How Far Will Love Go?

Wayne is back from his harrowing entry into Canada, and then It's time to catch up on some of the interesting email and blog postings of those who want to join the conversation. That takes Brad and Wayne on some interaction about baptism, the risk and reward of raising children by freedom and not conformity, and the concerns about divorce and remarriage. Here they find a story about a revelation of love that will go to the wall for the object of that affection, and a discussion about those who want to live loved who have absolutely no human examples of that in their own lives.

Podcast Links:
Orphanage Relocation in Kenya
For those who want to read the book before Brad and Wayne discuss it next week:The Remarkable Replacement Army.

12 Comments

  1. Dear Wayne, dear Brad
    just heard the hassle you had going through customs in Canada and
    Brad not knowing at all how it is if you enter the US.
    I can tell you nowhere else that I know of, will you get the feeling of
    being a potenial terrorist until you have proven differently than
    at the US border. Lots of people outside the US will do everything
    they can to avoid having to go to the US at the moment.

    On another note – I enjoy your podcasts a lot.
    Greetings from Switzerland
    Olivier

  2. “No matter how broken our world may be, there is a HIDDEN WHOLENESS just beneath the surface of all things visible.” Thomas Merton.
    I thought Wayne said “everyone has a lie they are living”. I missed the everyone who is famous is living a lie, a pretense. I didn’t think he was talking about just celebrity seekers. I think its true of all human beings even Brad and Wayne, Miley Cyrus et al John Smith and me. The people that we meet on this journey living supposedly ordinary lives (we believe the lie that an ordinary life is meaningless and hence worthless) in the fullness of Christ still have “lie” and “story” that is not full of life love and truth. Its a noun has three letters starts with the letter S. The problem of celebrity culture is it diminishes or worse it devalues most of life on this planet because most of us are not famous,(thank you Lord), and it continually promotes the lie that life as most human beings live is ordinary. The truth is Life is quite extraordinary.
    Sociologist Brene’ Brown says it better than me. This is from her blog.
    “As a shame researcher, I’ve spent the past six years interviewing people about shame and how it affects their lives. Over and over I hear people talk about the “smallness of their ordinary lives.” People struggle with the shame of living a life that’s never reflected back as important on TV or in the movies. Most of us live unremarkable lives that aren’t retold in page-turning memoirs or seen in the pages of the magazines that worship celebrity culture”.
    Lastly, I can’t resist snarky comebacks. You two better stop drinkin California water and the Cyrus’s need to move back to Tennesee! Just kidding.

  3. Acutally Wayne and Brad there are some very serious discussions going on at high levels in the us right now about requiring that Canadians visiting the US require visas. Also there is a great deal of talk among certain sectors of the US that the Canadian border is not being patroled well enough for the liking of certain groups in the US. In fact I’ve just read a report where some congressional members(perhaps newly elected) have requested that the us army up serveillance and patrol of the bordor. I’m sorry you had such a difficult entry into Canada. These are difficult and frightening times and many are using these for furthuring their own agendas. Not sure if that had anything to do with your difficult entry to Canada or not.

  4. Hey Jon, I wouldn’t be bothered if it were for security reasons. I travel a lot. I’m willing to go a long ways to ensure the safety of others. What seemed silly was that it was about pornography and hate speech placards. Really! It just seemed a bit ridiculous and a little tit-for-tat maybe in retaliation for US policies. But why would you guys want to be like the US?

  5. Just love this podcast, took a long time to get into the meat of it but it is really good, thank you. I just wanted to mention how hard it is to understand and accept love, I came from a very broken abusive home, every kind of abuse went on, however in growing up we are lead to believe that we are loved, so this abuse we receive was recived in a childs mind as love … This leads to much confusion when you start to get some real love, I have had a wonderful pastor and his wife who have loved me to bits and in all they have done have enabled me to understand real love I could never recieve, and I could never have recieved this love without time and God rewiring my sick thinking, until I accepted their love I could not accept Gods love as I had to have some physical love as well, a hand, a kind word, a careing with no agenda, eye contact … My mother told me when I was born I was so fat my eyes were closed for 2 weeks, this as I have investigated is untrue, she just could not look into them … I needed every kind of parent contact and was discribed as being similar to an orphan in brokeness … A small child inside of me always scared and confused … This child has grown up and I am totally healed Praise God … God has won my heart I would not be here if it had not been for him and these people who have just loved me to bits … I Love ‘The God Journey’ real honest teaching of what God is really like and who He really is, I have such a close relationship with him now it is overwelming he has softened my heart and taught me to love others as much as I have been loved in my healing years and it did take years but I am this far from where I was, love is all around us coming from God unconditionally, but when you are so hurt and abused you cannot just ‘get it’, you need human love displayed/expressed to you to gain that confidence that God is Surely with us in all … I also love your books I have learnt so much about Gods love through these, I have just got Authentic relationships and am so amazed at the information … I am still learning as we all do, But I am learning so i can give it away, the more you give love away the more you get back, it is incredible … Thank you so much for teaching this stuff

  6. Wayne,… As a Canadian living in the USA even I was subjected to a higher level of scrutiny when I visited Canada late last year. I believe I was ‘randomly’ chosen due to my line of work (in theater/concert work) to have my car searched. The Customs officers came out with the gloves on as well, probably to protect their hands from the hazard of meeting up with substances or objects that could bring them harm or contaminate anything they may find. Equally, when I re-enter the USA through the American system, I meet with scrutiny that I was never used to before the 9/11 situation. Having grown up in a border town where a birth certificate was sufficient for entry with only a few routine questions, the current process can be daunting in entering either country. It is very sad that it has come to that but it has. The scariest time of re-entry to the USA was when national guard personnel stepped up on each side of the car, machine guns in hand, and peered in at myself and my son and daughter who were in their mid-teens at the time. I was wondering if there is some form that you could obtain before traveling into Canada that would facilitate the entry process, where Canada Customs would facilitate screening the necessary information to present to the border agent.

  7. Too bad for your border issues, Wayne. You will miss a lot by not coming to Canada again. I am saddened by the border restrictions between US and Canada. It just prevents people from going beyond their borders an experiencing culture and people they don’t yet know.

    God has taken you across many borders and I am sure that one border crossing episode will not prevent you from coming back to our beautiful country with so many beautiful people…. should God lay it on your heart to come,

    My thoughts. UPS the books next time and pick them up when you get past customs. Tell them you are going to visit friends.. which is exactly what you are doing. They are just freinds that you haven’t met yet.

    If that doesn’t work. Next time you are hung up at the border… enjoy the opportunity to share your story and what you do with the border guards.

    If all else fails.. I will send you postcards. Canada would miss you too, Wayne!!!!

    Ruby from Edmonton, Alberta

  8. Ruby, I was only joking. I’m sure I’ll be back in Canada again some day. It was more hassle than I’ve had anywhere else and it really didn’t make any sense. If they thought I was a threat, that’s one thing, but just to put someone through that because they were a bit bored seemed a bit wasteful. And though I am coming to hang out with friends, technically it is part of what I ‘do’ in their eyes and I don’t want to be disingenuous about that. It can cause more problems than its worth…

  9. You probably have that challenge on a regular basis.

    “What do you do for a living?”

    I remember you trying to answer that question when Drew Marshall interviewed you.

    Maybe I’ll send those postcards anyway. Just in case your visit to Canada hasn’t brought you into Alberta… the most beautiful province in Canada.

    Cheers

  10. Wow do I identify with the poster named “Jo.” I am really struggling with a life lived where my family, church, and entire community never showed me love. I realize now that this is a result of the Dutch Calvinist beliefs(the work hard and then you die model of religion) of the community and family I grew up in. God’s been gradually freeing me and I’ve been running with Him as fast as I can away from all of that. But I still realize that I can’t quite grasp that God, in reality-in 3 dimensional space on this earth-actually truly loves me. I’m not that old(25) and thankfully God is not allowing me to be in that situation anymore but there is a lot of damage.

    I was really hoping you guys could do a show on people like me and Jo and others who have lived lives without love but with examples of how God has broken through all that and transformed their lives.

    I don’t want to sound like a cry baby but at 25 years old, I’ve never been loved, not by parents, “friends” and especially not by the church. It’s amazing to me that I’m still alive after all the abuse and un love that I’ve lived through(I now know that it’s not God’s vision for the church to cause it’s parts to want to die!). I still hunger to experience love from anyone, because I still haven’t found it in this life in relationships with people(especially Christians who always seem to want something from me!?).

    Like Jo said, It really is truth that when you grow up in that situation real love(something I still have quite figured out the definition of) is the opposite of what you think it is. God placed on my heart today that this is something he is about changing in my life.

    I’ve been discovering that what is true love is not what people said was love. I was always told by people that “I love you” but their actions were the opposite(I keep coming back to the fact that most of these people are Calvinist, coincidence? I’m not so sure). I struggle with the bible because of it, because, these are words and in word I was told I was loved but never shown it by act or in real physical life. What has kept me all these years from knowing God personally is that He says He loves me, but I don’t see much of His love in my life. It has been a real struggle to try and reconcile the bible with my real life(I can’t). I can only hope that In spite of the fact the bible is a bunch of words God will still use it in action to show me he does love me. I know He is about showing me all that but a lifetime(even of just 25yrs) is enough time to do a lot of damage. The reason I write all of this is not to blabber on about me, but because It seemed like you guys didn’t really know where people like me are coming from, and the true damage that can be done.

    I thought that Brad’s comments were extremely calloused about this type of a situation. Believe me, the hardest thing in the world to do is to believe that God loves me, after a life, steeped in the bible(which people used to coerce me to do what they wanted) and in a church(the CRC and ELCA) and community which has shown everything except God’s love. After all that it’s not very easy to understand “the God of love” when you’ve never experienced love from other people.

    We don’t live in a vacuum-just us and God. Since we were meant for relationship, we learn from others-for better or worse-through our experiences; what love is, and what God’s love is. When God breaks through all that, It’s really really tough to believe it and that’s something I’m struggling with. I was disheartened to hear how little empathy and understanding you have for people struggling to reconcile God’s true love, to the “love” that people have always shown them. Maybe you haven’t experienced such a life and if that’s the case I’m glad, because I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy! But know that it’s difficult for other people.

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