If you want your kids to listen to you, don’t yell at them. Whisper. Make them lean in. My kids taught me that and I do it with adults now.
Mario Batali, in Esquire

Great advice for parents! Even better for us to understand why God doesn’t scream his plan and purpose into our lives. It’s an invitation not a demand! Yes, it takes a bit to learn to listen to that voice and give it the place in your life that it deserves, but what he wants most is for us to lean in and enjoy him, not just get his wisdom.

My sheep know my voice, Jesus said. It’s not about hearing first; it’s always about relationship!

Enjoy:

A Living Prayer
Songwriter: Ronald Franklin Block
Publisher: MOONLIGHT CANYON PUBLISHING

In this world I walk alone
With no place to call my home
But there’s one who holds my hand
The rugged road through barren lands
The way is dark, the road is steep
But He’s become my eyes to see
The strength to climb, my griefs to bear
The Savior lives inside me there

In Your love I find release
A haven from my unbelief
Take my life and let me be
A living prayer, my God to Thee

In these trials of life I find
Another voice inside my mind
He comforts me and bids me live
Inside the love the Father gives

In Your love I find release
A haven from my unbelief
Take my life and let me be
A living prayer, my God to Thee

Take my life and let me be
A living prayer, my God to Thee

Relaxing Into the Reality of Living Loved. I am often asked by people what can they do to live loved. I am becoming increasingly convinced that learning to live loved is not a doctrine to learn, or a discipline to follow, but a reality Jesus wants us to relax into. I shared about that recently at a Because of Jesus convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Many who are plagued with trying to do something to figure out this relationship, have told me this analogy has given them a wonderful handle on how Jesus allows us to live in this reality. The audio of that teaching has now been included in our free Audio Library and is available by clicking on the title link above, or going to the Audio Library and clicking on the third entry: “The Reality of Living Loved”.

Brad and I will have more discussion on this way of thinking on our July 17 edition of The God Journey.

Yep, that’s me! Earlier this spring I was invited to a discussion about living loved with people in Anderson, Indiana who had been reading The Shack and some of my own books, He Loves Me, and So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore.

This conversation covers so much of my own journey. my participation in the publication of The Shack, and some of the current challenges in my own life. The organizers of the event, Lives Transforming, video taped the event and have made it available on their website. We are considering making this into a CD so small groups can use it to stimulate their own discussions about their spiritual journey and how these books have touched their lives. We’ll have more on that down the road.

You can view the video on-line here.

I’ve also planned trips in the next couple of months to Knoxville, TN and to Atlanta, GA. So I guess I’m back on the road again.

I also recommended this book on a recent podcast of The God Journey and wanted to make sure you’ve heard about it if you’re looking for a children’s Bible for kids in the 3 – 7 age range. A friend recommended it to me and it has become my granddaughter’s favorite book. She loves it, and what’s even better is that all the stories are framed in grace, with a relational God wanting to reconnect with his fallen children. It’s called The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones with art by Jago. It’s tag line is “Every story whispers his name” and then makes the loving God part of every story. This is a great resource to share the Scriptures with your young children… And maybe even your older ones. I loved it and can’t wait to read more of those stories to Aimee.

Finally, I got this email the other day. I love the heart and spirit of it, so I wanted to pass it along to you as well. It captures the simple freedom of just living in grace.

I just wanted to write to you to tell you how much your book So You Don’t Want to Go To Church Anymore, the story of Jake Colsen, has meant to me. It was six years ago that we left a church where I had served as the children’s pastor. I thought I was there to help children become followers of Jesus, but the “power” of the church had other ideas. I have lived with the pain of the situation for so long thinking that God didn’t love me or have a plan for me and had no place for me in his kingdom.

In the six years since leaving, I have begun a totally new career and have really started to see how ministry seems much more fruitful and more satisfying not being part of anything organized. All my years of theological training though seem to make me feel that it was not adequate if it was not done through the church. Your book was like it was written specifically to me. Some of the things that Jake said is exactly how I had felt and was feeling. I now am starting to see such a different way of looking at the journey that God has for me.

One phrase that I have continued to recite to myself all the time from the book is, “You need to follow him, even when it creates conflict. Always be gentle and gracious to everyone, but never compromise what is in your heart just to get along.” This quote has given me so much strength to realize that it was okay to create conflict because of what God was doing in my heart and telling me to do. Going forward, I know I need to just keep tender towards God and his word and be strong in what He is telling me to do. God will need to take care of the conflict.

Thank you so much for writing this book and what it has meant to so many people. Someone recommended the book to me, and I have certainly recommended it to many other people since reading it last weekend. I can tell the people who are not ready to read it as they look at me with a blank stare when I give them the name of the book. I can not fully express to you the freedom that I have felt since reading the book.

How do we follow him? Live loved. Live free. Live gently with others and let Jesus take care of the fall-out. If we live only to avoid conflict, we may find ourselves avoiding him. I liked what Martin Luther said: “Peace if possible, but truth at any rate.”

Today I head off to Raleigh, NC and then I’ll spend a few days in Charlotte. Don’t have much more time to post, but for those interested, I participated last month in a discussion on grace for a podcast at Plain Truth Ministries. Some of you might find it interesting. It is called “State of Grace” and you can listen to it here.

I was reflecting upon the glorious time I had meeting you and the other families in the Omaha area who are on this journey into Father’s heart. Some key things were spoken and readily applied to that week-end that left me speechless. I’m glad we got to know each other.

I have a question that deals with The Shack book. God is explaining to Mack that God the Father, Son & Holy Spirit do not relate in a hierarchal way, but rather, they relate on the basis of their love & trust in one another. I was reading John 14 this morning & found a passage that I’m not sure what Jesus is getting at, here it is:

I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid. Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really loved me, you would be happy that I am going to the Father, who is greater than I am. I have told you these things before they happen so that when they do happen, you will believe. (John 14:27-29

What is Jesus saying when He says to his disciples that he’s going to His Father, who is greater than Jesus is?

My response: I love that you’re searching the Scriptures with some of these ‘issues’ in mind. That’s a great way to learn and grow. Without getting into a major dissertation here in an email, just think of what these passages can mean outside a relationship where power and status are important, instead of function and honor. Someone can be ‘greater’ without being ‘higher’, especially as Jesus is in human flesh in space and time.

The Three are constantly giving priority, honor, and glory to each other in Scripture as an act of their love and recognition of each other’s unique place, without having to resort to a hierarchy of power. They key here: where agreement exists, the need for power in decision-making makes no sense. They act in concert while at the same time not having to resort to command and control structure.

It is amazing and beautiful and powerful!

I’ve never looked at Jesus this way before. I think I’ve spent most of my Christian life perceiving God through the lens of status & power, but how you described in relationship is beautiful & awesome.

“McKenzie, even if you had been to blame, her love is much stronger than your fault could ever be.”

What a way to start the day! I must have missed this little nugget in the eight or nine times I’ve read through this book. Or, at least it didn’t hit me in the same way, because I don’t recall seeing it before. Sure it’s talking about a daughter’s love for her father, but doesn’t this also reflect the love the Father has for each of us? Isn’t that so often missed in our religious attempts to get people to feel guilty or to work harder?

God’s love is much stronger than our faults could ever be!

Think about that. There is no failure, no place of brokenness in our lives that can separate us from the love that is so much stronger, so much more fathomless than any of us can conceive today. If we really, truly knew that we would know how to simply live in him today and enjoy his presence with us! I’m pretty sure that’s all he wants.

I love the exuberance of youth. It isn’t easy to create exuberance and passion, and young people have it in abundance, but with it often comes misplaced confidence, and that can spell a ton of trouble. And no, I’m not talking about age here as much as I’m talking about experience on this journey.

Often I overhear someone say, “I have the Holy Spirit to guide me, so I don’t need the Bible or anyone else.” I clench a bit when I hear it. Ahh… Youth! Love the passion, but you’ve got to know they’ll end up strewn across the rocks some day having chased down something they thought the Spirit was speaking to them, only to find out it was their own passion or too much pizza. The more people pretend to be certain about some God-told-me information, the more I suspect that they are still a bit green on this journey. Yes, God will scoop them up, help teach them that humility is a wonderful key to living his life, but I would save them from that crash if I could.

Even Paul, the Apostle said, that he only knew what he knew in part, a “poor reflection as in a mirror.” (I Corinthians 13) And remember their mirrors were not the perfectly flat, highly polished surfaces we have today. They were more metallic, like looking at your reflection on a sheet of metal. He’s specifically talking about prophecy and how well any of us actually discern what God wants. I relate to that. I very rarely think that I’ve heard anything God says with absolute certainty. I have inklings on my heart, growing convictions that seem to nudge me in a certain direction. Some of them even turn out to be the Spirit’s leading, while others prove in time they weren’t. So I’m with Paul on this. When it comes to following the leading of the Spirit a bit of caution and humility go a long way to helping us get it right.

In a fresh reading through the book of Acts in the last few weeks, I have been blessed at how the early believers found their sense of direction. Often a turn of events brings them back to Jesus to seek his mind. One of those times is in Acts 15 where the young believers are fighting over whether or not Gentile believers must observe Jewish rituals or not. The focus was on circumcision as some argued that it was an important sign of the covenant that all male believers had to undergo. Paul, of course, disagreed. So some of those more mature on the journey got together to hash it out. You can read the details, but what I love about these moments in Acts was that they looked for three things to line up to have some certainty about what God might be saying.

They looked for how God had seemed to lead and spoken in their circumstances. The looked to the Scriptures, both the Old Testament, as well as the things Jesus said and modeled that eventually became our New Testament. They would zero in on those insights that seemed most applicable to their situation. And, they talked it through with each other until they came to some measure of agreement. Only then, when all three lined up, did they have the confidence to reach a decision together.

I find myself living the same way. Yes, I look for the nudges and insights of the Spirit to guide me in decisions I make. But I’m never certain of those leadings alone. I also search the Scriptures and think about what Jesus and the early church modeled to see if that lines up as well. (I don’t go looking for proof texts to justify my point of view, because that will only lead me back to myself.) And I find myself talking about it with people God has put into my life as we kick around what might be him and what might be Wayne. (Of course it is important on this last consideration to be talking with those who are truly learning to walk in humility with God, not just people who want to scratch your back by saying what you want to hear. Also make sure they are people on the journey of being shaped by Jesus, not just Pharisee types who merely follow rules and rituals and want to find some principle to guide you.)

I have the most confidence to move ahead when all three of those line up. One alone isn’t sufficient, though I’ll let my best understanding of Scripture veto any decision I’m going to make. Instruments on an airplane measure a number of variables, and when they all line up, you know you’re on course or the glideslope for landing. And, yes, I realize many have not yet learned how to search the Scriptures outside the false religious interpretations that long held them captive, but that is no reason to discount their value. It may be incentive enough to learn how they become an important piece of the puzzle of making God’s life more certain in you.

But don’t fly with only one input when you don’t have to. God has not only given us his Spirit, but also his recorded revelation and other brothers and sisters who can help us see more clearly what God might be doing in us. I’m thankful for all three.

A question I wanted to ask you when you visited here but forgot.

How do I get more of Jesus (and there are a raft of questions behind this – which are ‘solved’ if I knew my Saviour better). I feel I am walking around this mountain so many times the groove I’ve walked is soooo deep I can see over the edge – I’m desperate to stop.

Here’s what I wrote back: The question you ask may be quick in the asking, but it is not so quick to answer. Regretfully, I don’t think I have enough context to answer with any specificity for you and your situation. The reasons for feeling like you’re walking around the mountain in a deep groove could be many, and I have no idea which is yours.

But the simplest thing to say would be to get out of the rut. Whatever it is that you’re doing isn’t working, so perhaps it is time to stop doing at all.

Remember when the rich young ruler asked Jesus what must he DO? He got an interesting answer. In short, it is my conviction Jesus was trying to tell him that it is not in his doing at all. “what is impossible with man, is possible with God.” This is God’s doing not ours.

So perhaps you just wake up every morning and ask Father to make himself known to you. Whatever inkling he puts on your heart, follow! Make sure it is his inkling and not the religious performance voices of the past. If you hear nothing, don’t worry about it. Just keep asking. He may be needing to unwire some things in you as his person becomes clearer to you. This is a dance with him in the lead. Your part is to be flexible and follow as he takes you in hand and dances you through life. Yes, I realize that may sound frustratingly impractical, but I can assure you it is not. It is the way Father works. He wants us to know throughout that it is not our effort that earns his presence, but our simple willingness to simply be his child in the earth. If it takes months, even a year or more, do not despair. He is working in you at a deeper level than you see. You will in time feast on the fruits of it.

Dear Brother, ask him to do this work in you. Learn to relax in the reality that his love wants this for you more than you want it for yourself. He just told us to keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking and that would be enough for him to tear down all in us that resists him—our fears, doubts, shame, ego-needs and performance demands—and he will open the door of his heart and home very wide to receive us.

Whenever I’m feeling a bit distant from his reality, I follow this same advice, and find that somehow, somewhere, I’ve gotten more focused on my efforts than his grace and love. And in the simplicity of rest and surrender, I come alive again in his presence.

I truly hope that helps. Of course, you may need a brother to help you individually process the specifics of what is going on in you relative to his working. But if that is needed at this stage, he will provide that as well.

I hope that is helpful to him and many others of you. It is in

This is why I say that whatever expression of church God plants us in must flow out of the growing relationship he wants to have with us. If not, it will just be another substitute.

Daniel from Florida expressed a a bit of this process better

I left organized religion last year after several years of God exposing many issues to me and I was directed to your site a few months ago by a guy at an online bookstore. After e-mailing back and forth with you once or twice I decided that you were totally missing it because I was on a direct path to the home church thing and you said that home church is not the answer so I moved on.

My wife and kids along with another family started a home church thing, after a short time it totally flopped. Then, after reading the Jake book and a time of listening to the podcasts, and then reading He Loves Me, I grew more and more frustrated because you clearly say that it is possible to have a real daily relationship with God and I was not getting it.

The last two days I have been listening to the Transition thing, then just last night I woke up at 2:00 AM and listened to disc 7 and 8 of transition, and by 3:00 AM I was having a terrific time with Father and started getting it. I wanted to say thank you for making the transition thing free on mp3. God exposed several things to me early this morning and I could literally feel Him there with me. I realize that hye loves me and I am excited about this journey. Life is more awesome today than I ever imagined, which is odd because the area I live in is in the middle of a drought and I own/operate a small rain gutter business and nobody buys rain gutters in a drought and I do not know at this point if I will have a business when it is over. I have had a lot of time to look at my life and have to trust God. But in the midst of that, I am excited about today.

Don’t think the same process may work for you, just keep looking to Jesus, knowing he will draw together whatever pieces will help you get it too! He wants to know you more than you want to know him. It’s just that he has to get through lots of baggage to make that real. And he is extremely patient even when we wander around chasing our own ideas.

I felt impressed to make this audio series available to anyone in the world free of charge and without any sense of obligation. We have posed downloaded mp3s of all eight and a half hours on the Transition page of the Lifestream website.

If I could recommend anything to you, it is not to rush through it. Listen to it in bits and as God makes some things clear to you, ask him to work those things into your life so that you can walk in its reality, not you’re your mental agreement. Feel free to make CDs of if you like and pass it along to others as Father leads you.

If you’d prefer to have a CD series of this teaching, you can order it from Lifestream for $30.00 plus shipping.

But for the last 24 hours I’ve been talking with some wonderful people. I met a man this morning that has been involved behind the scenes in helping build relationships between the divided factions and tribes in Africa. What a story! We’ll share it in a future God Journey podcast, because I was able to tape part of that conversation. It is amazing what God does in the simple power of relationships when hearts are willing to do what he asks even if we don’t have all the expertise or knowledge we think it would require. God is really good at what he does. It’s an amazing I can’t wait to share with all of you. It will give you such hope about his work in Africa in spite of all the great challenges and need that pervades that country.

Then I got an email this afternoon that told an incredible story about how God has been sorting himself out in this brother’s life. He had been in some incredible places learning how to ‘do’ the stuff of ministry, but all without really knowing the depth of the Father’s love for him. Listen to his words:

I went to a home church group run by the apostle who taught me to hear God’s voice and I ministered alongside him for a while, for a year, before the Lord told me to leave that group. The group was wonderful, and I was hungry, but the only focus was learning to hear God’s voice and the gifts — what I knew I desperately needed was to learn how to love others, and how to allow God to show His love for me (I guess I should reverse the order on that).

So for the last year I have been *alone* with the Lord, as He has stripped me of the remaining barriers until just last week He broke through my insecurities enough to show me how secure I truly am with Him. Funny, isn’t it? How we can work miracles and give great prophetic words and have great wisdom and still not know the love that is God. It truly is a mystery. I would have done anything for Him, if He had asked me, except let Him love me.

I love that last sentence, because it was true of my life for a long time, not because I didn’t want him to love me, but because I wanted that love to come my way. It is funny how much ‘incredible things’ we can do ‘for’ God, and do it out of the desperate search for his love, rather than out of its reality. This is the most important ‘get’ for us all. For while God is gracious to still work good out of our miserable attempts to earn his love, it still diminishes something in us and only feeds our frustration and anger.

This journey truly begins when we discover just how secure we are in this Father’s love and that by simply following he will do all he wants to do in us and through us. He’s not looking for people to ‘use’, he’s looking for people who will let him love them to the very tips of their toes–now and forever!

Sheba is our newest dog. She’s a lop-eared Shepherd/Lab cross with an exuberant spirit—sometimes too exuberant. Even though she has severe dysplasia in her hips and has pain from time to time she is the happiest dog we have ever owned. She’s not real bright, but she is always smiling, always ready to do something fun and a joy to be around. Well, most of the time.

The thing I hate most to do with this dog is take her for a walk. We’re trying to teach her not to pull on the lead, but simply walk along with us. Even though we’ve got one of those 16-foot retractable leashes, she constantly strains to get beyond it. It’s as if she can’t wait to get to the next place. But when she gets there she is already trying to get to the next one. It’s nuts, really. She can’t enjoy any place she is at the moment, because she’s always trying to get somewhere else. And if she spots another dog, it’s all over. She won’t listen to reason at all until the dog is out of sight.

As I grew impatient with her last night on a long walk with Sara, calling Sheba back again and again and again from pulling on the lead, I realized she is more like me than I care to admit. Only in the last few years have I begun to learn to live contentedly in Father’s work in my life. Most of my spiritual life I have strained against Jesus’ presence in my life. I have always tried to push him on to something else instead of staying in the moment with him, knowing that he is taking me on in his time, not mine.

It made me think how much more fun it would be to walk with Sheba if she stayed alongside me. Her constant straining against the lead and pulling at my arm gets tiresome and frustrating. I wonder if that’s been true for Jesus in my walk with him. I sense somehow that though he is patient with our impatience, he is indeed blessed when we learn to trust him enough not to pull him where we want to go, but to find contentedness by just being with him wherever he wants to take us.

And I wonder if that’s what David was thinking when he wrote: “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.” Psalm 32:8-9

Contentedness is a great gift in this kingdom. It isn’t the same as complacency. It is going on with him, but allowing him to set that agenda, not trying to control it ourselves. I would love to come to the place where he needs no leash with me because I’m never further than a few feet from

Thank you so much for writing. I was truly surprised to receive your response. I can only imagine how many emails you must receive. Your words caused an unexpected flood of emotions, and I cried and cried — not sure exactly why. I’ve read Jake’s book (can’t wait for the rest of it) and have also printed and am reading the BodyLife articles. You emphasize God’s love and acceptance and the fact that Jesus is working in us to build His church.

I have not seen anything in your writings that address my major concern. I have been absolutely miserable throughout most of my Christian life, although I appear to be contented and strong because I counsel others, smile, and say, “Praise the Lord” a lot. I’m doing some serious soul-searching away from church meetings and the church family. I truly do know that God loves me. I believe that nothing can separate me from His love. But I also believe that all of the people who are eternally separated from God will be people He truly loves. So for me, whether God loves me is not the concern. It is whether I am accepted by Him.

I assent to the fact that we are accepted only through Christ, but it is obviously not a reality for me. I live with constant internal agony. I cannot reconcile being accepted through faith in Christ (Romans) with scriptures such as Eph. 5:1-7; Hebrews 3, 6:1-2, Galatians 5:21, Colossians 1:23, and many, many others. Paul told the church to examine themselves to see if they were in the faith. Jesus gave many warnings. He spoke about the “many” to whom He will say, “I never knew you,” even though they apparently had actually done mighty works in His name. How did these many do mighty works if they never knew Him and He never knew them? At the judgment, the sheep and goats are separated based on what they did and didn’t do. I am truly afraid of being found at the judgment as one who was not accepted — a foolish virgin, the man who hid his talent, a branch broken off and worthy only for burning.

The bottom line is, I cannot reconcile that we are saved by grace through faith with the frightening warnings throughout the scriptures. I know beyond any doubt that I was born again and baptized in the Holy Spirit as an older teen. There has never been a time since then when I turned away from my faith in Christ or did not want to please Him. There have been times when I have failed miserably, and I realize that I fail often to be all He would want me to be. But this is something more. It is who I am in my inner most being and the spontaneous responses I have to life stressors at unexpected moments. The truth is, I am afraid of being cast away and lost.

I know the Word says that Jesus will not cast out those who come to Him. But I am still always afraid that God expects more of me than I am giving. I always feel that the Lord is trying to get through to me something that He requires or expects from my life. I don’t know what that something is, but I fear that I have failed and will be ashamed at His appearing.

My Response: I wish I could answer all your questions, Sister, but email is a lousy way to try to help someone through things like this. Words are so limited and I’m never sure I read them the same way you wrote them. It would be great if you could find an older sister in the Lord whose life in God you truly respect and have a sense that they are connected to Him. Share this with them and see if they can help you get through it it. I just don’t trust email as a way to sort out these deeply personal issues.

First of all, I think it is fabulous that you’re struggling with this. It shows you have a heart for truth and not just hide in comforting thoughts. That’s incredibly positive. God wants you to know his acceptance from the deepest core of your being and you don’t need to be satisfied short of finding that. So, keep on this journey with him. Let him sort out in you why you don’t know that acceptance. Because you surely have it. Of that I have no doubt, but there is something blocking your perception of that reality and finding freedom from that will be a wonderful moment on this journey and it will guard you well in days ahead…

You seem to be hung up in the performance trap—that somehow his love for you is not enough and you must be very, very good to prove your worth to him. Yes, there is much in Scripture that talks about his transformation in us, and invites us to live the way he lived in the world. Yes, this journey leads us to ever-increasing righteousness as he transforms us. Yes, there is much in Scripture about the way he wants us to live…

BUT, there is a huge difference between reading those admonishments as someone trying to perform for acceptance, and someone living out of that acceptance wanting his transformation. You seem to be stuck in the former, fearful that you will somehow fall short of his expectations for you. I don’t know exactly what you’re struggling with there, and that’s where someone else might be very helpful to sort that out, but the admonishments of the New Testament are not qualifications to earn acceptance, but the way God wants his accepted people to live in the world. I hope that makes sense to you.

All you have to do is look at how Jesus treated his followers when they didn’t believe him, tried to work against him, and even acted unloving toward each other and the world around them. He kept telling them his Father had something better for them, but he didn’t reject them. He didn’t berate them, he kept loving them into his Father’s transformation. Yes, we all fall short. Sister. None of us is perfect. But I don’t read the admonishments of the New Testament and see how far short I fall, I read them in the hope that this is what he is producing in me and what I want him to produce so badly.

But performance will never get us there. It won’t! It won’t! It won’t! You’ll never be good enough and neither will I. But, transformation comes quickest and we learn to live settled in his love and in communion with him, even at the point of our failures. Perfect love casts out fear! Fear has to do with punishment, and the one who fears cannot be perfected in love. (I John 4). In other words it’s our security in his love that begins the transformation, not our performance to escape punishment.

Does that make sense? I don’t know why you’re caught where you are, but I have no doubt that something in your past, the way you think, or some religious infection makes you think wrongly about these things. So while you are accepted by a loving Father, you don’t know that yet. But he wants you to. So don’t give up. Don’t feel you need to pretend. Ask him why you cannot be settled in his love and acceptance and ask him to change you so that you can be.

That’s a great freedom, Sister! I can’t wait until you know it for yourself. That will be a wonderful day, and well worth the struggle you’re caught in now to find it… And know you are not alone. Every genuine child of God has struggled through this issue at some level or another. I have many people who write me with similar struggles. So keep going, Sister! Keep pouring yourself out to the Father and search the Scriptures to see whether our performance leads us to acceptances, or whether his acceptance leads us to transformation. Read John 14-15, Romans 8 and I John 4 again and again until the reality of it all sinks home…

And for all of you who wrestle with the same deep agony of being uncertain of Father’s acceptance, I pray for you, too, that you might keep coming close to him and sorting through every thing that says differently, until in the deepest core of your being you know Father’s deep affection and delight in you as his child.