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We don’t often think like this, do we? I got this email from someone recently and I loved what they had discovered:

We have been in this area for about 9 years now. I really felt strongly that the Lord had spoken to my heart about coming here back in 1998, and we made the move in 1999. I always assumed it was to start a church or to be on staff at a church or something along those lines. I’m not saying that God still won’t use us in a way to minister here, but wow, how our view of things has changed. I think it was about relationships, all along.

My biological dad (who did not raise me, I had no contact with him at all) contacted us shortly after we had decided that it was God’s will for us to move to this area. I agreed to meet with him, probably early in 1999 before we moved. I always had a dad growing up, so I didn’t resent him or anything like that. Turns out he is a heck of a nice guy. Anyway, he lives about 30 minutes south of where we live now. We have developed a great relationship with him and many of my family members that I never knew growing up. He told me later that him and his wife had been praying for years for our relationship to be restored.

Here I was thinking that God sent us here for some great ministry, but all along He was answering the prayer of a father wanting to get to know his son.

We’re always so conscious of trying to get God to answer our prayers, that we rarely think how we might be an answer for someone else’s. Maybe what’s going on in your life isn’t about you? Maybe God is making you a gift for someone else…

And on that premise, true community thrives!

They did it again on this list trip through Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Every where I go the question I get asked most is, “Can you come back and will you bring Sara?” I usually joke that I don’t bring Sara with me because people enjoy her so much, that they’d rather spend time with her than me. But that isn’t far from the truth. Sara has her own compelling story and compassionate heart for people, especially women, who are sorting out what it means to follow Jesus. She is a wealth of wisdom and great fun and people usually feel sorry for her because she has to put up with me all the time.

But for the last few years she’s also been counseling high school students at a local high school, as well as grandkids to play with and a garden she loves to tend. We pray together about every trip I take and whether or not God wants her to be part of it. While we do love traveling together when we get to, we also realize that God’s purposes are not always served by our doing so. There are times Sara could have gone with me, but we felt she needed to be home. We had no idea why, until events later unfolded and we knew afterwards why it was best for her not to come. I hope her freer schedule this year will allow her to take more trips with me, but that will be mitigated by her need to take care of things in the office while I’m gone on longer trips.

And to be honest, most conversations I get into on the road about Father’s love, my journey, the cross, growing trust, or relational church life, Sara has been through hundreds of times already. Those conversations don’t provoke the same passion in her that they do in me, because God has not wired her in the same way. (And, honestly, I’m very grateful for that!)

But we’ve had a marvelous summer working together. For those that don’t know, Sara is taking a leave of absence from her job to work with me at Lifestream, The God Journey, BridgeBuilders and Windblown Media. She’s an incredibly capable woman in handling all things administrative with the vast number of projects I’ve gotten involved in. I need someone like her handling all those things for me as we work through the changes we face here. Hers is the voice you will hear now when you call our office. Believe me, she can handle anything I can handle.

All of this makes me so grateful that almost thirty-five years ago that lady sat down across from me at a homecoming banquet while we were in college. The relationship that began there has brought innumerable joys in the journey we have shared together. I’m so amazed that God chose us for the other and brought us together in a growing love for each other. I can’t imagine a better partner for this journey and anyone that I could have more fun with on the way. I’m truly blessed that we have found a way to journey together through the ups and downs and joys and trials, that has only has drawn us closer together and fall ever-more deeply in love.

We talked the other night how different our lives might have been if we’d not found each other. Thirty-three years of married life has brought us together in a partnership we’d never have imagined. We continue to discover new things about the other and enjoy God’s unfolding purpose in our lives. We’ve never loved each other more and we’re having more fun sharing this journey than we could have imagined. Yes, we have our difficult moments both in life and in our growing relationship, but the wonderful times more than overwhelm them. After three decades of practicing what it means to love each other, we’re actually getting pretty good at it. At least we think we are. Maybe we’ll look back after fifty years and think how superficial our love was at thirty-three. That’s how it feels now looking back at what we thought was so incredible when we’d only been married five years.

We’re working on a book to share what God has taught us about engaging a lifetime partnership. We’re calling it ONLY AND ALWAYS: TURNING THE WONDER OF ROMANCE INTO A LIFE-LONG ADVENTURE. But don’t try to order it any time soon! We’ve got a lot of work to do!

I just wanted to re-introduce Sara to many of you so that you’ll know who she is when she picks up the phone or answers your email. She’s really good at what she does. I trust her with my life and all my joys. She’s always been faithful, always gracious, and always wise. Treat her well, will you?

Still hanging out in Wisconsin, headed for Duluth, Minnesota tomorrow. Having an awesome time with some wonderful folks on this journey.

I received an email the other day with some quotes in it from Barbara Brown Taylor who has written an autobiographical book called Leaving Church. She’s come from a very different tradition than I did—as clergy for the Episcopal Church. But she didn’t find it to be all that she expected it to be. Now I haven’t read her book yet, but I loved the quotes that were sent to me. I’m not sure how quickly I’ll get to read the book, but thought I’d share some of her insights with you.

The first quote is about people who get stuck in church meetings but never engage God as a personal reality:

“(For some) God was the boundless lover, but for many people God was the parent who had left. They still read about him in the Bible and sang about him in hymns. They still believed in his reality, which made it even harder to accept his apparent lack of interest in them. They waited for messages from him that did not arrive. They prepared their hearts for meetings that never happened. They listened to other Christians speak as if God showed up every night for supper, leaving them to wonder what they had done wrong to make God go off and start another family.” (Leaving Church, pp 74-75).

And then this from a collection of her sermons entitles, Home by Another Way.

“So if you want to know who today’s Pharisees are, here are some of the questions to ask. Who are the religious people who follow the traditions of the elders, and who – on the basis of that tradition – believe they can tell the true prophets from the false ones? Who are the guardians of the faith, the fully initiated, law-abiding, pledge-paying, creed-saying, theologically correct people who can spot a heretic a mile away?

According to John, these are the people to watch out for, because they think they can see. Furthermore, they think they can see better than other people, and they are not shy about telling you that you are not really seeing what you think you see, or that what you are seeing is wrong. They do not do this to be mean, either. They do this because they love God and maybe even because they love you too. They are doing it to protect you from believing the wrong things.”

My previous post on “Is The Shack Heresy?” has promoted the most comments (81) of any blog to date. It is the most read and has generated the most anger in some quarters. I said there that it does not bother me if people struggle with some of the theology in The Shack. It was meant to be provocative and to get people to think outside of the religious conditioning that has distorted the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our day. I have a very close friend that thinks God should not be characterized in human terms in a novel. I respect his view and love him deeply, this disagreement notwithstanding.

But I have also received letters and comments from people that are vitriolic, making false accusations and bleeding with rage. I’m surprised that people take the time to get so worked up over a book they don’t like, especially one that is helping people reconnect with the love of the Father through the work of Jesus. There are millions of books out there that I disagree with, some of them theological in nature, but I’ve never felt the need to write the author or publisher or cast aspersions on their motives. I find it amazing that this book can at the same moment connect broken people to God in the deepest part of their souls, and enrage others who feel we didn’t cross all the theological t’s or dot all the doctrinal i’s.

Someone sent me a link to a blog called The Thin Edge that has made this comment about the controversy that has raged over this book, especially the personna of Papa in the early part of the story:

Those who miss the amazing story of The Shack by theological nitpicking are like those who try to fit every aspect of a biblical parable into their systematic theology textbook. They will never make all the pieces fit together. It seems to me that the predominantly white male critics of The Shack—especially those with Reformed theology running through their veins—may owe Paul Young an apology and the rest of us…well, we’re just really thankful for a literary portrait of the God who crawls into our deepest sadness and brings us through the darkest night from brokenness to wholeness once again.

I don’t know about needing an apology, but I resonate with his point.

We are happy to announce the release of Wayne’s video on Sharing In the Father’s Affection in full-screen DVD. This video has been available on the Lifestream site for some time, but we’ve had many requests for a DVD of this video to be shown in personal and group settings in full resolution. The video is $13.00 and may be used for personal or group showings. You may view the video here, and you may order the DVD here.

Canadian residents can order the video directly through Crown Video.

Also, tomorrow I leave for a ten-day trip through Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Find out more on our Travel Page. It’s hard to believe we’re in the waning days of summer. It has flown by here!

On a recent trip to Florida on a BridgeBuilders assignment , I spent an evening with some Methodist brothers who had been reading some of my books and wanted to come down for an evening of conversation. I had a fabulous time! It reminds me all over again that there are great people on this relational journey who serve with great grace among those in more traditional congregations. It does well to remind us all that living outside the box, isn’t about stopping Sunday morning attendance, but living alongside the Resurrected Christ wherever he places us in his family.

One of those brothers had been reading a book of letters by Swiss theologian Karl Barth from the 1960s. I loved what he was saying about it and he made me a copy. This was in response to a seminary professor who wanted to send Dr. Barth some questions on behalf of Christianity Today. Now I haven’t read Karl Barth in years and am not even sure what his particular theological bent was that riled up the evangelicals in the States. So, this is certainly no defense of his theology, but it is celebration of his wisdom for dealing with criticism. Not all who criticize are looking for truth, and you don’t have to fall victim to the ‘orthodoxy’ crowd that it is only interested in proving a point and not growing in the Truth. I thought others of you might enjoy reading some excerpts from it:

Please excuse me and please try to understand that I cannot and will not answer the questions these people put.

To do so in the time requested would in any case be impossible for me…. But even if I had the time and strength, I would not enter into a discussion of the questions proposed.

Such a discussion would have to rest on the primary presupposition that those who ask the questions have read, learned, and pondered the many things I have already said and written about these matters. They have obviously not done this… But I cannot respect the questions of these people from Christianity Today, for they do not focus on the reasons for my statements but on certain foolishly drawn deductions from them. Their questions are thus superficial.

The decisive point, however, is this. The second presupposition of a fruitful discussion between them and me would have to be that we are able to talk on a common plane. But these people have already had their so-called orthodoxy for a long time. They are closed to anything else, will cling to it at all costs, and they can adopt toward me only the role of prosecuting attorneys, trying to establish whether what I represent agrees or disagrees with their orthodoxy, in which I for my part have no interest! None of their questions leaves me with the impression that they want to seek with me the truth that is greater than us all. They take the stance of those who happily possess it already and who hope to enhance their happiness by succeeding in proving to themselves and to the world that I do not share this happiness. Indeed they have long since decided and publicly proclaimed that I am a heretic, possibly the worst heretic of all time. So be it! But they should not expect me to take the trouble to give them the satisfaction of offering explanations which they will simply use to confirm the judgment they have already passed on me.

…These fundamentalists want to eat me up. They have not yet come to a “better mind and attitude” as I once hoped. I can thus give them neither an angry nor a gentle answer but instead no answer at all.
Karl Barth (From Karl Barth, Letters: 1961-1968)

After a few hundred emails, it is pretty easy to tell those people who have serious questions and concerns and want to engage in honest dialog, and those who demand a one-sided conversation to defend their views and mischaracterize mine. I love dialog with the first. I think dear brothers and sisters can disagree about a lot of things and find meaningful and graceful dialog through those differences.

The second, however, act just like Pharisees, always straining at the smallest issue while missing the bigger picture of God’s grace and love. They don’t listen to others but act as prosecutors to prove my knowledge is deficient to theirs. I like Barth’s approach here. You don’t have to engage that conversation, for it will not bear fruit in either life.

A few weeks ago almost all of the extended family on my side of the family got together for a reunion in honor of my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary. We gathered at Shaver Lake, California where my parents live. That’s the mob to the left. We had a great time together in the Sierras and though it was a bit of a task to get us all together, it was well worth it.

Given the the pressure on relationships in our day, it is quite a treasure to have parents who have found a way to stay together that long. Our family is far from perfect and we have our share of ups and downs, but overall we have a deep and abiding love for each other that becomes more precious with the passing of time.

But I realize that isn’t true for everyone. Some families involve very broken people who are not free to love even their own children in a way that even older children desires. A few weeks ago a man wrote me about a desire to reconnect with his dad even though their relationship had been estranged for some time. He had experienced some healing in his own life and wanted to see if that could extend to this father as well. We shared about the process for that and I warned him about not having any expectations about how his father might respond, or he’d probably come away disappointed. Here’s what he wrote me a couple of weeks ago. I share it here with his permission.

I met with my dad. We hadn’t seen each other in over four years. I was able to offer him love in a way I never have been able to before. In the past I could only love him out of my brokenness which demanded certain things from him. This time I was able to offer my love out of a heart that is being healed. And I realized what a tough man he is to love. Honestly, for the past four years I really didn’t miss his caustic, cynical personality, one that is quicker to make enemies than friends. But I’m stepping into this, moving towards him, offering him my love and honesty. And I was able to tell him that I don’t have any expectations of him, of how I would like him to respond. The lines of communication have been re-opened. And in the end he thanked me for reaching out to him and he told me that he loves me.

An interesting side note is that I have befriended our neighbor who is the same age as my dad and who lost his wife of 45 years. He would have people stop by from local churches who would attempt to console but would end up preaching at him. He would kick them out. I just tried to love him and be there for him. This was two years ago. He has since given his life to Christ and is a new man! And I have been able to play a part in helping him reach out to his adult son and reconnect. That’s been an amazing journey to watch, since I’m now seeing it from a father’s perspective. Here is a 70 year old man who used to be tough as nails (marine in Vietnam, cop, etc) and now is a humble, gentle and broken man. He tears up when he talks about his son and how he longs to be a friend to him. And he always hugs me and tells me I am his best friend. Pretty incredible stuff.

The Father has revealed and healed so much in my life, exposing all the lies I believed about events that happened to me when I was younger that I had no control of. These lies then formed the foundation of my beliefs—about myself, others and the Father. God, in His kindness, has taken me (and continues to take me) on a journey of exposing the lies, deconstructing them and then speaking His Life and Truth into the situation. He is in essence reframing or reinterpreting those events. And since He is outside of time, he is taking me back to those events and showing me that He was there, even though I didn’t acknowledge His presence at that time.

I love it when people who are being loved, grow in the freedom to share that love with others. It reminds me of one of my favorite passages from THE SHACK:

Mack, if anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again.

The kingdom of God breaks into our world not through our achievements or large-scale initiatives. The kingdom of God breaks into our world in the simplest ways we love the people God puts in front of us today, and doing the simple things he nudges us to do, especially when we are willing to move beyond our comfort zones to love others who may, in fact, be quite difficult to love. Those are the acts that change the world!

Last Thursday I had just returned from a day of meetings in Los Angeles. Among others we’d met with one of the producers of the Spider-Man franchise, who is a passionate believer, was deeply impacted by THE SHACK and wants to help us bring the movie to screen. One of the things he said was, “Do you realize what you have the opportunity to do? You get show what a flower looks like God walks past it in a garden.” Wow! That makes me quiver!

I was relating that story to my wife and daughter who had brought the grandkids over for dinner. My daughter asked, “Do you guys ever stop and think that you might be way in over your heads here?”

Sara and I howled in laughter. Of course we are! I told Julie that I haven’t touched the bottom of the lake in so long, I don’t remember what it feels like anymore.

For the last 12 years God has asked us to be involved in all kinds of things that we’re not capable of doing, nor did we have the means on our own to make them happen. Whether it has been BridgeBuilder negotiations, publishing, or traveling around the world without a safety net. But we have seen him provide over and over exactly what we needed and brothers and sisters to share our lives with in the process.

Somehow in all of that we learned how to ride the top of the water spiritually speaking, by relaxing into his love. What a shock it has been! I didn’t know it, but for most of my life I’ve begged God to keep me in the shallow water by praying for circumstances that were predictable, manageable and comfortable. And I was always so angry and frustrated when he didn’t fix the circumstances that troubled me so that I could be happy.

But that’s not where life is lived for most of us. I never learned how much his love and grace could carry me through. All along he wanted to teach me how to swim on the top so that I could go places with him far beyond the shoreline. For the last dozen years or so, I’ve been learning to live with my security is in his love for me, not in being able to touch the bottom.

i honestly think that’s how many of us have misunderstood this Christian life. We thought it meant that God would keep us in the shallows, instead of teaching us to swim over the depths. We got angry at him when things didn’t turn out as easy as we wanted, when he was using those things to move us out of our comfort zone and into his. But living in his is so much better—free, alive, adventurous and fruitful.

So now I have no idea where the bottom is and I honestly don’t care anymore. When you can’t touch the bottom, it doesn’t matter if it’s 3 feet below your outstretched legs or 300. My security isn’t there anymore; I am learning top put it in God’s awesome love for me that can sustain me through anything, and accomplish his purpose not only in the circumstances I’m in, but also transforming me in the process.

And that’s not just true for me. It’s even more true for people facing far more dire circumstances than I am today. I get email every day from single moms struggling to stay afloat, people battling horrible diseases (or caring for kids who are), or people out of work or lonely and isolated. I know how frustrating all of that can be and at the same time I know that God wants to teach them to swim above those things rather than being consumed by them. That all begins with a revelation of his love and engagement with you.

His love is more certain than the rising sun. Learn to relax into him and he will become far more real to you than the fact that you, too, are in way over your head!

I guess this bit of humor is making the rounds on the ‘net! I loved it:

Ingrid, the church gossip, and self-appointed monitor of the church’s’ morals, kept sticking her nose into other people’s business.

Several members did not approve of her extra curricular activities, but feared her enough to maintain their silence.

She made a mistake, however, when she accused Frank, a new member, of being an alcoholic after she saw his old pickup parked in front of the town’s only bar one afternoon.

She emphatically told Frank (and several others) that everyone seeing it there would know what he was doing.

Frank, a man of few words, stared at her for a moment and just turned and walked away. He didn’t explain, defend, or deny… He said nothing.

Later that evening, Frank quietly parked his pickup in front of Ingrid’s house, walked home, and left it there all night!!!

You gotta love Frank!

Paul, Brad and I (that’s us above by some of our signs, and one of the shuttle buses that ferried people back and forth to their hotels) met some great people at Christian Retailing Convention in Orlando, but those events truly are not my cup of tea, or should I say Diet Coke! We are amazed at how this tidal wave just keeps rising. In the last month weekly sales for THE SHACK have doubled, following on the heels of The Today Show appearance, and articles in TIME Magazine as well as PEOPLE. We had some marvelous opportunities to share THE SHACK story and found people deeply touched by how God brought all of that together.

We met our UK partners and found their enthusiasm for THE SHACK staggering. They recorded a video interview with all three of us for use there. Also THE SHACK has been featured in a number of news reports on the BBC which has surprised folks there since they never talk about books with Christian themes.

And my two titles continue to grow, reaching an entirely new audience. At a book signing I did for HE LOVES ME, I was approached by a key book buyer from Barnes and Noble, who said she’d just ordered enough of my two titles to drive them to the front of the store. Wow! Who would have thought?

I don’t know when it’s harder to write entries these days, on the road or at home. I come home to a way too full inbox. My books are just soaring now on the draft of THE SHACK and that has brought all kinds of new people to my email, phone line and front door! I still haven’t worked out how I’m going to handle all of this, but for the time being I’ve got a new helper around the office. Jessica completed her summer with us and departed for a family vacation. My incredible wife Sara has stepped in to help us get through this time. She has taken a leave of absence from her counseling job at a local high school and will take over a lot of my daily duties at Lifestream, to give me more time to write and deal with other realities at Windblown Media.

I am really excited about our working together through the next year. She will be handling a lot of details around here, but please know if you’re talking with her, it’s the same as talking with me. Some folks would say it’s even better!

One final note. We also heard from our brothers and sisters in Kenya who are still in need. Food prices have hit the roof and they are still caring for families that were displaced in the violence and have no home to return to. Every dime sent to us will go directly to those who need it. If God puts it on your heart to send something, please go to our Invoice Page and click on the ‘Pay Invoice’ button. You can then list “Donation for Kenya” and the amount you’d like to give. If you use the ‘Donation’ button you will need to also send me an email letting me know you wanted this to go for Kenya and not for Lifestream. All donations to this cause are tax deductible. Or, if you prefer, you can also send a check to Lifestream • 7228 University Dr. • Moorpark, CA 93021.