Relational Freedom — http://thegodjourney.com/2014/02/28/relational-freedom/

For those looking to live outside the box of religious performance and inside the love of an awesome Father, this is the God Journey. Yep, we're going to do the Israel thing again because I've got some wonderful input for a lot of people. If that's fun for you, listen in, enjoy it because there's lots to share. If that's kind of like listening to people who went to a party you didn't get to talk about how fun the party was and you're kind of left out of that, you know, feel free to fast forward. I'll give you a time count in the blog as to where this conversation will get back to some more discussions about community. So you can enjoy that if you want to, but I understand. I also get e-mail from people who actually love it, who actually love hearing from folks who got to do something they would love to do someday and kind of vicariously experience the taste of it through their eyes. And I think some of that's worth listening to, which is where I've got it here. Hi, Wayne Jacobson. This is the God Journey. And we're focusing on this trip to Israel again, but as I said, there's a larger lesson here. There's something about strangers coming together who have an instant connection and an experience with a depth of family life. And I mean this, not just, oh, we had 10 days together, but the depth that this group went to just as strangers appeared together, you know what that gives me hope? It gives me hope that Jesus is shaping his church around the world. And even if that feels lonely to you and you're not connected just yet, what God's doing in you is to make you more relationally free. And then all he has to do is put people near you and some incredible things happen. So it's not like you're being left out, like, I should be building relationships and I should be doing this. We've joked often on the God Journey, Brad and I in times past, how religion makes you relationally challenged. It's so much about posturing and shoulding on each other. We should do this, should do that, trying to perform and do the right thing that it actually leaves us unable to be free in a relationship and watch that relationship take life. Sometimes it's needs. We're trying to get met in other people. Sometimes they're trying to be polite to us, yet their needs met and I think religion is overall a very relationally challenged environment. And I don't mean Sunday morning services when I say religion. I mean religion as a performance-based approach to God. It's exhausting. It makes us competitors with each other instead of collaborators. And it ruins what real life and family and fellowship is so that 40 strangers can show up in a distant land and experience that life of the community because those lives have been tuning to Jesus during this time. And so when they come together, it's not so difficult for body life to happen. I want to hear that, not just in some of people's experiences of what they went through there, but also in the comments they make about that community. And that's where we'll focus the back end of the podcast on today. But let's start. Joni posted this on the blog. Joni was with us there and she posted quite a bit on the blog. Let me just read this one paragraph. And I did get more input from people than I can use. So if you didn't get in here, it's not because yours was bad stuff. It's just others kind of represented it. And I didn't want to do a four-hour podcast. But people can read it on the blog. And if you didn't get shared there, then you can still share it there because I think people are enjoying reading it. She said the entire time in Jerusalem, this is Joni. My heart heard, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Matthew 23, I want you. And as we ascended up out of the prison cave where they held Jesus, and we heard the Muslim call to prayer as we climbed the stairs. And at first I resisted the sound because it's so disharmonious. And then grace allowed me to drop my resistance. And I tried to listen to it with a more open heart. And I heard it as a lament, just like Jesus' lament for Jerusalem. And I wept as the bells chimed in. I guess a lot true. The things you hear, there's a cry in the human heart, the futility and frustration of our brokenness. Romans 8 talks about it. Because we're out of sync with the God who made us and the world he wanted us to live in. There's something in all of us and perhaps all religions that cries out in that agony. And some things we can meet it by this religious activity. We're going to pray five times a day, we're going to whatever. But you know what, Jesus has already bridged that gap at the cross for all of us. It's an amazing thing. And then I got the McIntyre family was a joy to have with us. It was a father and mother and this 25-year-old son. And they came in and I was heard from Kim. We had a great connection with Kim and Greg. And she wrote this, I especially loved getting to know Sarah. She is a gem. I can't agree with you more there, Kim. She really is. And it was fun for her to hang out with lots of folks that have connected with me in various ways. She wrote this, singing on the Mount of Olives, this song, there is none like you. No one else can touch my heart like you do. As you suggested, picturing Jesus singing those words to us touched me so deeply. I've always loved singing that song to the Lord, but never thought of it in reverse. Then when my son Clint later told me he had the experience of seeing the father singing it to the son, it blew me away. To think of it in three dimensions, thrilled my heart beyond words. The song that has been on my heart almost every day since then and even at night when I sleep. And I'm going to read you Clint's letter in just a moment. It's also on the blog if you want to jump ahead. And then another amazing experience to me was on our free day visiting a young friend in Palestine who teaches third grade in a Christian school to 23 Palestinian children. She gave us a tour of her classroom and showed us a very special corner that she's prepared where the children can go if they are upset or need a time out. She calls it the peace place. She puts beautiful things there to decorate that corner including plants and artwork. But what struck me is the quote that she displayed right at eye level. It says in big letters, you are loved. Couldn't get over the fact that she had nothing to do with our tour but has the same heart for these kids as the foundation of our trip, which is learning to live loved by God. And then Clint told me about, in fact, I'm going to read Clint's before I read this last paragraph from Kim's notes, so we're going to flash around a little bit. And he says, leading up to the last day, I wasn't particularly moved by what I was seeing. Sure it was amazing to see the actual places where Jesus was and the magnificence of the 2,000-year-old structures, but I wasn't emotionally moved like I thought I might have been. It all seemed pretty much like any other vacation and part of me was feeling guilty about it. If I truly loved God, wouldn't I be more impacted by what I was seeing? I love that being able to isolate that, Clint, because I think people will do that a lot. I should feel this way. I should feel that way. See, not just in Israel, everywhere in our life. If I really loved God more, I would feel this way, or I would be doing this thing. And when you recognize that as the voice of guilt and the voice of the enemy, and then you dismiss it, that's a gift. He said, but thankfully I've learned, back to Clint's letter, that was my thought anyway, but thankfully I've learned that guilt doesn't come from God, so I dropped it, thanked him for allowing me to be there and moved on. I knew God loved me, and that was enough. Little did I know he was something precious. He had something in precious in store for my relationship with him. On the last day when we were staying on the tombs looking over the Mount of Olives in the city of Jerusalem, suddenly the weight of what Jesus set out to do began to hit me. He let us in the song, There's None Like You, and then he spoke to me, and I strongly heard the voice of the Father break into my heart. And this is what he said, Clint, I brought you here on this trip so I can give you a gift. I'm opening up my heart to you so you can have just a small taste of what I was feeling when Jesus had to go to the cross. Now if you ask my friends, they will tell you I'm not a very sentimental person. I don't cry very often. I don't ever remember a time when I cried over what Christ did. But as we started singing that song and as I realized that this was what the Father was singing over Jesus in the midst of what Christ did, there's none like you. No one else can touch my heart like you do. So not just singing it from us to the Father or the Father to us, but now the Father to Jesus. And he says the tears begin to flow. The cross was just as painful for my father as it was for Jesus. I never knew that. I was overcome with it all and just stood there balling. All I can say is I was glad to be wearing sunglasses. He gave me a very precious gift and then he took it a step further. Fast forward to the garden tune when you let us in communion together. God spoke to me again for part two of his gift. And this is what he said, Clint, now I'm going to give you a taste of how I felt when Jesus rose from the dead. And what we set out to do was finished. The absolute pure joy exploded into my heart. And I began to cry again. Honestly, I had no idea it was happening. I've never cried tears of joys before. I couldn't stop smiling. It was a defining moment in my walk with the Lord. No argument or doctrine or systematic theology can touch it. It was so real and so precious to me. It's hard for me even to talk about it. And I'm just so thankful for his gift of love and I'm so happy I got to experience it at a place with so many amazing brothers and sisters on a similar journey. And that story finishes here. But this goes back to Kim's note to me. She said, Clint told me and his dad about this moving experience later as I sat across from him face to face in the hotel lobby. Greg was standing next to him and put his hands on our son's shoulders and told him that we loved him. I'll never forget that picture in my mind. We were all fighting tears at that point. I told them both that there is no stronger love on earth than a father's love for his son. And I saw at that moment just a glimpse of what my son was describing. A beautiful gift from God that was to all three of us. Oh, my gosh. I love that. And it reminds me so much so many times is this life of Jesus pours out in people. We're looking for what do I need to do or what do I need to say to that person? How do we fight this thing always almost always intellectually? I think God does stuff like this. God drops a moment into our heart. It's the life of Jesus is a revelation. It's not just an intellectual ascent to a set of doctrines, principles, or creeds. It's the revelation of Jesus in the heart. And hearing Clint's story and how that unfolded in the family, you just got, that's just, I love that. Thanks for sharing, guys. I love having that little bit of look into your family. And this from a doctor who is with us who lives not too far away in California. This is Ron. Hi, Wayne. This is Ron. First of all, I just want to thank you for taking Sarada to Israel and allowing to be a part of that and to experience it. It was incredible in so many ways from having great weather, being there during the early tourist season so it wasn't so crowded. It was great having an overview of the geography and having a better understanding of the historical perspective from the past and also the present struggle that Israel has with its neighbors and internally. Daniel is amazing as a guide. Appreciate your messages that you shared at the different places. The last, the Saturday, the Garden of Gethsemane to Caiaphas' house, to the pathway that Jesus walked to Galgotha. And then coming home and reading the last two chapters of Luke, it was just made me see with different eyes. And with all that said, though, the greatest joy for me was experiencing the miracle of community. As 40 strangers who were brothers and sisters became friends as we shared this journey together. One sister shared on Saturday as we were debriefing that she appreciated that everybody was given space to do what they needed to do, whether it was to have time of solitude or time of spouse, but always with the invitation that you could join in with the fellowship of others. And it was just, it was an amazing time. We're going to come back to some of what Ron shared at the end of that because it's going to come up again and again with people. It's that connection, that community that being invited in, that sense of connection that people experience together. So we're going to come back to that in just a moment. But before we do, Paul and Jana, I know where's Jana, but she went by Jana on this trip. She's a very confusing person. She's been on the podcast before and I'll link it at the bottom if you want to. She's got a book out called A Girl Named Grace. I think that's the name of it. And we'll link that podcast in case you're interested. This family's got a real gift, the desire to bring God's life into the world and they do it in some amazing ways. But I had a Skype conversation with them a little bit, so the audio is not always the best because of Skype glitches a little bit. But get through it. They're going to share some of what touched them most about this trip and interact together a bit about it. Here's Paul and Jana. The most impacting thing for me was how real it made Jesus. Not that he wasn't real to me before, but that he was actually human and surrounded by beauty. I always thought, I guess, from the Bible stories and the different Jesus movies that everything was happening out in this sort of hostile wasteland and just being in Galilee and seeing the proximity to the water and how much beauty there was, like stunning beauty there was around him, made him seem so much smaller. Like it struck me how small God made himself. I just, I had to sort of just sit there and think about that for a while. I think it just made the idea of God becoming human more real to me. And also because of that, how afraid he was. Like when we even went to get somebody and just looking at these trees and sort of sensing what it would have been like for him, like approaching that moment and realizing, I don't know if I can do this. Like, Father, is there any other way? It really just struck me how he limited himself and made himself just like us. The whole thing was the best trip I've ever been on. The top of the list, which is the unexpected one, I think, is Daniel. To me, this guy is representing, represents humility, knowledge, and I just have a lot of respect for him. The fact that just everything that we believed in as far as what evangelism should be compared to what it's been, that the more we try to fulfill our evangelical quotas, the more we push people away, it really just boils down to love. Just hearing that he was impacted by us because we were just a bunch of misfits from all over the place that we're just getting together and nobody had an agenda. Everyone was able to be child-like and act like kids and be proud. At the same time, it wasn't fake because at the same time we were all able to be really serious and be able to embrace each other and love each other and to know that we can take for granted just how miraculous the freedom is to be walking in that type of relationship with Jesus that is just so free from all that other stuff and how easy it is to actually impact people when you're not trying to be a Christian, you're not trying to put another chalk mark in the side of your plane to prove how many people you've led to the Lord. It's just so freeing and for him to say that he's never sat down with anybody after a tour after 27 years. To me, that wasn't like, well, it's because we're great. That actually floored me. I never felt more thankful just to be allowed to be given the understanding of this way of living, of understanding him this way, of just being free from all that nonsense. That just floored me. I've probably shed a lot of tears on that. Secondly, I love the fact that I now understand what the heck's going on over there. I mean, how many Christians I pray for Israel? I'm like, okay, why? Like, I know it's important, but I don't really know why. And now understanding the history, like understanding how ridiculously close, basically 40 years after Jesus dies, the Jews are removed from their land and less than 40 years ago, technically, they've kind of got it back, even though it was a slow process over the last century, but that blows my mind. Just now, I'm just really blessed to actually feel like I know what the heck's going on there. And obviously, the third element is the Jesus thing, just kind of going up. The Jesus thing. This is my buddy, and this is where he's been. And this is the closest person to me. And Gethsemane just about ended me in a really good way. Being standing on the Mount of Olives that morning was incredible. Galilee obviously was, I mean, there's something really special about Galilee. I could have sat out on that lake all day and just sat there and just taken in and just loved to have had the quiet to be able to just hear what he had to say. To me, I've never wanted to read scripture in more of my life. One of my favorite things that has happened through the trip was just being able to connect with so many people that even though we may have completely different backgrounds and I'm sure if we got into it, we'd have some differences in doctrine or theology which we're all trying to shed anyway, just to have that recognition of brothers and sisters who share the same passion. It was something that's priceless. And Paul and I were able to spend just hours connecting with people and talking and sharing. It was so life-giving. I was not joking when I said that I was worried and I realized we were gonna be with 36 other Christians for that period of time. I'm going, oh man, I can't remember the last time I spent that much time without many Christians and it wasn't annoyed on that really floor to me. Just how amazingly free. And I think freedom's contagious too. And I just think there was just a speaker on the trip that was just advocating that this is the only way to live. Just the lifelong connections that we've made are, I'm really looking forward to seeing how those play out. You know, the two things that come up a lot, I have three things. Galilee comes up a lot and how that really touched people in the contradistinction of Jerusalem. We'll talk about that more. Getsemane comes up. The touch with our guide, what happened there. And I love what Paul talks about seeing how destructive our views of evangelism often are and how just loving people and a celebrating community in the world is all the invitation people need to have their heart nudged Godward and to look more deeply into their heart and we don't have to pack an agenda on people and try and convince them what we know to be true is true. But if we live a reality in front of them, then we'll have questions to answer and we'll have opportunities to love and that's just really, really cool. And they're touched with that community too. And I know what Paul says. I often with groups of Christians that can be incredibly annoying, particularly religious bunches with the agendas and the shoulds and the doctrinal arguments and we've got to agree on everything. If you don't agree with me, you're a heretic. And I mean, just to be with people who could love each other, who could focus on the important things of life and not get lost in all the other stuff that divides us. And ultimately I think that's where community grows. Community grows out of that place where people can live full and free in the life of Jesus. And when we're learning to do that, then we get those kinds of connections. And as Paul says, some of those could be lifelong. I know we keep intersecting people that we were with once in the world and never assumed that we would be together again. And then without our trying, without our, I'm gonna try and make this happen every year. I'm trying to make that happen. Just as life unfolded, we found ourselves crossing paths again because God had desired it. It wasn't just that we desired it, God desired it. And because God desired it, we'd happen to be in the same part of the world at the same time and connect. And some of those stories are just incredibly preposterous. It's not like we planned to be, but found out we were. And then can I, and other times we've planned to be. So I'm not down on the plan to be, but there's sometimes when you just let God unfold in your relationships, some amazing things happen. And then I wanna introduce you to Iris and Andrew. I met them for the first time on this trip. This is, I've had some brief email exchange with them, but these are one of those folks that came, didn't know really well and came to really appreciate their journey, their life. And some of the things that happened to them on this trip, I think you'll really enjoy. Not sure we talked about what they wanted to talk about on the Skype call, cause we got off on a lot of other things. In fact, there's a major piece that we'll probably revisit another time. It wasn't about the trip, it was about some other stuff and just was a good conversation. We were still recording, so that will probably come up on a future podcast. But listen to them as they talk about this trip and what it meant to them and even how they got to be on a trip like this when they would not have assumed that financially or any other way they were able to do this. And yet God, because he had it on his heart allowed this to unfold. This is Iris and Andrew and they're from Alberta in Canada and you'll pick that up in their accent. I'll tell you two of my highlights. One was going to the Sioux Galley and seeing where Jesus was and where he loved to spend his time and you could see why, right? Like after going to Jerusalem, you kind of go, ah, I know why Jesus didn't hang out around Jerusalem most of the time. I mean, someone could say, well, duh, but you know, to actually having been there and to see it. Well, being around Jerusalem would have killed him. Oh, I did, actually. I actually had that problem. Little too soon for that joke, maybe. That was a huge highlight. And the other thing which Andrew and I've been talking about was one of the biggest things for me was seeing Andrew be free. Like people would come up to me and go, your husband's so fine. I'm like, yeah, like, I don't know what's happened, but he lightened up. He laughed. Like to hear him at the back of the bus, busting a gut. Like, I was like, I haven't heard him like that in a long time. And I've told him, and I'm not just saying this now for the first time. He knows I'm sharing this, but yeah, like you guys all saw the best side of Andrew, but saw a side of him, like the freedom. And I thought, you know, this is what you're always talking about. Is this freedom? As I was sharing with these guys yesterday to just learn to follow God daily and enjoy resting in him without all these expectations or having pressures, but trying to come, you know, to live in that freedom daily and the daily grind, or not even to see life as a daily grind, but... Yeah, did you see the difference over there, Andrew? Do you feel like you were different? Yeah, I think, I was just asking me about that. When she said it at first, I was a little bit puzzled about that. And then, but I was thinking about it and I thought ultimately what it comes down to is there's, was just a whole lot less responsibility. And so, you know, some of the other things that I normally think about or, you know, have to kind of wrap my head around and manage and, you know, things like that. I have to do that. Did somebody help that happen? Was there a relationship or connection with somebody that was... There was a number of people there that just connecting with them or whatever just was so, there were people that didn't want anything from me necessarily. They were asking about my wellbeing. And, you know, in my, maybe it's, you know, partly my work situation, you know, where people look to me for a thing or, you know, help or this. And I mean, some of that it wears on me, to be honest, even after a bit. But you really felt free there just to laugh and to... I hated being in the front of the bus. I mean, this isn't fair. I know all the fun stuff's going on in the back of the bus. And I've been assigned to seat next to Daniel to keep making decisions all day long, but dog on it. It's funny because we wanted to be up front and everybody else wanted to be up front. So by the end, we were at the back of the bus just having fun anyways. Yes. It felt good to be a backseat Baptist there. And, you know, you said on your podcast, well, and I said to you guys, like, thanks for inviting other people on the trip. And I still think about you instead of doing that. And I know you're like, well, we couldn't afford a guide, but I just think, you know, there are times when you just want to travel with somebody, like just your spouse. But the fact that you're like, you know what? Let's take on 38 other people we've never met, invite them out. And I love that about, like that you and Sarah were willing to do that. And that it seems like you love still meeting new people and investing time and listening to people. Like, I don't know how you do it. I mean, that was always, we had that in mind if I ever went back, Sarah would want to. And it's different seeing it with a group of people and seeing it through people's eyes. I mean, that adds a lot to that experience. Well, and I just feel like it was such a God thing because honestly, I had, like Andrew was telling people about his bucket list and I'm like, I don't have a bucket list because I gave up making plans a long time ago. There's a story there. You have to kind of tell those stories. Well, because God always has surprised me. Like I make a plan and then God surprises me with a better plan. So I gave up doing that. I get that. And then my daughter asked me, she's like, you must have something you want to do. I'm like, you know, I want to go to Israel. Like I just realized I wanted to walk where Jesus walked. And I thought, oh, five, 10 years from now. This was like last September or October. And so I voiced it and probably a week later, literally, like, and I hadn't been on your blog for about six, eight months. Like I hadn't looked. And there it was that you were taking a trip. I'm like, no way. Like if there was a group I'd want to go with or leader, there is one there. No, it was just one of those that just literally happened the next week. And Andrew and I normally would never be able to afford it but we had some air mile. Like it was just boom, boom, boom. And we were like, oh my gosh, we can go and we can do this. I'm glad you did. Just hearing these audios. And I was part of these conversations. These were Skype the last couple. So I got a chance to reconnect with these folks yesterday. And I just, oh, it's, I love family. I love the sense of connection and life and enjoying it for what it's worth and even missing people that you're now 10 days, almost two weeks apart from. And yet they live on in your heart and you see them online or Facebook posts goes by and there's a connection to that person now. And I'm interested to see where those go to, Paul up the row. But I loved the undercurrent in all of these and a lot of the conversations that have gone on about this trip since we've been there is this, the sense of community, how it impacted Daniel, our Jewish guide in a variety of ways. And there's stories there that, oh my gosh, it would be inappropriate for me to unpack because not even all the group knows about some of the stuff that went on. But I found out more from people in other conversations than I was in with Daniel. And just how he was impacted by watching this little group navigate the Holy land. And he told our tour operator, just one of, if not, I hate to use the word, probably the most enjoyable group he's ever been with, but that's how I recall it may have been one of, but he really, really enjoyed the group and is invited some further contact up the road. And it'll be interesting to see where that leads. The larger joy for me, and I think for a lot of folks on this trip was again, that sense of community that rises. I started the podcast this way and I want to come back to it now because I think the larger lesson for all, yes, great time in Israel, yes, got some great things in people and yes, people want me to go back and do another tour someday. And I just, I might, as I said, to take my daughter, but this same relational connection, I'll say this, happens almost wherever I travel. It happens in the Dallas, Fort Worth area recently and people coming that group. Now I watch them getting together and I mean starting a group. I just mean connecting, having lunch and I see posts about it and there's some people already related and then other people get into those relationships and it is one of the greatest joys of what God's asked me to do in this season of my life. And when I start traveling again and get the book done, I enjoy watching connections happen that outlive me. I enjoy watching people become friends that I know I introduced and they have long probably forgotten that I introduced them or that that connection was what brought us together. But people that resonate with Lifestream slash God Journey stuff or my books or whatever and are on this journey and in dialogue and they meet others who are in that similar dialogue and I really, and I've said this song, I don't take personal credit for that. It's not, man, I've helped shape these people so they're relationally whole. I think the joy of the things I get to do in the world and write and say is that people say you put to words things already in my heart. So I may be a bit of a catalyst to give language to people and to give them the freedom to follow their heart when other voices might have been saying that can't be God because it's not conforming enough to what we need from you. And so I'm blessed that I get to do that but I don't feel at all responsible for shaping something in the world that's gonna bear fruit. I think it's the Holy Spirit that does that and if I've helped resonate with people now because I have some visibility just the podcast, the books, whatever people invite me to travel in. When I travel, people come from a broad area and they get together and then they discover how much they love other people in the room. They may have come to be with me but very quickly what they find is they've really been hungering for the kind of relational connections and I know that traveling up the road in the future that's more of what I want to do not just do Wayne seminars where people come hear me talk and that's fine if we do some of that because that's an excuse for people to get together but I really wanna be part of helping people know, helping people connect number one and number two, helping people know how to help people connect. For others to be catalysts and facilitators in their own environments and for them to know what are ways to love, be hospitable, open my life to people, watch connections happen, put some things into the world that maybe help people connect because that connecting, that knitting together of the body of Christ in the world, that's why I love the term church. I struggle when people talk about I left the church or the church did this to me or that to me. The church is God's people in the earth. I will say that to I'm blue in the face. I know people wanna give that up, some people wanna call it Coinonea when it's real fellowship and the church when it's religion terminology is just that. It's terminology, it comes and goes but the reason I'm so nuts about winning this word church is because in our English translations it's of the Bible, it's used repeatedly. And when people read those things I don't want them thinking about the religious club on the corner that may or may not be part of that larger church. They may be part of it. They may also be on their own little agenda of driving some kind of religious performance program there that wears people out but I'm sure some of Christ's church is among them as well. And so I'm not down on all that but we gotta recover. I mean, I want us to recover the term church. That's a beautiful thing. It's God's people in the earth. It's the bride of Christ. It's the people being knit together. And it's not just we're the church alone. None of us are the church alone. We're the church in the world made all the more real by the connections that God gives us both locally and trans locally. And the advantage of people seeing that I hope whether it's 40 people on a bus 10 days in Israel or it's a week of people in a field in Ireland or it's a weekend in Fort Worth with Wayne or it's whatever. What I want people to experience is when you come together with people who are becoming relationally free and relationally healthy. And what do I mean by that? I just simply mean that they don't have an agenda anymore to put on to people. They're just wanting to love them where they are. Now they have truth. They have something in their life they live to something in their heart they're passionate about but they're willing to watch that come up inside a relationship not drive the relationship with the agenda. That's what I mean by no agenda. It's not that people don't have passions and desires and things to talk about but it's different when someone is sharing their life and I'm hearing it and it's another thing when people are coming at me with here's what I've got to give you and you need to believe this, you need to see that. As I say, we experienced that at one of the stops we made. There was a guy just had so much agenda and it was just a great contrast. He has a good heart. I don't think he knows better. And I think that's the true of most relationally challenged people. They don't know better. And until they find, I love Andrew's story and I was saying, man, you got to see the best side of my husband. I've not seen it in a while. I think a big part of relational wholeness allows people to be more themselves. When people can give them the space to do that you know like what Ron said about their work then we're not expectations and if you needed some time that there's a five or six couples that came as part of an anniversary gift to each other to the 20th or 25th there's something significant. And there was no that we're a group now so we're all gonna do stuff together but there was the freedom to be off alone at times and just enjoy a conversation or the person you came with or whatever without the group having an agenda that you had to go with. And you know when you're being served when somebody's really just trying to help you with something out of their heart and when they're trying to take control of you for your own good because you're an idiot and they're brighter than you are that's what makes people relationally challenged. I'm in a couple of good conversations these days by email that I'm gonna talk about in some future podcast. One's with a pastor who's pretty frustrated because of some things that I'm saying and I guess permission I've given people to follow and it's not where he wants them to follow and so he struggles with that. And the idea that I know best for you and I wanna impose my wisdom on you is the opposite of relational freedom. With relational freedom people may have wisdom. They may have great insight and you may not have a clue what it is that they know but they're gonna wait till you're open to it. They're not going to drive it down your throat for your own good and people who do that shatter relationships. And you can see when that happens among a group people pull back and usually the only person that doesn't know it is the person with the agenda. But they sense people pull back and then they sense they've just got to push harder because obviously people are being stupid. Relational wholeness allows you to talk laterally to people not from above from alongside. To love them for who they are to not have expectations in them not just care about people and not get all focused on our differences but focus on the love that we share together. And I think that's part of what's true with your if you're a week in a field in Ireland or wherever you're at with the bus in Israel or in Fort Worth with me. I think what happens is we really get to focus on what's important. And what's important is who Jesus is and how we're learning to love Him. That's important. And then we can find our way into each other. What you believe about eschatology whether we can lose our salvation whether we is it God's sovereignty or free will all that stuff has divided us for centuries. I don't mind having those discussions with people who don't have an axe to grind. But to say that's where life is found in those discussions is not so good. Well, I don't know when I'll be back here next got some family situations it's extended family not my close family but there's some things that's gonna take my time the next little while so we'll get back when we can but go to attend to some things over the next season so your prayers are welcomed but we're well covered there too so don't feel responsibility with that. I hope some of this encourages you and we'll talk more about how it is that we can become relationally whole but if you're learning to live in the love of the Father that's what's going on in you and you may not have the relationships now but you will. Alls it'll take is a little proximity in the Lord's season and connections that you can celebrate as much as some of these ones we've been celebrating from our last two weeks in Israel. Give a traveling with us on The God Journey you can be part of the conversation by visiting our website thegodjourney.com