Better Explored than Explained

No, I’ve not become a rapper! That photo was taken Saturday morning in a conversation where I was trying to shield myself from the sun. But, I can wear that look!

Yesterday, Sara and I left the Austin area to continue our journey to the east. We’ve added new stops in Pensacola, Atlanta, Jekyll Island, Charlotte over the next month on our way to Richmond and Baltimore. After that we’re considering a stop in York, PA before turning west to Lexington, Louisville, and then on to Denver.

We hold so many great memories from our time in Texas and the people that let us into their hearts. What an amazing time we live in, where Jesus is inviting so many to walk alongside him even if it means uprooting the legalistic performance they were taught! And while that will make some in your family fear for your journey and even attack you for it, it is worth letting his love win you out of the obligation and judgment that define so much of religion, so you can live tenderly and graciously in the world, especially with your detractors.

Now we can begin to orbit a different reality—unmoored from our religious sensibilities we can get to know him and watch how his glory liberates us from the bondages of darkness and invites us into the light where we can be wholehearted in our walk with him.

Here’s how I expressed that journey in the last chapter of He Loves Me:

OF COURSE, NOTHING IN THIS BOOK has any value if it is just an intellectual argument, or if it only spawns a theology of God’s love. It only has meaning if you can learn how to live loved—to awaken to each new day confident that the Father delights over you like a parent over his newborn child.
I could go on and on with other implications of what it means to live in God’s love, and how it revolutionizes everything about the way we think or live. But I think the picture is clear enough now and you’ll be able to recognize the pathway and follow it wherever your Father wants to take you. Believe me, this is a life far better lived than it is read or talked about.
I’ve spent twelve years (now thirty years) mining the width and breadth of the Father’s affection and my life in him grows deeper and richer as the months go by. I keep discovering just how incredible he is and how freely I can live when I’m confident of his affection for me. I’ve seen him change so many things in my life this way, and yet I feel as if I’m just beginning.
You will enjoy far more the process of discovering how he wants to live in you than to keep reading more on the subject.

The life of Jesus is far better explored than explained. You can read and talk about it until you’re exhausted and frustrated; the joy comes in waking up each morning with an eye to discovering how he will make himself known to you on this day and what it will reshape in your heart no matter what you go through.

We’ll be talking about all of this at our final gathering of the He Loves Me Book Club, which will meet this Saturday, April 20, at 1:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time. We will be focusing on chapters 22 and 23. Chapter 22 focuses on the prayer God always answers and is a huge help for us to discern how he’s inviting us to follow him. The last chapter contains some simple guidance to learning to live loved.

Even if you have not been with us before, you’re welcome to join us for this last study. If you want to join us in this Zoom conversation, you can get details and the link by liking the Facebook Group Page, or if you are not a member of Facebook, you can write me for a link to be sent each time we meet. For those who just want to watch, we stream them live now on my Lifestream Ministry Page, since a new glitch in Zoom is not allowing us to post them to my Facebook Author Page. I will, however, post it to the Author Page once the conversation has concluded. You will be able to view it there along with all the previous discussions we’ve had about He Loves Me.

And if you want to see any of our conversations through He Loves Me, you can find them all here: