Behind the Scenes

The next meeting of the Jake Colsen Book Club has been set. For those interested, we work through So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore chapter by chapter in a series of Zoom sessions where you can share your insights or ask questions.  You don’t have to have been to a previous one to join this one. 

This Saturday September 24, at 11 am PDT, we will gather with those who want to discuss Chapter 6: Loving Father or Fairy Godmother?  This strikes to the heart of so many people’s expectations of God, especially if they are wanting to explore the depths of his love for them.

Please read or re-read the chapter first if you want to join the conversation.

If you’d like to join me in the Zoom room for the discussion, email me at waynej@lifestream.org in the next few days, and I will send you the link to join us.  For those who just want to watch, I’ll be streaming it from my Wayne Jacobsen Author Page on Facebook.

You can also find the five previous conversations of the Book Club if you scroll down that Author Page.

John happens upon Jake while he is fishing on the shore of Nellie Lake, eight thousand feet up in the Sierra Mountains and a five-mile hike from the nearest road. Here’s a snippet of their conversation:

Here are two important items I want my friends to know:

First, the next gathering of the Jake Colsen Book Club will be next Saturday, August 20, at 1:00 pm PDT. I know that’s a bit early in Australia and a bit late for Europe, but I’ve got people from both asking to be included. So, we’re trying a different time. It will stream live on my Wayne Jacobsen Author page on Facebook, but if you want to be in the Zoom room and part of the discussion, email me so I can send you the link.  We’ll be looking at Chapter Five: Love with a Hook, how religious people often put demands and expectations on love, which make it something other than the love God has for us. How do we live authentic lives in a world that often punishes honesty and vulnerability?

Second, I want to invite you to a retreat in Westcliffe, Colorado the weekend of August 26-29, to spend the weekend with Sara and me as we begin this next phase of our lives. For those who have been listening to Redeeming Love at The God Journey, you know the incredible journey we’ve been on these past four months, with the enemy’s attempts to twist Sara’s trauma to destroy her, then, failing that, set out to destroy our marriage. The first five weeks were the most excruciating season of my life, but in the last eleven weeks, I’ve had a ringside seat to watch the most incredible miracle I’ve ever seen in Father resurrecting our love and resolving the trauma that has preyed on Sara since she was four years old.

I told you this would change the trajectory of my life, though I had no idea what that meant when I said it, and to be honest, I still don’t. But, Sara has wanted to go on an adventure, embrace her newfound innocence and explore God’s work in her in this phase of our life. So, we’ve sold our home, something we’ve talked about doing for a long time, even before this trauma hit. We will live out of the apartment Sara rented for the time being and explore the world with an RV we have purchased and our two big dogs—Zoey and Abby. We’re calling it our Return to Innocence Tour, and we’re going to kick it off with a gathering in Westcliffe, CO, where we have been offered a ranch in the Rockies as a place to invite our friends to come and be with us for the weekend.

The camp only holds about thirty, and it’s coming up very quickly, so you’ll need to sign up with me if you want to come. The cost is $100 per night per person, which includes meals. We’ll start on Friday night and stay over until Monday. You’re welcome to join us for all that or leave on Sunday if you need to. Anyone who feels so stirred is welcome to join us. We have no plans for the weekend other than to be with each other and before the Lord together to see how he might enlighten and encourage all of our journeys. It will be a place to be loved and be refreshed in this wondrous love, which he has invited us to share with him. (If you are flying, Colorado Springs is the closest airport, but you can use Denver (usually much cheaper) and have about a three-hour drive to the ranch.)

After the retreat, Sara and I are going “into the wind” for a season. We’re not setting up an itinerary but will allow the Spirit to blow us as we sense he desires. We are going to celebrate this phase of our journey with some sightseeing, meeting with people along the way who want to interact with us, and taking some time in some beautiful spaces to work on the book I’ve been writing. We’re not going to be in a hurry, and we’re not going to plan very far ahead. After Westcliffe, we will spend some time in Denver with our son, probably head to Wyoming to spend a few days with Kyle and Jess, and then turn east and see where the wind takes us. I have some folks in Michigan and Indiana I’d planned on visiting before the days of my unforeseen circumstances began, so we’re going to aim that way, but only God knows if we end up that far or even get to go beyond that.

Please let me know if you’re in those areas and want to connect with us should we pass through. We will update people with our progress as we go on my Wayne Jacobsen Author Facebook Page and this blog as well as the spontaneous opportunities that might await as we travel. And if we can’t make it to your place, maybe you can meet us somewhere where we are. Come sit with us under the awning of the RV and share God’s goodness.

Plans now include returning in November for some surgical procedures Sara and I need to attend to before striking out again as the Spirit might lead. We really have no plans other than those. We know God is inviting us to an uncertain journey, where we flow with his Spirit rather than fit him around our schedules. Even that was tested in the last few days. On the day our house was sold, another home appeared on the market, just what Sara and I had been looking for. We put in an offer, but when the owners countered back, we both had concluded that as wonderful as it was, the process of buying it now was a distraction from the freedom God wanted us to revel in. So, for the first time in 44 years, Sara and I will not own any real estate on the planet, and we’ll be free to go wherever Father might send us for as long as he might want us there. I’m still amazed at how easy it was to let that home go when we knew God was inviting us on an uncertain adventure and that we didn’t need to nail down a new home before we left.

Two days later, someone sent me a quote of mine from a few years back: “If you’re looking for certainty, you’re living in the wrong kingdom.”

It’s fun when your own words come back to encourage you. We are grateful that at this season of our lives, we can spend some quality time together and discover who God wants us to meet and encourage along the way.

Perhaps even you!

As many of you know, I’ve begun writing the sequel to this book, tentatively titled, So You Really Want to Follow Jesus. As I’ve been re-reading the first book, which I hadn’t done in 17 years, I got excited about that content and thought how fun it would be to take it by chapter and go through it with some people. When I suggested it on my podcast, many of you responded with the desire to join us.

So, I guess it’s time to start the Jake Colsen Book Club. We’re going to work through So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore chapter by chapter in a series of Zoom sessions where you can share your insights or ask questions.

Now, setting a time for this is almost impossible with readers in Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand who said they’d like to join in as well.  So, we’re going to bounce the time and dates around to make it easier for people in different time zones to join us. We are going to record the video, so if you can’t join us, you can watch it later and add your comments.  I’ve set the first two so people can plan accordingly and make adjustments as we move forward.

• Chapter 1 – Sunday, June 5 at 10:30-11:30 am Pacific Daylight Time. (Please sort out what that means in your own time zone.)
• Chapter 2 – Saturday, June 18 at 4:00-5:00 pm Pacific Daylight Time.

If you’d like to join me in the Zoom room for the discussion email me at waynej@lifestream.org and I will send you the link to join us.  For those who just want to watch, I’ll be streaming it from my Wayne Jacobsen Author Page on Facebook.  I’ll also post the link on my blog that morning for those who want to join in at the last minute.

Having done these a few hundred times, here are some guidelines that will help our conversation work best for everyone:

1. If possible, use earphones or even a headset with microphone. It keeps background noise to a minimum. Also, mute yourself when not talking.
2. Make sure you’re in a quiet setting with printers, vacuum cleaners, etc. turned off. Make sure dogs and kids are cared for away from where you are.
3. Share the space. Feel free to jump in and share your thought or question, but then give others a chance too.  We don’t want 2 or 3 people to dominate the whole time.
4. Please don’t try to “fix” people by giving advice. Advice is best served inside a relationship and when it is solicited.  It is often better to ask questions or make observations rather than to tell someone what they should do.
5. We expect this time to have some awkward moments, so don’t panic in the silences. The best questions/comments often come out of an awkward pause.
6. When you talk the first time, please tell us who you are and where you’re from, so people have context. And, it’s ok to make up a name and a location.
7. We’re keeping this to one hour, so please don’t wait until the last minute or you may miss your chance.
8. We consider this a public platform, so by participating you agree to have this stream online, and the recording released thereafter.

Let me know if you want to join me in the Zoom Room.

I’ve not talked about this a lot on my blog, but I have on recent episodes of The God Journey.  Six weeks ago, when I arrived home from my trip to the Carolinas, I stumbled into a tragic situation that completely took me by surprise. It was catastrophic and I told listeners of the podcast that I would be taking some time away from my regular responsibilities to give God the maximum space to sort this out. That needed to happen in me as well as others involved in the circumstance. I’m not relating the specifics of what I faced because the story affects other people, and it is their story to tell, not mine.

During this time, I took great encouragement from Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 1:8-11:

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.

I have never been in such pain or despair. I wept countless tears in agony and sorry. It would not be an understatement to say I despaired of life itself. I took great comfort in remembering that Jesus “during his time on earth offers himself to God with loud cries and tears offered himself to God.” (Hebrews 5:7) I understood completely.

I was powerless in the face of lies the enemy had sowed among some people I care about, and had those circumstances stood, they would have threatened everything about my future. I could only pour out my heart to God for weeks, hoping that he had a resolution I couldn’t see. Early on, I called some close friends to have them stand and watch with me to see what Father might be saying or doing. Though I got great counsel, insight, and encouragement, the circumstances continued to worsen. At times God would breathe hope in my heart, “This is not what it appears to be,” but I could only seem to grasp that hope for brief moments. I was afraid to believe those thoughts were his when I could have so easily interpreted my hopes as God’s voice.

A couple of weeks ago, the tide began to turn, and in recent days all has changed dramatically for the good. Light has appeared in the darkness. Lies have given way to truth, and love has been renewed in a most gracious way. What was painful before is playful now. In the last six days, I have moved from circumstances that had been excruciatingly painful through the first five weeks to excruciatingly beautiful over the weekend. Now, the excruciating is gone entirely, and I am at rest in the beauty and his salvation.

I know this whole ordeal lasted only six weeks, but these days have been hard, painful, and seemed far longer. It came on so suddenly and the shock and pain were so great that every day seemed like a week.  I am so glad to say now that I have survived the most challenging stretch of my journey to date. Everything I have experienced in him over the last thirty years was critical to have in my heart during these days. I am so grateful for what he has taught me about entrusting myself to his love instead of trying to fix it with my own wisdom and power.

He has done exceedingly abundantly above what I could have imagined even a couple of weeks ago. I have appreciated the space many of you have given me by not making demands on my time so that I could give my full attention to what lay before me. During this time Jesus proved to be all the refuge I needed when I was living beyond my limits and overwhelmed with pain. As I look back now, I see more clearly how he was there, even when my agony obscured my vision. In the first days, God spoke to my heart and said this circumstance will decisively change the trajectory of my life, but it will lead to more beautiful spaces.  I had no idea what he meant by that, but when I believed it my heart was at rest even in the horror of that situation. However, when my heart strayed from it, the loss would overwhelm me again.

I’m not sure what all of that means yet but I know I’ve been changed by this, and I’m sure in more ways than I yet see. These events and his grace in them will reshape the trajectory of my heart and my mission until the end of my days, and how I love hurting people even when I’m bearing the brunt of it.  Today, my heart is full of joy and gratefulness with a song in my heart and a settledness in my spirit that God’s pleasure is unfolding.  There is still much to be done for his healing to be complete, but the outcome now seems inevitable, and I can fully give myself to the process.

I am as delighted today as I was in despair a couple of weeks ago. I hope someday I’ll be able to share some of the details of all of this if it becomes appropriate. In the end, I can say, I have experienced the most striking demonstration of his love I’ve ever seen for all of us involved. I’ve learned so much about the way he works and how love can have its way even against the wicked schemes of darkness.

I will always be immeasurably grateful for those who prayed for me and sent Scriptures and words of encouragement, even though you had no idea what I was dealing with. So many people stood with me, hoped with me, wept with me, and now share my joy at the fruit of his work. I will be turning back to those things Father has asked me to put into the world in the days ahead.  We are back doing podcasts already. Soon I’ll continue writing on the sequel to So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore. I’ll also be rescheduling the trips I had to cancel and see where else Father might want me to go to encourage the hearts of others in the next season. Those conversations will be incredibly different now.

Thank you for your kindness and patience to me during this time.

I couldn’t fit it all in the title, but this is the best recorded conversation about my spiritual journey that I’ve ever had. I’ve been waiting to share it with you since we recorded it in late November. It just dropped this past Friday, and I’m so excited that others can now hear it.

Tim and Steve, both from South Africa (though one is now living in the Netherlands), asked if they could record a podcast with me about my spiritual journey for their podcast, The Urban Mystic. When I appear on podcasts other than my own, I let my hosts control where the conversation will go. What made this conversation so fascinating were the questions they kept asking that continued to drill down on how my relationship with God had developed over the trajectory of my life. They get into heart issues and how I recognized God opening new doors into his reality. They also wanted to parse out the lessons that would be most helpful to the listener in identifying how God is building a relationship with them.

When we finished recording, I sat back in my desk chair, a bit overwhelmed by what we had talked about and so excited that it was recorded. This is the message I most want to leave in the world. I have no idea why it took them so long to post it, and I was so grateful to see it appear last week.

Here’s how they described it on their podcast:

Here is another bonus episode for you of quality conversation with a wise and humble guest, Wayne Jacobsen. Wayne generously gave us an hour and a half of his time to explore his experience, his thinking and current work and life. Wayne leads us to “new spiritual trailheads” as he works with “hungry people” – hungry people who are interested and yearning for engagement with God. It is a conversation which covers more than 40 years of life history; so a rich and insightful tapestry.

It actually covers more than 60 years, and you can listen to it on Podbean or Apple Podcasts.

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In Other News:

We have found someone who will begin to carry on The Breath of Fresh Air emails encouragements that we’ve been sending out. Traci had been selecting those quotes for the past eighteen months, and now a friend from Texas, who shall remain nameless, wanted to pick up the mantle for the next season. So it will take us a bit to get restarted, but for those of you who have signed up, you’ll be receiving the thrice-weekly email to encourage you on your own journey.

Also, it looks like there will be some travel ahead. This month Sara and I will be in Colorado Springs to visit our son and make some personal connections. There’s no gathering planned yet, but we could do one on Sunday afternoon/evening if there’s any interest. Next month, I’ll be in Greenville, SC, Charlotte, NC, and some of the surrounding area. I’m also looking at some trips that may take me into Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, New England, Texas (Austin), and Virginia again. Keep an eye on the Travel Page or sign up for Travel Notifications if a trip comes together near you.

I just received a copy of my new devotional, Live Loved Free Full, in its German translation—Geliebt durchs Jahr, which I think translates to Beloved Throughout the Year. This is the sixth book Glory-World Medien has published of mine, and you can see them all at the bottom of the page for this one.

This is a translation of the description of the book on their website:

Wayne Jacobsen’s book “Beloved!” (He Loves Me) quickly became a bestseller after it was published in 2008. As a result, many have understood and experienced for the first time what God’s love is, how deep it goes and how much it can transform our lives.

With “Beloved throughout the year” there is now practically a sequel in which the author has incorporated his experiences of the last few years; this time not as a non-fiction book, but as a collection of practical suggestions for a life as a lover.

These suggestions want to pull our heart into God’s reality every day and help us to see our world through his eyes, to absorb his impulses and to master our days with all their challenges out of his wisdom.

When Jesus spoke of giving us abundant life, He wasn’t primarily concerned with pain-free circumstances and material blessings. He spoke of an inner life so rich and genuine that it can carry us through life’s difficulties.

This book will help us to do that. A loved, free and fulfilled life is the result of a growing connection with God on a heart level. Let his love be your daily reality, learn to absorb his impulses and experience his peace permeating your life in every situation!

This is a daily devotional with an encouraging thought on how to lean into Father’s love instead of navigating life on your own. If you haven’t read the book yet, here’s the reading for today—February 16.

February 16 – You Are His Delight

I was reading Song of Songs a few weeks ago. I wondered if the bridegroom’s delight over his lover is like Jesus’s delight in his Church. I know how I feel when I’ve been gone from Sara for a few days—the ache in my heart just to be near her again and hold her in my arms. Could this be how God feels about me?

I’ve concluded that what it means to come to be his delight is that God feels for me similarly to what I feel for Sara. His, however, is a billion times greater than mine. He is God and, after all, he has more love in his heart than I can possibly fathom.

And if I really knew he delighted in me like that, wouldn’t it be so much easier to rest in his certain arms, even in the places where I’m most broken and helpless?

I am at my best when I am at rest in his love, and less so when I’m anxious about how he feels about me. If you only knew he looked at you with delight, how much would that change how you go through this day?

You’ve captured my heart, dear friend. You looked at me, and I fell in love.
One look my way and I was hopelessly in love!
Song of Solomon 4:8–15 (MSG)

When you think of living to please the Lord, does it sound more like an arduous chore or an outrageous invitation to live in his pleasure? For most of my life it has been the first, but I think I had that wrong. God lives in the fullness of his pleasure and wants us to join him there as we also discover the fullness of ours. If you want to explore some of my recent insights on this that is once again altering the trajectory of my life in Christ, you can listen to last week’s podcast, Living to Pleasure.

If you’re interested in copies of Live Loved Full Free, you can order the German translation here or the original English version here. A French version is in process as well. I’m so grateful for all the hard work others put in to make these books available beyond the English-speaking world.

As for other translations of my books and articles in other languages, you can find them here. I’ve been fortunate to have some of my things translated into Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, South Korean, Spanish, Swahili, and Tamil. And of course The Shack has been translated in nearly 50 languages around the world, but that one is easier to find.