Wayne Jacobsen's Blog, page 56

Living In The Father’s Delight – Part 2

The post Living In The Father’s Delight – Part 2 appeared first on Lifestream | Wayne Jacobsen.

Living In The Father’s Delight – Part 1

The post Living In The Father’s Delight – Part 1 appeared first on Lifestream | Wayne Jacobsen.

The Security of Father’s Love – Part 4

The post The Security of Father’s Love – Part 4 appeared first on Lifestream | Wayne Jacobsen.

The Security of Father’s Love – Part 3

The post The Security of Father’s Love – Part 3 appeared first on Lifestream | Wayne Jacobsen.

The Security of Father’s Love – Part 2

The post The Security of Father’s Love – Part 2 appeared first on Lifestream | Wayne Jacobsen.

The Security of Father’s Love – Part 1

The post The Security of Father’s Love – Part 1 appeared first on Lifestream | Wayne Jacobsen.

Why Every Day Is An Adventure

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.

The post Why Every Day Is An Adventure appeared first on Lifestream | Wayne Jacobsen.

Pouring Out God’s Love in a Broken Place

Late yesterday, I arrived in Durban, South Africa after a 35-hour journey. My first stop this morning was in the township of Ntzuma, where we support an outreach to help AIDS infected people who need medical care and have no place to go. In Ntzuma nearly 50% of the population is HIV positive and the poverty is overwhelming.

It always brings a smile to my heart to see people smack-dab in the middle of their calling, especially when it invites them into the most desperate needs of human culture. I love that God calls people to invest in people in places like this when they could be living easier lives back home. And yet, the way they live and love here it is obvious that this is not a painful obedience to do something God demanded of them. Instead they are here with great joy and overwhelming love for the people they get to serve.

One of the things that blesses me about how God works in our lives is that he puts a passion in our hearts for that which he invites us to be a part of. I’ve watched Penny and countless others over the years come here and pour out their lives to help make a difference with people who have so little and to share with them how deeply loved they are by God. Their joy in the task God has given them, overflows in my own delight at the incredible ways in which our Father works.

I told Penny Dugan’s story in He Loves Me, the lady that returned to live with and care for her ex-husband as he was dying with AIDS. It began a worldwide ministry of loving people infected with AIDs. Based in Kansas with a care center and homeless ministry there, the ministry took on this project here to spread more of Father’s love in the world.

In the next couple of weeks they will be taking over 100 kids from the township to a camp they sponsor to share the love of Jesus with them. This ministry operates on a shoestring and is one of two ministries we support through Lifestream to help with their challenges. Many of you know about our outreach in Kenya and we appreciate your help there.  The Ukukhanya Care Center is the other one, and having visited there this morning I’m aware of their great financial need to keep things running here.

If you are looking to make a difference with some of your resources somewhere in the world, would you give them your prayerful consideration?  You can find out more on their website, or you can donate through Lifestream here. As always, every dime goes to the ministry itself. Lifestream take nothing out of it for our own administrative needs.

Here are some pictures from our visit this morning:

Above:  The township of Ntzuma

Residence wing at the Ukukhanya Care Center

Penny (left) and the Hillary (right), director of Ukukhanya Care Center with

two children from Ntzuma who are headed for camp next week.

 

Guess who!

 

 

The post Pouring Out God’s Love in a Broken Place appeared first on Lifestream | Wayne Jacobsen.

The Impact of Living Loved

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.

The post The Impact of Living Loved appeared first on Lifestream | Wayne Jacobsen.

Do We Really Believe He Can Do It?

The Incarnation demonstrated that our fear of God was a perception on our part, rather than what God wanted or deserved. Jesus was among humanity and no one ran away in terror. What God had lost in Eden, he was finding again—a home among his Creation.

The temples, cathedrals, and even our “church” buildings represent the opposite of that reality. They were designed to create a sacred space that would elevate God beyond human engagement, to leave us feeling insignificant in his eyes instead of empowering us to draw near to him in confidence. The Incarnation proved that God wanted to inhabit all of life with us and make our homes, workplaces, and recreation sacred because he would be with us in them.

That was Stephen’s point when he declared to the mob ready to kill him, “The Most High does not live in houses made by men.” (Acts 7:48) Perhaps nothing is more scandalous about the Incarnation than that the holy God could live joyfully among broken humanity, and nothing more amazing about the New Covenant than that God wanted to take up residence in the human heart. Jesus never wanted an opulent building to be the enduring image of his church. He wanted a living temple made up of men and women from all over the world who have abandoned their agendas to embrace his.

“In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:19-22)  This is no physical building that Paul describes; it’s just the metaphor. For the first three hundred years of the church’s existence, no one thought of the church as a building and no one thought to build one. His temple is alive, beginning in an individual’s heart and then knit into a worldwide network of interconnected lives whose very relationships put on display the glory of the Lord. There’s no way human effort can build that, and all our attempts have fallen woefully short.

This is a long-running theme in Scripture. God wants to invite us into his reality and we keep trying to create our own for him. It started in a garden with Adam and Eve’s desire for knowledge apart from their relationship with him. It continued when Israel wanted a king rather than to trust God to lead them. Whenever they were under threat they counted horses and chariots to measure their chances in battle, unable to believe that God with them was greater than all the resources they could muster. Now the focus is on the church, and whether or not we truly believe it is something only Jesus can build.

 

The above is taken from Chapter 12 of Finding Church:  “Not Made With Hands.”  This past weekend I spent time in Maryland with a larger group of people who had read and studied Finding Church and wanted to explore its themes with me. Over our two day together we meandered through some lovely discussions about God and his life among us. It was the final leg on an east-coast swing that began in Boston and ended in Baltimore. Over those 11 days I saw people from all over the spectrum of people learning to follow Jesus as a real person in the universe. Some were just starting, still questioning the religious obligation they had been raised to serve, others were much further down the road finding great freedom and joy in their life with him.

I find other people’s journey into this reality so inspirational. So many are navigating some painful and challenging circumstances with Jesus as a practical presence dwelling in them giving them hope and direction day by day. Some are attending more traditional congregations and others have long ago left them to find fellowship and mission in the world beyond them.  Every time I travel I am deeply touched by the people God allows me to know in the world and the joy of helping people see a bit more clearly where Jesus might be leading them, rather than where religious rules and approval might drive them.

For all of us the joy of this journey is found in a growing trust in Jesus’ ability to work in us and to build his church in the world. Those who battle misery the most think they have to figure it all out and do by human effort what only he can do. Of course that will only lead to frustration and futility. The more we know we’re loved, the freer we will be to trust. These are not activities we have to find our way into. These are the realities he wants to win us into. As long as we’re stuck on trying to get God to do what we think best, trust will not grow in us. But where we begin to see that God is good and will do what is right, we can begin to recognize his whispers and fingerprints that draw us into so magnificent a love.  And in that love, we know that God is for us and and is working in us even though we be walking through dark and uncertain circumstances.

It is my most passionate prayer for others. That they will stop looking at this life of Jesus as a religion they have to figure out, and learn to recognize him in the way he is working in and around them.  Find that he you will be steadily won into his love, and into the trust that his ways are best even when we don’t understand them.

With him, there is nothing we can’t face, no challenge we can’t endure, and no circumstance that can destroy us.

Finding Church is available from Lifestream in printed form or by audio (with me reading) from iTunes and Audibles.  It is also available in French, German, Dutch, and in Spanish as Encontrando a la Iglesia in free PDF Download.

The post Do We Really Believe He Can Do It? appeared first on Lifestream | Wayne Jacobsen.