Encouragement

Can you hear it? It’s the Song of the Ages, still playing beneath the virus and all that’s changed in our world. It is fresh from your Father’s heart, inviting you into his reality.

It’s not the loudest song in the wind. Fears of the virus and daily body counts will ring louder. The rancor of social hatred will drown it out, and it can easily be swallowed up by the discordant strains of fear and anger that dominate these troubled times.

But beneath it all, his song still plays, as certain as the rising sun, more triumphant than the most exquisite symphony.

You won’t be able to focus on it arguing about masks, or fretting over the next election. You won’t hear it speculating about conspiracies or putting your hope in yet-to-be-fulfilled prophecies about a coming revival. You won’t find it groping for certainty in your imagined future.

You have no idea what is to come, and neither do all those voices. The honest ones will tell you that. Your certainty now has to be in Jesus and him alone. All others are mere illusions. They may comfort for the moment, but when they fail you, how deep will that pain be? Circumstances, both favorable and unfavorable, will come and go. The only refuge is to abandon yourself to the amazing love of a gracious Father and seeing his divine purpose unfolding around you. He will never let you down.

Come away, my beloved!

There! Did you hear it?

Maybe it was just a few notes, but even a bit of it will begin to breathe hope into your exhausted heart. You’ll recognize it as the soothing melody inviting you beside his quiet waters where peace and tranquility will wash over your fear and grief. Linger there, leaning lean away from anxious thoughts and angry voices, both internal and external.

His song carries a different rhythm. He is enough. You are deeply loved. All of Creation is still in his hands.

There’s no fear or frustration in his song. Its soft and lilting tones draw you more deeply to his heart, where fear no longer thrives. It allows you to embrace a reality far more consequential than anything we see with your eyes or hear with our ears. It calms your heart with the confidence that God is big enough for this, too.

None of this has caught Jesus by surprise. He has not abandoned you to your own devices. His deliverance does not await some future day. Jesus reassured us that his Father is always working. That includes in you… today. He has a way through this for you, even if someone you love gets the virus. Even if your business does not survive. Even if, our culture comes crashing down around you. Even if this is your time to join him in a kingdom that knows no end. Even if all this goes away in the next few months. 

He has plans you haven’t begun to consider.

Come away, my beloved. 

His melody is an invitation, not a compulsion. You’ll find it more clearly in that quiet place in your soul where Jesus makes himself known. It may take a while to tune your ears again to his melody and hold it in your heart. It’s worth the time. You’ll know you’ve found it when your heart takes a deep breath and begins to find its rest in the unforced rhythms of his grace.

You can’t see that, you say? Well, you don’t have to. You only need to see him.  Take his hand and follow his lead the best you sense him today. Wake up tomorrow and find that song again.

Everything else in this world will seek to knock you off this melody, drawing you back into its clamor. You don’t have to go. You can keep coming back to the quiet waters and bathe yourself there. That’s where you’ll have the wisdom to live through each day’s challenges without fear of your imagined future. You’ll know how to respond prudently to the virus’ presence in our world, and find compassion for others around you.

When you’re at peace in turmoil, his song will flow through you, too, amplifying it in your corner of the world. Then others will find it easier to hear and perhaps find their way to his peace as well.

I heard this from a friend the other day and loved what it unveiled about his heart.

“I am only beginning to realize how rude my faith made me.”

I love that. As people grow more tender in his love, they begin to recognize how adherence to religion doesn’t transform us. Instead, it just reroutes our selfishness into other expressions.

Now, he and I both know that real faith doesn’t make anyone rude. False faith does, however, because it makes us feel morally superior to anyone who doesn’t work as hard at their religion as we do. It divides the world into a home team and an away team, and that almost gives us permission to treat harshly those who don’t believe or do the things we think they should.

Paul warned the Corinthians about this very thing, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”  (I Corinthians 8:1)

That’s what I love about the people I know who are being transformed by a love that rewires them from the inside. They are less rude and more forbearing, less arrogant and more humble, slower to take offense and more open to reconciliation, and they are less self-focused and more generous with others, especially the away team.

____________________

Here are some other things going on this week that might interest you:

This Sunday, July 19, I will host another God Journey After-Show at 10:00 am PDT. This is an open conversation about our life in Jesus and some of the recent themes we’ve been exploring on the Lifestream blog and on The God Journey. If you’d like to join us in the Zoom room, you can email Wayne for a link. We’ll let in as many as we can, and the rest can stream it live on the God Journey Facebook Page.

Last Tuesday, I was part of an incredible Zoom conversation about our proclivity to tribalism and how God wants to take us beyond it, especially as it applies to the racial unrest in our culture.  It was one of a continuing series of Language of Healing Live conversations as the authors help people sort out some of the themes of our new book, A Language of Healing for a Polarized Nation.

If you haven’t yet discovered my new series over at The God Journey called Embracing His Glory, I’d encourage you to check it out. I’ve done six twenty-minute reflections about how God transforms us in his love to let his glory be revealed in the world around us. I love how the Gospel of John has illuminated so much of the work God has been doing in my heart over the past twenty-five years learning to live in the Father’s love.  You can use the links below to listen in.

• Embracing His Glory #1
• Embracing His Glory #2
• Embracing His Glory #3
• Embracing His Glory #4
• Embracing His Glory #5
• Embracing His Glory #6

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

It is one of the great conversations I enjoy with people when I travel. What is faith, and how does it influence our prayers? Since I haven’t been traveling during this coronavirus, I thought I would respond to this email online.  First, here is the email: 

I have been pondering some of the things you have shared about prayer, and at times, it seems that your position does not make a very big space for believing in God’s doing the miraculous. You have shared that you have seen the supernatural and that those things are up to Him. I get that. But, there are so many places in Scripture that seem to intimate that we can expect answers to our prayers.

For example, James wrote, “the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up.” Jesus Himself said, “greater works shall you do.” He seemed to be speaking of the miraculous. “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” John 14: 12-14.

How can a believer read the very words of Jesus and not expect to see at least a modicum of supernatural power in their lives? Maybe not rising to the level of feeding multitudes or raising a four-day dead “Lazarus” from the dead. But, I cannot help but believe that Jesus was encouraging those that believe to expect answers to their prayers, even if it means something supernatural occurring to provide that answer. Obviously, we are not God, and we are to trust Him with the outcomes, as we have discussed. Certainly, there are volumes of prayers that do not get answered in the way that we hope, with no visible evidence of the supernatural or miraculous. If trusting Him with outcomes is all we have, the question remains, “What did Jesus mean when He said that we would do greater works, and ask Him anything in His name and He would do it?”

The nuances in this discussion could fill a book or three. That’s why this is better in a conversation, where it can be specifically applied to a given prayer or circumstance. But let me try to answer with a series of bullet points that summarize how I understand these things at this stage of my journey, and let them become fodder for further dialogue.

• God does outrageous miracles, and everything in this creation can be bent to his will, by his power, and for his glory.
• Prayer is the delightful partnership between God and his people that can execute his purpose and glory in the earth through supernatural power. Thus, it is not us getting God to do what we think is best, but us cooperating with God as he does his work. His wisdom is way beyond ours, and he takes all things into account as he works his glory into the world. Our comfort or ease is never his priority.
• That’s why prayer is mostly communion with him as he shapes our hearts, rather than a list of requests we want him to give us.
• Every Scripture that talks about answered prayer, including the ones you quote, are in the context of the conditional clauses of if “we remain in him…,” or “If his words remain in us…,” or “praying in his name.” Answered prayer is not a fulfillment of our will, but the fruit of abiding deeply in him and sharing a passion for his unfolding purpose.
• I don’t think I can do anything to make God give me what I think is best. Faith is neither convincing myself that what I want God wants, nor is it a tool to force God’s hand. Faith is the relational trust that allows me to walk through anything, knowing he will hold my heart, and give me the strength and wisdom I need. Eighty-four percent of the time, when someone did something by faith in Hebrews 11, their lives got more challenging or more uncomfortable. Their trust didn’t always help them get out of trouble but gave them the confidence to go through it.
• I don’t think it is fair nor fruitful for us to read through Scriptures and cherry-pick the outcomes we want in a specific situation, and try to employ our “faith” to get them. What’s most important in a situation is not what makes me happy, but what Father is doing here. How is his glory unfolding?
• Praying in faith means I engage God trusting that he is good and loving and that he knows the best of all possible outcomes for everyone involved. Faith is not something we generate internally but is the fruit of a growing relationship with him.
• A prayer of faith will never seek to enlist God’s power to violate someone else’s will. He doesn’t do it, even for himself.
• Praying in faith doesn’t rise out of desperation or fear, because it begins knowing that God can be trusted with everything. That doesn’t mean we can’t talk to God out of our desperation or fear, but that we wouldn’t want to assume the thing I think I need is really the thing I need.
• So, I will always pray for healing when asked, or when it is on my heart. I make requests of him and see what he does. He often surprises me. At other times, I have a sense of the outcome God desires and can pray with great persistence and perseverance until the answer unfolds. But I can also be wrong, and I can see that in the outcome itself. Unless God shows me, that we were thwarted in some way by darkness, and thus learn a lesson from it, I’ll see the outcome as either what Father had in mind, or what he is willing to use now for his glory. I don’t retreat into a guilt-induced introspection of what I might have done wrong, or if there was some block in my “faith” that failed God.
• I believe about 30% of the miracle stories I read in books or see on TV. I’ve been behind the scenes enough to know that TV is an illusion, and many so-called miracles are contrived or made up to “inspire” the audience. If the average person embellishes something God does to make it seem more spectacular than it was in the moment, how much more for those who are trying to grow their ministry. The danger is that it causes people to set their expectations at ridiculous levels and have to fight the frustration that God doesn’t do similar things for them.
• I have always held a hunger in my heart to see God’s power in more prolific ways than we see today. I think part of that has to do with how focused we are on our comfort and convenience and how little we hold God’s priorities in our hearts. I also realize miracles are miracles because they are not typical; they are the exceptional moments of God unveiling himself. I enjoy them when I’m around them, though I never demand them as if they are my choice.
• Living that way, I have seen some of those outrageous things happen and been thrilled when they do. I have also fought through the darkest tragedies and found amazing transformation in my heart as I did, without the supernatural intervention I had prayed for.

The prayer of faith is not what we’ve learned in performance-based religion. It isn’t a matter of earning God’s favor by our performance or trying to ingratiate ourselves to God to get his favor. It is the fruit of the growing awareness of God with me, working his glory into my corner of the world. He can work his triumph through apparent failures and has a plan that far exceeds mine. I love engaging him in the conversation that lets me see into that as far as my relationship today will allow me.

When I see him do something amazing in response to my prayer, I’m blown away with joy. When my greatest hopes go unfulfilled, I rest in the fact that his perspective far outweighs mine, and what might be glorious for his purpose will most often not be the thing I would first prefer. But looking back years later on so many “disappointed prayers” in my life, I can see that his purpose and plan for me exceeded anything I could see. Paul alerted us to that. When he moves differently than I want, I can trust that he is doing something exceedingly and abundantly beyond anything I could ask or even imagine. (Ephesians 3:20)

Anyway, that’s how I’m rolling with him these days.

I don’t post these emails because I like reading about myself on my blog. I’ve already read them and expressed my gratefulness to those who took the time to write me and to the Father for the way some of these things find their way into the world to encourage his people. I post these so that others who are struggling with similar things might find their way to the same resources that may be helpful to them.

From Germany: I read the book The Call of the Wild Geese in German. (Elsewhere in the world it is, So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore). I am very grateful to you for this book, which is hotly debated in Germany. Everyone makes their own decisions. It was an adventure for me and I got involved in trusting God to say: “Father, do you?” This trust that God, my heavenly Father, provides and cares for me every day. I have experienced much of what was described in your book in different church structures. I am 69 years old and have been traveling with Jesus for 20 years. This book has brought me out of my depression and pain, towards the light, towards His (God’s) love. Thank you very much.

From Latvia: I am reading your book He Loves Me. I have a big problem. With my mind I understand that God is Love, that He loves me so much that He gave me His Son Jesus. But I feel like He is distant, cold, passive, One who doesn’t want me in His presence. In my deepest part I am afraid to fall into His hands because I can’t live up to His standarts. Can you help me, please?! Is God really that nice as you describe Him? I want to know Him clearly.

My response to her:

Actually, he is way better than I can possibly describe him. Shame keeps us from him, making us feel unworthy of his presence. Religion feeds our shame as well, but Jesus took our shame away at the cross. Fall into his hands and find out just how gracious he is and how knowing him will transform you in ways you never imagined.  It’s a journey. It takes some time to get comfortable in his reality, but it is a journey well worth taking.

From Pennsylvania: “I came back to Lifestream and stumbled onto The Jesus Lens. Thank you for following the vision to record this. I am reading scripture in a whole new way and journaling more “a-ha” moments than I can recall. I’ve shared this with friends in hopes that it opens the door to future Holy Spirit guided conversations.”

From a friend I recently visited in Oklahoma and who attended a workshop Arnita and I did for A Language of Healing in a Polarized Nation:

I did something today that was out of my range just a bit but I felt like you guys encouraged us to do.  Which is I spoke to a total stranger  today who is not in my “in-group”.  I have been beyond upset over the recent shooting in Georgia of Ahmaud Arbery.  I’ve been sick at my stomach over this killing.  So I signed up to #IRunWith Maud today at our park, and when I was done there was an African American woman in the parking lot waiting for someone. I just went up to her, keeping our social distance, and I said hello and I just needed to say I am so sorry for the shooting of this young man in Georgia.  She just opened right up and although I couldn’t control my emotions, she didn’t seem to think I was weird or anything.  We had a sweet little conversation and her husband came back from his run and he was very warm and gracious just like his wife.  It was a simple moment but I just had to tell you both because you encouraged us to do this when you were here in February and I wanted to encourage you in what you are doing. You are having an impact and it’s not a small thing.  One person to another person, depolarization will happen.

I love that so much. One person, one conversation at a time, the world can become a more generous place. Most people want to find their way into a different way of communicating and caring about each other across our differences. And, if you happen across one of those occasional people who love the polarization, just excuse yourself and move on.

For those of you who are interested, next Tuesday (May 19) at 2:00 pm PDT,  I’ll be discussing the racial divide that has formed over the Artery killing in Georgia with my co-authors Arnita Taylor and Bob Prater on Language of Healing Live! We are doing a series of these conversations moderated by people who have a stake in the issues that divide us and will lead a dialog with the authors and a panel in the Zoom Room. Next week’s Live! will be hosted by Gil Michel of South Bend, IN.  We will stream live on The Language of Healing Discussion Facebook Group, and on my Facebook Author Page if you want to join us. And yes, the recording will be available afterwards as well.

I am praying that all of you are finding a way to lean into Jesus through these very strange times to set your heart at rest in his care for you, and to show you a way through it that will allow his glory to unfold.

During a trip on the East coast in 2016, I was asked to meet with a couple whose twenty-something daughter had been recently killed in a car crash. A friend of a friend asked if I could give them some time, so I met them for lunch during a free moment in my schedule. I never know what to say to people who are experiencing such loss, and though I felt like God was in the time we had, I was left to wonder just how helpful it was to them. This weekend, four years later, I received this email:

You may not remember me, but I will never forget you. I knew one day I needed to email you and thank you for taking the time to share some love with my husband and me. We were connected through a friend of a friend and met you at a restaurant on a rainy day. Our daughter had been killed in a catastrophic car accident about six months prior, and I was clinging with all I had to Jesus, my only hope. I can’t say I remember what you said that day, but it’s like the saying, “You may not remember what someone said, but you can remember how they made you feel.” You made us feel loved. You shared God’s love, and especially meaningful to me, showed my husband that men can talk about feelings and God’s love in a real way.

Much has happened since that day. Of particular note, about a month after our meeting, a woman in my Bible study suggested we study He Loves Me. You had told me it was your favorite book you ever wrote. I loved the book and bought several copies to share with friends and family. God has been so real, so good, and so over-the-top caring that he has literally blown me away!!!!! There is no doubt I would never be the person I am today without him, and I am grateful beyond words. Now I have occasionally been asked to speak to other bereaved parents. While challenging, I am willing because I want them to know God is there; he is the key and their way through the valley.

I am a little embarrassed I have not written in so long. For a while, my old laptop lost email, the only place I had your address. Since then, I have never had quite the words. I was moved today and decided there never are just the right words, just write. All I really want to say is thank you. Thank you for being “Jesus with skin on.” You are part of a raw but beautiful story. God is creating a beautiful tapestry, and I am grateful beyond words for him and his love and grateful for your threads in it.

I was deeply touched by her email this weekend, but it was more than an encouragement to me; I also hope it is an encouragement to some of you.

• Maybe you’re in a tragedy and barely holding on to your faith. God is bigger than your pain and can triumph over any adversity.
• Maybe you have a friend going through a painful time, and you shy away because you don’t know what to say to them. Call anyway! Words are not what matter most. 
• Maybe you don’t know how to talk about your hurt and grief with honesty and authenticity (Yes, I’m talking to you, men.)—hang out with someone who does.
• Maybe you are groping to find where —keep looking for all the ways he is pouring his love into your heart. 
• Maybe you have been a thread in someone else’s tapestry, and they never got back to you. Jesus knows; let him tell you what it meant to him. 
• Maybe someone was a thread in your tapestry, and you never got around to thanking them. Four years, or a decade or two, isn’t too late. 

You will never regret pouring a bit of his love into the world. Every drop of it pushes back against the anger and judgment that tries to rule the day.

I am a bit saddened this morning by all those who will celebrate the fact of the Resurrection today as if it guarantees them the hope, light, and joy they want. But so many will miss the reality of the Resurrection in their own lives.

The fact of the Resurrection did nothing for the soldiers who saw it, the Pharisees who sought to cover it up with lies and persecution, or the people throughout Jerusalem who did not yet know what happened there.

The fact of the Resurrection mattered only to a dozen or so that day, and five hundred more who saw him later and let the Resurrected Christ begin to take shape in him.

The Resurrection is a doorway that allows us to know God in the safety of his love and forgiveness, and it only has power when we let his hope seep into the cracks of our hopelessness, let his truth disrupt our illusions, and let his priorities overrun ours.

Stepping through that doorway is our choice, and it isn’t made in one prayer, but a thousand moments of standing at the threshold of God’s reality and choosing to follow him instead of grasping for our own wisdom and comforts.

That’s why the Resurrection is still a scandal. We can celebrate the fact of it today and miss its reality. Embracing the Resurrection risks everything as it seeks to overturn the darkness in us, most of which we are unaware.

But there is no other way to celebrate the Resurrection. There is no pure joy to be had in pleasing our own affections every day; it is found on the other side of the upheaval of all of our agendas and finding our wings inside God’s desires for us.

Don’t just stand at the door and rejoice that it’s there; take the risk to come inside and let the Resurrection have its work in you. Of course, you don’t know what it will mean for you, but this is the only adventure that matters and the reward is Life as it was always meant to be lived.

“Jesus Christ, Risen Lord, take my hand today and lead me to your Life. I want to see you and follow you one day at a time until my heart finds its glory in you.”

O Holy Night is my favorite Christmas carol. Sara and I listened to it as we got ready to go to bed last night. I reveled in my favorite lyric from it: “Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.”

Ever since Eden’s Fall, the hardest belief for many to sustain, especially in times of struggle and failure is that they are worthy of God’s love and affection. So often we are overwhelmed by failure and feel so alone in our struggles that it seems sometimes as if no one cares, and too often God most of all. But that’s the illusion that pushes our world into the darkness.

Till he appeared, and the soul felt its worth.

God is not ever inactive toward us—unrecognized perhaps, but never uninvolved and he is always working to beckon us out of the darkness and into the joy of his light. What Sara and I want those three precious children in the picture above to know more than anything else is that they are beloved children of a gracious Father. They are worthy of his love, no matter what struggle they go through, whatever mistake they make, and in spite of every whisper of darkness into their ears.

It’s what we want everyone to know. He appeared in our world because we were worthy of love and to prove it he would spend his own life to rescue us from all that darkness twists or destroys in us. He came to redeem us because we were worth it to him.

You!  You are worth everything to him. What I love about the lyric above is that we come to know that worth when he appears. That’s when it all makes sense, and that’s not just about his coming 2000 years ago, but how he wants to make himself known to you today. When you behold him then your soul knows its worth. We are deeply loved and deeply cherished simply for who we are.

If you need a reminder of that, steal away for some alone-time over the next couple of days. Find a quiet place and ask him to reveal himself to you. Wait in the quiet until his reality begins to bubble up in your soul. We used to sing an old chorus, “There is none like you. No one else can touch my heart like you do. I could search for all eternity long and find, there is none like you.” It is such a rich chorus to sing to God.

But if you could for just a moment, imagine God singing those words to you. Read (or sing) them again and this time put those words onto God’s lips toward you. That’s just as true. And when you come to know that, your soul too will feel its worth. Then every night can be a holy night!

With love to all of you and hopes that in this Christmas season and throughout the year ahead, you will know how precious you are to him,

Wayne & Sara

Winter 2019-2020 Newsletter
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Do you know those moments when a nudge in your heart contradicts what you would
choose to do? Those are the moments on which your transformation hangs.  

I can think of many occasions when the voice of the Spirit whispered through my illusion, to invite me on a better path.

• At the betrayal of a close friend: I have more to teach you if you walk away than if you stay.
• When people I loved were spreading lies about me: Don’t worry about what they think; it only matters that you’re following me.
• In the struggle to find a means of provision after I lost my salary: Keep doing what I’ve asked of you; I’ll take care of you.
• In contemplating a file full of notes on a new structure for church life: Jesus didn’t leave you with a system to implement, but a voice to follow.
• After flying home with a newly recorded teaching series whose sales just might provide some income we desperately needed: I want you to give it away.

Each time the nudges on my heart were the opposite of what I wanted to do. Looking back on those moments today brings back all the emotions I felt then. Jesus was cutting through my agenda, showing me a different reality I could follow. None of them were easy, but all of them, in the end, opened up taking me on roads I have cherished ever since. I can’t imagine what my life would be today if I hadn’t believed him and followed anyway. Though costly, each was part of his transforming work in my life.

Truth be told, I have probably missed more of those invitations than I’ve heard throughout my life because the paths the Spirit invites me down rarely look better than the illusions I already hold. I think I know best how to protect my interests and keep my fears at bay. But he isn’t concerned about the same things I am; he’s more interested in my ultimate freedom, and that can only be found by living in what is real, not in my pretensions.

Illusions look comforting, but they are a trap of the worst kind. And we all have them. Science tells us that the human capacity for cognitive dissonance is nearly a superpower. We can make ourselves believe anything as long as we think we will benefit from it, either financially or holding some fear at bay. Illusions give us comfort, false though they be and are often built on our fears: the fear that people I love won’t understand, the fear that God won’t be enough, the fear that others aren’t doing it the same way, the fear that I’ll look foolish, or so many others.

When Jesus’ brothers were trying to convince him to go up to Jerusalem at the feast and become well known, Jesus saw the trap. Being well known is not the same as living his life in the Father’s purpose. He knew that people were out to kill him there. “(The world) is against me because I expose the evils behind their pretensions.” (John 7:6. The Message)

Evil works behind our pretensions. So much of our spiritual growth is not learning new teachings, but listening when Jesus is showing us what’s ultimately real. We mostly make judgments by what we can see with our eyes; he can show us the unseen realities that shape life in this world more than we know. Only by believing him when he reveals something, can we escape the illusions that hold us captive.

That’s why Jesus said that we could know the truth, and the truth would set us free. Eugene Peterson translated that a bit differently, “Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you.” (John 8:32) By truth, John wasn’t talking about a set of principles or doctrine to learn, but what is real inside God. When we know that, we can face any situation more aware of the best way for us to navigate through it for the glory of his kingdom, not by trying to save ourselves.

Yes, his truth will set me free, but it almost always messes with me first. When Jesus opens up a new reality to me, I almost always cringe. Viscerally my reaction is usually, “I hope that isn’t true.” When I hear him, I am so aware of the cost and the risk to my ideas of what is best for me.

That’s the moment where choice matters most. If we stay with our comforting illusions, we miss the opportunity for transformation and to see his hand in ways we’d never imagine. By staying “safe,” we avoid growing in trust and our ability to recognize God’s purpose unfolding in the circumstances around us. After a few days, we won’t even remember what Jesus showed us and miss out on a new adventure. We are still loved there but also still captive.

His Spirit in us will continue to invite us out of those soul-crushing illusions to show us the life that really is life. That’s the moment in which transformation comes. By believing him, we’ll be able to see how empty our illusions are and learn how to trust him.

A few times in my life, I’ve been on the other side of this process. Talking to someone caught in a painful dilemma, God gave me an insight that would help them see better. When I share it with them, I see the same cringing in their countenance that I often feel. But here’s the choice: cringe and follow, or cringe and retreat to my false securities. Most will stay in the imagined safety of their own illusions, too afraid to take a risk. It hurts when I see it. In doing what they think is best, they’ve chosen more pain and frustration when they feel God isn’t cooperating with their plan.

But for those who hunger for truth, I will eventually see that sparkle in their eye in that “Ah-ha” moment. A better way stretches before them, as scary as it might be, they will take it because they care more about truth than they do their self-interest. When they go down that road in spite of their fears, they will find the path to life abundant in him.

All he asks you to do is to dare to believe him when he exposes your pretensions and invites you down the road less traveled.

This is where transformation happens and where we touch the reality of a kingdom so much bigger than ourselves.

If you want some resources for this journey, check out He Loves Me, Transitions, and Engage.

Publishing News

My latest book, The Language of Healing for a Polarized Nation: Creating safe environments for conversations about race, politics, sexuality, and religion. was released in November by Blue Sheep Media. Written with coauthors Arnita Taylor and Bob Prater, this is a very different book for me. It is not written primarily to a Christian audience, even though I hope fellow lovers of Jesus will want to learn how to live more generously in a world torn apart by political agendas and manipulated by people who get rich off the divisiveness of our country.  If you haven’t completed your Christmas list, consider giving this unique book. We also all three of us recorded the audio version and it should be out in the next couple of weeks. Keep up with the details on my blog or at ALanguageofHealing.com.

Also, since I’ve been home most of December, I’m finally making the audio version of In Season, and I am really enjoying it. This is my current book on the Father’s vineyard and how God brings us along a journey to make us fulfilled in his life and those more fruitful in the kingdom. It should be available at your favorite audio outlets in mid-January.

2020 Travel 

I’m just beginning to contemplate what my travels might look like in 2020. I am planning on being in Oklahoma early in the year, and perhaps Michigan. I’m also considering invitations to upstate New York, Virginia, Georgia, and a return trip to Florida. I may also be able to get that trip into Kenya this summer that I had to postpone last year. If you have anything on your heart near these locations or to someplace else, now would be the time to let me know.

Return to Israel?  

Over the past year, I’ve had a number of people encourage me to do another Israel trip. I’d be happy to consider that if there are enough people who want to go. I’m looking at early February in 2021 since the weather is not nearly so hot and it is far less crowded at the places we want to visit. Our first two trips also helped people from all over the world to get to know others on a similar journey. Those relationships have continued in the years that followed. Cost is usually around $4000 per person if you want to start saving up. Please email us if you are interested.

Thanks for Your Help in Kenya

This year we moved one year closer to helping the tribal groups in North Pokot build a sustainable way to live into the future. We are supposed to complete that in July of this coming year. We had a horrible set-back with horrible flooding ten days ago that killed many and wiped out some villages, but many of you responded with nearly $50,000 in emergency aid in only three days. We also had to help build a new well for a group of people in Forkland this summer, whose existing water supply was contaminated by their sewage. That well hit a major supply of pure water, which they are now able to bottle and sell. In 2020 we are going to help them expand that capability with some warehouse space at the cost of $25,000, which will provide them enough income

Sheep Among Wolves

I have just heard about this incredible story about how God is moving in one of the darkest and most radicalized corners of our world—Iran. Muslim-background Iranians are leading a quiet but mass exodus out of Islam and learning some simple and unique ways to make Jesus’ kingdom known in the world. The Iranian awakening is a rapidly-reproducing discipleship movement that owns no property or buildings, has no central leadership, and is predominantly led by women. This is their story and it would appear that the Church in the west has much to learn from them.

Watch Movie Here:  Sheep Among Wolves (1:53)

Here is how it begins: The first thing in Iran, we know what country we are serving. We are serving the Islamic Republic of Iran. We know that if they get us, the first thing they will do to us as a woman is rape us and then they will beat us, and ultimately they will kill us. This is the decision we have made that we want to offer our bodies as sacrifices—because I have this thought when I wake up that when I leave that door I might not come back. I have talked to my husband and we have made an agreement that this is the decision of our lives so if we leave that door and don’t come back, we accept the consequences of what happens.   

Merry Christmas from Us to You!  

Finally, Merry Christmas from the two of us. What an amazing year this has been, so many wonderful connections and amazing conversations! Watching God’s glory continue to unfold in people’s lives is such a joy and an honor. I’ve watched him rescue people out of the darkness, transform them from the enemy’s deceptions, and change the way they live and love in the world. I am so blessed by the people God has allowed me to know.

I am traveling through the south of Florida at the moment, having spent the weekend in Miami, and now headed up to the Sarasota/Tampa area for the weekend. Yesterday, I had an amazing lunch conversation reconnecting with someone I’d visited several years ago. He’d come here to plant house churches and ended up discovering that the church was more wild and wonderful than that could contain as well. He, too, is learning that life moves at the speed of relationships.

While we were eating, I sat facing the wall pictured above. We were in a restaurant called Ford’s Garage that commemorates the life of Henry Ford, who had a summer home near here, which just happened to be right next door to a summer home for Thomas Edison. Can you imagine the conversations they must have had together? Oh, to have been a fly on that wall…

Anyway, I was taken with this quote of Henry Ford’s: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” He had dreamed up something so much better, what people didn’t even know they wanted, and his automobile has taken over the world.

I wonder how many of our prayers sound like that to God. We are asking him for the thing we think we want when he has things in mind for us that are more wonderful than we can even conceive. Most of my prayers used to ask God to do things that would make me comfortable or happy, and he had things in mind that would radically change the way I think and live in the world. I’m so glad God did not answer most of my prayers the way I wanted him to. His ideas have proved to be so much better and higher than mine.

It made me think of my favorite line from the movie, Bruce Almighty. “Since when does anyone have a clue about what they want?” So true! We think we do, but then God works in other ways.

I’ve long thought that’s what Ephesians 3:20 is talking about. “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.” 

It doesn’t mean if I’m asking him for a three-bedroom house, he wants to give me a five-bedroom one. It merely means that what we want now is rarely what we would really want if we could see our lives through God’s eyes. We want comfort, ease, and a pain-free existence, he wants to invite us into the adventure of a lifetime that transcends all of those things to embrace his reality in a way that changes how we live in a broken world.

As I’ve continued on this journey, I am much more aware that what I thought I wanted wasn’t what I really wanted. Almost twenty years ago, I found myself saying to a friend, “Over the past few years, God has defied to the nth degree every expectation and desire I had for my life.”

“Is that a good thing?” he asked me.

I found myself answering, “It’s the best thing!” And it has been, though it often takes the added perspective of two or three years to pass so I can look back and see that what he was doing was far better than what I had in mind. It has led me on a path to The Deepest Freedom—freedom from the tyranny of my own best wisdom or my desires.

I’m glad that Jesus said the Father knows what we need even before we ask him. I’m relieved by that because I’m sure many of my prayers don’t make much sense to him. Now, if we could just relax and trust that in the present, we would be so much more at peace.