I read this yesterday and loved it:

The good-hearted understand what it’s like to be poor;
the hard-hearted haven’t the faintest idea. (Proverbs 29:7, The Message)

I guess the difference is having been there and not forgetting what it was like, nor others who are there today. I guess the hard-hearted either haven’t been there, or have blocked it out of their mind in pursuit of their own expedience. Where you have extra, you will naturally give to help others. And remember, there are lots of ways to be poor. It’s just not financial, but to be poor in health, spirit, emotional need, spiritual encouragement, etc.

Keep your heart tuned to the poor and you’ll find yourself having a heart for all kinds of people in all kinds of struggles. That will keep your heart soft, your perspective clear, and your mind engaged with Father’s work in the world.

Look what question appeared in my inbox today:

Wayne I have read your book So You Don’t Want to Go To Church Anymore, and I thought it was something I had written in my sleep. I feel like God has shown me the exact things John was teaching Jake and the others. In my case I had doubts that I was out in left field on this and uncertain I really understood what God had taught me. Your book has more than anything confirmed that I understood it correctly and I am not out of touch on living the life of Jesus. But my question is this – How can we be so certain that we understand it correctly if so many professional pastors and church leaders don’t get it, when they too are convinced God is leading them to do what they do?

I get that question a lot. I’ve had dozens of people tell me that when they went to share with their pastors what they were learning about Jesus, grace, or alternative views of church life were discouraged from believing it. Many were challenged with something like this: “Who do you think you are? If God were really speaking that today, you’d think he’d be showing it to pastors like me, not laymen (or women) like you?”

Wow! Someone doesn’t get it! Even Jesus said, “Don’t bicker among yourselves over me. You’re not in charge here. The Father who sent me is in charge. He draws people to me—that’s the only way you’ll ever come. Only then do I do my work, puttin gpeople together, setting them on their feet, ready for the End. This is what the prophets meant when they wrote, ‘And then they will all be personally taught by God.’ Anyone who has spent any time at all listening to the Father, really listening and therefore learning, comes to me to be taught personally—to see it with his own eyes, hear it with his own ears, from me, sinc eI have it firsthand from the Father. No one has seen the Father except the One who has his being alongside the Father—and you can see me!”

I love that. Anyone who seeks to crawl between you and your freedom to follow Jesus, doesn’t have a clue who Jesus is. So this is how I answered the man who wrote me this morning:

I don’t know that we’re ever certain. Paul said it was like looking through a darkened mirror. God has not asked us to walk in certainty, but to walk in the integrity of our conscience. I’m convinced these things are true. I’m always open to Jesus bringing in further truth, but I’m comfortable living here because this is consistent with his nature as I understand it, it is consistent with Scripture as best I understand it, and it is in synch with other brothers and sisters I know who really live in a vibrant life with Jesus.

That certain professional pastors and church leaders don’t get it, is not convincing enough evidence in the face of the other three. Plus many of them have a vested interest in not seeing the truth of how religion warps people because they are leading organizations in which people need to conform for them to be successful. It is difficult for people to choose against their own self interest.

Upton Sinclair wrote: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.” You don’t know how many pastors have said to me, “Wayne I love the things that you’re doing and saying, but I don’t know how to live that way and still get paid.” I understand that. I remember similar thoughts years ago, but what that shows is that they really don’t know how to trust God as provider, so their sense of truth is shaped by their personal expedience. That’s a dangerous place to live and won’t lead us ultimately to truth. You’ll notice in Jesus’ day it was the professionals, Pharisees, scribes and priests who didn’t understand him either and most opposed Jesus life and message.

That said, however, I want you to know that I also know quite a few pastors who are seeking to be a positive influence in a more congregational setting. They do see through the rigors and bondage of religion and genuinely want to help others know the Living God and walk in his life. They would resonate with a gospel of grace, the necessity of freedom and authenticity and disdain religious obligation as a cheap substitute for true transformation. But it is difficult to walk there. It’s hard to get al the work done around the place if you free people not to, and it is difficult to get people to embrace their own spiritual journey when they feel like they are paying someone else to lead them to it. Many of them get fired in time, some walk away. Some find a way to live that out authentically with a group of people who embrace it wholeheartedly…

But we’re called to follow truth not expedience, to let the Counselor guide us into his truth and for us to follow, even when it is not in our temporal self-interest to do so. And always keep an open heart. I’m constantly praying, “Father, if I’m not seeing this the way you do, please change me.” And he does, and still is. We are all brothers and sisters on a journey. No one has the corner on all God’s truth, except the Son himself!

I got this email the other day and loved it. This comes from Connie, and I’ve posted some of her thoughts before as she struggles through the transition of thinking religiously to thinking relationally. I like the humor and honesty in her words and journey. The subject of the email was “Amused and Annoyed.” I love what this unpacks:

I hope all is going well for you. I catch your podcast now and again and it sounds like you’re havin’ fun and experiencing God.

I had a funny thing happen the other day I thought you’d get a kick out of hearing. I’m in the middle of a mid-life crisis right now. Yeah, I’m only 33 but that is how it feels. I’m having to make a career decision and am very much torn as to which career path to choose.

I finally got away to talk with God about what He would like me to do (or so I thought). Though I knew both choices were good, one of them must be better. After my long-winded explanation, of which I know He already knew, I sat and silently waited for Him to tell me what to choose. Do you think He told me?

Our conversations always begin with Him telling me how much He loves me, to which I roll my eyes and ask Him to get on with it already. So then He tells me that I will change lives and bring His Kingdom into both situations. Anything I do, even beyond my two scenarios, will be good. He just wants to be right with me, enjoying me, while I live my life. (annoying huh?) So then He turns the question around and asks, “So Connie, what is it that you want to do with your life?”

That’s when my crisis began! What do I want to do? Me? He was supposed to tell me what to do, not hand my free-will over to me! Ha! I’ve never in my life stopped and asked what I want to do with my life. Somehow within all the church-going years I’ve adopted the concept that once I am a Christian I can no longer have any goals or life-dreams. God now owns me and whatever He wants of me I’ll do. I must detach all personal identity, be void of opinions and desires and for sure not use my brain!

I guess for years when I read Paul describes himself as a bond-slave of the Lord, I half-way believe that Paul did not want to do what he was doing, but was somehow forced because…well… you just can’t argue with God. Now I’m realizing, it’s not that Paul’s in chains (not literally obviously), but that he’s so in love with the Father, he can’t help but share in whatever situation he is in. It’s a relationship of love. God could actually care less (so to speak) what I “do” as long as He gets to be with me. ‘Cause when He’s with me and I remain in Him, we can affect change at the grocery store even! What a striking contrast to the Master and Servant role I began with, eh? Funny also how so much of me (that Pharisee is strong in there) would very, very much like Him to tell me the answer. Err, unfortunately for my good-girl, box-thinking nature, God is not about dolling out a list of demands.

So now I have to look in the mirror and figure this out. Gosh I’d much rather the non-relational, controlling method sometimes! That method, however, does not enhance relationship, which is most likely what He’s all about!

Anyway, I’m 30% annoyed and 70% amused. He’s a funny guy, that God!

Yes, there are times God has a specific will for our lives and by embracing it we die a bit to our selfish nature and find ourselves smack-dab in the middle of something we never thought we would have wanted. And some times God just indicates he can go either way here. And as far as a vocational choice, “What do you want to do with your life?” sounds like a great question.

Someone pointed out to me a year or so ago the incredible joy God must have had in letting Adam name the animals. God had created them but he wanted humanity to name them. How cool is that? God would call them whatever Adam called them. He didn’t have some secret name for each animal that Adam had to figure out over hours of prayer and agonizing. He just began to give them names and that’s what they were.

Following Jesus is not meant to be an arduous chore. Sometimes he has a specific thing for us to do and let’s us know that. At other times we get to wander in a pretty wide space with him, because he is all about the relationship and the joy of knowing you and watch you come free in his reality, not trying to squeeze you into some box that makes you miserable. And he knows that when you find freedom in the relationship, you’ll be the best reflection of him in the world no matter where you are or what you’re doing!

Alexis de Tocqueville, an astute political observer that lived in the early 1800s wrote this insightful statement:

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

Think Wall Street bail-outs, Cash for Clunkers, economic stimulus projects, and some approaches to nationalized health care, and the list just keeps on unfolding. We are being bought with our own money and most people haven’t a clue.

I would love to be proved wrong, but I don’t think there is even one statesman or stateswoman in Washington, DC these days who is wholly committed to the common good, and not just his or her own personal gain or pandering to their political party. Our ship of state is on a course directly toward the pounding surf on the jagged rocks and people keep arguing about arranging the deck chairs. Until the citizenry registers their discontent and throws the incumbents out of office we will continue to get the government we deserve.

Throughout human history dominant civilizations have only lasted a little over 200 years on average. The current direction of this country and its economy doesn’t bode well for things to come. That’s why our hope has to be in God and his unfolding purpose in the world, even if it means the days grow darker so the light can shine brighter.

Got this from a couple in Portland area, and it just shows how the simplest things can open some amazing doors:

We’ve been having some nice hot weather and this week several days running over 100. We live in just about the exact center of our community (as the map is laid out) and right beside the city pool so we’ve had lots of foot and car traffic (lots of kids which we love!). Several days ago my husband was having one of his conversations with God.

Father said, “Why don’t you have some cold drinks out front there for people?”

After sharing this little interaction with me he headed to the store before work and bought inexpensive pop and water and big bags of ice and arranged them in our two coolers out by the street. He had me make signs in both English and Spanish: FREE – Ice Cold Drinks. It seems such a silly, small thing and the way people are so fearful we wondered if we’d have any takers. You cannot imagine how much fun we have had – people of all ages but especially the kids of course – have LOVED it and been so thankful.

Many seem taken aback, uncertain, wondering why and I’m sure what our “agenda” is. How very fun to offer a “cup of cold water” to our neighbors with no strings attached – just a desire to bless and love on ’em. To long and hope for them to someday drink from the well of God’s love that never stops refreshing. It’s something we’ll probably only do when the heat is extreme.

And I think the “word” my husband received goes very deep for him spiritually but the gesture has really broken the ice around here. People suddenly are looking us in the eye when they pass, smiling, saying “hello”, chatting. Our small world is suddenly breaking wide open. What you said is true – each day we wonder, “So what’s gonna happen today Father? What will You do, what will we see and experience?” That feeling we had as little children, a feeling we’d all but forgotten, waking up expectantly, anxious only to get up and greet the day and embrace all the exciting things that are waiting for us!

And to think that the couple doing this is also going through some serious cancer treatment with their adult son and helping care for him and his family. Real ministry isn’t necessarily more work to fulfill, sometimes it can be a playful distraction in an otherwise stressful life.

You know what I love about this, the recapturing of simplicity, of loving what’s before you, not trying to create a ministry If they had put up a sign that said Cold Drinks for Jesus, it would have ruined everything, wouldn’t it? People would have seen it just as a tactic to engage a conversion conversation. I love that they just gave out what God asked, and are letting the growing friendships and ‘community’ around them grow naturally.

That’s how the kingdom spreads, like that very small mustard seed that spawns a tree so large others can nest in its branches. Love whomever God puts before you on a given day. Follow his nudges in caring for people, not to get a chance to pump them with the Gospel, but simply because they are people God cares about. Watch people light up with delight and watch your own heart recapture that childlike spirit that sees each day as an adventure in grace!

When friendship grows you will most likely get a chance to share your faith, but then it will be because you really care about them, not because you manipulate a moment so yu can convert them. One approach opens doors wide, the other slams them shut before people even have a chance to know the God you love.

Back from a long, restful, wonderful weekend. Someone sent me this clip from Jay Leno’s show with a song by Allison Krauss that has invited them into a wonderful space of grace. The song is A Living Prayer, I love that this was on a show like Leno’s. How cool is that:

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

I’m off for an extended weekend to visit my parents in the Sierra Nevada mountains above Fresno. Yes, Sara, my daughter and the grandgirls are going too! It should be fun! Before I go, I thought I’d leave you with this:

I get in a lot of discussions with people about the practicality of finding real community among flawed brothers and sisters. Certainly we are all in a journey of transformation, but community need not demand perfection, just the resolve to live inside relationships. Everyone wants community but mostly for the benefits, and that can’t happen where people are not also willing to pay the cost.

The cost is this: one must put the priority of friendship above any other consideration, including how right I think I am. This is what Philippians 2:1-4 and other passages encourage us to do. The problem is, so few people I’ve met in this life can either live that or sustain it for any length of time. The moment community is about something other than friendship (finding our ministry, promoting our own happiness, or satisfying our coping mechanisms), it will always break down into a competition as to who has the most power to get their way.

The problem with any structure we would seek to use to guarantee this kind of life eventually fails. Subtly the structure replaces relationship, as people think the structure (the fact we belong to the same group) guarantees a relationship. But it won’t be long before most people will exploit the structure for their own self-interest or preferences. And most of those will mask their selfishness by claiming God led them to pursue they things they also happen to prefer the most. The biggest disappointments of my life have come when people get involved in a friendship only for as long as it met their needs and desires. Then they easily tossed aside the friendship like a piece of junk mail. They wanted the benefits of friendship, but had neither the responsibility nor integrity to contribute to the friendship beyond their own gain.

That’s why real community remains elusive. I read something interesting this morning that provoked these thoughts. I am reading
His Excellency George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis. It’s a fascinating read and this particular paragraph really leapt out at me.

During the war Washington had learned, the hard way, that depending on a virtuous citizenry was futile, for it asked more than human nature was capable of delivering… Making voluntary sacrifice the operative principle of republican government had proved to be a romantic delusion. Both individual citizens and sovereign states required coercion to behave responsibly.

I realize he is talking about fallen humanity, but his conclusion perhaps applies to the redeemed community as well. Since we’re all people being shaped by Jesus in various stages of healing, community cannot rest on perfection. Asking people to prefer relationship over self-interest is to ask what human nature is incapable of delivering. Without an ongoing transforming work of the Spirit, which goes on in the whole of our lives, community is impossible.

So I guess I’m back to where I began. Real community is found in friendships, not structures. And even there, they may be transitory at best. Enjoy them when God brings them across your path. Share his life together as long as there is grace to do so. You can structure around it when a group of friends are sharing the life of Jesus together, but no structure will guarantee or secure that life for any period of time.

So here’s what I hope to do: Love everyone. Recognize those relationships that go deeper with a sense of mutuality and sacrifice. Enjoy sharing the journey together and fight for those relationships more than anything else. In real community, being right with each other is more important than being right about any issue. But don’t be too shocked or devastated when some of them go south. Some people don’t have enough maturity yet to live inside their spiritual nature in the moments when relationship costs them something. The endurance of community asks for something that human nature isn’t capable of providing. That doesn’t have to be a cynical conclusion, just a practical one.

As I’ve said often, community is a gift God gives not a mandate for us to manufacture. Always extend it to others. Revel in it for those seasons where others extend it to you as well. And let’s all look forward to the day when all our vices and selfishness are swallowed up in the fullness of Christ.

I love this stuff. A wonderful group of my friends are getting together in Australia during a long weekend— October 1-5. I’m not going to be able to attend in person, though they are asking if I’ll join in in by Skype. But I would encourage brothers and sisters from Australia who would like to meet others on a similar journey of learning to live inside Father’s love and share it with others. It’s called “A Gathering In the Spring” and you can find out more by clicking this link.

These kinds of gatherings are the best way to meet and connect with fellow-travelers on this journey. I know some are reticent to set aside the time or money needed to go to things like this, especially if they don’t know anyone. However, the vast majority of people find afterwords that connecting with others and finding new-found friendships with which to share their journey made it all more than worth it.

Last night Sara and I went out to watch a flyby of the International Space Station. It is making a series of passes just after nightfall here in Southern California, which means the sun is shinning on the space craft and it easily visible as it streaks across the night sky. Last night we watched the bright white spot for five minutes as it arched from west to east.

Last night we went out to watch it again. Standing in the quiet darkness of our back lawn we scanned the skies until we saw not one bright light streaking across the sky, but two. The space shuttle had already detached from ISS and was flying ahead of it by a few seconds. As they silently traversed the darkness, their orbit took them just beneath the half moon in the southwest sky. It was a moment.

But then the moment got even better. As Sara and I watched the space station and shuttle two brilliant shooting stars came over our heads from behind and joined the dance going on in the sky above us. It was one of those magnificent moments that take your breath away. As the space station and shuttle went out of sight and the shooting stars faded away, we stood looking at the night sky in wonder. There is stuff going on out there in the universe, even beyond our little planet that we hardly ever think about.

It reminded me of Paul’s encouragement,

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. Col. 3:1-2

Tension and frustration builds in our lives when we live in our circumstances without the awareness that he is in them with us as well. We are not alone. He is doing things that we may not even see or be aware of, that if we knew it our hearts wouldn’t be so torn apart by the trials of this life and the schemes of dishonest people. We live in fear and make our worst choices when we think we are all alone having to fix what is broken in us or things around us. Instead Paul invites us to behold him, setting our hearts on what’s above—his presence and his working in us.

Let’s not live with your eyes only looking at what’s going in the physical world we see. Ask him to teach you how to focus the eyes of your heart on the fact that you are not alone, that he is with you working out all things in conformity with his will and purpose.

That’s what I learned last night as I stood with Sara in our darkened back yard, watching a dance across the heavens. Of course, Paul wasn’t talking about space shuttles and space stations, but if you want to see the space station tonight, it will be going across the west coast from 8:00 to 8:05 tonight.

Well I’m back from the Colorado/Michigan trip and finally digging out a bit from the email avalanche that welcomed me home. Still got a bunch more to do, but I thought you’d enjoy this.

I got an actual letter in the mail a couple of weeks ago. Those are pretty rare these days. It was from a prisoner in an Arizona jail who has been deeply touched by God’s life through some of the books I’ve been a part of. I wanted to share his story with you because if this stuff works in prison, there’s no corner of our lives where Jesus can’t breath the same life and freedom into our worlds. Enjoy!

I am finishing a 5-year sentence in Department of corrections for Grand Theft. I just wanted to take the time to share with you the impact that “The Shack”, “He Loves Me”, “So You Don’t Want to go to Church Anymore” and “Authentic Relationships” has had on my life and how much freedom I have found in just relaxing in my Father’s love.

I am learning to trust and that includes giving up my own way. I am the middle adopted child of dysfunction and chaos. I am 47 years old and I am recovering from the mistaken assumption that life is all about me.

Coming to prison has actually given me time away from the “system of religious obligation” and has freed me to simply know, love and trust my Father. “Living loved” is so simple yet so life changing.
One of the most moving phrases I found in your books was “that people take time to relax and let me be the bother in Christ I really am!” I just really related to that.—real, pure and simple. I loved it. I have really taken to heart the truth of embracing the process of life-even the darker shades- and I find myself less angry, unforgiving and selfish. The veil has been lifted and I am completely loved and accepted!

I received Christ at 30 in the ministry of a group of loveless, joyless people, teaching loveless joyless people how to be loveless and joyless. I really believe now, in looking back, that I had to go under the law for almost 20 years to enable me to relate to and empathize with those still under the yoke of slavery. Now that I have discovered true freedom my heart aches for those being crushed by religion. I understand that I am not called to change or convince anyone, just to simply love and encourage them as Father places them in my path.

The Scripture declares, “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is obedience – NO. There is church attendance – NO, there is law – NO. It clearly states that where God is- there is freedom. I think real freedom is so fleeting to the body of Christ, that most would not recognize it, even if it bit them on the butt!

I am free to love, to grow and free to fail and free to make mistakes and bad choices! Now that’s freedom. Love really does cast out fear. I was recently reading in my Bible and came across this passage that I believe Father used as the process to raise me from the dead and show me and give me life (Luke 9:22). “The Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” Thank you again brother for your hand in helping to raise me to life.

I have found it true your word about “embracing the journey” and even in prison. I am in love with God, people and I want to live again. Talk about a miracle. No such thing as instant gratification in the Kingdom. I get to be a kid again and life is so worth living. Obviously, there is much more to my story- drugs, suicide attempts and other ugly chapters in the “unfolding story “ of my life that do not need to be re-hashed anymore. It is my heart’s desire that Father would see fit to allow our hearts and lives to intersect one day and I could simply allow you to be the brother in Christ that you really are. It is not a stretch to say, even though I‘ve never met you, that I love you dearly and you have uplifted me and help strengthen my weary heart and it is my sincere prayer that this letter may do the same for you.

Dude your rock! Your obvious and sincere love for the family of God is so desperately needed in people who are drowning while standing on dry ground. I see life, relationship, love, mercy and grace in everything I see, read or participate in and somehow people are drawn to the heart of this old, worn-out old fishermen from California. Words alone cannot express how grateful I am to you, Sara and everyone at Lifestream! Listen to my heart, my friend, as I whisper love, grace, and freedom back to your heart. What an awesome Dad we have.