Contentedness
Kevin Smith has been a long-time friend of Wayne’s and during his recent trip to Australia they found a chance to catch up on their journeys and encourage each other. They recorded some of their musings together so Brad and others who have enjoyed Kevin’s journey could join in the dialog. They talked about a number of things, prayer, learning to listen to God, helping others, and living contentedly in the face of difficult circumstances or shifting opportunities. Kevin lives with his wife Val near Melbourne, Australia where they enjoy a life in the Father’s care alongside others including their three adult children and their families. (Please bear with us on the quality of the interview here. We weren’t in a studio.)
Podcast Links:
Kevin’s Previous Podcasts with Wayne and Brad:
06/08/2007 • The Freedom of Knowing Him
06/01/2007 • Taking the Risk to Live In Father’s Care
10/13/2005 • Living Under Father’s Care
The Ongoing Challenges in Kenya
Wayne is back from his two-week trip to Australia, and catches Brad up on some of his adventures there and some of the people he met all across the spectrum of faith—to pastors and congregational leaders and to brothers and sisters simply learning to live relationally with the Father. Part of their conversation focuses on the abuses of the religious system and how easily so-called leaders can lose touch with reality especially when they think themselves successful in numbers or money. How easily their ways seduce others to ignore the warning signals in their heart and go along even when Jesus’ priorities have long been forsaken in the face of human appetites and imaginations. Trusting God’s voice in our hearts is far more valuable than conforming ourselves to the opinions of others because we want to believe the best in them. 
Brad and Wayne are back from vacation and travels and catch up after a long summer. They also plow through some of the email and blog postings as listeners have responded to recent podcasts about sovereignty, scriptures, and the inevitable end of religious systems. What comes from all that is the recognition that living out a growing trust in the nature of God is the growing edge of this journey. The reason we develop systems, movements, or institutions is to help us feel secure in our own planning and ingenuity. When people finally discover what a false hope those things really are, now they are ready to learn to live by following his leading. Most don’t realize how much religious performance is deeply grounded in our thirst for the illusion of control and without it what a joy it is to learn how to live relaxed in uncertainty because of our growing trust in Father’s care. 
Long time listener and now the de-facto historian of the God Journey, Dave Edwards join Brad and Wayne for this look back through the history of the podcast. For the past 16 months Dave listened to all 288 podcasts through 2010 and pulled off some of the pithy statements that seemed the most thought-provoking and helpful to people on a relational journey. He was traveling through the area and dropped in on the podcast, which gave Brad and Wayne a chance to get to know Dave better–allowing them not only to reflect on the history of the God Journey, but also Dave’s own spiritual journey learning to live outside the box. Like most journeys it includes some pain and joy, and more recently a heart-attack that has helped him reshape his lifestyle. Dave and his wife Caryn reside in Montgomery, AL. 
Brad’s away on business so Wayne’s wife Sara fills in this week for a discussion about how religion so easily suppresses women by relegating them to second-class status. As they talk about lessons they’ve learned over 36 years of marriage they unpack what has made them better team members as they’ve learned to be better partners not by agreeing on everything, but by living in the tension of those differences and learning how to treat each other with respect, honor, and fairness. Surprisingly one marriage counselor says that couples can live together with great joy and fulfillment even if they disagree on 67% of the conflicts in their marriage. It seems agreement isn’t nearly as important as how they treat each other in their disagreements. 
It’s an amazing statement, and all the more when it was written by one of Christianity Today’s own writers. “So we have a system in which pride and hypocrisy are inevitable,” writes Mark Galli in an article titled, “The Most Risky Profession.” And there’s more all the way from ambitious churches lusting for size and that we have shaped the American pastorate so that the sin of arrogance is “impossible to escape”. While Wayne and Brad are in sync with his observations, they can’t help but wonder why his advice falls so far short of actually resolving the problem. It’s a “red pill” moment as this article offers us the choice to see things as they really are or to drift back into the illusion that we can just make the best of a bad system. The early moments of this podcast also contain a brief discussion about God’s sovereignty in answer to an email they received. 
It starts with Brad’s curiosity as to how Wayne sorts out what he’s doing any given day, and that combined with an email about being driven by purpose, leads to a larger discussion about finding our freedom in God’s leading and not trying to feed our insecurities. Most of our bad doctrines result from finding a security blanket that soothes our angst with an illusion of godliness, but circumvents the real way God wants to work in our hearts. Driven people end up busy people often masking their own fears with their myriad of activities. Learning to live inside God’s nudgings requires us to think differently than we’ve been encouraged to live in this world, but embracing the stillness that allows us to hear God is at the heart of conquering our insecurities and living as freely as he wants us to live. 
An email from a listener begs Wayne and Brad to renounce the Bible as a distorted religious document that does more harm than good. Many people who have been abused by religion and freshly awaken to the God of love reject the power of Scripture because they simply don’t understand what it is or how to read it. Many of them become militant trying to dissuade others from the Scriptures as well. Wayne and Brad respond out of their great affection for the Scriptures and the powerful and welcome part it plays in their own spiritual journeys. Don’t let the abuse of some, rob you of the great treasure that Scripture can bring to our lives if we are not lost in the religious misuse of it. 
Wayne fills Brad in on his time in Rome and what he learned about the Roman Empire and how its priorities actually became part of the church of that day as it got lost in its quest for power and significance. We still see the traces of it today in all kinds of religious institutions that are focused on personal power, buildings, and compelling others to act like they want. That leads to a wider discussion about the nature of worldly power and how it always gravitates to the same place of control and manipulation of others. Why does that always win out, even for people who begin with a desire to follow Jesus and be part of his life in the world? They talk about their dream of real community and honest collaboration and whether or not it is attainable or sustainable this side of eternity. 
Wayne’s back from his trip to Spain and Rome and shares with Brad some of his experience there, especially an intense discussion with people who have been involved in great tragedy or suffered prolonged sexual abuse by a relative. Their question, how do we convince people God is a loving God when he allows such horrible things to happen to them? What came out of that conversation was the power of simply saying, “I don’t know,” and surrendering our need to be on God’s public relations staff. Helping people learn to live loved is not a matter of finding logical answers to their deepest questions but simply introducing them to the Abba Father whose incredible love engages our lives. He doesn’t always answer our questions or honor the false dichotomies we set up, but his love enveloping our heart make the questions irrelevant. Tragedy doesn’t disprove his love; his love is greater than our tragedies. Only God can make that clear. 
