Wayne Jacobsen

I probably won’t do this again. I don’t see myself as a “tour operator” in Israel or anythwhere else. I much prefer being a tour operator to help people discover how to live freely in God’s kingdom.

But I promised I would go back, to get my daughter there, after my son and wife went on the last trip. She couldn’t go because of young children at home. So this time she is going along with my niece, and Sara is staying home to help Julie’s husband with the kids. I also decided to go back because of the number of people who wanted me to do it again and said they wanted to go. However, most of them ended up not being able to go this time, so we have a bunch of others.

So in a couple of hours I depart for the airport and an overnight flight to Frankfurt and then to Amman, Jordan. I am looking forward to the next two weeks wandering around some of the most amazing real estate in the world with Brad Cummings and his wife and people from all over the world. We’re going to see some amazing sites in Jordan first, and then in Israel. We’re going to reflect on how this land became so critical to God revealing himself in the world and the unique challenges that it faces until the day the New Jerusalem descends from heaven. I’m always amazed when I’m there that God chose this place of all those on the earth to make himself known. We’re also going to let the Scriptures come to life as we visit places where these things actually happened. And, we’ll have a great time on the bus, around meals, and walking around to get to know each other. Last time a group of strangers became knit together pretty quickly and the sense of family we had there continues to bear fruit across continents since.

We are going to take a boat across Galilee (the picture above is from our last time there) and observe the hills that Jesus would have seen countless times, stare down the Gates of Hell in Caesarea Philippi, stand near the altar Jeroboam built in Dan, be on the mount Jesus where most likely preached his famous sermon, swim in the Dead Sea, go up to Masada, and end our travels in Jerusalem on some of the very stones Jesus walked on, visit the mount where the Temple stood and the traditional sites for his death, burial and resurrection.

I wish you could all go. I know many reading this wish they had the time and resources to have joined us on this trip. I wish you could have as well.  I don’t believe God is any more present in Israel than he is in your own home. God inhabits his universe and we can discover him right where we are as easily as any place else. So I don’t go to Israel to have a more special time with God, though like everywhere else I go, I fully anticipate engaging him there.

And I pray that you, too, wherever you are, will make some time to lean into his reality over the next few weeks. It’s so easy to get caught up in the rush of life that we don’t set time aside to reflect on him and to ask him to make himself known to us.  That’s where this journey thrives, not on Israel trips, in books or by listening to podcasts. This is a journey he wants to take with you. I know that connection takes some time to develop. It may be just inklings at the start, but it will grow into nudges, and then revelation, and then the joy and confidence of knowing he is always with you whether you feel him or not. Your whole life is in his hands and there’s no better place for it to be.

I have been so grateful for so many of you who have helped carry me through this surgery and recovery. I’ve received so many emails, cards, phone calls from so many of you, as well as shared walks and conversations that have made this all incredibly smooth. This is my last update regarding my heart surgery and recovery.   I am now 10 weeks from surgery and feel as if I’m 90% back to normal. My only limitation now is not exerting my heart too much until it is fully healed. My maximum heart rate for exercise now is about 120 and increases each week. I had my 10-week check up with my cardiologist earlier this week and we couldn’t have been more pleased with the results.  Everything is normal at this stage of recovery and the extensive bloodwork that he did showed everything in the normal ranger and some of my cholesterol numbers he said were great!  Who would have thought?

This has been a bit of an ordeal, but I’m so glad to have come through it as smoothly as I have, thanks to the incredible medical team and the prayers, love, and support from so many family and friends. So now, I’m returning to my normal activities and just in time, too. On Sunday I leave for two weeks in Jordan and Israel. When I had surgery on November 10, I thought I would have to cancel my part in the God Journey Israel Tour. My surgeon told me at the time that would not be necessary, I would be good to go by January 22.  That seemed too incredible to me, and I’m still shocked now that I’m well enough to travel and participate with the tour.

I will continue Cardio Rehab for the next few weeks after I return, an the heart is still completing its healing, but there really isn;t any need for further updates about my medical condition. I’m ready to move on from being the Wayne-who-is-recovering-from-heart-surgery, to just plain old Wayne. After The Shack opens in March, I’ll be returning to my normal schedule. I’m already book travel for this spring and summer. So as far as surgery and recovery are concerned, there’s nothing to see here now. If some complication changes that, I’ll certainly let you know, but in the absence of that let’s all move on to what God is doing in the world and how we participate in that reality.

For those of you interested in joining us for The Shack Showing in Thousand Oaks on March 4, you can purchase your tickets on the web page that will go up tomorrow. I’ll put the link here when it does.  We will also have an after-part after the showing for people who want to converse with Brad and I more about it.

One last thing, I made two appearances on A Christian And a Muslim Walk Into a Studio, a podcast where two men of different faiths hammer out their friendship and share it with the world.  I know, it sounds like the start of a joke, but it’s not. One of the co-hosts is a good friend of mine, Bob Prater, and the other is becoming a good friend, Emad Meerza. Emad describes himself as a seventh-century Muslim and he’s a recognized emir in Central California. He’s a fascinating man with a very open heart. They invited me into their conversation for two episodes. The first airs this week about my involvement with The Shack, and the second (to air next week) is about my former work with BridgeBuilders helping public schools bridge the cultural divide. I think you’ll find these conversations fascinating.  I know I did.

“Missy was murdered right here.”

The conclusion came with a wave of grief and sorrow I was not anticipating.  It felt as if I stood on holy ground amidst the wooden boards of the dilapidated shack with shards of light piercing the semi-darkness from cracks in the walls. The hole in my heart was so vast I felt loss and lost.

I was so disoriented for a few moments that I’d forgotten all this was fiction. There was no Missy and she had not been murdered. She was part of a story I’d helped to write and in fact this setting was the first chapter I’d rewritten after the prolonged insistence of the original author to help him rework his manuscript. I’d been drawn back to that moment and the setting was exactly as I had imagined it.

No, I wasn’t dreaming I was on the movie set for the film adaptation of this story in July of 2015.  Brad, who had also helped on the rewrite and was now a producer on the film, was showing me the shack set, built out of old barn wood alongside a lake in British Columbia.  We were alone as we walked across he porch and inside the shack.  I took it in, eerily familiar on a visceral level, though I’d only been here in my own imagination.  Seeing it in reality was disorienting, disturbing the line between reality and fiction.

Brad watched me take it in and so he was already looking at me when I turned to him.  “Where?” I mouthed. Any noise seemed so inappropriate here.

Knowing what I was asking he nodded to the floor not far in front of me.  Until that moment I had been on a set.  In the next, my heart plunged into the depths of sorrow as I felt the loss of an innocent little girl to the tortured heart of her killer. My heart began to break with sorrow.

And then reason slowly began to take over.  “Wait a minute. No one died here. This is a movie set.” Like waking from a vivid dream each thought sought to break the hold of my emotional reaction and remind me that this was a simple convention in a fictional story. It took some time, but reason finally won out and I was once again back on a movie set, though still surprised at the emotions it hat provoked. It’s what others had experienced reading the book, that blurring between a fictional story and the reality of our own pain.

That’s what The Shack was designed to do, to carry the pain of its readers before God in a way that would allow him reveal himself as more good and loving than any of us would dare to believe amidst the tortured brokenness of the world we traverse. It seems far easier for us to blame God for our pain than to let him show us a greater reality beyond it and the immense love he holds for his creation.

I wanted to stay there as long as I could and soak in the moment, but we had to move on.  The film crew was elsewhere and we didn’t want to miss the day’s shoot. As we walked back to the car I couldn’t help glancing over my shoulder to take it in. There stood the shack just like we’d imagined it as a crew around it was winterizing it for tomorrow’s shoot. I can’t wait to see what comes from it all.

There’s a mild antipathy inherent in any film production between the film company that wants to creatively adapt the story to a visual medium and those that worked on or enjoyed the book and want to see it stay faithful to the original story. I hear an ominous concern from many readers who love the book so much, fearful they will be disappointed if the film doesn’t live up to their imagination.  They want my assurance that the story is in good hands.

There is much to be done before we’ll know for sure so we’ll have to see what comes of it.  It will be different—a movie and a book have to accomplish different things.  But having been on the set for a couple of days and meeting some of those involved in this adaptation, I came away wonderfully hopeful.  Hearing words that are so meaningful to me in the mouths of actors touches a deep place in my heart, listening to so many who were touched by the book, and seeing the scenes come to life with such beauty, was exhilarating.  And there was something indefinable in the air and I suspect more is at work here than the human hands touching it.

In the end it will be a beautiful movie and I am hopeful that it will unfold God’s reality in a way that will touch many more people who haven’t yet read the book.

Wayne on the set while the Shack was being prepped for winter in July 2015

I wrote the above right after I returned from the set but was not allowed to post it at the time because of restrictions from the studio.  I can now.  Two days before Christmas I got to take my family to a special screening and see the entire finished movie. It was my first time to see it color corrected, with all the special effects and the music. Wow!  It is simply amazing, and my family thought so too. It was weird to watch people in the the theater cry or laugh to some of the words I wrote and the scenes I helped create. But the main messages of this movie that I wanted to convey are fully intact within it.  There is so much here as to how God can touch the lives of people.

And, yes, the controversy is beginning to rage once again by those who think we want the world to believe that God is a woman or that we got some detail of the Trinity not quite right. Unfortunately they miss the greater story—that God is capable of walking into the depths of our most painful disappointments and despair, win us into his love, and walk us out into reality and freedom.  It’s all about relationship. It’s what God desired before the Creation and what heals the restlessness and brokenness in our own souls. That comes through wonderfully clear in the movie. It’s not a perfect movie and there are bits that I would change if I had the power, but what is here is a faithful depiction of the story we worked on and some visuals that are amazing. I was touched at a heart level many times and I knew what was coming.

But you don’t have to take my word for this alone.  The studio has been running trial screenings in various markets. They’ve come away very encouraged by the audience reaction. Two of the statements audience I’ve heard repeated are: “The Passion shows us what, The Shack shows us why!” and, “Finally Hollywood gets it right!” Honestly, I think they did here.

Two of my friends got to attend two of those screenings, one in Atlanta and one in Colorado Springs.  I had no idea until they wrote me to share their perspectives:

From Colorado Springs:  We were privileged to attend the preview showing of The Shack last week. So well done, and moving. Several unexpected moments of revelation and exhortation throughout.

From Atlanta:  All I can say is, WOW! Brad – you did an awesome job fighting for keeping the integrity of the book with Hollywood. Not that I have it all memorized, but it seemed like the majority of it was kept intact. As an actor and Christ-follower, I have a high (and maybe even a super sensitive) BS meter when it comes to “Christian” movies — and that could be because of the acting or the writing or cheese-factor I see in most of those flicks. That meter didn’t go off one iota in The Shack. The directing was great. The acting was even better. And this is something I feel I can tell others to go see. I’m excited to see where this will go! Unfortunately, my wife didn’t get to goodie to a prior commitment so I took a friend with me who had never read the book.  He is going through a painful season in his life. He absolutely loved it. I asked if he had a favorite part and he mentioned the portion with Mack and “Wisdom” was his favorite.

It’s only a few weeks now until the movie will be out for everyone to see.  March 3 can’t get here soon enough for me, but I do have to run off to Jordan and Israel first. We’re still planning on hosting a showing here in Thousand Oaks, CA either on February 25 if we can get permission to do it a week before the release, or March 4 if we can’t. Hopefully we’ll nail that down in the next week so people can begin to buy tickets. If you’re interested sign up here.

You can follow what’s going on with the movie and view the trailer here or follow it on Facebook here.

2017 has arrived!  Big deal!  I’m not much on arbitrary dates like this. Oh, they are fun to celebrate with friends but I know for many dates like this haunt them for the lack of seeming progress they’ve made in their lives over the past year. But transformation doesn’t come in giant leaps and resolutions, but in a slow, steady heart that keeps leaning into Father’s reality and out of the illusions of this world and even our religious sensibilities.  God loves you. He lives in you and as you just keep opening your heart to him each day he is at work in you to will and to do of his good pleasure. Find your way into that reality today, even if you can’t see it’s impact in the way you would like, and that transformation will continue.  God wants you free and alive in him far more than you do!

Sara and I have enjoyed the week between Christmas and New Years at Shaver Lake with my dad, my daughter and her family and with some friends from this area that we don’t get to see often enough.  Kids, puppies and snow are quite a delightful mix as our new pup explored the white stuff. It amazes me how much all our dogs have loved the snow at first sight.  They bolt from the car and run through it like they’ve just discovered heaven. And they are barefoot at that!  We have had a great time up here and are getting ready to head home in the next day or two.

I’m now seven and a half weeks out of surgery and feeling pretty good.  Except for not being able to exert my heart as much as I would like, I’m pretty much back to normal and am so grateful.  The heart will take another 4.5 weeks to heal so we’re slowly elevating my heart activity to make room for that. I continued my walks up here, in the snow and ice, so it’s been brisk and beautiful.  And after all the trauma my body has been through I’m constantly amazed at the resilience of it as it finds it’s way back to “normal.” And hopefully it will be a new normal with a stronger heart and greater endurance.

Over the break I’ve been reading Colson Whitehead’s book, The Underground Railroad. It’s a novel that won the National Book Award about the people who risked their lives to help slaves escape to the north and the hunters who fought so hard to bring them back to be tortured so others wouldn’t be tempted to try it. It is a story of fear and great courage. I started reading it as background for the book a friend of mine is writing about the Civil War. I’m helping him with it and wanted to read an award-winning book in that genre.  I am fully hooked on the characters and the story and looking forward to continuing later today.  It’s got me thinking what kind of person I would have been back in that day if I’d be raised in the South.  There’s no way to know, of course!

The best “gift” I got this holiday season was the opportunity two days before Christmas to watch the final version of The Shack movie with my family at the Lionsgate Screening Room. I’ll write more about that experience in my next blog, but it was such a joy not only to see the movie myself, but to experience it with them and watch them and a roomful of other people respond to it. It exceeded my hopes. To watch people react with laughter and tears to the words and scenes that I helped to write was an extraordinary experience. Talking about it with my kids after was a further delight as they shared their thoughts and insights about it.  Will March 3 ever come?

But before it does, I still have a trip to Israel to make. Three weeks from today I’ll be headed to Jordan.  Yikes!

Due to the holiday season our office will be closed this week.  We will open again on January 4. We apologize if that’s an inconvenience to you in some way. Book and audio orders placed this week will be sent out early next.

The good news, however, is that our 15% discount at the Lifestream Store continues until December 31.  Just place your order as usual and type in “LSChristmas” for your coupon code and it will reduce your order by 15%. Our books and our Audio and Video products are included.

Also, if you need to some year-end giving opportunities, we’d be blessed for you to consider the ongoing need in Kenya, the production of the Jake movie, or an of our ongoing needs at Lifestream. Please see our donation page if you’d like to give.

Finally if you’d like to go to Israel with Brad and I from January 15-February 5, you have to get it done quickly, but I think e can still smash you in.  Check here.

I continue to recover from heart surgery, allowing me a bit of time to run up to visit my dad. I’m six and a half weeks out from surgery and all is doing well.  I’m back to doing most things I was able to do before except put too much exertion on the heart. I’m permitted some light workouts as well as my walking. It takes 12 weeks for the physical trauma of the heart to heal.  So I’ve got a ways to go here, but couldn’t be more pleased at my recovery.  I am grateful for all your prayers and expressions of concern and it is good to feel functional again.

I hope you are looking forward to the year ahead and all the possibilities God might have in mind for taking your journey into greater freedom and fruitfulness.