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Someone sent me this quote from a book they’ve been reading that seemed to go along with my earlier posting about washing someone’s shoes and how it touched their life. I haven’t read the book and don’t know anything about the author, but I sure like this quote:

The moment you are aware of your holiness it goes sour and becomes self-righteousness. A good deed is never so good as when you have no consciousness that it is good—you are so much in love with the action that you are quite unself-conscious about your goodness and virtue. Your left hand has no idea that your right hand is doing something good or meritorious. You simply do it because it seems the natural, spontaneous thing to do. Spend some time in becoming aware of the fact that all the virtue that you can see in yourself is no virtue at all but something that you have cunningly cultivated and produced and forced on yourself. If it were real virtue you would have enjoyed it thoroughly and would feel so natural that it wouldn’t occur to you to think of it as a virtue. So the first quality of holiness is its unself-consciousness.

The second quality is its effortlessness. Effort can change a behavior, it cannot change you. Think of this: Effort can put food into your mouth, it cannot produce an appetite; it can keep you in bed, it cannot produce sleep; it can make you reveal a secret to another but it cannot produce trust; it can force you to pay a compliment, it cannot produce genuine admiration; effort can PERFORM acts of service, it is powerless to produce love or holiness. All you can achieve by your effort is REPRESSION, not genuine change and growth.

The Way to Love
~ Anthony De Mello

I love hearing how other people are experiencing this journey and how God is freeing them from the bondage of human religion to embrace a realy walk with him. I got this from a twenty-three year old Swiss woman this week. What an encouragement it was to me and I hope to you too.

First of all, I want to thank you. Yours and Mr Coleman’s book So You Don’t Want To Go To Church Anymore has touched me deep down inside and it has helped me get a little glimpse of who Jesus really is.

In the past couple of days, I have started to realize what it really means to live with God as my Father. Born into a Christian family, I’ve always seen myself as a child of His, but I never quite understood the meaning of it. I felt restless and suspicious whenever I went to church, and with the years I felt myself getting pulled down more and more by feelings of guilt. Whatever I did, I always had the impression it was not enough. I met people in church who talked me into doing certain things, and every time I hoped it would make me feel better in front of God, but it never did. In the summer of 2009 I decided to be baptized. I was so hungry for this overwhelming peace and joy I admired in other Christians and I set all my hopes on the day of my baptism. It was a good day. But my expectations were disappointed. I still felt an emptiness in me that could not seem to be filled.

Before these feelings could break me, I got your book. And with every page I read, I could feel this heavy load on my chest be lifted away. This might sounds cheesy, but it’s exactly how it felt. I realized that I don’t have to earn God’s love. It’s right here. And I learned that God doesn’t bless us for doing things this way or that way. He blesses EVERYTHING we do together with Him, in Him and through Him. And He’s not a fortune teller who gives us predictions like “This is your job/man/house for life”. He puts things into our hearts and gives us what we need every day. I don’t have to ask myself “Is this right or wrong?”. I’d much rather ask the Lord “What is it that you want to put into my heart?”

It’s no miracle the God so many Christians have talked to me about couldn’t touch my heart the way I always wished He would. It was a God of rules and signs that never made sense to me. A God that blesses the ones who deserve it.

Reading your book felt like finding the God I’ve been looking for all my life. The God of love. The God of relationship. The God of trust. Only now I have started to understand what that means. And here I can finally feel it: a heart so full of gratefulness for what He has done for me! A heart of joy for this great promise of His never-ending love! A heart that can rest in peace, knowing that He will give me what I need, every day. This is the Lord I want to follow, this is the God I want to praise.

I’m only 23 years old and there’s so much more I have to learn. And this short time in which I have started to discover the wonders of being God’s child has already showed me that it can be a “lonely” way sometimes. Many people around me, who I always thought were devoted Christians, don’t seem to understand when I talk about this God I’m getting to know now. They’d rather hold on to rules they think God has created for them to be safe and they don’t see that these rules only keep them from experiencing God’s original and amazing ways of blessing them!! It makes me sad sometimes. And it makes me feel lonely, too, sometimes.

But I know that the Lord is watching over me. He knows what I need, and He knows what every single one of his children needs. He has ways that seem impossible for me now. But I do trust in Him.

Mr Jacobsen, I want to thank you and Mr Coleman for being “God’s tools” in the process of opening my eyes and heart to a new kind of life.

I wish you and your families all the best and God’s rich blessings and gifts.

We’re not much on big New Year celebrations around here, in fact we went to bed at 10:00 last night. But we know lots of people who are into it, so Sara and I want to bless you with a full and rich new year ahead.

And to do that, instead of pressuring yourself with all that you want to do to make your life better this year, perhaps you’d consider asking God what he is doing to make his life more real in you. Transformation begins with his will and desire, not ours.

And then you’ll realize what God knows. Transformation is not his goal, it is merely the fruit of living loved by him. His goal is not to change you, it is to invite you into his love, Change will happen as the fruit of that, not the goal!

What I love about God is that he doesn’t mark time on calendars and offer a fresh start once a year. His mercies are new every morning, so that each day is a fresh start in his life and grace.

(And if you want to see the many faces of Wayne and Brad while recording The God Journey, you might check out our new photos over there!)

Sara and I are taking this week off to refresh, enjoy our children and grandchildren and some time with some dear friends we have known for 25 years. Before I go, I thought I would leave you with this. It is one of the most touching emails I received this year.

A few months ago we had a young couple who was visiting Los Angeles stay with us for a couple of days and really enjoyed their fellowship. One afternoon we went outside for a walk after it had been raining. When we got back to the house we found the young lady’s shoes were coated with mud on the bottom. As she took them off at the back door, I scooped them up so I could wash off the mud, knowing they were packing later in the day for an early flight out in the morning. Little did I know what God was doing in her through such a simple act. Here’s what she wrote me later:

It really was such a blessing to be with you guys for a couple of days and hang out. I think I shared once with you that I didn’t have a great dad growing up. He was very harsh, unloving and absent. One of my most frequent conversations with God is that he would just help me understand the love of a father. Since I didn’t get to experience the earthly kind, I sometimes have a hard time accepting/understanding the spiritual kind. God is pretty cool, because since I started talking to him about it, he’s placed some of the neatest people and visual examples of it in my life.

I know you weren’t even aware of it, but seeing what an awesome dad you are touched my heart deeply. The way you interacted with your daughter was especially impactingl to watch. I love how you’re kinda sassy with each other (I can really relate to that), yet it was so obvious how much you adore her. Julie was joking about you washing my shoes… but it actually meant a lot to me. I can only imagine what it meant to the disciples when Jesus washed their feet. It was honestly humbling to watch you wash my shoes, yet it was also a very powerful act of love. What a beautiful visual picture of how much father loves me.

And what’s so cool about you, is that you are just so genuine. I think that when we genuinely love the people in our life, others around us can not help but see God in that. It’s so freakin cool! So, thank you for just being you. Because of it, I now have a great understanding of father’s love.

I love her statement that genuineness resonates with people where pretense doesn’t. I think that’s pretty cool as well. It also points to one of the things I love most about this journey. God seems to work best when we’re least aware of trying to do something for him or have a specific impact on someone’s life. Maybe that’s what makes it genuine.

I wasn’t even aware that she was being touched so deeply. For me, I just saw some muddy shoes that needed to be cleaned so they would have enough time to dry before she needed to pack them. It was the simplest of actions and yet it profoundly touched someone. And what I like best, is that I was completely unaware of it at the time. For one who used to be a performer, who couldn’t do hardly anything without the conscious thought of what other people would think of me, this is a great joy and glorious freedom. What’s more, for all that performing, no one ever seemed to get touched like this.

Could it be that simply living alongside others and loving them will accomplish everything God wants to do through us? We don’t have to have the conscious agenda of doing something so others will be touched. In fact, maybe it is best that we don’t.

Reality wins! It always wins! Performances, are just that. It’s who you are when the lights are off and the crowd has gone home that makes all the difference.

Due to the holiday season and our need for a bit of rest and refreshing, the Lifestream Offices will be closed from noon on December 24th, until the morning of January 4. We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes people with book orders and correspondence, but we really do need the rest this time of year and a break from our routine. Book and audio orders placed during this time will be shipped on January 4. If you can hold off other business related items until then, that would be wonderful as well. Thank you, and we pray that you’ll find some time for rest and refreshing during this season as well.

We first met Michele Perry when she wrote me an email in February 2008, which I posted on my blog. What happens when God invites a single, 30ish, one-legged white woman from Florida to go on an adventure with him in one of the cruelest corners of the earth? And she goes!

Her new book has just been released. I had the joy of reading some of it in manuscript form quite a while ago when she was considering publishing it with Windblown Media. Unfortunately for us, a publisher she had previously approached decided to pick it up before we had a chance to review it. But in reading her self-effacing humor, her brutal honesty, and her insights about the Father I love, I grew to appreciate this young woman I’ve never met and the courage with which she follows her Lord.

Love Has a Face: Mascara, a Machete and One Woman’s Miraculous Journey with Jesus in Sudan is now available and I just finished reading it. If you want some encouragement in your own journey, you might consider picking this one up.

This is not the usual mission books, meant to solicit guilt that you’re not doing enough for Jesus, or to evoke pity for the author. This is a real life adventure about following God in a very dark place and watching him work his purpose in spite of our humanity and lack of resources. I came away encouraged in my own journey to follow Jesus where he has asked me to go, and filled with an infusion of trust for a Father that is so much bigger than my limited knowledge and resources. I’ve already bought some copies for others.

That said, however, I’ll warn you that Michele uses some of the revivalistic language that regretfully may limit the audience for this book. I know it turns off many people who see through some of the excesses of that movement and how it unwittingly trivializes all the ways in which Father works. If you’re used to that slice of the body you won’t even notice it and most people who are don’t realize how off-putting some of their expressions of God sound to others. If you don’t understand or appreciate some of that language, you can easily read around it, just don’t let it discourage you from reading.

But do read it. Your faith will be encouraged, your love for the downtrodden will grow, and your passion for Jesus will be freshly fanned into flames. Here are some excerpts to show you what’s in store:

This love does not start wiht a good program. It cannot. It starts with being in love, being intimately connected to Jesus. It starts with knowing first that I am loved. I cannot give what I do not have. It is supernatural. It cannot be apart from Him. All living fruit in my life has come only from a living relationship with Him.

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(When she felt God asking her to let go of the need to be responsible in the face of overwhelming need and a dwindling bank account.) I knew the world looked at our ministry in the Sudan and said, ‘Look at all those children! Wow, you are responsible for so much.’ The Church saw the promises Jesus gave us and said, ‘Wow, what a lot of responsibility Jesus has given you!’ I had begun to believe the myth called responsibility, and it turned what had been spontaneity into suffocation in my soul. It made even breathing hard work. The storm around me stopped being an opportunity to dance with Jesus and started to loo like a sentence of drowning.

All the while, Jesus was saying. No!

Slowly I began to realize that Jesus did not give me his promises for Sudan as a responsibility to carry. He gave me His promises as a playground to embrace with him. All he desired was my ability to respond to Him. The lie of false responsibility actually stole the joy and even the ability to respond to the spontaneous moving of His Spirit.

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“What would a people look like who are fully embraced by love? What would a people become if they were totally set free to live out their own identity and sound? What would an army of love be, released from the darkest corners of the nations to carry the light of His face, seen through their own, as they see who they are in Love’s eyes?

“The wave dancers and light carriers are being released. The unpaved road is an invitation to the depths of Loves’ heartbeat. Watch out. Here they come: the unstoppable lovers of God whom nothing can deter. They bring with them life in abundance, light so bright that the darkness flees before its coming and night becomes as day at the rise of His glory in an through their lives.”

Last night I received some photos taken during my time in Brazil and they brought back such warm memories of the people I grew to know over so brief a time. One of the best aspects of my travel is that I have friends all over the world. One of the worst is that I have friends all over the world that I never know when or if I’m going to see them again.

I loved the festive spirit, the humor, and the intense spiritual passion and hunger of the people I met there. This is a very religious country as far as Christianity goes, but most of these were paying a price to live and think outside the normal religious expectations and seek to find meaningful engagement with God and other brothers and sisters. For those that want a taste of my time there, I thought I’d include some of the pictures here. Enjoy.

Friday night through Sunday afternoon we held a retreat for some 200 people, some from great distances, to talk about living loved and loving others. It was also broadcast live on the Internet for those who couldn’t come. (I am in the red shirt with my back to the camera.)




But if you know me, you know I much more involved the interactions with people after meetings, over meals and in quiet conversations. The dialog, question and answer and sharing of insights was always rich with a hunger to know the truth rather than to simply find what was comfortable to believe.






Jalber (right) and Orlanda (left) graciously opened their hearts, home, and their churrasco (bbq) to me and others that wanted to visit when I was there. They have a delightful family and we all shared a farewell feast together the night before I left. Those are their grandchildren in the picture.


Vivian was my mouth and ears in almost all of the conversations I had. She was a delight and had a personality not unlike my daughter’s, which made it really fun to navigate the culture and to work through the language together to help communicate with the people.

Such incredible memories and joy! They all begged me to come back some day. We’ll have to see when that might happen…

Today is Flyday! At 11:00 tonight I begin my journey home from Brazil and will feel torn again from some new brothers and sisters that I didn’t know I had, and have grown to love in these days together.

I’m going to let Peter from Australia write my blog today. He felt impressed to send some thoughts to me about reconciliation and gave me permission to pass them on if I wanted. This post comes from the depth of someone’s pain, experience, and healing which is why it rings with such simplicity and truth.

There is so much that I love in this post and so much that I am committed to stay true to in my own heart even in the most painful of broken relationships. I have use bold time to highlight portions I think are particularly significant. Here’s what Peter wrote me:

Some recent podcast references, have stimulated some thoughts on the “broken relationships” issue. From our pre-faith days, we can truly say it was easier to make peace with worldly folk than with the religious ones! Our coming to terms with broken relationships is a work in progress, but thus far, our thinking is as follows.

Reconciliation requires (at least) two key ingredients from each party; (a) a willingness to talk (ie being prepared to take a seat at the “table of reconciliation”), and (b), a preparedness to be wrong (not manipulative capitulation, not an abdication of truth; just a humble openness).

As “young Christians” (boy, how I hate that demeaning term), we were unschooled in the ways of religion. We soon found ourselves on the wrong side of pastors, elders, and all manner of “church-folk”. We earnestly sought truth and reconciliation but were shunned in every instance. How sad that it took religion to “teach” us what shunning is. Even through our son’s battle with cancer (and his death in 2007), the “shunners” never flinched; never deviated from their “God ordained” mission to shun us into their ways. But even that was ultimately a blessing; we were “forced” into a reliance on God Himself rather than on his self appointed “representatives”.

In our isolation we sought God, and in that place developed a lasting resolve; it is to always be prepared to take our seat at the table of reconciliation, to be prepared to be wrong, to resist the temptation of taking responsibility for the decisions others make, and above all, to place the love of truth above the need to be right. It is a real test of self to discern whether we really are lovers of truth, or just lovers of the “truth” we already have, and need.

There is sadness still in that hollow place of unresolved conflict, but there can be peace also. There is peace that comes from trusting God, from keeping our eyes focused where they belong, and from not gathering up responsibilities that are not rightfully ours. We cannot sit alone at that table of reconciliation forever; but we can forever maintain our preparedness to do so. If we retain that preparedness (to be willing, humble, lovers of truth), we remain in God; for that, and only that, we are accountable. God is the “light” over the “table of reconciliation”; the table is always there, the light always on. To be drawn to the light is to be drawn to Him; it is so sad that some, who we once saw as brothers and sisters, prefer to avoid the light. But this, in itself, is illuminating isn’t it?

We have only once had the glorious experience of patience rewarded; of sitting at the table of reconciliation with a sister. She came years after the event, and at Father’s prompting. The three of us sat, in the company of God, each accepting responsibility for our actions; but without need to apportion blame. Reconciliation came. It was not followed by restoration of relationship, but nevertheless, we savour that beautiful gift as it was.

As I read this it reminded me of 2 Corinthians 5 and God’s heart for reconciliation even through the worst of our sins and failures and with no thought for his own life. Reconciliation is a painful hope. When someone attacks us and refuses to sit down at the table of reconciliation, it is easier to cut ourselves off than risk the pain of the broken relationship. It is easier to reject people who hurt us and hide behind a wall of our defense mechanisms that promises protection. But what may seem like a safe place in our flesh is only another dark hole that devours who God really made us to be. Interestingly enough many of our ‘friends’ think they help us by fortifying our own defenses and embellishing our own lies.

I truly understand why true love seeks reconciliation and am so blessed that God demonstrated that heart for all who have broken faith with him. I am so grateful he paid so awesome a price to keep the door open for us. Can we do anything less than keep the door of our heart open regardless of what others do to us? I like in this post that we don’t control the process of reconciliation, but we can keep the lights on on our side of it.

This is Day 6 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and I am having an incredible trip. I really enjoy the people I get to meet on trips like this, especially those who are beginning to see that the God of the Bible has been disfigured by the lies of religion. Most of the people I have met only know me by readingSo You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore. It has been translated and published in Brazil by the same publishing house as did The Shack. It has sold incredibly well through secular stores and has caused quite a buzz in this country. Traditional churches and pastors have spoken out against it, and many warn people not to read such a dangerous book. But so many others have read it, resonated with its message and wanted me to come to talk more about this amazing life with God and a different way to view the church.

We had a weekend retreat where 200 people gathered to talk with me and it was broadcast live on the Internet. They had never heard of He Loves Me or Transitions. Unfortunately most of them do not speak English and I do not speak Portuguese, so I had to work through translators, which makes it a bit more difficult. But I’ve had some wonderful translators, and one young woman who just graduated from a college in the U.S. stays with me all the time to help with personal conversations. It has been wonderful to talk to so many people and hear what Jesus is revealing to them as well as helping them sort through some of their questions.

I’ve been talking nonstop since I arrived, so I’m pretty tired. We had a five-hour meeting last night in a home with scores of questions about how to live this life individually and corporately. I love the hearts of these people, what they already know of him and what he is shaping in their lives.

Let me tell you about one moment that touched me deeply. Saturday night I shared the teaching of the cross, which has had quite an impact. It is a view of the cross that has not been taught in Brazil so many are just processing it for the first time and we had some incredible dialog about all of that since. But it is always difficult to teach that content through translators because it is highly nuanced and I’m never sure how it is being interpreted.

When I finished, I sat down next to a young woman I know understands English. I leaned over to her and asked if she thought all that made sense. So much theology in so short a space, I wanted to make sure it had communicated through the translation.

She turned to me and her eyes were filled with tears. She whispered to me in the most awed, grateful, overwhelmed in a good way, and breathless voice, “I have never heard that before,” as if she just discovered a tender Father she’d never known before. And she cried.

And so did I. It moved me deeply to see how God had made himself known to her in such a simple yet profound way. If people ask why I travel around the world, crawling into cramped airplanes for hours on end, sleeping in beds that are not my own, eating strange foods I don’t always enjoy, missing Sara, my children and grandchildren as well as the comforts and joys of home, moments like this are the answer. That one moment would have made this entire trip worth it for me if nothing else had happened here. A daughter meets the Father she never knew she had.

And she cried tears of great joy as if she had just discovered a father she never knew she had. It moved me deeply to watch her new found joy

So, yes, I guess he communicated. It has been so transforming for her and so many others. Person after person came up to me at the end and told me how much this had shifted their thinking about God. Others have struggled to grasp it, as I did when I first heard it. You want to believe its true but so much religious tradition has taught us otherwise.

One man asked me why I to the risk to share that. Because I believe it the foundational reality on which all else is built. Most people see God as the tormentor of Jesus, rather than the Father who was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Because of that so many Christians live our lives trying to appease a demanding, angry God instead of living in the affection of a gracious Father. If we don’t get that right, we’ll never learn what it means to grow in him, share life with his family, or love the world with the same compassion Jesus did. (If you haven’t heard some of this teaching you can listen to it free on our Transition page.)

One more day here, and then I fly home for the holidays with my family.