Accept no Substitutes! — http://thegodjourney.com/wordpress/2005/12/16/accept-no-substitutes/

You're listening to the God Journey, a place where people thinking outside the box of organized religion can share thoughts and conversation along the journey. Here are your hosts and fellow travelers, Wayne Jacobson and Brad Cummings. Well, I'm Wayne Jacobson. And I'm Brad Cummings. And welcome to another edition of the God Journey. And this afternoon, we're not alone as we sit here in the old studio today. Who's with us? Oh, man, there's a couple of cameramen and I don't know, God just did a chair staring at us. I wish he'd leave. Actually, we have a film crew here from Family Room Media who are preparing some videos to help people think outside the box. And we've done some interviews today, Brad and I, and now they want to take a live shot at the podcast. So here we are. Yeah, too bad we don't have any old video hookups that we can go with our live like video cam. Be the God Journey cam. I see. And then people could subscribe and watch us. I'm not sure people would pay to see me and I'm pretty certain they might not. Speak for yourself. I'm sorry. Speak for yourself. So where are we going tonight? I have no idea. Where would you like to go? Why don't you jump out with Meg's later? I thought that was hilarious. We've had a lot of fun with our Australian friends and Meg wrote us this week after, I guess she was very a little distressed, I think, after our podcast on not having it all figured out. So Meg writes this to us. She says, I am really bummed now. We have been hoping Wayne and Brad had some answers to life as we know it out of the box. And now you are telling us you don't even know what's going on or what will happen. You know, you could have turned these podcasts into something like Wayne's World or Wayne and Brad's excellent adventure. We could have been something. We thought about both those titles actually. You could have had an effect on people. You could have been somebody famous. Instead, you're just sitting there giggling and talking about stuff other people write in about and then saying you don't have a plan. Well, that's just not good enough. You are just going to have to sit down and write one. A plan. I don't care if it's not about God, just write one, OK? Then you can read it on the air one day and we can all rest easy. I'm sorry, but when you are talking to ex-club members, the word control is very important. We need you to have a plan. In fact, we need you to have a plan for us as well. That way, when we listen to you, we will know where we are going also. We can then all look like successful contributing members of society instead of no-hopers, which I guess is an Australian term. And then she kind of calms down at the end and says, all right, I'm good now. Just had a bit of a meltdown over that. Oh, boy. I think Meg, mostly tongue-in-cheek. Yeah, I know there's some sarcasm in that, but I do think that it is, you know, this whole like process, this journey outside of the box, outside of the institution. It's a real challenge because you do have the illusion that for at least for a while, at least whoever's at the head of the line, you're kind of figuring they do know where they're going. And there is some supposed comfort in the fact that I'm a part of that. Yeah, you hate to be out halfway in the jungle on the safari. The leader says, I've never been here before and I have no idea where we're going. But sometimes that's a good thing. I remember, honestly, interesting story. I was in India and we were outside of Calcutta in the jungle. This is a true story as opposed to some of the other ones you've told? Thank you. It jippers not a part of this. This is for real. But we're with a guy that used to work with Mother Teresa and he's taken us a handful of me and a handful of me. Me and a handful of others. And we're in the jungle and one morning he just wakes up and he gets, you know, Donny says, Brad, I've got to go to Nepal. So I'm leaving. You guys will be okay. You know, and I'm just sitting there going like, what? You can't leave. And he says, no, the Lord really has worked for me to do in Nepal that I wasn't aware of till this morning. And I need to go. And here I am. I got 16 college students that are in the jungles of, you know, of Calcutta outside of India. The jungles in Calcutta? There's outside. And it was fantastic because I'm sitting there going like, wait a minute, what do we do? Where do we go? And all of a sudden the guy that I was trusting to have a plan left. And you're sitting there going like, I was mad at him. I thought this was the most irresponsible thing on the planet. And yet he was obediently being responsive to what the Holy Spirit was telling him to do. And we ended up having a phenomenal journey that came out of that. But it wasn't one that I wanted or asked for. And I was very frightened of simply because I also had to face the fact that I didn't have a plan. I didn't know what was happening and I wasn't in control. And that is disorienting to people who are used to it. I like what makes expression. We ex-clubbers like control. It's always about control. And I think one of the things the system does offer us. It offers us the illusion of control. It offers us something's going on. You can rest quietly. You don't have to think here. You don't need God here. You don't have to listen to him. Someone's figured it all out for you. All you need to do is find the right person to follow and you're going to be okay. And hopefully you can find the place to plug in. And it's as if somehow there's the offer of convenience and comfort that if I'll simply attach myself to something that's thriving or at least says it is, then I'll have the sense of security that I must be a part of what the will of God is because I'm fruitfully serving this group that inheres their vision when it's like maybe that isn't what God's asked you individually to do. And here's what's behind that I think is so amazing from this side of the journey. On the other side of the journey, when I was involved in that, never could see it, never could acknowledge it, but now on this side of it, when you're saying I need a man with a plan to follow, what you're really saying is a human being with a plan is a more secure place than living in Jesus without one. And when you say it that way, it's like, wow, why isn't? Why isn't the Christianity we've experienced over the course of our lives? Many of us, for me, it's been 50 years of being a believer in one forum or another. Why haven't I in that process grown to greater and greater depths of trust in who Jesus is and what he's doing instead of some plan or idea or book or something that makes me secure because someone else has it figured out and I won't need him. I won't need to be as close to him as he wants us to be. And I don't think that's what we really want. I mean, I don't think anyone thinks it through that says if you offered me an intimate relationship with Jesus or some guy with a plan. No, I want the guy with the plan. We don't think of it that way, but the truth is, there is something of a safety and a security that's really subtle and very powerful as a seduction that somehow that's, because if that's where everyone else is going, I feel a little security in numbers that must be right. I mean, have you ever been in one of those lines that you're not sure what people are waiting for, but it's a long line and you figure you better get into it or you're going to be at the end. I do that at airports because you get out of the bus and there's this huge long line. If that's the ticket counter, I better get in that line. But if it's not the ticket counter or security, but if you waste time going to the front to figure out and you can be even further back. And I was one of those lines once and I finally transferred, is this the line of the ticket thing? And it was a line to top that entirely different. And I went in the ticket line where I needed to go through was only about 10 people in it. So it does kind of pay to figure out what line you're in. Sometimes the system and the institution can be like that. Everyone's in this long line with some basic assumptions that this is necessarily going the direction that God's asked me to, but they don't know that for sure. And the sense of disorientation or the discomfort, they feel more secure standing in that line because then they know at least this place in that line as opposed to necessarily back further. Yeah, it seems to be easier to be nuts in a line full of people than to be nuts all by yourself. I think that's what controls that line because we're going, boy, this seems nuts to me, but at least I'm not alone being nuts because if I'm nuts, we're all nuts. And I think that there's a crowd dynamic in that that's very real. We don't want to stand alone. And part of what we're going to talk about tonight is that disorienting season, as you're coming out of religious ways of thinking and practices and having plans and having routines that are all set up and established to moving into the reality and danger of living in relationship with God and with the people He brings into our lives. I think that's one of many things that impacts our lives that we'll get a chance to talk about tonight. I've emailed responses to the podcast The Freedom to Not Have It All Figured Out. This one guy, Kevin, writes, Thanks for The Freedom to Not Have It All Figured Out podcast. It was very timely for me. He said the title alone was reassuring. God has been working on me for the past few months, partly because I'm not sure if I have anything figured out. And he says, well, I suppose that that's not true, but it's how I feel more often than not. But I believe God has made it clear to me that no one will ever have it all figured out. But more importantly, it's not what Jesus is calling us to. He wants us in a relationship. He has called us to serve and to do the will of Father. I love that. I think the simplicity of being able to realize I'm not under the pressure to have it all worked out. I just need to be grounded in a relationship with someone that I trust does, which is not standing in the line at the airport. It's putting my hand in the father's hand and just going, you know what? He does know what he's doing in me, even if I can't fully understand it all. Yeah. There's another guy, Steve from West Virginia. He said, I heard a man say recently, one of the ways that you can find out that you're headed into bondage is when someone is trying to make you feel spiritual by understanding God. He says, I don't believe that there's anything wrong with increasing our understanding, especially of the finished work of Christ, but it's good to know that our relationship is what we know. He said that we're free from all obligations. He says, I'm just glad I know him. Oh, isn't that good? Yeah. And knowing him is enough. If we're knowing him and following him, and Jesus talked this way. He was, guys, the whole Matthew 6, Luke chapter 12 bit of the Sermon on the Mount about take no thought of tomorrow, but live today. There's worry enough tomorrow coming that you don't know about. So live in today's reality live there, which I think relationship is always about living there. I've got a friend in Portland. He talks about most of our anxieties are about our imagined future. This could happen. What if this and all of our anxieties come from an imagined future that isn't here? And if it's our imagined future, how can God be in what is not real? Because it's our imagination. We've created this. What could happen if this falls apart or God doesn't come through here or people don't like me? Most of the anxieties we have are not with what we're dealing with today. It's our fears about what tomorrow might bring. And if Luke 12 and Matthew 6 aren't about, no, no, no, it's just today. There's enough for you and Father to live this day. And that's not about plans and processes, even as the disciples are at the end of Jesus' ministry. He's getting ready to be ascended to the Father. One of the last things he said to him, he turns to them and says, the kingdom, and he says, times and dates are in Father's hands. They weren't even in his. It's not that he even knew what the times or seasons were. He kept saying, no, this is in God's hands. Well, if Jesus didn't know, what hope do I have of sorting that one out? And I think that's what makes us the safest we can be is living in the reality of what he does. Are plans wrong? Are plans wrong? I think depending on a plan, definitely. I don't know. Maybe some people really do get the planning thing right. I haven't had one plan that has sorted out for me. So I'm kind of going, yeah, I think they're wrong and I think they don't work. Or I'm just a big idiot. I can't seem to make a good one. But I've crafted some marvelous plans that I couldn't get God to fulfill. So now planning is a different story. If I'm going to go to Boise, Idaho, it's better for me to buy a ticket two weeks ago. I'm saying, you know, I want you to go to Boise. Here's the timeframe to go. And I can know that in advance. So I don't think plans or planning is a bad thing necessarily. But I am saying for us to think we've got to have it all figured out before we go or look for some security and someone else's plan, that's where I think the challenge comes. What do you think? It's valuable. I mean, Jesus, one of the little parables he was talking about, if someone's going to build a tower, he's going to go to the stock to see if they have the means by which to do that. I think having a plan is not wrong. It's just a question of the context in which that's derived. I think we feel better when we can try to have it all figured out. But life isn't like that. I mean, life doesn't end up working out like a powerful thought. And a lot of times that when I try to make it happen that way, frankly, those are the periods that are a little more boring doing the same old grind or the same old thing because that's what the plan called for as opposed to living in the newness and the freshness of each day going, Lord, how do you want to impact today? How I want to be available if you're doing something help me discern what that is and help me be available to that. I find that so often times our desire to have it all figured out completely eliminates my capacity to really be open to the leading and the promptings of the Holy Spirit. I don't have time. I got this plan I'm working. Yeah, but I on the other hand, I think people who think having plans might be boring sometimes people prefer boring to the adventure. I prefer the safe predictability of things and I got one of those things Jesus wants us to get past to really come and live in him is to live in adventure. It is and I'm not bright enough to sort it out. I wish I could sort it all out because that would be really wonderful. But the fact is I'm not bright enough. I don't know what's coming. He does. Plan as God gives you wisdom to plan but don't live to that plan outside the reality of what he's speaking into your heart today as things are coming your way. I think it's valuable to exactly what you said in terms of having a plan in as much as God gives you that wisdom but I think the real obedience to what the Holy Spirit is doing means that that plan I have to hold on loosely. That's a working template based upon what I presuppose as I'm entering into something but when I'm actually there I want to have the live active moment to moment sense of alright Lord how does this thing need to be edited and what course corrections might I need to take to get into the bulls I have exactly what you are trying to bring forth in this moment and that requires discernment and that's a very subjective dynamic. And in the end you got to keep serving the plan maker the ultimate plan maker and not serve the plan. Let me ask you how well have your five-year plan sorted out for your life? I used to, I mean it's interesting for a season of time and some of the way in which I was gifted it felt like God did give me some at times panoramic revelation and insight. He allowed me to see into seasons of time and man I thought that was so helpful because then I can have a sense of ok if that's really what's going on then I have a better sense of how to adjust it but I do know there came a point where God said guess what Brad I'm changing gears with you. Not as if that's wrong but for me God was doing something very different and he said I'm no longer going to speak to you in that domain but rather I want you to kind of trust me day to day and man I was terrifying I had such a sense of disorientation and just a lack of equilibrium going like Lord I don't know how to navigate like this. This is really really different. I took comfort in having a sense of at least I thought I saw the big picture and now you're asking me to kind of walk in that day to day moment to moment and I think what it's produced is a better sense of recognizing God can and will speak in both dynamics. The question is as it relates to me personally in the given season of life I'm in. How is he functioning and so for me I've chucked my five-year plans. I'm just kind of going like I have a sense of what today's about and I'm kind of prayerfully going to bed tonight wondering well where is exactly tomorrow going but man has a whole different way to live life for me in this season than what I'm used to. Well I guess it's true for both of us. We do have some vision things in our heart. We feel like God's put there and we are doing some things today that God gives us to do whether it be in writing or preparations for future things that God's got coming our way or at least we think and a lot of those for me sort out. Some of them don't. Some of you get some preparation going and it turns out not to be the way he goes and then it's the freedom to drop that and go on. As we sit here tonight we're only a couple of days out from posting our first of the two podcasts we have with our wives and so we've just got a little bit of feedback but one came in from Stacey I thought you would enjoy because we really enjoyed having Sarah and Kelly with us and I think they enjoyed it too. They're all begging to come back someday and Sarah's yelling encouragement from the other room now and then so I think maybe we'll get her on here again and I think Kelly enjoyed it too but this came from Stacey. I don't know where Stacey's from but she said I've just finished listening to the latest I was one of the ones who really wanted to hear what this God journey has been like for you the wives. Thank you Sarah and Kelly for being willing to go on air and share your stories. Your honesty came through loud and clear and I appreciated that so much. It was great hearing you two and I do hope that in the future we will get to hear even more. Thanks Wayne and Brad. The God journey is a godsend and they got a little PS here. Oh and thanks for posting the picture of Chipper. I love to hear the Chipper stories. Well another sick person obviously on. No I'm kidding obviously that's kind of fun but for those of you that enjoyed that by the time you hear this you will have also heard a second one because the wives stayed on in the studio with us and we ended up with a whole another show from them talking so hope you enjoyed that one as well. Yeah I think it just was really valuable to kind of hear their insight because it's one thing to come from a place of professional ministry into a different change. It's another thing for the wives to come more from just a family context watching all of this. I just appreciated their different observations because they haven't had to walk the exact same journey. They've had a different dynamic on it and I just think that presents a more full picture. It does and did. Well I want to thank you we had a call on our comment line actually was a couple of weeks ago we finally getting around to having having it on the show finally. Dom called us from Sacramento and asked us a question and might be good to have a listen to that and see where that takes us. Hi this is Dominic from Sacramento California. First off I just want to say how much I enjoy the program whether it be weekly or bi-weekly or bi-monthly. After reading some new materials that I've been reading for confusion regarding that we carry out our teaching which makes sense to me about in the Bible mixture between God's forgiveness. Great question Dom if I understood it right I've always love to have more feedback on these things than obviously a comment line allows us but what I heard Dom saying is that there's this desire to really find God's peace but where do we find it? Do we find God's peace because of what Jesus did on the cross and therefore that peace is resolved in our hearts or as he's reading some of that mainstream evangelical literature which that's always a bit scary. That's a little loaded the way you kind of spoke that. Well I'm not sure what he meant by that I think some of that mainstream evangelical literature is pretty scary stuff to be honest. Particularly if it gets you focused back on the kind of thing he's talking about you know does the peace is that a derivative of getting the performance right or the morality right that there's certain rules to follow and if you follow those rules then you'll have this peace that people are looking for and I think it's a great question because certainly living the way God wants us to live is the best way to live in that grace and that life and the peace. But how do we get there? Is it through the performance and here's the rules and follow it or as I think I would suggest and I think we talked about this when we talked about the cross a few podcasts ago. We talked about the work that Jesus established on the cross for us gives us that peace in our relationship with him. Not necessarily peace in the world not necessarily a struggle free existence we've talked about that isn't true but what it does give us is the confidence that we know him and that we're in him and that he is in us and that he will walk us through the things in our life including the kind of transformation that needs to go on in us to be able to fulfill the desires he has for us. It's not that he's going to lay out the rules and say Wayne this is how you need to live but if he doesn't change me so that I can live in those ways I'll never do it. Well I think of the phrase you know the peaceable fruit of righteousness. I think in ways in times past the way I've interpreted it is well actually if I do the right things then I will experience the peaceable fruit of righteousness. But then how do you reconcile that with it says that there are none righteous no not one. It's not my righteousness. It can't be. Yeah because I mean that's very flawed and it's never consistent. I might have a moment of righteousness but I don't have a lifetime and a lifestyle of it that is unbroken in terms of do I stumble. Yes and at those moments do my peace does it just fail me does it go away and I think that's a little bit of what I hear Dom kind of asking is I want that but I don't find that I don't feel that consistently and I began to look at the word righteousness from a different dynamic of recognizing that you know what I think there's a proximity there's a locale there's a sense of I'm standing right before the Lord in terms of I'm right before him and it's not so much my behavior but it's I'm near to him I'm at his throne and his throne is a throne of mercy it's a throne where there's grace to help me and so the sense of that righteousness that I'm hungry is I want a sense of intimacy and closeness to God and then the righteousness that I experience is the fact that you know what he's made me righteous. But isn't that proximity to isn't that a growing reality I may be nice to say I left the system and the next day Jesus was so eye-popping real to me and I think sometimes I want to hear behind the question sometimes is this false expectation that when I when I got out of religion everything's just going to be wonderful and this peace and transformation and maybe we make it sound like that sometimes the reality is this is a process and part of the interview we did earlier today with some of the film folks that are with us got us into this discussion as people begin to spill out of religious ways of thinking and I don't mean necessarily leaving certain institutions but I mean this religious performance based got to earn this relationship by doing all these obligations isn't working for me and I just want to live relationally. There's a transition that goes on here it doesn't go from struggle in the loss of religion to the lights are on life is good there's flowers blooming in the meadows and you know snowflakes falling from the sky it's not this idyllic existence that I think creates a fantasy expectation in people that is undeliverable in the way that this journey actually lives out in fact I would take to say I think with most people I know who have been schooled in religious thinking and performance and obligation and accountability when you begin to walk away from that there's this detoxing there's some have called it detoxing and I think that's a great phrase because religion is an addiction I think religion can be an addiction for a while by performance and by working hard I can get God to do certain things in my life and when you're one to that for a time and even when you see through it intellectually living in it experientially is a very different reality and I think it just takes some time one of the reasons we started this podcast was because we want to have conversations with people that aren't getting these kinds of issues reinforced in their life they may be the only one they know thinking this way I'm not in that line everybody else is in and I don't know too many people in my line in fact I may be the only person in the line I'm in where I live and I want to know that I'm okay I want to know that God's really going to deal with this stuff in my life but I do think that takes time and whether it's a couple years three or four months I think it varies depending on the person and depending on the depth of what God wants to rewrite in our heart but I want to say to people this transitional time is a part of it I could skip it I would have skipped it and I'd skip it for you I don't think you can though when you look at the whole dynamic of just how deeply entrenched and the way I think most of us have brought up and even our culture is it's not just a church culture or religious culture that has kind of a works orientation our whole culture is like you know what you do nothing you're going to go nowhere and so you better be there's a whole competition dynamic survival of the fittest deal you're just going like oh that's Darwin that's saturating our whole culture where it's like you know what if I don't figure this thing out how can that ever be okay and I think there's a freedom that God wants to bring us through but I got a joke with some folks as we were entering this whole journey in transition we seriously thought well maybe we should start some religious detox centers because it does take a real sort of just as you would go through some detox center for an addiction to some kind of substance religion is not all that different it does something for me there's a reason behind the addiction is it gives me a false illusion that I'm doing okay if I can do all these things in the right way then I get that sense that well I must be okay well let me give you Brad's address then as the next detox center and you can all show up over the night the most beautiful thing about Jesus freeing me with a I think more deepened understanding of the cross is when all of a sudden I realize it isn't about performance it doesn't give me some permission well then I'm just going to sin and you know I'm going to be a complete failure what it does is it all of a sudden lets me kind of exhale and it allows space for his life to penetrate in me in a way that all of my striving never did it creates space for me to go you know what God I recognize I can't do that that's a statement of honesty and sort of a new found place of humility because I'm no longer going to with all my effort try I'm going to recognize I can't but that's not the end of the story it's the fact that you desire to work in me in a partnership that brings that forth and I think when you really understand what the work of the cross is it's not like well you know we're just all we all just all messed up and so somehow that somehow absolves it but it doesn't leave us there it brings forth his life so maybe the answer is a Dom's question it's really both there's a peace that comes from being reconciled to God through the cross and it's not based on my performance it's based on his work and his work alone so I can have peace with him and I can know him it's one of the things we just got to say to Jesus there's not a center you can go to there's not a book you can read there's not a podcast you can listen to including this one that give you that peace that peace comes from him alone and so at some point you've got to wander out in your prayer closet whether it's on a walk in your neighborhood whether it's in a quiet place in your house and say Jesus I want this peace to be a real part of my life and heart in you without my performance if that takes two three months whatever it takes for God to show you how he sorts that out in you get through that one of the things we came up earlier today was we're not good at getting through that process we get part of the way into that and then we feel all alone and things don't change as fast as we hope and so then we look around for some other box to run back into to feel safe again and I I know about you I know so many people that started down various bits of this journey and I'll be honest and say there were times when I did too when God was calling me away from the things I felt security in and I began to walk that way and then when things didn't play out as quickly as I hope they would you get scared and you run back in I'm not doing that and then later that hunger gets you again and so you go okay I'm going to push away from this thing and I just want to encourage people to say get this resolved get out of the kinds of systemic controls that inhibit your relationship with the king if need be do nothing for two years except just be before him and say Jesus I want you to make this real in my life I want to learn to live in you the way you want me to live in you out of that living relationship and don't look for a prop to run back in and lean on I've got a friend that's been helping Sarah and I do some of the things in our house here to refurbish this house we just moved into that needed a bit of work he's a master plumber electrician woodsman I mean he's just great we had some problems in our bathroom though that we had to fix and when we needed to fix them plumbing problems he wasn't here I he's done quite a bit of plumbing work on this house but I never helped him I walked out I mean I go for it for him I got him tools he needed but I ever crawled under the sink to see what in the blazes he was doing under there it's waged her now and so when it happened here and he wasn't available to come I had to deal with you the not having that sink or in case the toilet for a couple of weeks or Wayne's got to figure it out and Wayne's got to do whatever it takes and I consider myself pretty technically challenged man by the time I got in there learn some stuff couple trips to Home Depot couple phone calls to people who know better but instead of just having somebody come over and fix it for me I actually sorted out what it means to fix plumbing as I was doing that I was thinking boy isn't that what we've done with Christianity for 2,000 years oh you've got these resident experts when we've got a need run to them and have them fix it find someone else's plan or program and do it instead of you know what I just sort this out with Jesus I need to sit down with him and yeah I may go to a few people say help me sort this out but not fix this for me it's help me sort this out with him how do I let him do this in my life and don't stop short of that becoming a reality and I don't care it takes 6 months if it takes 2 years if it takes a decade it's worth letting him sort that out and not continuing to find security in rushing back to these comfortable little boxes that I like Jesus you know I've come that you might have life and have it more abundantly I think on the back side of that verse is the real reality is that you know what there is no substitute short of that when you've tasted what that verse is about you're not in doubt you've actually tasted something different than what you've always done but it has required the courage to not do what you've always done and that's terrifying I remember when we were first becoming friends one of the things that I think you kind of fought for in terms of a role and a relationship in my life is you wanted a friendship you know I might have been looking for a mentor or look for someone who's a little more experienced than this and you sort of fought my not putting you in that role and I started thinking what's this guy's problem can he take a compliment but you saw beyond that and when I would kind of ask you questions it's not as if you couldn't give insightful helps to that answer but more often than not you just gave me this you know Brad that is a great question and I would just find that so irritating just give me the answer please I didn't ask for question writing but what it did is you gave me a gift because you didn't rob me of the joy of discovery where when I found answer God's present voice in the midst of my questions I knew that it was him not something I had heard from somebody else those things are the life giving things that are in my life that are just exploding with freedom is because I go like you know what nobody robbed me of being able to hear God for myself on a real critical issue about where do I go and what do I do and when I know that God's answered me the confidence you talk about the peaceable fruit of righteousness you're just going like I can take that one to the bank it isn't but Wayne said but so and so said it's like you know what I know for myself this is what God has said and that's the other half of Dom's question because when you begin to live that way your life changes I have greater peace now living the way God's asked me to live there's about so many things that is directly a part of what he's changed in me there's the peace that he established to the cross there's also the peace now of doing things in my life that I know I'm not involved in much right now that I don't think God initiated I used to not have anything in my life I was certain God initiated now almost everything that I'm involved and I look back and say I didn't choose this this is not the road I wanted to go down it's the road I felt like God led me down and so when I'm in the middle of that he's going to take care of this because he's the one that got me here I didn't get me here and I don't know why we would ever want to rob that from people the only thing I can think of is that we'd want to control them in somewhere we want to provide for ourselves one of the verses that we've alluded to a lot I think on these podcasts probably never read but is that Holy Ezekiel 34 you know fixing what the bad shepherds have done and I just want to read product because the language here I think encourages exactly the kinds of thing that the Dom's asking but also many of the other folks that are in this journey they've had secure things to rely on I've told this story before not none of the podcast here but of the Julie about a week before she got married four years ago asked if she could spend a day kayaking with me out in the harbor here now I've never kayaked before I remember crawling in when your daughter a week from marriage says dad I want to spend a day with you I mean you do it yeah so I went out to the pier and gotten this little kayak and I mean I stood there on the shore holding on to the pier my little little wobbly aren't you oh just quivering like a bowl full of jello man and I was like do I let go of this dock and have a day with my daughter or do I crawl back up and say no let's go get a milkshake and I remember saying my security you know late 40s I'm not thinking kayaking is something I need to pick up this part in my life but I pushed away from that dock and it's surprising how quickly that evens out you kind of get your sea legs or whatever and you're able to just spend the day and face that choice we always face the choice am I going to stay dependent upon this substitute if it's if it's a people a person a program a plan if it's that or am I going to find this kind of confidence in Jesus and this is what the Lord says in response to the the bad shepherds that were abusing the flock he said oh shepherds hear the word of the Lord this is about verse 9 of Ezekiel 34 this is what the sovereign Lord says I'm against the shepherds and I'm going to hold them accountable for my flock there's no way I'll remove them from telling the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves and I will rescue my flock from their mouths and they no longer will be food for them this is what the sovereign Lord says I myself will search for my sheep and look after them and as a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them so will I look after my sheep I will rescue them on a day of clouds and darkness and I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries and I will bring them into Israel in the ravines and in all the settlements of the land and I will tend them in a good pasture and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land there they will lie down in a good grazing land and there they will feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down declares the sovereign Lord I will search for the lost and bring back the strays I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak but the sleek and strong I will destroy and break them and I will take the sheep and I will be the brave so they will know that I am the Lord when I break the bars of their yolk and rescue them from the hands of those who enslave them and they will no longer be plundered by the nations nor will wild animals devour them they will live in safety and no one will make them afraid and I will provide for them a land renowned for its crops and they will no longer be victims of famine in the land or bear the Why would we ever rob people from that shepherd? I mean, that's the only shepherd we would ever need. Bring that forward into the New Testament. All of a sudden Jesus makes the statement. I mean, I never equated the two till we started talking about this passage. But when Jesus says, you know, I am the good shepherd, that is loaded as if that's this thing. He's saying, I'm here. You know, he's looking upon humanity as as you know, sheep that are cast down sheep without a shepherd that without him, they can't get up. They're going to die in their condition. But the good shepherds here and you think about it. If we really saw this clearly, who of us with eyes open would knowingly and willingly choose a substitute? Absolutely. Absolutely wouldn't. But somehow that system mentality gives us a substitute. It gives us something to rely on other than him. Look at all that it says. I will find the scattered. I will bind them up. I will bring the broken hearted. This is what he wants to do for everyone who's listening to us. This is this is the life and know it just doesn't happen in a moment. You just don't sit down at a night and say, OK, I think I'm going to live this way now. This is this is as we've said over this is a transition. It's a process. But this is a process worth getting through. No, it's not easy for many of us. Oh, no, no. Yes, it takes time. Yes, there are days you'll feel angry. Days you'll feel disoriented. Days you'll feel abandoned. But that's just part of all of him unraveling that religious way of thinking that will never bear the fruit of the kingdom. And if he can't unravel that, then we'll not get to live in this life. And for part of I think we have to stay through that process with him. As I said, there were times I think God was moving me that way. And I would get scared and run back to something more secure. And it's just his amazing patience that says, OK, we'll go back there and we'll start again. And I'll just keep inviting you back as far as you're willing to go before. You're like little kids trying to go out in the dark from the house. We used to do some of my dad's farm. How far you could get away from the house before you freak out in fear and night and run back to the safety of the light. I kind of see that in this. And yet God just keeps saying, I want to invite you until you know that there is no more secure place in the planet for you to be then with me. That's what God's inviting us into. I don't think we really think through death, burial and resurrection. The whole idea of resurrection life. That sounds so awesome, so fantastic. But I don't think we ever attached it. You know what? It never comes apart from the reality of death of the dying and a burial. I mean, I've never heard anyone talk about the fun of a burial. We're just going like that. Especially when it's yours. It's like it's one thing to die. That's painful. But you know, it's over. The challenging is that in between time between when there is a death and I recognize it and right before that resurrection life that comes and you'll know it, but what are you doing that kind of buried time where you're just going like, man, this is disorienting. I don't know. I don't understand. That's what that's where that incubator of the kind of change that I think Jesus is wanting to bring in us. I think that's where it is. And I think I want to willingly embrace it knowing that, you know what? I am persuaded. I know in whom I have trusted what he began. He is going to finish. He authored it. He will finish it and he's going to present me before him. You know, pure and blameless. I've never been pure and blameless, but that's what he's offering. And that's what he does so well. But it is a process. I had a brother call me this week with faithful listeners to this podcast and he called me to say, Wayne, how long were you angry through this whole thing? And I said, why? I said, because I'm still angry every time I see the system raised its head, man, I want to speak out against that and I want, you know, the old Babylon thing. I don't want to fight. He just had all this fighting. He said, were you angry? And I said, I was angry. How long? I said a few years, a couple years. I don't know how long. How did you fix it? I don't know. Someday when what was won over in me, I think was this reality in Jesus is so real on its own that I don't want to have to fight that anymore. The problem is not that that exists. The problem is that people don't know Jesus real enough so that that isn't needed. And for me, that just took all the anger out of it. I'm not angry anymore. I mean, I look at brothers and sisters captive in religious stuff and I go in and I love the day they'll be free from that. But I think looking back even the places where I was betrayed and hurt by people and why am I not angry today? I think I'd have to say because I see now the fruit of that. What looked like a horrible thing when it happened sent me on a journey, the fruit of which I wouldn't trade now for anything. I wouldn't trade how I live in him now for any other way that I used to live, any other safe looking system. I mean, none of them look safe anymore. Nothing looks more safe to me than waking up this morning and living in him. I just want to leave this with one kind of image. It was it was back when the Olympics were happening in this as whole arena. And I remember a commercial watching one. It was a coat commercial and it was interesting. It opened up with a bunch of people kind of in black and white tones. It was sort of young people sitting on the rooftops of houses and they're just sitting there. They're isolated. They're separate. They're kind of alone and they're not smiling. They're just waiting. And all of a sudden there's, you know, a coke can. I mean, it's goofy, but there's a coke can. Most of your stories have a goofy element. But that's part of my uniqueness. There's a coke can that comes over and underneath the bottom. It just says the real thing and all of a sudden the sun shines and everything turns golden. And then you see this other thing. It says enjoy and they give each other, you know, looks at said a thousand things just going like, you know what that is where I think humanity is poised. They're sitting on an outside of rooftops going like, I know this isn't it. But I have an inbred hunger for the real thing. And when that emerges and everything turns golden and I get to enjoy. Wow, we should call coke for a little sponsorship this week. And that might be a good thing. Appreciate those who wrote us or called in and please keep in mind the blog and the comment line. And if you'd like to participate in our discussion, we'd love to have you join us. Go have a coke. Thanks for traveling with us today on The God Journey. If you'd like to join the conversation, we'd appreciate your questions or feedback by email or at our blog at thegodjourney.com. Or you can call 24 hours a day to our comment line at 805-626-4212.