The email below is one of the best I’ve received because I know it comes out of real struggle and pain and into a reality that is available to all of us.
I started corresponding with Amy this summer, first over a crisis that happened at work, and then with trouble in her marriage. In her first email, she signed off ‘Confused,’ in her second, ‘Heartbroken and Stunned.’ It has been an amazing eight months for her, but through it all, Jesus helped her discover the life that is life:
After telling me he no longer loves me, my husband left me in September of last year, and we are still separated. The last several months (8 months since he told me he no longer believes in God, 5 months since he left me) have been the most excruciatingly painful, yet spectacularly amazing, months I ever could have imagined. The freedom you talk and write about…it’s real.
I took your book He Loves Me! on a whim from the library at the church my husband and I were attending several years ago. I brought it home but never opened it…until June 24, 2018, when my world came crashing down around me. Since then, I have read it at least seven times and have sent 8 copies to friends and family members. Father is using that little book to change the lives of many, Wayne, and I’m so grateful to be one of the “many”.
There have been many moments since last June when I have wondered if “living loved” was a pipe dream. Now I know that it is not. I come from a family of Pharisees, albeit very well-intentioned ones, and the re-wiring of my understanding about God has been intensely difficult. I have experienced more heartache, more uncertainty, more insecurity, more fear…more confidence, more peace, more love, more safety, more hope…than I ever dreamed was possible. My husband claims unerringly that he is “done” with us and that there is no hope for our restoration. This from a man who treated me for sixteen years like every woman longs to be treated by her husband.
And yet, I am not destroyed by his certain distaste for me. While I can attest to the fact that emotions are extremely fickle creatures (and I certainly have run the gamut of them) I also can attest to the fact that the confidence, peace, and freedom that come from living in Father’s affection make it possible for me to rest in Him, in spite of my circumstances. I feel as if I’m living in a pocket of impenetrable grace.
I cannot thank you enough for sharing with the world, the God of love. My life and that of my Pharisaic family has been forever changed by this monumental truth—that God loves us and desires an actual relationship with us. I no longer am afraid of Him or regard Him as mean and spiteful, eager to destroy the very people He created. I no longer (even subconsciously) think I have to “earn” His affection or approval.
Ironically, since I stopped “trying” to produce fruit and started living in the certainty of His affection for me, I am shocked at the fruit HE is producing!!! WOW! Who’d have thought?!? I only wish that I could go back in time and know Him like this from the beginning. Perhaps then I would have known how to love my husband the way God wants him to be loved. Regardless, I am learning to surrender even that to His capable hands. He is completely trustworthy; of this I am certain.
God bless you, brother. I hope I meet you in person one day to thank you for showing me the way to the real Jesus.
I love that. He is real, especially in the darkest places. This life in Christ can help us overcome any wicked curveballs this world may throw at us and draw us into the fullness of his joy and hold us there.
To do that, however, we have to give up our agenda and expectations for the outcome we desire. When we pray for the result we want, It’s easy to grow disappointed when God doesn’t do it, or even begin to doubt that he loves us at all. That could have happened here. Amy could have spent the last five months begging God to bring her husband back and feeling unloved when he didn’t. I’m sure she asked, but when it didn’t happen, she discovered a love that was bigger than the outcome she wanted.
God won’t make her husband come back against his will; he isn’t like that. Isn’t it glorious that our peace and security don’t rest in the circumstance we want, but in the Father who loves us more than anyone on this planet ever has or ever will?
I get so many emails from people trying to find a group of like-minded people or frustrated with the current political climate in which our country finds itself. These are troubled times indeed, but we are part of a kingdom that transcends everything in this age. Our God is working behind it all for his glory and to bring history to a glorious conclusion as the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Christ and of his Father.
It’s easy to forget sometimes that he is with us, too, working out his purpose in each of our lives. So quickly we get our eyes on people or our circumstances and forget that we are not alone in any of it. No, we don’t always get our way, but there is always a path to take that yields to the glory of his kingdom and how it takes shape in us.
Unless you’re among the tiny group of people who exercise actual, substantial political authority, each of us can only have a large influence on a small number of people and a small influence on a large number of people. In other words, we have the potential to transform a life. We have minimal capacity to individually change American politics.
Man, I can raise my hand here. It may feel good to berate the idiocy of our national leaders, but to what end? How much time and emotional energy do we give to circumstances over which we have no control or influence? Social media provides yet another illusion that our voice on the big-ticket items of politics or religion can really make a difference, and then are frustrated when it doesn’t. What I love about the quote above is that it asks us to be present in the places where we can make a difference, which is in the lives of people right in front of us every day.
Who do you know that brightens your heart when you spend time with them? Who do you know in need whose day you can brighten? What conversations can you have today that will move the needle in someone’s life? Who could you reach out and encourage today instead of reading the end of this blog?
That’s where our attention needs to be. I’m afraid the enemy has us wasting so much time venting on things that have no impact, instead of engaging the things right in front of us that do.
Somehow we’re always looking for the big moment “out there” somewhere instead of living with what Father has put right in front of us. Many keep trying to find the right group of people to fellowship with, or the best model for church life, instead of celebrating his presence in whomever we are with today. Jesus seemed to live every day with what was in front of him, and some of his most impactful moments rose out of spontaneous engagements that he didn’t pass by.
I’m finding my heart these days much more drawn to what I can impact and wasting far less time with words that merely flitter into the ether of cyberspace and are lost the moment after I push “post.” And I’m having a far richer time.
Jesus said the kingdom of God wasn’t “out there” somewhere; it’s already inside you. What you need from God today, he has already brought right to your doorstep. All you have to do today is respond to what God has already put inside you, and to what’s in front of you. That’s where you’ll find life abundant and fruitful.
You might well miss it if your eyes are set “out there” over the horizon, instead of “right here” where you are today.
I’m off to Atlanta in the morning for a ten-day stay in Georgia and South Carolina. As I do, I’ve been reminded this week about all the ways others help us do what we’ve been asked to do in the world.
Every year about this time we send out donation tax receipts to those in the U.S. who have helped us financially. While I don’t look at the giving records here, I get to write a letter of thanks to send with those receipts. It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on all those who helped us over the past year. I realize financial support is just one of those ways, but we don’t send out receipts for the others. There’s no way for me to know all the prayers that are offered on our behalf, all the stories and bits of wisdom that are shared with us, and all the ways some of you pass on a quote or a link to a book or podcast that has touched you, or that you might think will bless others.
Here’s what I wrote to those who are part of our financial giving this year. It’s as true of all the other ways people have helped Sara and me do what God has asked us to do in the world:
I am always amazed at how this works even after twenty-four years. I simply do what God asks me to do in the world, and he keeps providing for it through people like you. And for the last ten years, we’ve added the needs of over 100,000 people we’ve come to love in Kenya, and he just keeps providing.
Your generosity has touched many. An entire area of Kenya is being transformed, and people are coming to know the Lord. It also allows me to give my life away, whether it be through personal connections, website content, or traveling the world at my own expense to places where people can’t even afford to help with my plane ticket. I don’t have to charge for anything I do, and that makes the message so much more powerful. Your generosity causes an overflow of thanksgiving around the world at the way Father makes himself known.
I am excited about some new opportunities coming in the year ahead, with the writing projects I’m involved in, the people Father is putting on my heart to visit, and the surprises I cannot yet foresee. I am absolutely delighted at what Father allows me to do and the vantage point he’s given me to see his glory unfold.
Thanks to those who have written reviews on Amazon that encourage others to check out our books, and to those who have sent cards or emails full of love and support for us to stay true to God’s calling, especially when times are difficult. All of this has a part in the word getting out in the world that there is a journey in Jesus available to every one of us that allows us to live deeply in his love and share it with others. We are deliciously overwhelmed with gratefulness to you and thanksgiving to the Father for the way all this has unfolded.
Perhaps this email says it best, understanding that it is written as much to you as it is to me…
Thank you for all the wisdom you’ve given to my wife and me in the last few months. The last part of our journey has been coming out of a very conservative, rule-driven, doctrine-based church system, into the freedom of the God journey. God prompted me to listen to Finding Church just as we were in the last throes of leaving the church, and was like all the lights came on! God has pretty much showed us everything you said, but it put words to what I was feeling, and totally settled the idea of Church being believers interacting in everyday life, not a group gathering regularly, or ‘belonging’ to any particular group.
I guess your book confirmed what God has already put in our hearts, and gave us the confidence, that we were already there! This is it, we don’t have to keep looking for the right ‘thing’. Since then God has progressively freed us totally from anyone’s control, and at the same time given us 3 separate beautiful Christian families to fellowship with, as we feel led.
I was also prompted to listen to So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore and more recently, He Loves Me. These were very helpful, lots of fresh perspectives, lots of ‘yes!’ moments. My wife is now reading He Loves Me and slowly letting God unravel all the brokenness she has, and I can see a father – daughter relationship forming.
We still have a long way to go in our relationship with Father, and the lies take a long time to unravel, but we are now in a safe environment which is allowing Father to work.
I have no idea how they found out about me or some of my books, but it often happens because someone like you passed it on to someone like them and that keeps slinging freedom all over the place. I am deeply grateful that so many of you who help us in so many ways pass the word along.
A few years ago I was teaching 800 Kenyan pastors in a hornet-infested barn about the love of God. After sharing a bit of my story and laying the groundwork for living loved, I asked them what questions they might have about God’s love that we could tackle in the next view days.
Immediately the room went visibly tense. The atmosphere grew fearful and deathly quiet. It felt as if they had been threatened and all 800 glared at me with a panicked look on their face. I knew no one was going to ask a question. So, I pushed pause. I told them we were going to take a break and they could get to know the people around them. I then went to the person who had invited me and asked him what had just happened in there.
“They don’t believe you,” he said. Then he told me that the last American speaker that came through paused at one point to see if anyone had any questions. Someone dared to ask one and immediately the speaker chewed him out to silence any other potential questioners. “How dare you ask a question! I’ve explained everything to you need to know and if you don’t get it by now it’s because rebellion is in your heart.”
Ahh. Now I understood. As we gathered back together, I assured them that I really wanted them to ask questions, that we needed to learn together, in their time, not listen to me lecture. I promised not to get angry or defensive, but to create a safe place for us to explore God’s love together. Tentatively at first, they began to respond and their hungry questions took us to some amazing places I would not have thought to take them on my own.
Asking questions is a critical component of spiritual growth. If we can’t ask what we need to ask or struggle openly with the thoughts and questions that plague our minds, how will we ever come to know the reality of the life and love that God holds for us? In Scripture, God often asks questions to stir our thinking. In the Gospels, Jesus responded openly and warmly to the truth-seeking questions that were asked of him. Of course, some asked questions out of malice or seeking to trap him in some way, but Jesus was still patient with them. He didn’t always give them the answer they wanted, but neither did he demean them.
There is nothing more important to your own personal discipleship than having the freedom to ask the questions you need to ask. Too many of us wait for someone to tell us what we should know, instead of looking honestly at our circumstances and asking the questions that will help us discover God’s reality inside us. I met a man in New Zealand whose entire discipleship came about just by asking questions. The man who led him to Christ didn’t give him a set of lessons to teach him to follow God. He just told his newfound friend to ask whatever question he wanted and he would try to answer it as best he could, or that they would find the answer together. Brilliant! That man grew up in a deep and sincere faith. That’s a great way to teach someone, inside their own questions and their own experiences. That’s how his Spirit works in us.
I’m thinking about this because I had lunch with a couple in their sixties who had attended a two-year Bible school in Florida a few years back. On the opening day of class, they were told questions wouldn’t be allowed through their course of study. They would be told what they needed to know and they did not allow students to ask questions of their instructors. I was dumbfounded. How could any school, especially one based on the life of Jesus, not allow people to explore openly? As horrible as that might be for people in their 50s and 60s, it’s especially horrible for students in their teens and twenties who think they are going to teach that stuff to others.
Most of the meetings I’m in these days give a maximum amount of opportunity for people to ask questions, explore the frustrations of their own journey, and really learn what it means to know him and follow him. The kingdom of God can withstand any the honesty of our struggles and the questions we need to ask. It’s hard enough to get Christians to ask questions to begin with. Most of us have been taught there’s a right answer to everything and if you don’t know it already, it’s because you’re not paying attention. Some hesitate to ask something difficult, concerned that I’ll get angry with them. I’ve even offered some groups $100 if someone makes me angry or I get defensive. I want them to know that any meeting I’m in is a safe place to discover and grow. Most of the best questions I’ve been asked came from people who were reticent to ask it because they thought no one else would care about the answer. Almost always everyone does. Don’t we appreciate the person who’s willing to ask the question everyone else wants to ask, but are too afraid to do so?
If you can’t ask questions and struggle with what someone is trying to teach you about God, then you’re not in an environment where the kingdom unfolds. If someone gets angry when you question them, or dare to disagree with them, they are not leaders who can help you discover God’s reality. And if you’re afraid to ask God any question that’s in your heart, you have yet to discover just how loving and gracious he is and how much he wants to help you understand how to live in him.
Yes, there is a difference between asking God questions and questioning God’s character or wisdom. There’s a way to ask questions with humility that will open your heart to see in a fresh way what he wants to show you, and there’s a way to challenge him defiantly that will blind you to what he wants to show you. I’ve done both. He can handle our defiance with a love that understands our pain, but until it gives way to humble surrender, we will not hear his gentle response. How can you surrender when you are angry or disappointed with him? Only one thing sets my heart at rest, to embrace his affection for me and to mistrust my conclusions about him outside that love. That can take some time, but it will open some amazing doors in your own spiritual journey.
It’s been such a joy to be home for the last three and a half months to catch up with family and to advance the work on three books I’m currently pushing down the road—a novel called The City, written by a mom in France that unpacks the kingdom of God in a lovely way, a book about interpersonal relationships called The Language of Healing, and a novel set in the Civil War era by the man who presided over our wedding ceremony almost 44 years ago, called (tentatively) Lucien’s Crossing. But my toe is healing and it seems Father has some other adventures awaiting me elsewhere in the world.
At the end of this month I’ll be in the Atlanta area for ten days, then at the end of February in Eureka, CA. After that I’ll make a quick trip to Tulsa, OK the first weekend of March and then Morgantown, WV, and Pittsburgh, PA at the end of it. I may be teaching a DTS in Italy in late April and perhaps go to Norway and elsewhere in Europe thereafter. I’m also hoping to get to hang out with some Jesus-loving biker-types in Southern Illinois, but haven’t found a date for that yet. Later this year I plan on getting back to Kenya to check on things there as we wind down our projects there and hope we’ve given them the tools to move ahead with a growing trust in Father’s provision for them.
Speaking of Kenya, we heard from them the other day with a new emergency. Some of our friends there began a school in a part of Kitale that was settled by displaced people from the tribal violence following the disputed election in 2008. It is an area of extreme need, where many of the adults are hopeless about job prospects and addicted to alcohol. Since school is not compulsory in Kenya, nor is it free, our friends started a school in a church building to educate the children and give them a way out of the hopeless cycle around them. Supporting the school was first picked up by some friends in Virginia for a couple of years, and then it has been part of our monthly support of $10,000 to help with all the needs in Kenya, including our special outreach to Pokot.
Recently torrential flooding there caused the sewage of the school to mingle with their water supply, causing sickness among staff and students. It took them a while to figure out the cause and now the local government wants to shut down the school if they don’t get a new water supply. Drilling a well there will cost $32,000. They have temporarily been transporting drinking water to the school, but wondered if we might help. We advanced them the money in hopes that some of you would join us in keeping that school afloat. If you’d like to help us please.
The needs here are ongoing as is our support for them. If you’d like to join us, you can direct it through Lifestream as contributions are tax-deductible in the U.S. As always, every dollar you send goes to the need in Kenya. We do not (nor do they) take out any administrative or money transfer fees. If you would like to be part of this 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 Newbury Rd Ste 1 • Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.
And for those following our saga in Kenya, they sent us a detailed year-end report. here are some excerpts from it:
Greetings in the name of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, Living Loved Care Centre staff and the children, and also from the coaches, schools, dispensary staff and the entire villages in Pokot as well as the Forkland School.
We appreciate your help in the Kitale area:
Gas station, which continues to buy food and pay the staff at the Living Loved Care Centre.
Grain enterprise, which helps us maintain the center, and educate the children in nearby schools, as well as help those go to college and university.
Forkland School, thanks you for helping them repair the facility when it was destroyed by wind and rain, and now we have a challenge with clean water. You can pray and advice us what to do since we are about to open the school, although the children were there.
Utensil stand to keep kitchen supplies clean
We thank you for supporting us in Pokot now for 3 years 7 months, and it has remain with 1 years 7 months, so the village will be sustainable, probably in July 2020. There we are seeing villages transformed, helping them know that, although they are in rural areas filled with hardship, God loves them and he has a great purpose in their lives. Our coaches have done great things by teaching the villagers how to meet their challenges. Every village, which we are currently working with, now has water and we are making progress in other areas as well:
Education: Many families now understand the importance of taking their children to school and to keep their compound clean compared to the first time.
Outhouses for each home in Pokot
Hygiene/Health: As I flash back 3 years back, there were so many cases of malaria, typhoid and cholera and helping them with medicine was very expensive. Now, we have constructed 450 latrines with dozen of utensils stands to help the villages clean and hence reduce of the diseases causing micro-organism. Right now almost each household have utensil stands made of available materials and we are praying that in 17 months each household will have at least one latrine. This is so amazing, as the saying goes better to prevent than cure. Thank to all those who stood with this community for purchasing iron sheets, cement, nails, polythene, and provide tools to build them.
Children enjoying the new crops they are raising
Micro-financing: This program has helped over 400 families start a business to be able to feed their families and run their home affairs.
Agriculture: We nw have farms raising sweet potatoes, cassava, corn, and other vegetables to help feed all the people.
Food donation: Thank you for supporting the aged and the breast-feeding moms on a monthly basis. The monthly amount here has been reduced due to the agricultural projects, which have greatly boosted food security in each village.
In my trip there later this year, we are hoping to make the necessary arrangements that will bring an end to our regular support there over the next few years and ensure that there will be sustainability beyond our involvement. Our desire was not to create programs there dependent upon ongoing support from us here, but for them to have the tools to go forward and trust Father’s provision for the future. We’ve had some great instruction by others who have done this by helping tap the creativity and industriousness of the people there. This will not be easy, of course, and I appreciate your prayers for me and them as we move forward.
It has been a joy to watch these people respond so joyously and so diligently to the opportunities now before them. The reports we get of their responsiveness to Jesus as well as their hard work to better their condition, are incredible. Who would have thought that our little corner of the web could have touched so many people so far away. And it’s all been through relationships that God orchestrated, and not our attempts to try to find a project like this. It’s what love led us to do.
My good friend in Tulsa, Tom Mohn, says that betrayal is one of those amazing things God uses to shape his life in us. I know it doesn’t feel like it. It more likely feels like the end of the road when someone you love, and who you thought loved you, decides his own word is meaningless, and you are of less value to him than what he can gain by lying to you or lying about you. Most often it takes both.
I’ve gone through this with three different people in my life and it is the absolute worst. The first time cost me everything—my involvement with a congregation I’d helped to plant, my salary, my health insurance, my reputation in a community, and countless friendships I treasured—and this was all two weeks before Christmas in 1994. I wasn’t offered a dime of severance pay, just an avalanche of lies about my family.
I wish I’d known Tom back then and had seen more hope in what was going on, but those days were the darkest Sara and I have every experienced. We thought we were following Jesus in it all, but we weren’t sure. Maybe we were as independent and rebellious as others said we were. I remember telling God if we were, then shout it from the rooftops. Let everyone know including me, because I only wanted to follow him even if I was proved wrong.
I know Jesus said that such times are an amazing blessing in our lives, but to get there you really have to think with a deeper mindset than your own physical comfort.
You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom. Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble. (Matthew 5:10-12, The Message)
I know that sounds like crazy talk. It did when my dad read those words to me a few weeks into my betrayal. But, I began to let them sink into my heart and began to count myself blessed even when it didn’t feel like it. I found a way to rejoice in the fact that people had lied about me and thrown me out because I was seeking to follow him. And it became true that going through that betrayal opened some incredible doors that Sara and I have treasured for the last quarter century. The betrayal of our close friends drove us deeper into God and our freedom from a human-centered view of ‘church’ allowed us to begin to taste the Church that Jesus is building in the world.
So, now I do know that betrayal is not the end of the road. It hurts, most certainly. And unfortunately, it is a common theme in human history and the biblical record. Abel knew it, so did Joseph, David, Jeremiah, Paul, and many others including, of course, Jesus himself. No, that doesn’t justify the acts of the betrayer, but I prefer to leave them in Jesus’ hands, where they are best served. I don’t know what goes on inside someone that allows them to make those kinds of choices, nor the consequences they suffer for putting money, power, fame, sex, or the illusion of safety above love and friendship. I do know how living a lie warps you from the inside in some horrible ways and it makes my heart hurt for them.
A number of years ago I had someone else steal a significant amount of money from me by not honoring an agreement we had made together. Even reminding him of our agreement only provoked his anger. In the aftermath of that encounter Jesus told me to let it go and he would make up whatever I had lost. Fortunately, I did and he proved faithful in all he promised me, and more. I am so grateful I followed him rather than demanding what was rightfully mine.
So, if you’ve been betrayed by someone, invite Jesus into that pain. He understands. He’s been through everything you’re going through and much more! He is able to work beyond the failures of others and to continue to let grace have its unfolding work in our hearts. Betrayal may close some doors, but it also opens us to other opportunities we might have missed otherwise. Getting through betrayal with Jesus also changes something deep inside us so we are tuned more compassionately to the needs of others and the value of being a faithful friend.
This all comes up because I was interviewed a few weeks ago by Jon DeWall of Liminal Space. He does a podcast about life transition and wanted to hear my story of betrayal and how Sara and I managed to get through it alongside Jesus. It dropped last week and I wanted to let you know it was available if you wanted to listen to it. You can find it on their website or these podcasts outlets: iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or Google Play.
Even if you don’t listen, when you find yourself being betrayed by someone close to you, just remember Jesus has a way to walk you through the pain and into wider pastures than you ever thought possible.
[This is a copy of our December 2018 Email Blast. If you’re not on our list you can sign up here. And if you include your name and address you’ll also receive email notification if Wayne is traveling in your area.]
The Lord is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation.
(Psalm 118:14)
What do you think the Psalmist meant when he wrote that? Did he mean the Lord was his get-out-of-hell-free card to secure his final destiny? No, he didn’t.
When a desperate, young mother is trapped by the abusiveness of her husband and the needs of her children, is a get-out-of-hell-free card the salvation she needs? Of course not. What she needs is a friend to come alongside her and show her the way through that situation to safety and life. Anyone who does that for her is her salvation.
“The Lord is my salvation,” is not just a statement of our eternal destiny; it is our hope in this broken age that he has a way through whatever life can throw at us and whatever sin seeks to destroy in us, and he can teach us how to follow him into that freedom.
Nothing has distracted Christians more from the true mission of Christ in the world than the misunderstanding that he only came to determine whether we go to heaven or hell. He didn’t. He came to rescue us from perishing in the bondage and deception of this evil age and show us the path to true life and freedom. In doing so, he also showed us how to give that same journey to others.
For us, that means that we are not alone in anything life hurls at us and that every resource of wisdom and power in our Father is available to us at any moment of the day. That’s the kingdom of God, and Jesus came into the world to invite us into that reality every day that we live.
How do we tap that resource? Is praying for an answer enough? Would that it was. I’m sure you know countless people, like I do, who have sought God desperately at moments of need and been hopelessly disappointed by his seeming inactivity on their behalf. I’m sure it’s happened for you, too. Where did we get the idea that we would just call out to God and he’d wave his magic wand to turn all our pumpkins into chariots?
Honestly, I’m sure I’d just use that power to get me into even more trouble because if I just use it even to satisfy my best intentions it would only destroy me. Jesus offered us something so much better than a fairy-godmother in the sky.
He offered us a different way to live, inside a relationship with him and his Father by the power of the Spirit that would open the door into the realm in which our Father dwells. By embracing him there we would begin to see everything differently and he would begin to change us from the inside, away from our self-focused bias to embrace the highest purpose God holds for his Creation. In that relationship, he would teach us how to walk in this age as lights of another kingdom. In other words, he didn’t offer us answers for our problems, but the opportunity to live inside a different reality that would save us from the destruction of this age and bring his wisdom and love to bear on others.
The kingdom of God is here! All the wisdom and power of God is at your disposal, as you come to know him and learn to follow him. That relationship will challenge everything you think you know to be true. It will unmask your deceptions, expose your selfish ambitions, and invite you down pathways you’d never consider without him. But with him, they will lead to unimaginable depths of discovery and freedom.
If just praying about our needs doesn’t make that happen, what will? We find his way by actually following him. There really is no substitute for that. That’s why Jesus came. We don’t celebrate the Incarnation by attending another Christmas pageant or putting another string of lights on the tree. We celebrate it by leaning into the reality he paid so much to give us. His Incarnation was the example of how Father wanted to walk alongside us. His death on the cross obliterated the sin and shame that made us too fearful and too intimidated to sit at his feet and learn his ways. His resurrection empowered us to share the same relationship with him that Jesus had.
Salvation is found in following him, in this life, and yes to life beyond as well. There’s nothing sadder to me than someone desperately wanting God’s help in their life, but just waiting for God to fix it. He’s inviting them to follow him, to recognize what’s really true about the circumstance they are in and respond not out of the flesh but in the reality of his kingdom. Isn’t it amazing that we find more comfort in trying to find an answer in the right book or seminar, when the Spirit of God dwells in us to guide us into truth and to empower us with the same power that raised Jesus from the dead?
He wants you to know him, to see into the reality of how God regards you and the situation you’re in, then you’ll know how to follow him. That’s all the salvation you will ever need. He can take you through anything and change you in the process to be more like him and to think more like he thinks.
That’s what Paul meant when he wrote, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” (Col 3:1-2) Jesus opened a door for us to see and experience what is really true in the universe by knowing him. Unfortunately, we spend too much time focused on things below, on our own abilities or lack of them, and on our own wisdom, thinking it is his. Or we put too much stock in religious principles and rituals that have the appearance of spirituality, but don’t help us recognize the truth of what’s going on around us.
Ask him to let you see reality through his eyes. Spend time with him, so that you know what touches his heart and how he thinks in situations. Talk with others who are also learning to follow him and let them share what they see. Be aware that what he sees will almost always be very different from what you see. His path will most likely invite you out of your comfort zone and preferred outcomes to follow him. But remember he is your salvation and there’s no safer place to be than in him.
Yes, you’ll find yourself resisting the truth like I do the first time I see it. His ways are rarely the way I’d naturally think. As we embrace his growing revelation, however, we’ll see how following him is the only way forward. Celebrate this Christmas with a prolonged gaze into the reality of our Father’s kingdom. Draw near to him and ask him to make himself known to you and pause enough to recognize the nudging of passion or wisdom he puts on your heart. Follow him as best you see him each day and watch what will unfold in your life.
This is the great adventure. You don’t have to have all the answers or all the power, you only have to follow the one who does.
Wayne and Sara with their children and grandchildren on the beach… This is how Christmas looks in Southern California.
Wayne was a Guest on Liminal Space
I was a recent guest on the Liminal Spaces Podcast called Life through Transitions Podcast. I had a great time talking with host Jon DeWaal about how God can use something as painful as betrayal to open a wider door in his kingdom.
Do You Want to Help Us In Kenya? If you have some year-end giving to do and unsure where to send it, would you please consider our brothers and sisters in Kenya? You can read more about what’s going on there in my recent article, The Craziest Thing I’ve Been Asked to Do. If you’d like to help as we finish up there, you can do so on our Online Giving Page.
Travel Notes for 2019
I’m currently sorting through some of my travel schedule for 2019, which at this point will include Atlanta, Eureka, Italy, and Kenya, and might include West Virginia and Southern Illinois. We’re still working on some of the early parts of the year. I’ll be in Italy at a Discipleship Training School from April 29 – May 3. I’ve got some time on either side of that week to be elsewhere in Europe while I’m out that way. If you’d like to host something when I’m in the area, please let me know. You can keep up with my Travel Schedule here, and if you’d like to be notified if I’m planning to visit your area, you can sign up on our email list and include your address <http://eepurl.com/bJ43Ar>.
In Cased you Missed it…
Here are some of the podcasts and blogs that have generated a lot of interest over the last couple of months.
I got to spend the weekend and then a three-hour drive with my dad this week. I realize I’m incredibly privileged to have a father like him. He was the epitome of character, integrity, graciousness, and willingness to follow God even at great risk to relationships he treasured. I watched him be lied about by close friends and not defend himself, to be called names because he wouldn’t conform to what others wanted. This was not only my father according to the flesh, but also he is my father in the faith, setting the example of a man who would carve out time in his life to cultivate a closer relationship to Jesus, to listen to him, and to do whatever he put on his heart.
Spending time with my dad and talking over things we’re both thinking about and struggling with, is better than any book I can read, any conference I could attend, or any counselor I’d know. It is a rich, rich time that helps center my heart, shift my priorities, and adds nuggets of wisdom to my own journey.
After I dropped my dad off, I spent a few hours with another friend, Dave Coleman, who was my co-author on So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore. I enjoy time with Dave in the same way and with the same results. Between those two men in a single day, I gleaned over 170 years of experience of learning to know who Jesus is and and how to follow him. What an outstanding resource they both are! And, I know many more like them all over the world—men and women in their 70s, 80s and 90s—who have been seasoned in walk with Jesus and picked up some amazing lessons along the way. Yet, they spend countless hours at home, alone. Few people come to visit, to ask questions, to not only offer them company but draw from their fountain of wisdom as well. And, I don’t just mean about spiritual things. These people know how to raise families, run businesses, cultivate healthy relationships, and put the welfare of others above their own.
In fact, after I left Dave’s, I met with some others who know him. They asked me how he was doing. It seemed so absurd to me. I live 250 miles away and they ask me how someone is doing who lives down the street from them. “He lives right here, you know?” I asked comically, though, I was also making a point. I know Dave would love to spend time with any of them, and they would all go away, enlightened and encouraged.
A few years ago I met with Jack Gray, a ninety-year-old in New Zealand, whose life and wisdom in Christ I’ve come to appreciate deeply. The man who drove me to that appointment joined in our conversation and after I came back home, he got a few more friends and went over to visit again and continues to, because of how helpful it has been to them. Jack told me those conversations have revitalized him and he looks forward to every one.
To its detriment, our culture has diminished the wisdom of age. Yes, I know many people grow old, bitter and more reclusive, but many others don’t. It’s as if we put their vast resources of wisdom and compassion on a shelf and ignore it, all the while trying to find the right book or speaker that might give us the wisdom we think we need. Don’t fall for it. There are brothers and sisters right around you that have what you seek and would love to help you discover a great life in Jesus. And you won’t just get platitudes or principles, but a living example and the honesty of their struggle.
If you know one of them, just invite them to lunch, or ask if you might visit. Get to know them and see what treasures spill out of their heart. If you don’t know what to talk about, here are some suggestions:
What are some of the most valuable lessons you’ve learned on your journey?
What are you thinking about these days?
What’s the best advice you ever received about marriage (or business, or relationships, or discipleship)?
Tell me some ways God has made himself known to you?
What has been the hardest thing for you to entrust to God?
I promise you, you’ll make their day. And yours too!
No one should have to bury their twenty-one-year-old daughter. It’s just not right, especially when she was murdered in a senseless act by a broken man who somehow thought shooting up a local bar and grill would do something for his pain. Yesterday, Sara and I attended her funeral just to be with our community in the midst of its pain and to pray. We didn’t know Noel, or any of the other 11 victims of that mass shooting, but a good friend of ours was one of Noel’s best friends, and we wanted to support her and her family.
Our community has been through so much over the last two weeks. The shooting happened on a Wednesday night at 11:20 pm. The next day two wildfires broke out on either side of Thousand Oaks and by 3:00 am on Friday many residents were told to evacuate their homes in advance of the fire. Fortunately, only three people were killed in these fires, but over 1000 homes and businesses burned. In Northern California they are dealing with a fire that destroyed 6,000 buildings, killed almost a hundred, with a thousand more missing. Sara and I have personally escaped unscathed from these twin tragedies, but know many who have not.
And now, it’s Thanksgiving. This holiday always centers around the images of home and family, expressing gratefulness for the bounty of blessings they’ve enjoyed in the last year. But not everyone had a good year. Some had their houses burned or their child murdered. Others have been through divorce, or cancer, or being laid off from their job. What if you have been abused by someone you love or abandoned by your family? Where do you find your Thanksgiving then?
Pain—and this world can deal it out in some horrible ways—can make us question the goodness and beauty of Creation and the One who made it. But Paul expressed a different point of view in his trials, which were many and vast, from shipwrecks to beatings, he wrote in II Corinthians 4:7-9:
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”
No matter what circumstances brought to Paul, he knew of an inner refuge that could carry him through it and in the process seed the ground for greater joys to come. If we look for joy only in our circumstances, our sense of security will rise and fall with capricious tides of life. We’ll then see God as the one who must fix all our circumstances to make us happy, or be disappointed with him when he doesn’t. But if our pain can remind us to look deeper, to find a God who is bigger than the most atrocious things life can deal out to us, then we can find joy and thanksgiving no matter what goes on around us.
My heroes of the Old Testament include Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, three children of Israel living in the Babylonian exile. They were threatened with being burned alive if they wouldn’t bow down to a golden idol that King Nebuchadnezzar had built. They refused. They were given another chance to comply and refused again, uncertain how things would turn out:
“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
Their trust in God was not attached to the outcome of their circumstances. I know wonderful people whose homes were spared in the fires, and wonderful people whose homes were burned right across the street or next door to those who were spared. Our temporal blessings, even survival, is not proof of God’s favor or his judgment. These children of Israel could trust God whether or not he delivered them from their persecution and pain. There is always something more than what is right in front of us. Tuning into that reality gives us cause for thanksgiving no matter how bleak circumstances might appear.
So where do we find gratefulness in times of crisis? Here’s where I find it:
I am grateful that he is always with me, even if my feelings try to tell me otherwise.
I am grateful he has given me life, breath, and subsistence to get through this day.
I am thankful that I have a Father who loves me more than anyone on this planet ever has or ever will.
I am thankful there’s nothing I can do to make him love me one bit less or one bit more than he already does.
I am thankful that every breath I take is in his hands.
I am grateful that Jesus has a way to navigate me through anything life can throw at me, including when others treat me unfairly.
I am grateful that all my hopes and dreams don’t have to be satisfied on this side of eternity.
I am grateful that nothing in this world, or the actions of any person, can keep me from the life and freedom he has for me.
I am grateful that Jesus will get the last word on every one and everything in this world. He hasn’t yet, but he will.
I am grateful he is bigger than any injustice, calamity, lie, or failure.
I am grateful that there’s always a way for me to encourage and be helpful to others who are going through difficult times.
I am grateful for friendships that love through anything, and don’t assume the worst of motives in moments of pain.
And, I am grateful that beauty and joy will once again rise from the ashes of my calamities and lead me to peace.
So, whether you find yourself on this Thanksgiving in abundant circumstances or in painful ones, there are real reasons to be thankful. And, finding our way to a place of thankfulness is often the first step to finding our way beyond the pain and into his reality of life and peace.
And it may be the most significant thing I do in my lifetime. Our outreach to brothers and sisters in Kenya and through them to the tribal people of Pokot, is the strangest connection God has invited me into. This is nothing I sought out or tried to accomplish. God brought it into my life gently, but persistently, over time. He knew that somehow I could help him connect people with the great need on the other side of the world to people here with the resources to help out.
Over a hundred thousand tribal people there were dying of malnutrition and disease, without any aid from the United Nations, their own government, or nonprofit organizations. This is a remote region with no one to help. Their nomadic life had been destroyed by a prolonged drought that killed their cattle-driven economy. The Kenyans we already knew in Kitale were heartbroken when they discovered them and asked if we could share some resources through them. Let that sink in. A group of people we were already helping because of their poverty were wanting to reach out to others they who were even in more need. It’s just nuts. We are not a missionary organization, yet in recent years more than 80% of our budget has gone to help these dear people in Kitale and Pokot.
To my utter amazement and delight, people from my podcast at The God Journey and my blog here, responded with generosity and continue to do so over such a prolonged period of time. We’ve been helping in the Kitale area now for over ten years with an orphanage, primary school fees, college tuition, and medical needs. In addition, we started two enterprises—a petrol station and a grain distribution business—to help them employ people and use the profits so they wouldn’t grow dependent on us. That has worked out incredibly well.
Three years ago they discovered the people in Pokot, and over that time we’ve been able to help relieve their sufferings through food, water, medical assistance and education. Two and a half years ago we began a development plan to help them develop their own resources. We have coaches in the area teaching them how to provide for their own needs of food and water, and about hygiene, which has put an end to 90% of their medical needs. We’ve also helped them start their own businesses to generate income. We drilled six wells and over the past year built five agricultural projects around those wells so that in addition to having clean water for themselves, they can also use it to water their animals and to grow their own crops.
It wasn’t just money that helped us here; God also arranged for me to meet people at just the right time—two people who had doctorates in East African development three months after we found out about the people in Pokot, a man working in Thailand who introduced me to the people at Global Hope who were in a neighboring county already doing the work we needed to start doing, a family whom God led to put aside some money for a “great need” coming their way who has given nearly half of the money we have used, an education official from Uganda who could confirm the need in Pokot with government officials in Nairobi when he was skeptical of what we were being told, a lady from Australia to confirm the hearts of those who had contacted us from Kenya, and so many smaller connections that came just as they were needed.
Yes, I’ve had to make a lot of decisions in concert with others and at times this has taken far more energy and time than I felt I had to give, but mostly it seemed I’ve just watched God knit something together so much bigger than any of us could have accomplished. The way he arranged for people and support at just the right time has his fingerprints all over this. We have helped feed the hungry, including widows and orphans, rescued the sick and dying, and provided an opportunity for the Gospel to spread among a forgotten group of people.
Our plan is for the people of Pokot to be self-sustainable after five years and it looks like we’re on that track. Can you imagine? This happened because of people like you who heard about this need and responded with open hearts and have continued to do so over multiple years. I sit here amazed at what Father is doing to let love be practical in reaching out to a people who were dying of malnutrition and disease. All told, we have given over 1.5 million dollars to assist in all these efforts, and the people there have spent it shrewdly and accountably to maximize its reach to as many people as possible.
The pictures above show the tremendous success they’ve had in their first year of harvest. They work hard to grow the food and then share it among the others, especially the most needy. They are also now expanding the acreage of each of the agricultural projects to grow even more food. In addition, the generosity from so many of you has opened up a wide door for the Gospel as they have responded to the message of a Father’s love and learning to follow him. Here’s a recent email I got thanking us for our efforts there:
The work in North Pokot has given us hope and this is what we are praying for. The people in these regions are seeing live miracle, this is so amazing. God has granted them what they prayed for some years back.
In this portions of land under irrigation it has been divided into different crops and some crops they use small water and it is drought resistance like cassava, sweet potatoes, millet and sorghum, and some maize, this will help exchange of crops time to time as the community will not depend for one crop, this is why as we continue expanding the land for more production, food donation would be reducing hence allow for development.
In every week the committee gives the food from the farm produce to the families according to the numbers. This has helped some of the families to something to eat at least every day.
Here is a picture of the people in Pokot giving thanks. Your love has flowed over in Thanksgiving to God, not just from them, but from me as well. I am completely amazed at what God has accomplished to rescue these people and give them life.
The people of Pokot bowing down giving thanks for the crops they have harvested.
The needs here are ongoing as is our support for them. If you’d like to join us, you can direct it through Lifestream as contributions are tax-deductible in the U.S. As always, every dollar you send goes to the need in Kenya. We do not (nor do they) take out any administrative or money transfer fees. If you would like to be part of this 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 Newbury Rd Ste 1 • Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.
After telling me he no longer loves me, my husband left me in September of last year, and we are still separated. The last several months (8 months since he told me he no longer believes in God, 5 months since he left me) have been the most excruciatingly painful, yet spectacularly amazing, months I ever could have imagined. The freedom you talk and write about…it’s real.
