Our latest edition of The God Journey entitled Learning to Listen has just been posted on our sister website thegodjourney.com.

The idea that God speaks to normal people in the course of their daily lives is still a controversial concept among Christians. Wayne and Brad often refer to God’s leading as a significant factor in their relationship with God and their journey. In this podcast they discuss how a daily, ongoing conversation with God is a normal part of the relationship he desires with his people. They share what that looks like in their own lives, how it integrates with their use of the Scriptures and how we can encourage others in this incredible process of learning to recognize his voice and have the courage to follow through with the things he makes clear to us.

I have just finished reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk To Freedom. What a great read! I met so many people, black and white, in South Africa this summer that spoke of Mandela with deep admiration and respect for how he helped liberate South Africa from racial oppression. He spent 27 years away from home and family as a political prisoner, and came out of that incarceration with the language of reconciliation not vengeance. I wanted to read his story and see what made him tick.

It is a marvelous story of someone’s passion for freedom and the price he was willing to pay to help his entire nation get there. Many times he could have chosen a simpler course for himself that would have just made the best of the status quo, and instead he continued to risk his own personal well-being for a larger freedom. How could he do it? Perhaps this quote from the last few pages of his book give you some clue:

It was the desire for the freedom of my people to live their lives with dignity and self-respect that animated my life, that transformed a frightened young man into a bold one, that drove a law-abiding attorney to become a criminal, that turned a family-loving husband into a man without a home, that forced a life-loving man to live like a monk. I am no more virtuous or self-sacrificing than the next man, but I found that I could not enjoy the poor and limited freedoms I was allowed when I knew my people were not free. Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.

It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and he oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.

When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.

I have walked the long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.

I realize Mandela’s view of freedom is somewhat different from my own and I realize the price he paid has been far greater than I have ever been asked to pay. But I also find that we have a similar heartbeat. On my journey I have continued to hear the whisper of the Spirit, “Set my people free.” That has carried me through so many seasons, and as I stand at the bring of 2006, I second Mandela’s words, “my walk is not yet ended…”

I have enjoyed slowing down over the last few days, enjoying my family and some quieter moments on my own. I’ve enjoyed some reading and some long walks with Sara and the dogs and some of our other family in the woods near my parents’ home and in our neighborhood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Merry Christmas to all of you! What a week this has been, and I’m looking forward now to a few days with my family and extended family as we celebrate the Christmas Holiday and the coming New Year. I won’t be in the office much this season, so if you write, be patient for a response. I hope your holidays will be rewarding and relaxing for you as well. I’m going to leave you with some Christmas presents before I go:

Our latest edition of The God Journey entitled The Christmas Podcast has just been posted on our sister website thegodjourney.com.

Christmas has made quite a splash in the media this year—from holiday greetings in stores, to whether or not to have congregational services on Christmas morning. These media-concocted controversies give Brad and Wayne a chance to ruminate about all the hoopla surrounding Christmas and to consider how we as believers can truly make an impact in the world—not just on a holiday, but by letting Christ make himself known continually through us.

And for you who have been following Jake Colsen’s story, we have completed the rough draft. I just posted the last chapter and what a bittersweet moment it was! I will miss working on this book more than anything I’ve ever written. My life has literally been shaped in the last four years as I worked on this book with a good friend of mine. It seems we had to live each chapter before writing them and a book that was supposed to be completed in a year, took us almost four to complete.

But I have been so blessed by the email I’ve received from people who are now being affirmed and shaped by the content of this book. We are working on a final rewrite now and preparing it for publication early in 2006. Many people have already requested copies and we’ll get it out just as soon as we can.

Living this journey is truly a joy of all joys. Sharing that journey with so many of you over this past year in email exchanges or personal encounters is an unspeakable joy. My prayer for us all is that Jesus will keep drawing us ever closer to the heart of his Father and teach us to live simply and freely as his kids in the world. Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year to you all!

I’ll let you read over my shoulder again, because I think this email exchange exposes a major battlefield for lots of people. Religion has so linked us to performance, that it blinds us to the reality of god’s love for us. This is part of an email exchange I had recently with a dear sister sorting out what it means to live in Father’s acceptance:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our latest edition of The God Journey entitled Accept No Substitutes! has just been posted on our sister website thegodjourney.com.

Why would we ever think we’re safer following the crowd, or following another human being, when the King of Kings wants to be our shepherd and lead us into the true freedom of God’s life? He alone is the way, the truth and the life. Learning to live dependent on him rather than our own performance or the false security of so-called experts, will allow him to unravel our religious ways of thinking and free us to go on the journey with him that opens the door to the real thing—life in his kingdom!

Isn’t she lovely??!?!?! Of course the kid is, but I don’t know about the get-up. My wife and daughter think it’s to die for. I don’t know! I don’t think I understand a lot of the hoopla surrounding Christmas. I do know this. If your life is in a good season when Christmas rolls around, it makes a great time to celebrate with family and friends. But if you’re going through painful struggles, or you’ve recently lost someone you love deeply, this season can multiply the pain geometrically.

I have just posted our Lifestream Christmas greeting on the website. It is called The Two Faces of Christmas, and we hope it encourages you however you find life facing you in this season. We are so blessed by all the connections that Father has given us in his incredible kingdom and are so grateful for all of you who have touched our lives this past year. May God overwhelm you with his grace and joy, in whatever you might be going through in this season of your life, and lead you ever closer to his heart.

In an unrelated note, I have on good authority that a new chapter in the Jake Colsen story has just been posted at jakecolsen.com. The last chapter will be posted on Christmas day.

David, who describes himself a church planting missionary in Thailand sent me a great question the other day. I figured there would be others interested in the answer, so here it is:

As I looked over the letters I couldn’t help but notice that EVERYONE had ONLY positive comments to make about the site. But, I was wondering, why don’t you post the negative letters that you receive? One of the things that I really enjoy about the site is the feeling that you are trying to be “honest” in your approach. As a word of constructive criticism please let me say, you make yourself look much less “honest” by not also sharing the letters from folks who are against what this web-site is all about.

Here is my response: Thanks for your email and your input and I do appreciate your perception of what we’re trying to do here and your concern. Let me try to answer you as honestly as I can.

The Letters we use in BodyLife are designed to encourage people on the journey or help them see how others are finding encouragement on the Lifestream site. I have never considered running negative letters there because people I’m want to encourage already hear the negative voices from people around them. That section is really meant to ‘build up’ people with positive encouragement to pursue the work God is already doing in them.

That said, I do not often receive negative email about my site. Most of the negative comments come secondhand and thus they are unusable. The negative comments I do receive directly usually fall into two categories—(1) vitriolic rants by people who are incredibly destructive, and (2) honest questions or struggles with something I’ve written or espoused. Let me tell you how I have handled both of those. I respond personally to the first group, assuming they are someone who has been badly burned by some Christian experience, and with gentleness reach out to their concerns. Most I never hear back from, but occasionally some engage an email conversation that opens some real doors in their heart to see past people’s failures to God’s reality. I don’t consider posting those anywhere because I don’t know who they would help.

I also respond personally to the second group, but if I think their concern would be shared by a number of others, I post that exchange (anonymously, of course) on the blog, with my response to show how I processed it. So that is where you would find the negative comments or struggles with my content. More often, however, differing viewpoints appear in the comment sections of the blog. I do not delete negative responses unless they are intellectually dishonest or resort to false accusations or name-calling. In the 21 months I’ve had the blog I have only deleted one comment due to these concerns.

So the disagreeing dialog is there, it just isn’t in the BodyLife “Sharing the Journey†section, because I want that to be encouraging to others just embarking on this journey. Perhaps that will change in the future, who knows? This is (or better said, I am) a work in progress and what we do here will continue to unfold. Please be assured that I deeply appreciate people who take the time to let me know how we might do this better or more honestly. And those suggestions often shape what I might do in the future.

I write this at the Boise, Idaho airport at 5:30 a.m., waiting for my flight to leave for home. They have free wi-fi here! It would be great if more airports allowed it. Usually it costs something like $8.00 even though you’ll only be there an hour or so. Really, not worth it!

I just spent an incredible weekend, however, with a broad spectrum of folks from the Boise area. I touched base with four different pockets of believers up here over the five days I was in the area. I am always blessed by the people I meet who hunger to know the Living God and are willing to follow that hunger even when it pushes them away from the safety of the status quo. I even got a chance to prune some grapevines yesterday and let others see what it looks like when God prunes up our lives to make us more fruitful.

One of the things that has kept coming up in this trip is that routine is the death knell of relationship. Whether it is our spouse, God, or the body of Christ, whenever we find more comfort in the safety of a routine rather than live in the spontaneity of the moment, relationships begin to die. Routine and ritual is the language of religion. Relationships are just too organic for such things. So if you think things are getting stale in your relationships, break out of the box a bit. Learn to see your God, your spouse and others through fresh eyes and respond to the moment rather than stay to the comfort of past routines.

His mercies really are new every morning. In the uniqueness of your life and this day may the creative God inspire you today with something fresh from his heart and may you follow him today to places that you’ve never gone before…

Our latest edition of The God Journey entitled Meet the Wives, Again has just been posted on our sister website thegodjourney.com.

We got them started, and now we’re not sure we can get them to stop! After our last podcast, Sara and Kelly were still talking about some of their issues in living outside the system. We turned the microphones back on and thought you’d appreciate the issues they’re facing today as they talk about their feelings regarding corporate worship, their children, and finding fellowship with other people, especially other women, as their journey’s continue. Those of you who asked for more of Sara and Kelly had your prayers answered before you asked them.…