Behind the Scenes

Two things happened yesterday, almost back to back.

First, I read the following email from Chelsea, a friend in Idaho:

If you remember my 7-year-old son was very much struggling with going to church, and it’s become clear these past few weeks that I will be staying home with him and having intentional one-on-one time on Sunday mornings. I am using The Jesus Story videos, but a bit differently. I’m not having him watch them, but am watching them myself and then using it as a guide to teach each lesson to my son.

Today was the first one, and we went on a “treasure hunt” in the house to find treasure and drew treasure maps and connected it to the bible being a treasure map to Jesus. It went so well, and I used your examples and visuals but just made it in real life. I got a book set out and explained the books of the Bible as you did with the most important books being the four about Jesus. My son just really understood and was engaged more than ever, and I’m looking forward to doing this each week for the next little bit.  Thought you might enjoy hearing how your series is being used with a younger child.

That’s the best use of The Jesus Story I’ve ever heard. I’d much rather have a child go on a treasure hunt with mom than watching a video of me and my grandkids. I love that she’s using those videos and tools to find a way to incarnate the life of that series in her own home.  Well done, Chelsea!  I hope your example will inspire others.

For those who don’t remember, I recorded The Jesus Story during the early days of the pandemic to give my grandkids a survey of the Bible and hopefully a love for it when they didn’t have much else going on. Through the wonders of Zoom, I gave them a kid-sized package of The Jesus Lens, which I recorded to help adults explore how the Scriptures can be the most important resource they have for sorting out the life of the Spirit in their own lives.

The second thing that happened yesterday is I was on a Zoom call with a mother in her young 40s when she shared how Scripture had been so weaponized against her that she rarely reads it.  As sad as that makes me, I get it. Many think it’s a dull, antiquated book that’s no longer relevant today. Others cringe at the thought of reading it since they have felt obligated to do so and found very little life in it. Religious leaders have weaponized it to bash people with guilt and obligation or misinterpreted it as a rule book for conforming people to their religious systems even if they have to disfigure the Gospel to do it.

It’s such a tragedy too!  The Scripture is still the most fantastic resource in my spiritual journey.  I want it to become one in yours too. Everything I believe about God unfolds in its pages. But you’ve got to read it as the story it is—of God unfolding himself in human history, not as if he dictated each word.  That’s not what inspired means. Not everything it says about him is true, especially in the earlier stories. It tells the story of a people coming to recognize who God is, and sometimes their view of him was wrong or incomplete. However, when Jesus appeared, he showed us exactly what his Father is like and how to make sense of those Old Testament stories.

Also, every day when I read it, no matter where I’m reading, I know I’ll find some clue that helps me realize something Jesus has been speaking to me, checks the motives in my heart that might steer me after my own desires instead of his, or it will confirm a path he already has me on. I’m always excited to see what the Scriptures might unveil to my heart on a given day. No, it cannot replace his Spirit as the one who guides me into all truth but it certainly helps me recognize when I’m being led by his Spirit and when I’m being seduced by my own brokenness.

That’s why a major theme in my life and on this website is to help people reclaim the wonder and power of Scripture. If you haven’t checked out The Jesus Story or The Jesus Lens, you might want to spend some time with them. It may take a bit of effort to move Scripture out of the guilt and obligation side of your life so that it can become the treasure map God intended to help reveal his wisdom and character to aid you on your journey.

For those of you reading Live Loved Free Full, on November 30, you read an exchange I had with Dave Coleman that graciously changed the trajectory of my life. Dave passed from this life and began the incredible journey for which we are all destined on that same morning. I love the way Father does stuff like that. It just seemed another wink from him and his joy in the relationship we shared together. I will miss him more than I can say here even as he delights in face-to-face communion with Father, Son, and Spirit.

Dave Coleman was the wisest man I’ve ever known, not in spouting of platitudes or presenting spell-binding lectures. With a mere sentence or a provocative question, Dave could cut through a situation and reduce it to the simple choices I faced inside of it. He gave of it freely to anyone who would seek him out and he enriched the lives of so many who would come by his home and revel in his wisdom. Dave would always point down the road that leads to life without ever pressuring anyone to believe him or take it. He was gracious and loving even when people didn’t see things the way he did. He didn’t just talk about love; he lived it in his kindness, his wisdom, and in his graciousness. He pastored a Lutheran church for awhile, volunteered as a hospice chaplain and taught the life of Jesus at rehab centers.

He was my closest friend over the last thirty years, walking me through conflicts and betrayals I endured as well as affirming and celebrating what God was revealing to me. I wouldn’t be doing anything I’m doing in the world today without this man’s influence and kindness to me.

Of all the men and women I have met, this is one of God’s most authentic followers. Was I walked away from our first meeting, these words penetrated my thoughts, “This is one in whom there is no guile.”  That’s what Jesus said about Nathanael in John 1. Having known him for thirty-plus years, I can tell you how true that was. He was authentic to the core and never sought to exploit someone for his own gain. He rarely occupied the limelight and was often despised by those who could not manipulate him to their ends or control the life and grace that flowed from his tongue and heart. He and his wife, Donna, have known betrayal as well as the tragic loss of two of their children—one in a tragic accident and one to leukemia. Rather than grow bitter from these things, they grew more tender and compassionate for others in need.

He was a second dad to me in this season of my life. Whenever Sara and I had couldn’t resolve complications in our marriage, how to raise our children, negotiate conflicts with friends or family, he and Donna were there to comfort us and help us see down better roads. And he was always a cheerleader for the work of unfolding grace in my heart, especially when others would lie about me or seek to deter me from Jesus’s leading.

Once, while I was still pastoring, I offered him an opportunity to be an elder in our congregation and the possibility of a full-time position. I thought I was offering him the moon. I was shocked when he declined it immediately. Asking him to explain. “I really can’t,” he said. “But someday, you’ll know.” Fifteen years later, when offered an elder position in a local fellowship that I found myself declining, I had to smile when I remembered his words.  Yes, I get it now.

He was the first to tell me that most human love is merely the mutual accommodation of self-need. People will “love” you only as long as you give them what they want. When you can’t or won’t, they will cut you off. Jesus taught us love is not about getting what we want from others but having affection enough for them to lay down of our lives for their benefit, without thought of what it will cost us.

Dave was my coauthor of So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, and the one who came up with that provocative title. Soon, I’m going to read that book for the first time soon to relive the experience of writing it with him.  That November 30 entry in Live Loved Free Full, is about the time Dave dropped this bomb in my heart: “I’ve learned that whenever my personal well-being is hinged on the response of another person, I will manipulate them.”

I knew that was radioactive when I first heard it. Dave was talking about a sermon I had preached, but I knew if I let that truth into my heart, it would change everything about how I treat Sara, my children, family, friends, and anyone I would meet. That reality is still changing me, and the freedom of learning to anchor my well-being in Christ alone set me increasingly free to love others.

If you’ve been touched by anything God has done through my life, you can be grateful to God that he put this man in m life. Certainly, God has reached out to me through others, but no one has had a more profound impact on the trajectory of my journey.

It delights me to know he is at rest after suffering a long health decline. I look forward to the day when we will sit again in the coming kingdom and celebrate all the grace that we both experienced at the hand of our God and Father. My heart goes out to his family, who will miss him far more than I will. May God’s comfort eventually turn all their grief into the joy of having known this man and been enriched by his time on this planet.

If you want to partake of some of Dave’s wisdom in his seven appearances on The God Journey podcast.  You can find those episodes in our Guest Archive. Especially appropriate might by his reflections on death that we recorded nine years ago. I talked to him a few days before his death, I can assure you that he lived to the end everything he believed and stared down death at rest in the Father’s care.

I just received word that my new devotional, Live Loved Free Full, has just been released in German.  I’m so happy to let my readers there know it is now available in their language.

It’s called “Loved Throughout the Year, with the subtitle “365 impulses to live loved, free, and fulfilled”.  The Publisher is Glory World Medien, which has published many of my titles for Germany.  You can view their Facebook page here or order the book on Amazon in German.

It also allows me to remind others that this would make an excellent Christmas gift for family and friends if you’re still looking for some ideas. And, we don’t have any supply chain issues to delay shipment. You can order as many as you like.

Almost every day, I get an email from someone saying the day’s entry was written especially for them, or it opened doors to some insight they desperately needed. That’s what I hoped for when we put this book out. It is so easy for us to be seduced by the world’s demands or retreat into the rigors of religious performance as we go about our day. It’s easy to forget that Jesus invited us into a different journey. Let the Father’s love wash over your heart today and gain his perspective on the circumstances that confront you. Each day’s entry is designed to help draw your heart into a more relational space to think through your day alongside the Father, Son, and Spirit so that we can lean into their perspectives of our life and the world around us.

It’s like resetting the compass of your heart so you can navigate your life inside his reality instead of the illusions the world presses on us. “Setting our minds on things above,” is what Paul invited us to do. That’s where life, freedom, and love abide.

And not surprisingly, I received an email from someone who felt today’s reading, November 24, was particularly powerful. I haven’t read it yet myself, but I’m going to copy it below for you.

If God’s love could only comfort us in our weakness and could not transform us to live in his glory, it would not be enough. Thankfully, learning to live in his love puts us in the place to see our world through his eyes. Love and truth coupled together is what fuels his transformation in us and helps us navigate this fallen world in his joy and peace.

I grew up believing that the Bible showed us the way to live. We needed to study it, interpret it, and apply it to our lives. Doing so would allow us to live in God’s glory. Only later did I find that process doesn’t work. While it pressures us to act better, it ultimately collapses because our freedom doesn’t come from within. We will either end up blaming God for not doing his part or shaming ourselves for not trying hard enough.

The Bible was meant to introduce us to Jesus and to show us God’s reality that will make sense of the universe and our lives in it. Jesus is the one who prepared the way for us to be at home in his Father’s love and sent his Spirit to guide us into all God’s truth. Our participation in the relationship that Father, Son, and Spirit share together will slowly transform us by showing us what is real and not real in the circumstances we face and the thoughts we have. Transformational love is how God invites us into his freedom and equips us to be agents of his glory in a broken world.

That does not diminish my appreciation for the Bible. It  does show us God’s reality and wisdom but unless he is working that out inside us there is no way to follow all the truth it reveals. Jesus said that we don’t live by bread alone but by “every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Paul in Galatians 3 points out that God doesn’t work in us by human effort but by “believing what we hear.” Instead of conforming our lives to a set of expectations, we actually get to live inside his love and learn to recognize how he reveals himself in us. As we believe what he shows us we’ll discover what it is to live in his life.

Over the last year, I’ve been working on a better way to help people understand how this process happens and how to cooperate with God to bring lasting change in their lives.  I had the chance to share some of this with a group near Baltimore last weekend and ended up using a towel and some paper plates scattered about the floor.  I had never tried it this way before and just as I was getting started a little dog came in and started scrunching up my towel.  That’s when I realized there was a better way to use that towel and we all had a good laugh at the dog’s contribution.

I’m not sure the best way to share this with a wider audience just yet. I don’t know if there’s a book here, a video series, or if we can talk about it on the podcast. I’m excited for the opportunities to explore this process with people to see if it helps them understand how God transforms us without turning it in to some kind of formula. I hope it helps them relax enough into the process that they can participate more freely with him.  If we do, we’ll find our trust growing as will our capacity and awareness to love others. That’s where we will find all the joy, peace, abundance, and fulfillment that Jesus promised us. The few times I have shared it I was grateful that it spawned just the kind of encouragement and conversation that I hoped for.

Later this month, I’m going to share it with a group in Bradenton, FL, New Port Richey, and in Miami, FL and perhaps it will come up in other places I visit as well.   You can hear me talk about this a bit in the video below, which I prepared as a promo for that conversation with Hope4Life in Miami.

If you can’t play the video file, click here.

If you want to join us, please see their announcement below.  At the bottom right is a Zoom ID number if you want to join me live that day.

I haven’t been this excited about a resource to help people since Embracing His Glory, and this does involve a further extension of that material.

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Other Notes of Interest

For those in their 20s and 30s there’s still space available for you to join Kyle and me December 3-5 in Westcliffe, CO for a gathering to celebrate and pray for what God is doing in this age group. We are looking forward to encouraging each other and listening to God together to see how he’s engaging a new generation. You  can get all the details here or register here.

Also, for those interested, I had a great conversation with the guys at Next Level Method Podcast that was recorded this past September. It dropped today. You can hear it on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast or watch it on YouTube.

I just got back from Virginia and Maryland and leave next week for a swing through Florida. I look back with profound gratefulness at every moment on this trip and the conversations I had with so many people, some enduring great hardship and struggle, others responding to Jesus’ invitation to come closer and to follow him in uncharted waters. I loved all of it and had many spontaneous encounters that weren’t on the schedule when I left.  My heart is full, and I’m humbled by the journey Jesus allows me to walk. Here’s one person’s response to that trip:

What a wonderful time of fellowship and newly established friendships I experienced yesterday!  I can’t stop thinking about the ‘uniqueness and specialness’ of our time together as well as the ‘uniqueness and specialness’ of each one who came.  I missed you all as soon as I departed.

Me too! What a joy it was to meet so many people in various places on this journey, all looking for the real meaning of love as God sees it and finding a transformative journey in knowing and following him.  That quote above was the opening paragraph of an email I got yesterday. I often get emails like that after I’ve been somewhere, and every one of them is appreciated. This is the first time, however, that I got to peek at a thank you note to one of my host couples. I’m not going to say which city she joined me in, because what she writes could have applied to all the places I visited and the people who invited me.  Here’s what she wrote to the people who facilitated my time at one location on this trip:

Thank you for opening up your home and creating such a warm and welcoming environment.  Thank you also for the time and money spent on food preparations. Everything—and every means every—was perfect!  There is nothing like being on the receiving end of your generosity and kindness.  I don’t know if you realize just how much of a difference that you make in the lives of people (just by being wonderful, faithful, kind, loving you) but it is significant.  On numerous occasions, people mentioned just how much they appreciated the interest that you take in them. You are gems to many and God is loving many people through you.

These things don’t happen if there aren’t people on the other end who have it on their hearts to invite me and who will prepare a place for people to connect. I am always amazed when anyone takes the risk of inviting me and seeing what Father might do in my coming. It’s so brave. I don’t just hold meetings; I also open my hearts to the spontaneous encounters God might give me along the way. I never go to speak and then hide in my room the rest of the day. I watch for what else God might be doing and who might want my help processing their journey. So, that means they need to be a bit flexible, too, whenever God creates new opportunities alongside the ones they had planned. I’m always grateful for the people who host me and provide for my needs while they open the door to others. It’s a beautiful symphony when it all comes together.

She finished her email with this:

Wayne, thank you for taking and making the time to visit with us. It was so good to connect with you in person. What a delight!  I so appreciated the transparency and vulnerability so many shared regarding the difficult circumstances you and others are facing. It takes courage to ‘pull the drapes back’—and yet, right from the start—drapes were pulled back. I loved it. It was precious, it was unique, and it was special.  The conversations and discussions were rich and deep.  The entire day was perfect!  I appreciate you—your authenticity, genuineness, and down-to-earthness – as well as your willingness to “explore” the kingdom with others.

It amazes me how quickly sharing can go deep in rooms like that. I heard very tender stories of people going through tough challenges but looking to Father’s hand to lead them through it in his love. That isn’t easy, nor is it to share that with a roomful of strangers. These conversations that matter also enlighten and inspire my journey as well. I’m dumbfounded as well as thankful that God allows me to have these kinds of time with people. I did a seminar on A Language of Healing in Suffolk, The Shack with the recovery community near Baltimore, Finding Church in Baltimore and Harrisonburg, and He Loves Me and Live Loved Free Full all over the place. I found myself in a few places sharing the new framework I think Father has given me to help people understand the nature of the journey that God invites us into. This time, it involved a stack of paper plates, a towel, and a discerning dog as I played it out on the floor. I love seeing those “Aha” moments in people’s eyes when something clicks in their hearts that makes more sense of what Father is already doing in them.

Finally, I had so many on this trip telling me to take their gratitude back to Sara for the price she pays when I go. My presence anywhere is as much a gift from her as it is from me, and we are both touched when people recognize it.

I was supposed to hop on a jet this afternoon for a conversation about race at a community college in Texas. Due to a COVID assault on one of the participants, however, it had to be postponed. I’ll miss being there this week because that is one of the healthiest conversations about race I see any major institution risking today. It has avoided both the cliffs offered by the left and the right that do more to obscure the problem than seek the solutions that will help us all. Fortunately, we’ll get back to that at a later date.

For now, I get to reflect on all Jesus did on this last trip and hold in my heart those I met going through a painful stretch of the journey, I also find my heart growing in expectancy for what will unfold at home this week and in my trip to Florida next week.

And don’t you love it when someone takes the time to write a note like this one?

I used to get frustrated when things didn’t work out the way I had planned. Not anymore. I’ve seen God open up so many other opportunities when original plans go awry that now I find myself a bit excited when something doesn’t work out the way I thought it would. I find myself excited to see what else he might have in mind that wasn’t yet in my field of vision. Whether its at home or out on a trip somewhere else, I know his purpose continues to unfold and it fascinates me how else he will make use of that time.

Especially in this age of COVID, travel planning is a bit of a challenge.  I was supposed to leave Thursday to spend this coming weekend in Alaska with people who are freshly considering the difference between the church humans build and the one in which Jesus is breathing his life. I was really excited to be with them, but I’ve been waved off by my hosts. The home I was to stay in is battling COVID and the pandemic has gone wild in Alaska.  Hospitals having to refuse patients for lack of space and there was even a call out this morning for health workers to come to Alaska and help with the overwhelming onslaught of cases.

So, that has shifted my plans accordingly. I will be going to Alaska eventually, just not now.  It looks like I’ll have some extra time at home before heading to Norfolk, VA on October 21 for that weekend, then spend some time Richmond, VA in the early part of the week and finish that trip in Sykesville, MD the following weekend.  I still have a few days in the middle of the week available if anything is on someone’s heart between Richmond and Sykesville.  Just let me know.

Sara and I are on a brief getaway, so my Travel Page has not been updated to reflect this opportunities, but they will be by the end of the week. After that, I’ll be going to Amarillo, TX in early November and then to Florida just before Thanksgiving.  Then, on December 3-5 Kyle Rice and I will be holding The God Journey Gathering for 20 and 30-somethings near Colorado Springs.

It isn’t easy to know how much travel to do these days negotiating around COVID. Being vaccinated, I’m not worried about myself, but I don’t want to be the cause of others spreading it around. But I do have some travel taking shape this fall as long as it seems prudent to do so.  Lectures and seminars are not the most fruitful thing I do when I travel. I find it far more effective to simply hang out with people who are processing their own journeys and want to have some conversation about God’s love and what he is doing in the world, even in these troubled times.

Even though I’ll do more of a seminar to help a wider group of people hear some things that seem to be on God’s heart these days, it’s the conversations around those seminars that I find most engaging. And, I also get whatever else is on my heart into those exchanges. If you want to hear how that can sort out, you can hear a bit about my most recent trip in the first part of this podcast.

So, when I go somewhere, we try to leave maximum space for Father’s spontaneous connections. If you’d like to know when I will be in your area, please sign up for Travel Notifications (and include your city and state), so I can let you know by email or keep an eye on my Travel Page, which is harder to remember.

Over this fall, I a planning trips to—

• Central Michigan (September 24-26)
• Wasilla, Alaska (October 7-11)
• Norfolk, Virginia (October 21-24) and possibly Maryland after
• South Florida (November 19-21)
• And to our God Journey gathering for twenty and thirty-somethings outside Colorado Springs, Colorado (December 3-5)
• Nashville, TN in early January

If you’re near these areas and want to plan something of your own for others in your area, please let me know. I can often stay on a bit longer since I’m already in the area if Father opens other doors.

If you’re not in any of these locations, you may ask, “Just how do you get Wayne Jacobsen to come for a visit?” It really isn’t all that complicated. It all begins with an invitation. The invite allows us to hold the opportunity together in prayer and see if this is in his heart. If he wants it to be, he’ll make the way clear on your side and mine. I don’t schedule far in advance, especially for U.S. travel, since opportunities arise where a situation requires me to respond quickly to be of most help.  So, a lot of my trips come together at the last moment.

I don’t travel for my own amusement and don’t say yes to every invitation. I look for God’s nudge that comes in giving me a time to go and purpose in the going. I also look for Sara’s confirmation for me to be gone. We ponder and pray until it seems good to us and good to the Holy Spirit to go. I travel at my own expense, so no one needs to worry about how much it would cost. If people inviting me can and want to help with my expenses, that is certainly a blessing, but it is not expected. God has so many ways to pay for whatever it is he wants to do.

If I come, I come to serve what Father might already be doing in an area, not for anything I would prefer.  So if you have some people who would like to explore specific themes from my books or podcasts, it helps me know that. My favorite weekends are just hanging out somewhere that allows people they know to come and have conversations that matter with people who care. However, if people want to host gatherings for others to join in and for people in a region to connect with each other, I’m happy to do that as well.  That usually works best by setting aside a few hours in the morning and afternoon or the afternoon and evening with a meal break. We can keep that very simple with people bringing in picnic lunches or grabbing fast food nearby. Often we just go out for a meal in smaller groups to get to know each other.  The venue is not important. I’ve gathered with people in homes, parks, corporate offices, warehouses, restaurants, coffee houses, community rooms, even congregational buildings.

If you have such a thing on your heart, especially where there are people freshly sorting out how to live loved, or how the church Jesus is building takes expression in the world, let me know.  Often the best invitations come from people who have never done anything like this before or don’t even think I’ll take it seriously, but sense somehow that God might want it. Truly, it never hurts to ask. Who knows what God might do?

And, of course, it never hurts to mention chocolate cake or chocolate ice cream somewhere in the invitation.

I can’t wait to share this part of the story with you.

If you haven’t yet listened to the My Friend Luis podcast, now might be a good time to get started. When we finished those twelve episodes, Luis and I thought we had told an amazing story of redemption and God’s intervention in the life of a young boy in Mexico and how it came to greater fruition in his adult life.  We had no idea that this story wasn’t yet finished and that the best was yet to come.

As the original podcast aired, Luis came to me and asked if he could tell me a story he had never told anyone else. It took most of that day and two subsequent Saturday mornings for the whole story to spill out as he described the tragedy of his father’s death and the terrors he suffered that night as a fourteen-year-old boy alone on a dangerous mountain. His emotions were still as raw as if these events had happened the night before.  Obviously, I didn’t record those sessions and was initially glad that this came out after the podcast was finished. I was not sure this story was appropriate for a wider audience though I was incredibly honored that he would let me walk with him through such a painful story.

But when Luis’ childhood friend, Raphael, showed up in the middle of that with insights that illuminated this event in Luis’ larger story, that’s when we knew that this story had to be shared. Luis had not seen him in thirty-five years since the night he helped Luis escape from the drug cartel that you can hear about in Episode 5. He is the stranger Luis met in the mountains near his home as a young boy who was either a very gifted human, a fabrication of Luis’ imagination, or most probably an angel who has appeared to Luis in human form to give him wisdom and help him through a time of need.  On Good Friday night this year, Raphael surprised Luis by walking up behind him as he was walking to his car near midnight. Their conversation provided Luis with great clarity and encouragement.  

We’ve waited three months to make sure that the re-telling of the story of his father’s death and its aftermath would be part of a healing process and not prolong his pain. That part of the story is not easy to hear, and listener discretion is advised since there are graphic descriptions of violence, death, and attempted suicide. But how God got a terrified teenager through such a harrowing ordeal, even though Luis had no idea who it was helping him, is well-worth hearing.

Yes, these engagements with Raphael are among the strangest things I’ve ever heard, but there’s no denying that Luis and I are witnessing amazing healing and the unfolding of God’s glory in the darkness.  I’m excited that we can now complete this story.

We’ve completed the recording and are now editing these podcasts to be released on the dates below:

Episode 13 – Terror in the Mountains
July 13

When his dad suffers a heart attack in the mountains with darkness closing in and a pack of coyotes on the prowl, Luis has to find a way to rescue his dad.

 

Episode 14 –  Jumping to the Wrong Conclusion
July 20

Due to an unfortunate mix-up and Luis’ inability to talk, instead of comforting him after his terrible ordeal, his family turns on him calling him a coward and blaming him for his father’s death.

 

Episode 15 – Raphael Returns
July 27

 Thirty-five years later, on a Good Friday night, Raphael appears to Luis with comfort and wisdom to bring healing to the guilt and anguish Luis suffered from his father’s death.

If you haven’t heard the previous episodes yet, you might want to go on a serious binge in the next couple of weeks. You can download it at iTunes or your favorite podcast provider. Just search on “My Friend Luis” or go to the Subscribe page.  This is a story of great grace in the midst of great pain and a God that can heal the deepest wounds of the human heart and set us free to live in his glory.

Putting My Friend Luis together as a podcast has truly been one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. However, my friendship with Luis is the greater gift here. We continue to share God’s life together as we walk with each other through the twists and turns of life. Doing so continues to open up new vistas in my own God Journey.

Sharing it with the world and interacting with those who that story has touched makes me so grateful God dropped this serendipitous experience into my life. Here’s an example I received in the last week:

By the way, I loved the “My Friend Luis” podcast!  I’m listening again with my husband now because I want to start giving to him and we make those decision together. I believe all that Luis went through and how God was there for him because I know in so many ways God was there for me growing up through all the difficulties I endured until the day I met him!

My husband and I are realizing how extremely different and difficult people’s lives are in Mexico from ours here in the U.S.  While we think we have it bad at times, there is absolutely no comparison! We can become so rigid in our religious and political beliefs of what we think is “right” but this has helped us discover that what we think is right may not be right at all in God’s eyes.  It’s like you’ve mentioned before, when you start getting to know God’s character, you start seeing things differently.  I keep telling my hubby we aren’t from this kingdom, remember!  God can and will do whatever he wants, and I’m so very grateful for that.

For those of you who have already heard the podcast, I know you’re anxiously awaiting a future update, especially because Raphael returned to meet with Luis one evening in April. Unfortunately, we had completed the podcast by then, so it wasn’t part of the original story. However, we will do at least two additional podcasts to do justice to this new part of the story since it isn’t only about Raphael’s return but also why he returned.

We have tried to record, but the timing has just not been right. Before his appearance, Luis came over one day to share a harrowing experience from his childhood that he did not include in the original story. I’d never heard it before, and we have spent hours processing it and the incredible pain it has been to Luis’ journey. To help Luis work through that pain is why Raphael returned. The painful part isn’t ready to be shared yet, but we’re hopeful it will be in the next few weeks. With that context, you’ll see how Raphael’s return has brought a new climax to the My Friend Luis Story. It will be worth the wait.

In the meantime, Luis and I want to share some of our experiences making and releasing this story. So, for those who have listened to it, if you have any observations from listening to our story or questions you would like to pose to either of us, please email them to me. We will record that podcast soon and would love to include your thoughts or questions for him or me. We’ll try to work in as many as we can.

On a personal note, tomorrow Sara and I will begin the two-day drive home from Denver, where we’ve been spending some wonderful time with our son. It has been a welcome respite in the midst of some difficult circumstances and the challenging direction God seems to be asking of us. His ways are always right, even though they are rarely easy.

For those of you following this new story-telling podcast, episode 10 dropped this morning. This begins yet another transition in our story and sets up for what were to be the final two podcasts in this series.

However…

This story has taken yet another turn. I finished my part of editing the final podcast on the morning of Good Friday. I was well into the contentment of having finished a project that had been on my heart for some time. and had taken a lot of time to assemble.

Good Friday night, Raphael returns. Yes, THAT Raphael—the stranger, and most likely an angelic presence, who showed up in Luis’ life as a five-year-old boy searching the mountains for his family’s lost cow that we talk about in Episode 3.  They met many times over the next few years as Raphael cared for Luis when he was being abused in his own family. The same Raphael that returned when Luis was in his young teens and rescued him from the back of a trailer where he was being held as bait to lure Captain Herrera into an ambush.  Luis had not seen him since that night when he was fifteen years old.

Until a few weeks ago. As Luis was locking up a church building after a meeting with the youth and a prayer vigil that followed, to his utter shock he felt Raphael’s presence again and heard footsteps behind him. He turned around to see his old friend, who had not aged a day.  The things they talked about were incredibly timely and put some finishing touches on the story that we can’t leave out. So, there will be at least another episode, maybe two.

If you’re not in this story yet, you might want to be. You won’t want to miss this ending, nor any of it really. I’ve heard and been part of some amazing stories in my life, but this one has transformed my heart in some incredible ways.  You can hear all the episodes at MyFriendLuis.com, or subscribe to it through your favorite podcast provider.

So many people are already listening in and the conversations and emails I’ve received about it are heart-warming as well.  I love how it is touching so many people and helping them see Father’s work in their own life. Here are just two of them I’ve received in the last few days:

“I have soo enjoyed the My Friend Luis series.  The production is so well done and very encouraging. The story is a reminder of the reality of how God is here with us – right now and very present – not somewhere up in the sky and far away. It also serves as a reminder of God’s kindness, his faithfulness, his compassion, his realness, and his love in the life of one of his lambs that was so in need of love—his love.  The whole thing is just so encouraging. I can’t help but grin from ear to ear when I tell others about it. Thank you for taking the time in putting this together and for sharing it!”

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“This is by far the best or near best you have put together. The story is riveting, compelling, raw, inviting, and full of drama. Hollywood would be eclipsed by this story. I have listened to them all as they have been released and have become immersed in the story. This has to be the backbone of a book!!! if so I would buy it. It is truly amazing! I found myself stopping, grabbing tissue as my own heart’s emotion inflamed within me, “God, you are good, very good.” This is a stunning story of calling and provision. Well done, very well done!”