Encouragement

Among those things I know now, that I wish I’d known when I was twenty-two and fresh out of college with my Bible degree, is that you cannot convince someone that something is true if they are not ready to hear of it.

Somehow I got the idea that “ministry” was about knowing the truth and convincing others to believe it, too.There were two problems with that. Much of the “truth” I had then, didn’t turn out to be so true at all. And, all of the time spent trying to argue people into my ideas, even those that turned out to be true, were as fruitless as trying to get my grapevines to produce grapes in February.

Truth has its time, and as I look back over my life at the start of a new year, I have a deep appreciation for the trajectory of revelation and transformation in the human heart. These are not things we control, but I love watching how the Holy Spirit begins to unravel our false ideas from the inside and prepare us for those moments when the Truth clarifies in our heart and we find ourselves able to take a step forward in embracing his love or finding a way to share it with others. I’ve had a lot of joy over the past few years watching this process in my own life as well as watching it in others as well.

I was reminded of this by a recent email I received:

I have just finished listening to Finding Church for the 4^th time yesterday in the past 2 months (I have a long drive to work!)

• 30 years ago the old me would have thought it weird.
• 20 years ago I would have tried to understand what you were saying.
• 10 years ago I would have wished it was true.
• 8 years ago I would have not thought it clear enough as I looked for the 10 steps.
• But now I see.  It is just by loving the one in front of you and seeing how God touches them through the interaction. It is learning that you are loved and sharing that love with others.

I laughed when I read it. Thirty years ago I probably would have declared those ideas heresy. Twenty years ago I would have been intrigued with the hope, but thought them too idealistic to work. Ten years ago, I was already seeing that reality live out in my life and the lives of others around me and my view of his church was changing. Today, I can’t think of the church any other way and with that has come a deep appreciation for the church Jesus is building in the world in spite of all that we humans have done to craft her in our own image. And when I think about ten years from now, my heart leaps with the anticipation of what I might yet learn about him and his work in the world.

Truth has its time. We don’t so much learn it in a classroom as it unfolds in us out of our growing relationship to God. Growth and transformation are a process that takes time. It would be nice to recognize truth out of the clear blue and just embrace it, but it rarely works that way. Mostly truth works its way into our heart over time as God wins us more deeply into his affection for us. Maybe that’s what Jesus had in mind when he told the disciples he would send them Another Comforter and he would guide them into all truth. He even admitted to them that he had so many more things to teach them but that they weren’t ready for them yet. I love how Jesus had a sense of the unfolding reality of truth in our hearts. He didn’t confront them with truth and demand they make a choice, but he opened the door to truth to see who was ready to walk through.

If I’d known that forty years ago, my heart would have been softer in the hands of the Master. I would have been far more gentler with people who didn’t see what I hoped they would see. I would have spent far less time trying to argue people into my view of truth. And, I would have trusted the Spirit to guide me better when others were trying to convince me of things they thought were true that didn’t yet make sense to me.

I would have taken all that energy I used to try and convince others and to let him teach me to walk in the truth I had already been given. And, I would have spent far more time encouraging others who were already hungry for the truth, rather than trying to convince others of it who weren’t yet ready and couldn’t yet see it.

In short, seeing the Spirit as the convincer of people, and I their friend has allowed me to be more relaxed in God’s process, not only in my heart, but with others around me as well. It is far more fruitful to help people into the truth they are seeking, rather than to badger them into what they are resisting. Believe me!

If you gave this question serous consideration, we probably need to talk.

The saddest words I hear from people are those that wonder if they are worthy of God’s love. That question is predicated on the biggest lie to find it’s way into God’s creation—that love can be earned.

It can’t.

Nothing disproves that lie better than the coming of Christ into our world that we celebrate at this Christmas season. He didn’t come to redeem people the Father was disgusted with, but those he loved. Even on the night Christ was born, the shepherds heard the angels proclaim, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

Pleased?  Really? With all the brokenness in the world? Sin was rampant, Humanity was ever at war with itself and his own people were under Roman captivity and lost in their legalism. How could God be pleased with humankind?

Luke certainly didn’t mean God was pleased with the brokenness in his creation, but that he was pleased with humanity in spite of it. God’s love is not so fickle as to come and go based on how good we are. Love is love, even at our most broken, no less than you would have for your children. Our struggle in the darkness only endears us to him as his compassion seeks to rescue and redeem us.

We are all worthy of love because of the place we hold in Father’s heart. No failure, or broken place changes that. The prodigal son was loved as much when he was wasting his father’s money as he was when he returned home. It’s just that he wasn’t living in that love. He didn’t believe it and though he thought he had good evidence for his conclusion, they were based on the lie. Even when he returns home he considers himself  “not worthy” to be called a son.

But he was worthy simply because of the value he held in his father’s heart. The joy of the Gospel is not in getting God to love us, but to relax into the reality of the love he already has for us. Those who grew up abused or neglected have a hard time embracing that. The rejection of their parents seemed proof that they were so flawed as to be unworthy of love. But that is just part of the lie.

Those who grow up in religious settings, who think their performance can endear them to God, fall victim to the same lie. You can’t earn what you already have. You are loved, no less today than when the Father conceived you in his heart before you were born.

That’s the Gospel. Believe it or not, the Creator of the universe is your loving Father. You have the choice to run to that love and embrace it, or hide outside of it as long as you want. Love offers a door; it doesn’t force it’s way.

He loves you as much as any other person on the planet. For those who don’t know that in the deepest part of your soul, Sara and I are praying that Father will reveal that to you and you will find the freedom to joyfully embrace how deeply he delights in you. That’s where this journey of faith truly begins.

And what a Christmas miracle that is!

Notes For the New Year:

Wayne’s Latest Book Is Almost Here

Beyond Sundays, Wayne’s newest book, will be available early in 2018. It will cost $12.00 and we’ll begin taking pre-orders in early January.  It will also be available by e-book as soon as we can get that done.

This is an adaptation of blogs postings Wayne has written over the last year about the current dilemma of people leaving the traditional congregation and the opportunity it affords for the whole church to celebrate all the ways that Father is at work among his people and how he is preparing the bride for the return of his Son.

Travel Dates for Early in 2018

• Jacksonville, FL- January 18
• Raleigh, NC – January 19-22
• Greensboro, NC – January 23-24
• Charlotte, NC – January 25-29
• Phoenix, AZ- February
• Abilene, Tx – March 22-25

If you’re in these areas and still want to plan something, we do have some available time. Or if you just want to join us, please see our Travel Page, where details will be posted when we have them. If you’d like to be notified when I’m coming to your area you can sign up on our email list and include your address.

Kenya Update

Thanks to the generosity of so many of you, we have given just under $200,000 this year to the people in Kenya with orphan children and to help the people in Pokot establish a sustainable future. We put in two agricultural projects so they can grow their own food, and have helped with hospital staff, medicine, food, education and micro-finance loans to help create enterprise. Get more information here.

Staying Up With Lifestream

If you did not receive this by email yesterday or today, then you re not signed up for our blog or our mailing list. If you’d like to be, you can do so here. Include your address details if you want to receive Travel Updates when I’m planning a trip to your area. If you’re not signed up to get my blogs or the podcasts straight to your inbox, you can go to those home pages and submit your email address in the appropriate are.

For the last eighteen months a group of us have been working through the themes of Finding Church chapter by chapter. We are now reaching the end of that study.  The discussion, however, will remain up as other people can come along and start with chapter 1 and work through it now at their own speed. Our hope was to let people contemplate the content of each chapter and how that might impact their own lives as they seek to follow Jesus.

It has been a wonderful study with lots of contributions by others.  You can find out more here if you are interested.

One of the discussion questions I posed today goes to the heart of all of our journeys.  You might want to contemplate it in your own:

Finalizing my latest book for publication, I ran across these two paragraphs. They express better than any other the transformation I see in people all over the world who move beyond religion and embrace a different way of living:

Following ritual and rules that others demand of you is still following law, even if we call them “New Testament principles.” God doesn’t transform us through obligation or meeting the expectations of others. The reason why many of us grew frustrated in religious settings is because they made promises they couldn’t fulfill. The harder we tried the emptier we felt. God has been inviting you to live in a new creation where his love transforms us in the deepest part of our soul.

Over this season you’ll learn to see through the manipulation of obligation, accountability, guilt, and fear and into a different rhythm that will allow you to live more at rest, aware of others, and free from the corrupting influences of this age. Instead of doing what others think you should do, you’ll be freer to discern his work in you and find yourself embracing his realities of grace, forgiveness, freedom, and generosity.

It all begins as you ask him to show you how deeply loved by God you are, then watching for how he shows you that reality. This is the trailhead that will lead you to greater freedom and fullness.

It’s a worthy journey, to be sure.

Before there was Jesus Calling, I wrote this article about the kinds of things the Shepherd whispers to help people who had lost a sense of his voice, to find their way back to him.  Written in 2004 as part of a quarterly newsletter we used to send out, I was reminded of it in a conversation last week, so went back and sought it out.

As I read it again, I thought it might be worth sharing with those of you who haven’t seen it.  I hope it encourages you and helps tune your heart to hear the words he is always speaking to your heart.

Here’s how it starts:

Do you remember the first day you knew that I loved you? Do you remember how clean you felt and how light your heart was? The air seemed clearer, the colors of my creation brighter. You felt as if you had stumbled out of a dark, dirty cave and plunged headlong into a clean, cool stream. You drank in the reality of my presence and splashed with delight in my goodness.

In that moment nothing else mattered. You knew at the very core of your being that I was real, that I had great affection for you. Even in the face of dire circumstances, you were convinced that there was nothing we couldn’t walk through together. My love not only overwhelmed you, it also overflowed you with grace for others, even those who had wronged you. You woke up every morning in eager anticipation of what I’d show you that day. You delighted yourself in me as I delighted myself in you and each day became an adventure together.

Wouldn’t you like to come back to that space?  That’s not just where I wanted you to start. It was where I wanted you to live every day.

Read the rest here.

I just found out today that Jesus is coming back this Saturday night at 11:30, though I’m not sure what time zone that’s calibrated for. It has something to do with the star alignment and Revelation 12:1-2. I

DO NOT BELIEVE IT!

This stuff comes up every few years with someone mixing a dangerous amount of Scripture (far too little) with a bit of cosmic wizardry and sends people into a tizzy. Some have even quit jobs in times past to “prepare” for the return of Christ, and been disappointed and sometimes economically devastated when such dates prove untrue. I’ve watched this go on for the last 50 years and hate what it does to people. All it does is create a lot of attention from someone, often sells a lot of books, and in its failed aftermath creates a wake of people disillusioned with God and weary of waiting for his promises.

As much as I would love for Jesus to come this Saturday, and I would be the first to cheer if he does, this whole approach certainly does not have the fragrance of Father about it. The way they twisted Scripture and the constellations to get the date is absurd on the face of it. I actually laughed when I read the reasoning behind this weekend. When Jesus said his coming would be “like a thief in the night”, he was telling us to ignore any so called Bible or cosmic expert that would set a date. It only provokes fear and really, really poor planning. If he comes, great! He will some day.He said those who would be most prepared for his coming would already be faithfully doing the things God has put in their heart to do. They don’t need a date. Even Jesus didn’t have a date, but entrusted all that to his Father.

So, please don’t quit your job, or sell your possessions. You’re going to need some of that on Monday morning. And don’t freak out your friends or family with your fears and anxieties.

If you’re already living like he could come any time, why would you need a date? Especially dates that prove over and over again to be completely misguided. Remember, The 88 Reasons Jesus Is Coming in 1988? Oops! Missed that!  But the author of that book immediately turned around and wrote 89 Reasons Jesus Is Coming in 1989.  The math was off.  Both books sold well, but the body of Christ was not served well. Remember when one author staked “his entire reputation” on Y2K ushering in a worldwide depression that would precede the coming of Christ?  Wrong again!

So don’t take your direction from soothsayers who twist history, Bible, and astronomy to set dates and seek for notoriety. If the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, then you have all you need to follow him today. And if you’re following him, the knowledge that he would come on Saturday night would not change one thing about how you’re living today.

And that is as he desired it to be.

I’ve just begun a two-week trip to South Africa, where I will be meeting with people in Durban, Cape Town, Mulzenburg, and finish up in the Johannesburg area. I have no idea what God has in store for me or the people I’ll be with over that time. I don’t go anywhere anymore with notes and topics I want to speak on. I used to. I’d “discern” what “God wanted” me to “impart” to others and then bring lots of notes to lecture from.

Somehow all of that faded away a a couple of decades ago. I discovered that my plans were mostly, well, my plans. I thought they were God’s because it was stuff on my heart after I had prayed for wisdom, but I came to discover that they were mostly formulated so I wouldn’t have to worry about what I’d say. But more and more I noticed that God was nudging the conversation elsewhere and sticking to my notes became more difficult and less effective.

I discovered that my “preparation” was about my need to have all my ducks in a row and it kept me from helping people by joining them in their world, sharing where needs and interest lie, rather than where I was comfortable or thought I’d be most entertaining. It was a gradual process of learning to encounter people in “their time” rather than my own. I also learned that God was more concerned with how I was living alongside him and loving who is in front of me today than he was giving me a topic to speak on a week from now.  He is the God of the present after all. And while I was praying for future events, I was missing opportunities right in front of me.

So I’m learning to walk with God each day in whatever circumstances I’m in.  I don’t show up with my plans anymore, but simply with a prepared heart ready to see what people are hungry for and how I might help. Oh, I might have an inkling of things God will sprinkle into the conversation, but I use them only if they unfold in the moment. It has been so much more helpful to people who are really on a journey of living in the Father’s love to let them shape the conversation and offer myself as a resource for their journey, rather than try to dazzle them with mine.

And it has helped live more full in the present, whether I’m home, on a plane, or in a far off land.  That’s why I have come to love this quote by Aldous Huxley because it captures the possibilities that every day affords us:

Every moment of our human life is a moment of crisis; for at every moment we are called upon to make an all-important decision – to choose between the way that leads to death and spiritual darkness, and the way that leads towards light and life; between interests exclusively temporal, and the eternal order; between our personal will, and the will of God.

A Quest for Values

I realize this can be read from the darkness of performance, where a demanding God is looking over our shoulder every moment judging everything you do or say. That is how I used to see him and I didn’t enjoy quotes like this because they just made me paranoid. No matter how many good decisions I made, I know I wouldn’t get them all right and I was far more aware every day of where I fell short, than where I had leaned into love and life.

That’s the problem with performance-living. Every day demanded perfection, which of course wasn’t possible so every day ended in frustration and confession and pledges to try harder.  But you now what? No child would learn to play piano, baseball, or ride a bike if they had to be perfect at it on the first day. God intended life to be an adventure, not were we get it all right today, but where we simply make progress in learning to walk alongside him and see the world through his eyes. Then we’ll know how to live and that will spill over in helping others.

I love how he is setting me free on the inside to be more aware of what’s unfolding around me and have a sense about how I might be loving, kind, or helpful to others. It’s not a demand of his; it’s an adventure of mine to learn a bit more each day what an amazing world he created and how I can be in it to bring hope and healing rather than more destruction.

Nope, I’m not perfect, but I am making progress and I honestly think that’s all he desires for me.

This week I am a guest on The Born to Be podcast with Daron Earlwine out of Indianapolis, IN.

I had a wonderful time talking to Daron and appreciated the frank discussion we had about what it means to live loved, to discover the purpose God has for us on this broken planet, and our very disfigured views of what it means to be successful. Hint: What is honored among men and woman is highly desirable in the eyes of God.  We had a wonderful conversation considering these things. I think many of you will enjoy it as well. Daron taped this for his weekly radio show in Indianapolis and the longer version for his podcast.

This is how they described the podcast:

On today’s podcast, Daron and Wayne discuss the idea of living from a place of being truly loved and the impact this has on our purpose, as well as many other areas of our lives.  When we experience a loss or we either lose a dream or a dream has been stolen from us, how do we react? What do we do? Wayne has experienced each of these things in his life, and has some wonderful advice on how to respond and how healing comes from God’s Love.

You can listen to the podcast here.

Did I get one yesterday!

The last few months have been difficult for a number of reasons, not the least of all is some health issues I’ve had to deal with. The health issues are getting behind me now, I hope, but some of the other stresses surrounding my life seem to be festering again.

I get a lot of encouraging mail, but yesterday someone took the time to write me a lengthy email just to tell me how the see Jesus reflecting through my life. It couldn’t have come at a more amazing time. I can’t work out again except to walk, so I’d just been on a two mile walk mulling over some things with God.  And while some interesting thoughts came to mind during the time, I always come back processing which of those were God’s thoughts and which were mine. Often I don’t answer that for days or weeks.

But yesterday I returned to an email in my inbox that couldn’t have been timed more perfectly.  And there were some phrasings in there that came straight out of my time with him. I rarely get such immediate or concrete confirmations, but because this lady took some time over the weekend to put some of her thoughts down and send them to me, my day seemed a bit more miraculous yesterday.  I was deeply touched. I wish I could share with you the email I got yesterday, but it would be horribly self-serving to do so.

It came from someone I’m just getting to know better, though they’ve been reading some of my stuff for awhile. I stayed with her and her husband once, very briefly and years ago, but more recently I had some longer time with her and her husband on a trip. Her email was not just about me or my writing, but also about what God had been shaping in her heart and mind by reading and listening to some of the things I’ve been involved in. And it had the time arc of more than a decade so some of the longer-term fruit could be recognized and celebrated.  Some of my things had helped her recognize and affirm what God had already put on her heart and gave her the courage to follow it, even when others around her were less encouraging.  She talked about a newfound hunger for Scripture, how much she’s enjoying the work of God refining her, and the joy of meeting other people I know in the world. (I do know some pretty amazing people.) She closed with a Scripture verse for me that touched my heart.

After sitting with it for a few hours, I wrote her back:

“What an incredibly sweet letter to brighten my day!  Thank you for taking the time to put your thoughts together and sending me such an encouraging email.  in the midst of my recovery here.  I was deeply touched, not only by your appreciation for my life, but even more for the work that it has encouraged in your own. I love that God continues to prune, refine, and recalibrate us so that we can live every more freely and daringly in his reality, instead of being lost in our own perceptions and preferences.  I get to meet some of the most amazing people on the planet and see firsthand what God is doing in them to shape his glory in them. Watching those people love, relate, laugh and enjoy God and each other together is always a joy for me personally.  I am deeply touched this morning. More than you know some of the specific things you said have illuminated what God has been speaking to my heart in some key areas. I’m so grateful to receive this from you this morning.  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!”

Why am I sharing this with you today, especially without all the details? Because I was reminded how powerful encouragement is, and following through on something God has put on your heart.   It isn’t always easy and it sometimes feels a bit weird, but you have no idea how much you touch someone when you just write them a note, however briefly, to tell them what they mean to you, how Jesus is reflected in the way they live their lives, and how your life has been touched by them.

None of us hear that enough. Why? Because most people are too busy fighting for their own survival that they don’t pause to think how much someone around them might be blessed by an encouraging word. The impact it had on me yesterday was profound. It shaped my entire day and probably this week.

And it is something that’s so easy to do for others.

A few days ago someone sent me a blog posting about a couple who’d lost their twenty-year-old daughter in a tragic car accident last week. Their daughter wasn’t the driver but in the article they referred to THE SHACK and how much it had helped them find God in their own tragedy. They encouraged everyone to go to the movie. A few minutes later I had the thought to call them just to encourage them in the pain of their loss. Yes, it felt weird. They are not going to know who I am and I’m not even sure what to say. Besides, I didn’t have their phone number. As I tried to talk myself out of it, I realized I might be resisting the very Spirit I seek to follow. A quick Internet search got me their number and a few moments later I was talking to both parents sharing a bit of what God was doing in them through their own grief and to let them know I’d be praying for them

Encouragement is the least costly thing you can give someone, but may also be the most priceless. Looking for a way to sneak into someone’s life and leave them with words that will draw their heart in gratefulness to God may be the best way you can impact someone else today.

When three different people send you a copy of the same book in the same week, you take note.  About a month ago Sara and I were able to start reading Love Does by Bob Goff.  We have found it a delightful read as Bob shares his adventures in learning to live inside of love, both for himself and for others around him.

This one paragraph really caught my eye, because I think it is the essence of transformative love. You cannot know God’s kind of love without it changing you from the inside and finding yourself a freer, kinder person in the world, not because you have to but because you’re free to be the person Jesus made you to be:

“The cool thing about taking Jesus up on His offer is that whatever controls you doesn’t anymore. People who used to be obsessed about becoming famous no longer care whether anybody knows their name. People who used to want power are willing to serve. People who used to chase money freely give it away. People who used to beg others for acceptance are now strong enough to give love.”

That’s what love does. It reshapes us from the inside. You don’t learn to love by trying to change the way you feel about these things. Instead learning to live inside the love of God changes your value systems, often while you’re least aware it is going on. I am so enjoying the things that love is reshaping in me and I’m excited to see what it will yet change as I find myself valuing more what God values.

Someone also sent the this quote from the NPR show On Being by Omid Safi about busyness:

“This disease of being ‘busy’ (and let’s call it what it is, the dis-ease of being busy, when we are never at ease) is spiritually destructive to our health and wellbeing. It saps our ability to be fully present with those we love the most in our families, and keeps us from forming the kind of community that we all so desperately crave.”

It speaks into that same space. We’re not busy because the world demands it of us, we’re busy to run from ourselves and those around us as a retreat from the insecurities in our own heart. As those insecurities are cleansed by his love, you’ll find yourself far less busy. There’s no reason to be anymore and having time for the people in  your life will allow you to experience the richness of real community, not just another meeting to rush off to or another responsibility to check off your list.

(Health update:  For those concerned about my recovery from open-heart surgery, all continues as well as can be expected, which is a bit too slow for me.  🙂  I’m now three weeks from surgery in some pain and discomfort at times, but mostly just allowing the trauma to heal and my strength to recover. I’m walking about 4 miles per day now and will begin cardio therapy in a week or so. This has been quite a process, but filled with some lovely things God has done in the midst of it all.  I’ll share those some day too. My family has been an incredible source of care and courage to get through this. For now, it is back to sleep, which seems to sneak up on me without notice and without my permission!)