Encouragement

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.

This is a copy of our quarterly newsletter sent out earlier this month. If you didn’t get one and would like to stay in touch with what’s going on around Lifestream you can sign up here.

“Would you follow God if there was no hell?”

Someone asked me that a few years ago and my immediate reaction was, “Of course, I would.”

If they’d asked me that forty years before, however, I doubt I would have answered with such certainty. Back then, my relationship with God was more confusing. We talked about God being a loving Father, but only for those who did everything he wanted. His holiness was his most terrifying feature, and the best reason I was given to follow him was my fear of the consequences if I didn’t. Threatened with eternity in flames was all the motivation I needed to try and do everything I thought he required to stay in his good graces.

I wanted more than anything for God to like me and bless me by keeping me from harm. Looking back now, I realize I was not in an endearing relationship with my Creator as a beloved child; I was caught in the Stockholm Syndrome with God. Like the victim of a kidnapping, I sought to ingratiate myself to the one I feared more than I loved.

Even worse, I could never be sure if I’d done enough. Fear and shame were constant if unwelcome companions. I was always aware of my shortcomings and failures, and everyone else’s around me since the standard he commanded is that we would be as holy as he was. If that’s who he is, who wants to be like that?

That, however, is not the relationship God had in mind for us, and it is not the relationship that will transform us into his image.

Jesus didn’t seem to live with his Father that way, but he was perfect. And he did call his Father, “our Father,” and told us these things so that our joy might be in him and that would make his joy complete. No one I knew, however, lived that way. To us, God was a demanding deity, and we lived every day under threats, obligations, and a constant demand for perfect performance.

People who live with God this way cannot experience the fullness of life in him and cannot effectively share his love in the world. Fear cannot produce it. Jesus showed us he was not the most terrifying presence in the world, but the most endearing. Love was the capital of his kingdom, not obligation and guilt.

So, back to our original question. Would you follow God if there were no hell? Fear of hell was just about the only reason people got saved when I was young. No one wants to jump through all those religious hoops unless the consequences of not doing so are dire. Whatever hell is, I don’t doubt its existence, where finally sin devours its prey. I’m just not convinced fearing will be enough to save you.

Receiving his love is salvation from all sin wrecks in this world, and in the one to come.

We need a more compelling reason to invite our children, friends, and even strangers to consider God’s reality better than, “You’re a horrible person and God is out to get you if you don’t repent.”

God is not the executioner in the redemption story; he’s the rescuer. Sin is leading us to destruction. Our self-preferring natures pull us into the darkness. But salvation, according to the new covenant, does not come to people looking to appease an angry deity, but to those who engage an affectionate relationship with the Creator of all.

Unfortunately, many people have confused God himself with the religion we’ve created in his name, and that makes it difficult to let God into their lives. People in relative ease often keep God at a distance. They take in just enough Christianity to soothe their conscience, and to satisfy their fears of the afterlife but don’t want too much of him because he might intrude on their pleasures.

People caught in tragic circumstances, or deep pain often call out to him, seeking relief by promising God they will do anything he wants if he’ll just help them. Especially when he doesn’t answer them the way they hoped, they begin to doubt his existence or doubt his love.

Neither of these leads to a satisfying connection with him. That’s why only a few people engage God regularly, making him part of the decisions they make and how they treat the people around them.

I sat on a deck in the high Sierras surrounded by pine and cedar trees with a young man who did not grow up with any spiritual influence at all. “What if there is a God who made all of this, who loves you more than anyone else you’ve ever known, and he wants to walk with you as you explore your life in his Creation?”

He looked up at me and smiled, his eyes misted with tears. “I would love that.”

Who wouldn’t?

So, why God? Why follow him instead of just living life the best we can and doing what makes us happy?

Here are five great reasons for wanting to know God that have nothing to do with fearing hell:

First, because God himself is the most engaging presence in the universe, full of life, laughter, joy, and wisdom more precious than wealth or any other friendship. If you haven’t experienced him this way, I’m sure I got a bit of an eye roll there, but honestly the things he adds to my life fill it with wonder.

Second, because this world makes no sense without him. All that is real is not visible. I have sensed his fingerprints in the Creation and his presence in the seeming coincidences of life—meeting a person at just the right time or having wisdom drop in my heart from a conversation, sentence in a book, or a song lyric. I’ve sensed his calling to me from a very young age, and inside him, I find the courage and meaning that makes my life complete.

Third, because navigating successfully through a broken creation is beyond our best resources and wisdom. Self-indulgence leads to the corruption and injustice that stains our world and harms people I love. How do you navigate circumstances you can’t control that seem unjust? How do sickness and tragedy make sense inside God’s love and his ultimate purpose to redeem the world back to himself? Without his active input in my life, I only consider how things affect me, and that’s a painful way to live in this universe. He has a way of causing the sufferings of this world to fold into a plan of our transformation and his redemption that is spectacular. I wouldn’t want to live without it.

Fourth, I am powerless to resist my unseemlier appetites and desires, if he does not give me the wisdom to untangle them, the strength to refuse them, and the fullness to disarm what they prey on in me. Without him, I’m adrift in a world of indulgence, with him I can learn to say no to those things that add more pain in the world and yes to a path that leaves more grace in it.

Fifth, because I want to be part of something bigger than myself and my own existence. God not only Created this planet but now moves it to its ultimate redemption. By showing us what it truly means to be loved and to love, I can become part of that unfolding purpose and encourage others on that path as well.

Far from being the kill-joy religion makes God out to be, or the excuse for our injustices to others, God becomes a valued companion in this journey called life. When you know who this amazing God is, “Be holy as I am holy,” is not the most fearsome command in Scripture, but the most engaging invitation. When you know him, you will want to be like him.

And if you want to be like him, it’s great to know he has provided everything for that to happen. All I have to do is learn to live in his love, and he’s the one who teaches us that, too.

Now, I know people will read this, frustrated that their relationship with God doesn’t feel like that. Despite their prayers, Bible reading, church attendance, and trying to be good, God still feels like a distant deity rarely involved in real circumstances of their daily existence. I lived a long time there myself, so I understand. The five things I’ve described above are the fruit of a long trajectory in learning how to live in his love. It doesn’t happen overnight, with a snap of the fingers or an ecstatic Jesus encounter.

Learning how to lean into his reality and recognize his fingerprints about us is a lifelong quest, perhaps the greatest adventure our humanity offers. Our appetites can betray us, our intellect often deceives us, and the world so easily distracts us with its amusements and its fears. Cultivating the inner life to become increasingly sensitive to the ways Jesus makes himself known does take some focus and participation from us.

If you don’t know how to do that, find someone who does and ask if he or she will help you. Don’t look for a miracle cure, but someone who can help you see God’s fingerprints in your own journey and the realities his Spirit is offering you to take you further down that path.

Try not to get discouraged when it doesn’t happen quickly or as easily as you might hope. Ask God to connect you to a person or two with a similar hunger. Please don’t give up, because it does take a while. This life is not like going to Disneyland; it is a real engagement with the Maker of heaven and earth.

Knowing him starts in small ways and over time grows to become the most valuable part of your life.

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

Upcoming Travel

My planned trip to Kenya this July had to be postponed due to road construction in the areas I needed to visit. So, I’m getting extra time this summer to be home, give attention to the projects God has put before me, and to take some vacation. This fall I am contemplating trips to Atlanta, GA, Damascus, VA,  Michigan, and Florida may be on tap for this fall. You can keep checking my Travel Schedule, or if you’d like to be notified if I’m planning to visit your area, you can sign up on our email list and include your address.
In Case You Missed it…

Here are some of the podcasts and blogs that have generated the most interest over the last couple of months.

Podcasts at TheGodJourney.com:

• What it Means to Love One Another
• Convicted of Murder

Wayne’s blog at Lifestream.org

• Do You Want to be a John
• Far Better Explored than Explained

Water In the Desert

We are so grateful for those of you who joined us in helping out our Kenyan friends this spring. First, a school for orphans and impoverished children that we support had their water cistern compromised during a flood where their sewage spilled into their water supply. This cistern not only served the school but the nearby community that has no source of water. The government was ready to close down the school. Thanks to many of you, we were able to help them drill a new well. And even that turned out better than we hoped. During drilling, they tapped into an unknown water source with water so plentiful and pure that government inspectors recommended they bottle and sell it. So, we also helped them build a bottling plant, and soon the future needs of the school will be met by their own enterprise.

Also, our friends in Pokot suddenly were confronted with a new tribe of people that heard about their food and water and came a long way to seek help. Enough of you gave to help them bridge the four months they needed to until a future harvest. They were effusively grateful for the generosity, so many of you showed to help them at such a critical time. I’m continually amazed by the impact this website and podcast have had on a desperate corner of the world.

If you haven’t read So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, you may not get the reference, nor the wonder of the comment. For those that haven’t, that story is about a frustrated staff pastor meeting someone he thinks might be John, Jesus’ disciple, still living in the 21st century.  Do you remember when Jesus told Peter that if John were to live until he came again and that it should not matter to Peter’s journey? Now, Jesus didn’t say he would live that long, but we thought that an excellent idea for a story. What if a first-century apostle were still living today? What would he think of what we’ve done to Jesus’ kingdom in the 2000 years since?  That story has been read well over half a million times in the 14 years it’s been out. This is a story we never thought would go beyond a website.  

Anyway, I was in Europe over the last couple of weeks, starting in Norway, then taking on a YWAM class on the east coast of Italy, before ending my trip with two stops in Switzerland. Except for my time in Switzerland, all the people I met on this trip were new to me. What a trip it was, too! I am blown away by the people I get to know in my travels. Wherever I go I meet some of the most compelling people who are sorting out what it means to live loved and responsive to Jesus rather than just working Christianity as a system of thought. I love that. I love the conversations I get into and the things we discover together. I never know where those conversations will lead and almost always see something new about this God I love in the process.

I also meet some of the most courageous people on the planet when I travel, those that have more passion for a relationship with God than they have experience at it. Despite incredible struggles and doubts, they continue to open their heart to recognize the connection God wants to have with them. Yes, they are frustrated that it seems to be beyond their reach, and yet they continue to ask, seek, and knock on the door. I know it isn’t easy. I know it can lead to years of frustration when the desire is not immediately fulfilled the way we hope.

For humanity to connect with the transcendent God is no small task. Everything broken about this world seeks to diminish his voice, obscure his reality, and make us feel all alone in the universe. Look at all Father has done, including the cross, to make that connection. So, it doesn’t surprise me when it isn’t easy or doesn’t happen quickly especially for those who have known significant trauma in their lives or been captive in legalistic systems as a substitute for knowing him. It isn’t easy for us to learn to give up trying to make happen by our own efforts what only he can do by his Spirit. And he will do it, even if it takes most of our lives. 

One man told me on this trip that he wondered if this kind of relationship is only available to specific people like the men and women of God in the Old Testament. “If that’s true,” I told him, “then traveling the world and telling others they can have it, too, would be the cruelest thing I could do.” He agreed. I don’t travel, though, because of my need for income, or to satiate my ego. I wouldn’t do what I do if it weren’t to help others experience the same reality in him that I do. If it isn’t real for all, even the “least” of them, by however we choose to measure it, then it isn’t real for me either. That’s what the new covenant was for, to help every person find that connection with the God who loves them more than anyone on this planet ever has or ever will.  

And that brings me to why I wrote this blog. I had a brief conversation in Switzerland that was repeated in an email when I got home:  “You may remember when I said that ten years ago I always wanted to have someone like John by my side to answer all my questions. Today, I want to be someone like John, encouraging and helping others to discover and live in the heavenly Father’s love.” I love that. In essence, that’s the simplicity of the Gospel. Find your reality in him, and then find a way to help others discover that reality as well. 

I remember when we were writing that book, that I yearned to be someone like John, too. We wrote way above our heads when we sculpted out that character and put the best things in his mouth that we’ve ever heard or thought. Even Sara would recognize how beyond me John was when I was writing for him. When she would get home, she would make the observation that I’d been working on that book again. When I asked how she knew, she would respond, “Because you’re always a better person when you’ve spent the afternoon with John.” It was our little joke, but she was right. Writing for John was aspirational. 

Who doesn’t want to be a voice that opens a door in the heart of those who are endeavoring to discover what is true about God? Who wouldn’t want to be the cheerleader rooting on those who are about to give up in the misery of a difficult life? Who wouldn’t want to be a friend who can help others recognize the fingerprints of God in their heart?  

Yes, in the early days we want a John who can help us recognize how Father makes himself known to us. As we grow, however, we can become that John for others. We need so many people who can help others learn to recognize God at work in them. We do that by asking God to give us away to those who want to know him, by looking for those who are struggling in their faith and befriending them, by walking with God, not just for the wisdom we need, but for the wisdom others might need as well. 

It’s a noble aspiration—to find God with increasing fullness and to help others find him too.  

A few years ago I was teaching 800 Kenyan pastors in a hornet-infested barn about the love of God. After sharing a bit of my story and laying the groundwork for living loved, I asked them what questions they might have about God’s love that we could tackle in the next view days.

Immediately the room went visibly tense. The atmosphere grew fearful and deathly quiet. It felt as if they had been threatened and all 800 glared at me with a panicked look on their face. I knew no one was going to ask a question. So, I pushed pause. I told them we were going to take a break and they could get to know the people around them. I then went to the person who had invited me and asked him what had just happened in there.

“They don’t believe you,” he said. Then he told me that the last American speaker that came through paused at one point to see if anyone had any questions. Someone dared to ask one and immediately the speaker chewed him out to silence any other potential questioners. “How dare you ask a question! I’ve explained everything to you need to know and if you don’t get it by now it’s because rebellion is in your heart.”

Ahh.  Now I understood.  As we gathered back together, I assured them that I really wanted them to ask questions, that we needed to learn together, in their time, not listen to me lecture. I promised not to get angry or defensive, but to create a safe place for us to explore God’s love together. Tentatively at first, they began to respond and their hungry questions took us to some amazing places I would not have thought to take them on my own.

Asking questions is a critical component of spiritual growth. If we can’t ask what we need to ask or struggle openly with the thoughts and questions that plague our minds, how will we ever come to know the reality of the life and love that God holds for us? In Scripture, God often asks questions to stir our thinking. In the Gospels, Jesus responded openly and warmly to the truth-seeking questions that were asked of him. Of course, some asked questions out of malice or seeking to trap him in some way, but Jesus was still patient with them. He didn’t always give them the answer they wanted, but neither did he demean them.

There is nothing more important to your own personal discipleship than having the freedom to ask the questions you need to ask. Too many of us wait for someone to tell us what we should know, instead of looking honestly at our circumstances and asking the questions that will help us discover God’s reality inside us. I met a man in New Zealand whose entire discipleship came about just by asking questions. The man who led him to Christ didn’t give him a set of lessons to teach him to follow God. He just told his newfound friend to ask whatever question he wanted and he would try to answer it as best he could, or that they would find the answer together. Brilliant! That man grew up in a deep and sincere faith. That’s a great way to teach someone, inside their own questions and their own experiences. That’s how his Spirit works in us.

I’m thinking about this because I had lunch with a couple in their sixties who had attended a two-year Bible school in Florida a few years back. On the opening day of class, they were told questions wouldn’t be allowed through their course of study. They would be told what they needed to know and they did not allow students to ask questions of their instructors. I was dumbfounded. How could any school, especially one based on the life of Jesus, not allow people to explore openly? As horrible as that might be for people in their 50s and 60s, it’s especially horrible for students in their teens and twenties who think they are going to teach that stuff to others.

Most of the meetings I’m in these days give a maximum amount of opportunity for people to ask questions, explore the frustrations of their own journey, and really learn what it means to know him and follow him. The kingdom of God can withstand any the honesty of our struggles and the questions we need to ask. It’s hard enough to get Christians to ask questions to begin with. Most of us have been taught there’s a right answer to everything and if you don’t know it already, it’s because you’re not paying attention. Some hesitate to ask something difficult, concerned that I’ll get angry with them. I’ve even offered some groups $100 if someone makes me angry or I get defensive. I want them to know that any meeting I’m in is a safe place to discover and grow. Most of the best questions I’ve been asked came from people who were reticent to ask it because they thought no one else would care about the answer. Almost always everyone does. Don’t we appreciate the person who’s willing to ask the question everyone else wants to ask, but are too afraid to do so?

If you can’t ask questions and struggle with what someone is trying to teach you about God, then you’re not in an environment where the kingdom unfolds. If someone gets angry when you question them, or dare to disagree with them, they are not leaders who can help you discover God’s reality. And if you’re afraid to ask God any question that’s in your heart, you have yet to discover just how loving and gracious he is and how much he wants to help you understand how to live in him.

Yes, there is a difference between asking God questions and questioning God’s character or wisdom. There’s a way to ask questions with humility that will open your heart to see in a fresh way what he wants to show you, and there’s a way to challenge him defiantly that will blind you to what he wants to show you. I’ve done both. He can handle our defiance with a love that understands our pain, but until it gives way to humble surrender, we will not hear his gentle response. How can you surrender when you are angry or disappointed with him?  Only one thing sets my heart at rest, to embrace his affection for me and to mistrust my conclusions about him outside that love. That can take some time, but it will open some amazing doors in your own spiritual journey.