nashville area with Brad tomorrow. We’re doing a retreat together this weekend for the first time so that should be interesting. Plus we have a number of other personal and business meetings there as well. I’ve also got some new trips planned to Lowville, NY and to Macon, MS over the next few weeks. There are more details on my Travel Page for those interested.

I also heard from our friends in Kenya. This is from Leonard (pictured with me at left) who overseas their work with the orphan children. I thought you’d appreciate his perspective:

Thank you very much for the wonderful moment we had with you and Brother Kent. My brother, you actually encouraged us. We did not expect to see someone with a great love of God like you brother. For being a simple man and flexible, a man with great love. Even before we met you Michael said how he had been changed with your message of loving others and we have seen this in his life. Michael, can forget himself and sometimes his family to give to other people. Any support you have been sending, he has never taken even a single cent if not instructed. But he has been also using his bricks project to help others.

So we appreciate brothers and for God to channel this IGEM Ministry for the needy. We do not have any doubt whatever you have been given has been distributed for what we had planned. We also appreciate for the new car. God has finally answered our prayer and we have not experienced any breakdown of this vehicle. It is very special that can also be owned by Ministers in Kenya. It can move anywhere regardless of the terrain. Our insurance is expiring and we need to renew at considerable cost. We appreciate that God will provide even before the expiring date.

About the children, I am working out with my fellow team and we will send you the information. As we have been making the evaluation, there are lots of problems especially for malaria, typhoid and hunger. If there is a way to help this starving families, My brother do so. We need to buy mosquito net for every family especially this rainy season. Michael have been taking different families to the hospital every week. And Mt. Elgon is far more worse than everywhere else. So your support will highly be appreciated now. May God bless you.

We awed and grateful for the many of you who have contributed to help these dear people and their families in the northwest part of Kenya. If you’d like to help us with the insurance, mosquito nets and food for those families that don’t have it, please see our Sharing With the World page at Lifestream. You can either donate with a credit card there, or you can mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560-1 Newbury Rd #313 • Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

Thank you for keeping these people in your heart and prayers.

I read this the yesterday in THE MESSAGE and it was such a wonderful reminder of where life really happens:

Listen carefully to what I am saying—and be wary of the shrewd advice that tells you how to get ahead in the world on your own.

Giving, not getting, is the way.

Generosity begets generosity. Stinginess impoverishes. (Mark 4:24-25)

I love the way Jesus thinks. It is polar opposite to the way we were all trained to do things. We even think that generosity can only happen after we get enough for ourselves first. But Jesus said that living generously is the way to live in the world because it will inspire others to do the same and the world becomes a more gentle place.

But the more we grab for ourselves what we think we deserve, or ignore or belittle others around us in pursuit desire to grasp for ourselves, the more impoverished we become. All conflict and disappointed expectations originate in grasping what God hasn’t given us.

And this goes way beyond money. It’s about our time, talents. and attention as well. The more we focus on ourselves and our needs the more we are swallowed up by our own ambitions and even if successful in outward terms, we end up in a very dark and lonely place.

Of course there is no human way to live generously unless we first are secure in the reality that God is caring for us. When you know he is, then you no longer have to fight for what he hasn’t given. Then we can let Jesus show us how to live with open heart and open hands to people around us, seeking their blessing and joy even above our own. That enriches us and it makes us enriching in the world.

Life is not about our own comfort or joy; it’s about giving gifts to others—our help, friendship, support, time and talents. All the good stuff in life flows from that simple reality. According to Jesus that’s the way to really live. Self-pursuit sucks the world into us and destroys who we are. Generosity is about blessing others and that flow is filled with life and grace and joy that knows no limit.

At 57 years of age, I’m more inclined to agree with him than ever!

Since many of you don’t read the comments on these blogs, I wanted to highlight a question someone asked on the last one about my friend’s funeral:

What does God’s presence feel like? What do you mean when you say ‘God’s presence came powerfully into the room’? It’s one of those phrases that when people mention it, leaves me empty, because I don’t understand. It makes me wonder if I’m really getting all this God stuff or am doing something wrong. I mean it seems it’s a key thing yet I don’t get it. I think I have the spiritual capacity of a marshmallow!!

I get that question a lot, so I think others might be interested in my answer to her:

God’s presence “feels like” different things to different people, and even different ways in different circumstances. I don’t want to describe it as a feeling, because it goes way beyond that. At its heart it is a simple knowing that something greater than us is making his presence known in the room. That can be accompanied by supernatural events, a simple inner knowing, or the affirmation of what a number of people are sensing at the same moment.

For us at that hospital bed it was a powerful sense of connection with him and each other. It added a lightness to the room that was more spiritually seen than physically seen. It manifested itself in the lightness of heart and trust that we all sensed afterward, very different from when we went in. But it doesn’t always look like that, which is why I hesitate to define it. I find people recognize him less when they are burdened down by expectations of what it should look like. Then we are looking for manifestations, rather than simply seeking him.

For many people it isn’t so much that God isn’t making himself known, it’s that they haven’t yet tuned to his frequency to recognize his voice or his fingerprints in the simple realities around them. I think most of God’s supernatural working appears to be incredibly natural as it unfolds. Looking back we see with greater clarity what he was doing…

Many of you know that last week I attended the funeral of a dear friend with whom I’ve shared 35 years of this journey. Out of the blue he was diagnosed with leukemia in February and died three weeks later. His passing was quick and shocking and surprisingly filled with triumph!

Sara and I went to visit he and his wife a two weeks before he died. He had been busy meeting individually with all his children and grandchildren sharing the things from his hospital bed that he wanted them to know, and owning in confession some of his less-than-stellar moments when he’d tried to manipulate them with his religious passions. By all accounts everyone was deeply touched and much healing came to that family. One granddaughter said at his funeral that Buck had taught her how not to fear death when it comes, but embrace it as an entry into the fullness of God’s presence. That was pretty cool.

Our last day with Buck was equally triumphant. We shared about his journey and how much we had meant to each other. We all prayed together and God’s presence powerfully came into that room. A couple of hours later he was visibly stronger and said he felt better. I wondered if Father had healed him and that his symptoms would soon recede and he would have some more years to be among us. But it was not to be.

A week later his son told me that his father’s health was rapidly deteriorating and they didn’t think he’d make it another week. I was surprised and prayed again for Buck. Since he was only 69, I thought it would be great if God could have extended his life a few more years.

The next thought that crossed my mind shocked me in both its clarity and its content. “I already gave him fifteen more years than he was supposed to have.” Over the days that passed that thought continued to come to mind and somehow it brought peace to my heart. As I drove up to his funeral I thought about it again. I knew he’d had a heart attack at some point years before, but didn’t now how serious it was because we were living far apart at the time and weren’t really in touch with each other.

When I got to the service i asked his son how long ago the heart attack had been. He thought it had been 13 or 14 years. I asked him if it had been somewhat routine or if he’d come close to dying. He told me that the doctors were shocked he’d survived. The heart attack was severe and he was in a remote area. They airlifted him to a hospital that could care for him as a desperate attempt but no one expected him to survive. He ended up making it to the hospital and had a touch-and-go quintuple bypass. Everyone was amazed that he had lived through it.

At the funeral I shared what I felt God had said to me as I prayed for Buck, that he had extended his life by fifteen years. I was watching his wife at the time as she nodded vigorously and mouthed the words, “That’s right!” i went on to share that God had already extended his life as a gift to his wife and as a gift to Buck. There are things God wanted Buck to know about him in this life.

A few years after Buck’s heart attack, they moved to Ventura County to live near Sara and me. At the time he was depressed over some vocational hopes that had soured. He was angry at God feeling like God had not come through for him as he hoped. Over the next eight years we learned to walk together in the love of the Father. His circumstances were not proof that God didn’t care about him, but that God was working in the midst of those things to draw Buck closer to himself. Those eight years were a real gift to both of us, as we sorted out God’s love together and learned to live in it even with the uncertainty of the future. Buck and his wife moved back to Northern California to be near family. At the hospital I had seen the fruit of learning to live loved. Even in the valley of the shadow of death and in great pain, Buck was fully confident of God’s love for him and looked forward to being in the fullness of his presence.

After the funeral I stole a few moments with his wife. “What do you know about those fifteen years?” I asked her.

She smiled. “When I brought him home from the hospital after he’d survived his heart attack, I knew God had done a miracle. At the time I thought God had told me he had given her husband another fifteen years of life.” She’d never told anyone, not even Buck. This past November was the 15th anniversary of his heart attack, and she said she thought at the time that he would probably would not live through the next year. So when he died, she was not surprised.

Wow!

She will still miss her husband greatly, as will I, but there is something about knowing God’s hand is behind all of these things that brings joy even in the midst of sorrow. I was wanting God to extend his life, not realizing he already had. He’d allowed Buck to live long enough to embrace a depth of his love that he would never have known in this life without it. He had given us all a fifteen-year gift, and Buck too.

I so appreciate Father making that revelation clear to us. It is always so much better to celebrate life as it is than to live frustrated with what might have been. I’m confident that Buck now knows what we long to see. I’m equally confident that he has a hope and a purpose for his wife in days to come. He is still at work, this amazing Father!

Cruising through the bush on a fresh set of wheels

I got this email today from Michael, our contact in Kenya. They have been so blessed with the new transportation that many of you from The God Journey helped to provide for them through your contributions. Thank you so much for blessing a brother who is involved in the front lines of both caring for widows and orphans, and in spreading the kingdom throughout the more remote places of Central Africa.

Much appreciations from IGEM members all over for standing with us in this dependable vehicle. We can now move all over even in a rainy season like this. I have tried to reach may parts of Kenya where I have never reached before because of the transportation means. As you may see in the pictures, we went to some areas where there are no roads but people have been using only walking path ways and people live in the bushes but we managed to reach even to the tops of the valleys.

This area called Samia interior places and also the same neighboring called Marachi. we are having the souls over there and we are having interior pastors who have never heard the message of being loved and loving others. It is only tradition, religion there. we had a wonderful time with the native people. We shared the love of Christ of this journey of Transition. My Brother Wayne and Kent, you have left here the legacy of love which is now taking the root. we have more invitations to reach and continue praying for us that this gospel may expand from all over Kenya and in Africa. We have appreciated very much for the kind of love which we have never seen.

Learning to live loved, and to love others

The need here, especially among the widows and orphans is ongoing. If you’d like to help us continue to support these brothers and sisters and see the Gospel grow in this part of Africa, please see our Sharing With the World page at Lifestream. You can either donate with a credit card there, or you can mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560-1 Newbury Rd #313 • Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

This week has been filled with a lot of family business and fun as I’ve taken some time off to deal with those things. Had an amazing day yesterday, but will talk of it up the road. I did get this question from a reader this week, and since Easter is approaching, I thought others might have an interest in the answer.

Let’s give great room for each other to see these kinds of things very differently, just as Paul admonished us to. But however you celebrate this season I pray it will be rich with the work of God’s redemption at the cross, and filled with the joy of his resurrection, and I pray that resounds in your heart every day throughout the year.

I recently stopped going to church on Sunday mornings and I am loving it! I still have a lot of questions and I am wrestling with what faith looks like apart from a Sunday morning experience. As we approach Easter, I am wondering about how others (you) celebrate Easter in ways that are meaningful and life-giving. The resurrection is such a significant cornerstone of our faith and has implications for our every day lives, but I am wrestling with how to mark the holy day apart from an Easter cantata and rousing sermon! Any ideas?

My answer? The joy of this journey is you still can. If you want to enjoy a cantata or rousing sermon, go ahead! You are free to participate in any of that available in your community. But now I consider every day a celebration of his Resurrection, so there isn’t anything special about Easter for me or my family. That day I’m going to be home with my kids and grandkids and we are going to celebrate his resurrection together just in the joy of our family. Others may gather for a sunrise service, go help in a homeless shelter, or just take a long walk in the woods and have some ‘alone time’ with Jesus. Ask him if he has for you that day and go enjoy it with him.

From Paul in Romans 14:5-18 (NIV):

One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. 8If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. 1You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written:
” ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will confess to God.’ ”
So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way. As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food[b] is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.