The God Journey

It is perhaps one of the most controversial lines in THE SHACK even for those who love the book and the movie. We so associate God with anger, sin, and punishment, that people are asking Wayne and Brad what they meant by that phrase, "Sin is its own punishment." Is that even Biblical since Scripture talks about the punishment of sin? So they guys spend some time unpacking that phrase and its meaning in their own journey and why its important that we see the devastation sin itself causes. Sin's own effects are all the punishment we need either to turn us back to God or to consume us in our self-indulgence. Seeing God as the rescuer in the world rather than the purveyor of punishment will help you understand his nature better. There is nothing God can do to punish our sin that sin itself doesn't already accomplish or that can make the repentant heart more free in his presence? Podcast Notes: Wayne's Upcoming Trip to South Africa You can find our latest update on our work in Kenya here. Add your voice to our question/comment line via Skype at "TheGodJourney"

All the little girl wanted was for a dad who would enjoy her presence. But he was too busy managing their lives to notice that his daughter was drowning in the need for a father's love. Enjoying our presence, is the perfect way to talk about how God loves us and how he wants to connect with us. Even in the most difficult of circumstances enjoying his presence soothes our pain-filled questions and offers us a pathway to growing faith in him and his work in us. It disarms our angry "Why?" questions and as he lets us know we are not alone in anything. This trust is hard to embrace when we so easily misunderstand his character and how he manages the universe in trying to get our needs met in the only way we think would befit his love. Podcast Notes: NPR's This American Life: Fermi's Pardox contains the story of the little girl with questions and her dad. Find it at 43:28. Previous Podcast: The Prayer Dance Wayne's Upcoming Trip to South Africa You can find our latest update on our work in Kenya here. Add your voice to our question/comment line via Skype at "TheGodJourney"

How do we reconcile the love of the Father and the bone-crushing trials that life throws at us? With some listener input, Brad and Wayne revisit last week's topic, Desperation and Hope, and offer some more insight about navigating our difficulties, not by denying the reality of our circumstances, but embracing the hope of God-with-us regardless of whatever we're facing. Embracing the uniqueness of each of our journeys and what God is doing through us, doesn't leave us with a settle of principles to apply, but a presence to comfort us and a voice to lead us as God meets us in our pain and walks with us through it. Podcast Notes: Christianity Today Article: A Walking Disaster Wayne's Upcoming Trip to South Africa You can find our latest update on our work in Kenya here. Add your voice to our question/comment line via Skype at "TheGodJourney"

Do we accept the desperate circumstances that come upon us, or do we resist them in hope that God will change them? The question comes from a frequent listener to the God Journey and causes Brad and Wayne to wrestle with their own journey of where our faith comes into play in dealing with illness or other difficulties. If we just give in and deal with circumstances as they are does that compromiser faith that God can do something greater? If our hope never comes to pass, have we wasted our effort when we could have been dealing with our crisis? Or maybe our acceptance of circumstances and having hope in God's activity, either in this life or beyond are not mutually exclusive at all. There's no better place for God to lead us than embracing the reality of our circumstances, while looking to him for anything greater he might want to do. Podcast Notes: Wayne's Upcoming Trip to South Africa You can find our latest update on our work in Kenya here. Add your voice to our question/comment line via Skype at "TheGodJourney"

"I love you. I forgive you. I want to know you." Those words profoundly changed the course of Andrew's life. A stubborn agnostic, Andrew had no hope in God's existence even as he had destroyed his marriage and family with a host of addictions. But one day he opened the door just a crack to the possibility that God might be someone worth knowing and in an amazing encounter with his estranged daughter God came bounding through. Andrew tells his story in an email to Wayne that he in turn reads to Brad. It is an amazing story of how God made himself known, even in the shambles of his broken existence and how over the next few years God kept inviting him into freedom and life. The story is a painful one, and ends with Andrew losing everything except his newfound relationship with God and his courage to face life honestly even when it cost him everything. Our hope is that his story will encourage your own. Podcast Notes: Wayne's Upcoming Trip to New England and South Africa You can find our latest update on our work in Kenya here. Add your voice to our question/comment line via Skype at "TheGodJourney"

There is nothing that messes up our spiritual journey more than looking at other people and comparing our journey and its fruits to theirs, and yet something in our humanity can't seem to resist the urge to do so. The discussion starts with an email about a so-called controversy regarding some women bloggers and the threat they pose to the gatekeepers of religious institutions and doctrinal purity. Seeking to control others always draws us away from what Christ is doing in us, and our institutions play along by creating environments where we become each other's victims. So rather than celebrate the uniqueness of how God leads each of us, we have to worry about what others are doing and how that might compete with what he's doing in us. Once we fix our eyes on others we'll lose sight of what he is simply asking of us in the sphere he has given us. And, discovering the grace to live inside our own journey allows us to love others rather than be threatened by them. Podcast Notes: Wayne's Upcoming Trip to New England and South Africa You can find our latest update on our work in Kenya here. Add your voice to our question/comment line via Skype at "TheGodJourney"

Rod Dreher's latest book, The Benedict Option has caused quite a stir among Christian conservatives. He concedes we've lost the culture war and uses the example of St. Benedict who founded monasteries to combat the collapse of the Roman Empire. He suggests withdrawal from the culture is necessary to protect the purity of the Gospel and future Generations. Wayne and Brad discuss his premises and conclusions and the pitfalls of thinking any human-contrived system can preserve the purity of the Christian community. When you know God as a real presence in the humanity, putting your trust in any system just seems preposterous. Only as people come alive in him and share that life freely int he world will the kingdom of God continue to unfold even in the brokenness of this age. Podcast Notes: Christianity Today article on The Idea of a Christian Village You can find our latest update on our work in Kenya here. Add your voice to our question/comment line via Skype at "TheGodJourney"

Wayne's back from Michigan and Wisconsin including a visit with some prisoners there. Brad's back from a Seven Mountain Conference, so they have lots tot all about and most of it circles back to how putting our trust in a system will easily lead us astray from the reality of living inside of Christ. They also look at an article by Jen Hatmaker about here being crushed by the Christian Machine for not adhering to the party line, which many of us have suffered though for different reasons. Everyone seems to want to use the machine for their own gain, without realizing how quickly it can turn and devour them. Genuineness, however, is the best antidote to being caught up in it, and to reach out to those that are already. Podcast Notes: Jen Hatmaker's Good Friday Blog You can find our latest update on our work in Kenya here. Add your voice to our question/comment line via Skype at "TheGodJourney"

Wayne sifts through the mailbag to explore some responses to recent podcasts. One invites a discussion about the misuse of Scripture as a substitute for a real relationship with God instead of a valuable tool to help us explore that relationship. When we try to use a gift other than for the purpose it was intended it can become destructive through no fault of its own. Brad and Wayne also sort through an article by Brad Jersak as he ruminates about institutions and hierarchies offering an idealistic hope for their value even though they often fall short of that ideal. Can hierarchies be valuable among broken humanity? And for those who forsake them, how do they avoid simply becoming independent anarchists that deny the community that faith engenders? Podcast Notes: Jodie Foster's travel scene in Contact Here's more about Brad Jersak'and his article blog About Hard Questions I Ask Myself about Hierarchy and Institutions You can find our latest update on our work in Kenya here. Add your voice to our question/comment line via Skype at "TheGodJourney"

It is said that the Pharisees believed truth was more important than love, and without love they soon veered off the path of truth. But for the follower of Christ, love become the most important part of truth. It's the conduit through which God brings his truth into our lives so we can be respond to it in a way that's transformative. Wayne's recent appearance on Moody Radio's Up For Debate provide the catalyst to explore why some people think THE SHACK is dangerous and how to respond to people like that. Brad also follows up on Wayne's thought the week before that God certainly does not live in the same parameters we do when we talk of him allowing things to happen in our lives. Finally, they consider a recent letter Wayne from parents who want to know how to respond to their transgendered daughter. It is easy to love people who conform to our expectations of truth or morality, but how do we learn to love people whose views and actions are so diametrically opposed to that which we hold dear? Podcast Notes: Wayne's Appearance on Moody's Up For Debate show about whether Christians should see The Shack Wayne's blog: How Do I Love My Transgendered Child? You can find our latest update on our work in Kenya here. Add your voice to our question/comment line via Skype at "TheGodJourney"

Brad's been spending a lot of time trying to understand the Calvinist reaction to THE SHACK, and why it is that they demonstrate so much angst about the movie. It has led him into some musings about God's control and the universe, the blending of God's justice and his mercy, and why humans get caught up in theological principles that simply don't lead to the relationship God designed with us. That leads to a conversation with Wayne about how God giving us dominion over the creation line up with the idea that God is in control of everything and his will always happens? To what degree does God make a volitional choice to allow hurtful things to happen in our lives and how he can't possibly make this decisions with the same criteria by which we often judge him? Podcast Notes: You can find our latest update on our work in Kenya here. Add your voice to our question/comment line via Skype at "TheGodJourney"

Everyone, it seems is drawn to the top of the pedestal. To be admired by others, thought influential in their field, and to reap the financial rewards of being at the top of the heap is often equated with success. Should it be? Brad and Wayne discuss the lure of the pedestal and what it does to people who seek it, even if they fail to gain it. While acknowledging that there's a world of difference between having influence because of the quality of someone's life and message and seeking that influence to be thought successful. But at what cost to honesty and integrity do people pay to try to hold on to a pedestal they've fallen in love with. The life of Jesus is not passed on through people on pedestals, but by relational engagements where we are alongside people helping them explore their own growing relationship with him. Oh, and that invites yet another discussion about Promisekeepers and the lessons learned from mass movements, genuine passion, and human ambition. Podcast Notes: Wayne's Blog on The Thirst for the Limelight You can find our latest update on our work in Kenya here. Add your voice to our question/comment line via Skype at "TheGodJourney"

Is the fact that God knows you to the core of your being good news or bad news? The answer will tell you a lot of what you believe about him, you, and the possibility of relationship with him. If you know his love then you want him to know everything about you, even the broken places so that he can work there to transform us into his glory. For those truly growing to know him, repentance and confession are not the horrible, scary words religious performance turned them into, nor something to be avoided. In fact, you can't truly repent until his love wins its way into your heart. Knowing him, however, make repentance and confession a delightful part of our engagement with him as his love seeks to win us out of all the places that sin seeks to destroy us. Inside his love, both the fear of hell and the joy of sin goes away and we get to be the people he really created us to be. Podcast Notes: You can find our latest update on our work in Kenya here. Add your voice to our question/comment line via Skype at "TheGodJourney"

This is the first podcast Wayne and Brad have done since the movie release, so they begin with some of the reactions they are getting from people, both those who love it and those who react against it. They talk about why religious people carry so much pain and genuinely want people to be punished. Is it just coincidence that Jesus faced the same kind vitriol from the religious people of his day? Many do find grace offensive, and they find convincing other they are right is more important than loving people in their pain. What a contrast the leadership style of Jesus presents to the religious leaders of his day and many in ours! Wayne reads a NY Times article about what an alpha leader really is and the answer will surprise you. Podcast Notes: Think You Know What “Alpha Male” Means? These Wolves Will Prove You Wrong You can find our latest update on our work in Kenya here. Add your voice to our question/comment line via Skype at "TheGodJourney"

Lately Brad and Wayne have been caught up in numerous conversations about their ideas about discerning God's voice, his wrath as it defines his character, and his punishment as it relates to our struggle with sin. Many feel God has only left us with the Scriptures to guide us will not make his voice and will known to us as we live our lives. Is that even what the Scriptures teach? Is God a God of wrath that sometimes loves, or a God of love who sometimes has to act in that love in severe ways? Until we know God as a loving presence in the universe, we won't understand those times he acts to restrain sin and preserve humanity's redemption. Podcast Notes: Whose Afraid of the Big, Bad Shack, by Wayne The article from John Piper's Desiring God Website about God not talking today: What Does ‘The Shack’ Say About Your Pain? You can find our latest update on our work in Kenya here. Add your voice to our question/comment line via Skype at "TheGodJourney"