Immanuel Approach: How an unspiritual encounter with God over Skype changed my whole stinking life

Six weeks ago, I spent 90 minutes praying with a friend over Skype and it changed my life. I felt the effects right away: I felt light, happy. Wave after wave of peace and gratitude flooded every dusty corner of my heart as I experienced a level of personal connection to Jesus that I’ve never felt before. It completely blew my analytical circuits. Within 48 hours I noticed I wasn’t compulsively judging people the way I used to. My social anxiety had gone down. Conflict in my marriage disappeared. (Yes, really!) A chronic fear of spiritual intimacy in my marriage I’ve struggled with for a solid decade simply vanished. I started enjoying my kids more. Heck, I even started craving healthy foods! It seemed that nearly every problematic area of my life was touched in some way by this seemingly benign prayer time.

I knew then that much of the novelty would wear off over time. Of course I would start craving nachos again. And surely some of the old anxiety would return. So I held off writing this for 6 weeks so I could study and analyze what was happening to me and report back to you without a lot of the customary fluff that can surround an ecstatic or life-changing experience. I know what a “spiritual high” is and I wanted to see how much of this experience would stick and how much would fall away. Some of it did fall way. But today, I can say the effects of that experience have continued to snowball into greater levels of peacefulness, personal security, gratitude, self-awareness, and maturity along with a sustained connection to God unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. To say I feel “born again” would be fitting in this case.

So... Here it is.

That Skype call prayer was no ordinary prayer time. My friend was introducing me to the “Immanuel Approach”, a very simple approach to prayer that accesses our memories to build a present, interactive connection with Jesus and heal traumatic memories. Designed by Dr. Karl Lehman, a Christian psychiatrist in Chicago, it was initially used as a therapeutic intervention in his private practice. But it has found applications in people’s daily lives as they use it to connect with God in simple everyday ways. I was intrigued by it because some friends whom I knew had been in counseling for years to deal with entrenched emotional issues experienced sudden and dramatic progress in those areas using the Immanuel Approach. They also talked about greater intimacy and faith in God. So I thought I’d give it a try. Here is how it goes.

1. Simple opening prayer

2. Access a memory in which you experienced God strongly and/or felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Describe everything you see/feel/experience out loud even if it doesn’t feel significant.

3. Invite God to turn that past memory into a present connection with him. (This is where the fireworks start to happen).

4. Invite God to also be in the room with you NOW in the present.

5. Visualize a negative memory in which you did NOT feel God’s presence.

6. Invite God’s presence to be with you there as well. Wait. Describe everything you see/feel/experience out loud even if it doesn’t feel significant. Be patient.

7. Whether you feel God working in the negative memory or not, return to steps 2-4 to close.

Pretty simple right? Some of you may be thinking, “oh sure! I’ve experienced something like that,” or, “I could at least see how that might be helpful.” Others may be thinking, “sounds nice but what if it doesn’t work? Is it right to get people’s hopes up?” Some may think, “good for you but everybody has different spiritual and emotional pathways so don’t assume what worked for you will work for other people.” Still others have learned from experience not to trust “simple” solutions and techniques. It’s a party trick. It’s all sounds a bit too mystical. It’s using God as a therapeutic crutch. Sounds like a spiritual “get rich quick scheme.” You would be right to feel skeptical. I’ve thought all those things myself. So I’ll just tell you what I know and let you draw your own conclusions.

When I went into my brain searching for a positive connection memory, I landed on an abandoned concrete pier near my childhood home that jutted out into Lake Superior. I walked down there many mornings in high school to dangle my legs over the icy blue water and watch the sun peek over the far horizon. I could feel the crisp Duluth air breathing gently across the choppy waves, the warm morning sun piercing the autumn chill. It was magic, and I felt God was there. As I rehearsed all this to my friend, suddenly I could see Jesus sitting next to me, dangling his legs over the pier too, just happy to be there hanging out with me. As we looked out over the pristine water, a bible reference floated across my thoughts. When I paused to look it up, I was surprised by how fitting the reference was!

Psalm 29:3—“The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.”

In my memory, the scene changed and dark thunderheads crowded in from all horizons until the scene was ominous and continuous muffled thunder rolled out over the waves. But it was still strangely comforting as the scene became pregnant with a sense of God being there with me. I felt that same excited expectation I feel just before thunderclouds drop their payload. I felt tuned in, engaged, eager with anticipation but also safe in God’s care. The funny thing is that now when I think back to that memory out on the pier, I think of it with the storm clouds and Jesus sitting next to me as a real part of the memory. It wasn’t part of my original autobiographical memory, but those details now seem to be “written” in as if they were part of the original event.

Back inside the memory, Jesus grabbed my hand and we started walking down the timeline of my life, which was represented by a physical path. This is where it gets funny. Halfway down the road, Jesus breaks out (I kid you not) pogo sticks and with a goofy grin on his face exclaims, “let’s hop the rest of the way!” At the time I thought this was strange. Why would Jesus do something so silly and seemingly meaningless in the middle of my intense spiritual/emotional experience? Could this be my imagination getting away with me? But it didn’t feel like my imagination. I still felt a strong connection to him. So why pogo sticks?

The real question is “why delight?”

As I’ve gone through the Immanual Approach personally and led about 8 other people through it, I’ve seen Jesus manifest himself in surprising pictures of humor and delight. As people reach the “ground floor” of their experience with him, they often see him doing embarrassingly fun and joyful things. He’s skipping through the forest, he’s grinning in a Hawaiian shirt, he’s a goofy looking electrician with a bundle of wires and a gleam in his eye that says “I’m rewiring this whole thing.” He’s uncomfortably affectionate, he’s cracking jokes. Even the most skeptical, rational people can’t help smiling and laughing when they see Jesus’ sense of humor. While not everybody experiences it this way, I’m learning to watch for these manifestations of God’s humor and delight as a sign of progress.

Personally, as I’ve learned to access God through his delight, I’ve noticed a lot of things seem to correct themselves. One of the more interesting things is that in that “delight space”, a lot of things in the bible that have always felt like complex and heavy tensions begin to feel simple, acceptable, and good. Perhaps it’s not that those things now make perfect sense, but I no longer feel afraid that going down those rabbit holes will lead me to a dark and dreary place spiritually. Similarly, not only is biblical truth no longer scary to me, general truth about myself and the world has also become non-threatening. I’m perhaps more honest with myself now than I’ve ever been. I’m able to quickly acknowledge personal flaws without feeling overwhelmed by their magnitude or powerless to do anything about them. I don’t excuse myself. And I don’t condemn myself. And I attribute that primarily to a personal experience with a kind and light-hearted God.

As an aside, I talked to a good friend recently who is raising small children. He says his biggest struggle as a father is not so much learning how to instruct or discipline his kids. He told me his biggest struggle and the thing he wants to grow in the most as a parent is learning how to enjoy his kids. He talked about how he had started drawing his kids into the things that give him delight (rather than just trying to figure out what they are into). As he has started involving his kids in these areas of his delight, they have started enjoying those things too. More importantly, they have started enjoying their time together. I thought this was a profound parental insight. Because my experience with God’s enjoyment and delight has unlocked my mind to reframe things like God’s discipline, the serious things he wants me to learn, even things like his sovereignty and wrath in a healthier light. I imagine the same is true for the ways we parent: when our kids experience our loving delight in them, a LOT of the discipline and life skills issues seem to resolve themselves because those kids know their daddy or mommy enjoys them.

Okay back to the story. Pogo sticks. Right. So we’re hopping down the road and we land back in the present. A bunch of stuff happens but the gist of it is Jesus is no longer in the memory. Now he’s in the room with me. In my mind’s eye, I can see exactly where he is standing and what he is doing. I’m not used to experiencing him is such vivid ways. It’s surprising. I think a lot of people are surprised by how quickly and strongly they sense Jesus with them in the process. As I’ve led other people through it, I’ve learned that most people sense God in some way that is particularly strong relative to their typical experience. It’s usually not completely out of context to how they’ve experienced God in the past. But typically their experience seems to be uniquely strong for them.

Then it was time to go into a negative memory. I didn’t have one picked out. But as I asked Jesus to lead me, I landed on a memory that didn’t initially feel negative or traumatic. But as I unpacked it, I identified a profoundly negative message that memory had reinforced in my life. And it was scary because as soon as I found myself there, the warm connection with God fizzled. I felt alone. And I didn’t know if I could hitch the negative memory in some way to the positive experience with Jesus that now felt so far away. But as I sat there alone in that memory, inviting Jesus to be there with me, he came, slowly at first, then strongly. He cupped his hands around my heart in a nurturing, protective gesture. I felt him with me and suddenly the negative messages associated with that memory lost their power. The negative payload of the memory fell away. And just like the positive memory before it, I can think about that memory and the added details of my interaction with Jesus—which were not a part of the original autobiographical memory—have now been inserted as though they were. In words, the healing interaction with Jesus in that memory continues to feel real, as though it really happened as a part of the original event.

That’s one of the amazing things about the Immanuel Approach. I should say, that’s one of the amazing things about inviting Jesus into your painful memories. All your wrong beliefs about yourself, about the world, about people, and about God... they are buried in your memories. And when God inserts himself into those memories, they lose their toxic payload and your wrong beliefs correct themselves based on the new information of God’s loving presence.

It has started happening in my life. That’s why I say I literally feel “born again.” Now in fairness, I need to admit that this has been a perfect storm for me. I didn’t just go through this thing once. I’ve been through it again since then. I’ve led others through it. I’ve made a habit of spending 45 minutes each day in the woods walking, praying, meditating, and expressing gratitude. This task has become much easier because my kids are in school now and because the emotional and spiritual payoff is so obvious. When I miss this time, it’s hard for me to concentrate on my work and I end up wasting a lot of time and energy throughout the day. I should also say that the last 18 months have been especially difficult and God has done a lot of work preparing me for the season I’m in now. Also, I would be amiss if I didn’t give credit to an amazing mentor who meets with me each month and has totally been an anchor for me the last few years.

But even considering all those things, the changes I’m seeing today are significant if not miraculous. Debra and I have not had a true fight in 6 weeks. That has NEVER happened in 10 years of marriage. Ever. When my buttons get pushed, it is significantly easier for me to say objectively, “wow, I’m getting triggered right now. But I know that’s about me, not you. Be patient with me while I sort it all out.” In all my relationships, it’s easier to wade through conflict. I’m not threatened by conflict the way I once was. And when there is a conflict it is relatively easy for me to sort through the emotions, pull out the things of value, and throw away the junk. It’s easier for me to maintain healthy detachment while staying emotionally present, which is a HUGE deal for me.

The biggest thus-far permanent change for me is that I now believe (not only intellectually but experientially) that God is with me. I actually think He will show up when I need Him, and that He will meet my physical and emotional needs. I don’t just think that intellectually. I believe it experientially. And if I don’t see or feel Him now, no big deal. I feel confident that I will soon. That belief in itself touches every area of my life. So it’s no wonder I feel as though God’s kingdom (simply put, that invisible place where God is in charge) is breaking in through every door and window of my life, realigning and rearranging everything from top to bottom. It is.

PS- if you want to experience the Immanuel Approach for yourself, feel free to give me a shout! You don’t have to be a Christian or even a very spiritual person. So far it seems the only qualification is willingness to try it. I’m not a pro, but I love to give it away!

Emotional Health for the Costa Rican Soul

Alex and Julie Paniagua are the Costa Rica directors for Operation Mobilization—a global consortium of young-at-heart Jesus followers from every culture with a passion for the unreached and underserved. Alex is a Costa Rica native with a big global relational heart who can blend in physically and culturally throughout the global south. Julie grew up in Mexico, the blond-headed child of American missionaries.

Alex and Julie settled in Costa Rica and gathered a team of young American, Costa Rican, and Dutch missionaries around a vision to reach Costa Rica’s rural indigenous communities. They have been developing a rugged outpost in the muggy buggy village of Talamanca and are using it to:

1. Reach an embattled community in relational ways with their holistic Jesus gospel.

2. Train young recruits for life on the mission field and mobilize them to bring Jesus to the toughest and least-reached places around the globe. The idea is... if you can survive Talamanca, you can make it just about anywhere.

Last year Angela Wolf—one of WDA’s volunteers—met up with Julie and a few of her female teammates on their base in San Jose and led them through Restoring Your Heart. That would be our 17-week small group experience designed to identify and work through unprocessed pain. It’s a revelatory and cathartic experience of grieving and forgiveness in the context of a safe and confidential group. It was designed to not only help people heal emotionally but also to enable them to grow spiritually.

When Julie went through Restoring Your Heart earlier this year, it was revolutionary. So a couple weeks ago, I flew down to the Costa Rican capital of San Jose with Angela and her husband Mike and met up with the Paniaguas. I had prayed a lot about the idea of returning to Latin America. It had been 11 years since my college semester abroad in South America had taken me on a tour through 5 Latin American nations. My Spanish is rusty now. Besides, the majority of my focus has always been on Africa. Nevertheless, I sensed the Father’s easy smile as I traced my morning route down my dead-end Georgia road one day and he whispered, “Costa Rica is my gift to you.” So I signed up to lead the men through the process. And what a gift it was.

When I arrived, I got the impression the Paniaguas had moved mountains to gather 11 of their teammates from across the country for our 5-day Restoring Your Heart experience. We convened Monday morning in a quiet retreat center atop an impossibly green mountain on the outskirts of San Jose. One of the things that make the group so safe is its strict confidentiality agreement. Needless to say, I can’t share a lot of details here. But I want to share a few assorted reflections from our experience together.

*We all got junk to work through. I don’t care who you are. We all got junk. Sometimes the people who say they don’t have junk are the ones with the most pain hidden beneath layers of self-talk and self-deception (often unintentional) that they’ve developed to get through their daily life.

*Admitting our junk is the biggest step in the process. Admission is an incredible thing. It allows others to see your real self presented honestly and without posturing. And in the midst of that vulnerable admission, it allows others to speak some of the most healing words in the human language: “Me too.” One of the most healing things for me going through this process has been to see that contrary to my beliefs, I’m just just like everybody else. As a wise man once said, “your not as good as you think you are. And you’re not as bad as you think you are.” We are all just humans. And in spite of my unique brand of giftedness and brokenness which I often falsely imagine separate me from “normal people”, I’m consistently amazed by the capacity people have to understand and empathize with the stories of others.

*This emotional health stuff is under-taught and undervalued, especially among task-driven ministry folk like me who are often too busy changing the world to take stock of what lies within. I sometimes forget how revolutionary this can be for a missionary entrepreneur who often leaves their baggage unchecked and unprocessed in service of their cause. Marching off to serve Jesus without understanding and processing our junk is a deadly mistake because we always, always, always reproduce what we are much more than what we do.

*You gotta feel worse before you can feel better. Around day 3 we had a breakthrough in our group. There were tears. There was an apology. There was forgiveness. Then people began to open up. But as they did, I saw a depressed pall come over many of them. It was as if the collective decision to be honest came with a collective realization: digging up the past hurts like hell. Literally. And honestly, why would we intentionally stir up past hurts when doing so makes us feel worse. The short answer is because the past affects the present in ways we could never dream. The past lies behind our greatest present hurts, insecurities, sensitivities, and flaws. But the good news is that almost as quickly as we admit and begin to feel our pain, the burden lifts. Maybe not immediately, but it’s surprising how much better life can feel when we have the courage to feel worse. It’s incredible how much joy and compassion and strength waits for us just on the other side of emotions of anger, sadness, and powerlessness. Don’t believe me? Go read the Psalms.

*You can only forgive what you can feel. That’s why we can walk through the forgiveness process over and over again with the same person or event or issue. It’s not because your forgiveness failed. It’s because you just peeled back a new layer of pain that also needs to be processed and forgiven. Don’t worry. You’ll get to the center of that Tootsie Pop. It may just take more licks than you originally thought. Jesus has a special ability to forgive, but it’s not because he said “no biggie” to the people who hurt him. He had that special ability to feel the weight and depth of betrayal, to grieve it, and to forgive. If it is true as they say that on the cross, Jesus “took on” the sins of the world (i.e. recognized and felt the weight of them) then it must be that God made us in such a way that we must accept/feel/take on the weight of pain before we can truly process, accept, and forgive. But we don’t tend to think that way. We cushion our pain with “no biggies” and coddle it with secret bitterness and denials fueled by our lovely Christian guilt. Maybe we don’t trust ourselves (or God) to find forgiveness on the other side of real anger or real pain. Or maybe we think we can rehearse bible verses like Hallmark cards to cast a magic forgiveness spells and push the pain away. But God didn’t wire us that way. Our pain processors are more like our digestive tract. We have to digest it to absorb the nutrients and expel the waste. Nobody ever benefitted from tying knots in their bowels. But the good news is if we have the patience and courage to work the process He made, we will find it works remarkably well.

*Forgiveness is a one-player game. Reconciliation is a two-player game. When we forgive, it is for our own benefit. It doesn’t require the other party to change their behavior or to ask for forgiveness. It doesn’t require us to then trust the other party or to invite them over for dinner. It requires exactly nothing from anyone else. Forgiveness is a process. Forgiveness is a choice we make. And forgiveness is for us, to set us free and heal us.

So by the end of the week, we sat outside on that mountaintop retreat center and every man read a letter of forgiveness out loud to the group. These were letters written to a person of their choosing: a friend, a family member, themselves, maybe even God. They were letters not to be sent but to be shared only within the safety of the group. The letter took no shortcuts and forced each man to identify what happened, talk about how it impacted them, take responsibility for their feelings, and make the hard choice to forgive. Hard letters. Courageous letters. Healing letters. As each man sat down after reading their letter, the group took time to ask questions, to speak good things into the life of each man, and to pray for them. It was beautiful.

Alex and Julie are natural champions for Restoring Your Heart. As they dream about taking on new leadership within Operation Mobilization throughout Latin America, our dream is to go deep with them, to equip them, and to train them as trainers who can champion Restoring Your Heart and a greater emphasis on emotional health throughout their Latin America teams. To do that, I’ve agreed to do a few more of these trainings alongside them in the region over the next couple years. On future trips, I’ll be able to go along as a coach while Alex and Julie lead the groups and eventually train their own group leaders. I’m excited to be spending my energy in this way rather than just doing big leadership seminars. I think this “deep with a few” kind of leadership training will be a much more effective paradigm for us than the shotgun teaching paradigm. Besides, I’ve grown to love those guys.

If you’ve made it to this final paragraph, high fives all around! And please keep me in your prayers. Because in a couple weeks, I’m off again to Zambia, this time I’m going on my own to repeat this 5-day Restoring Your Heart experiment with a gifted group of discipleship-oriented men up in Chililabombwe. I’m looking forward to exploring what it looks like to do this in an African context. Then I’ll be home for a few months snuggling kiddos, roasting coffee, and chipping away at new projects in the International ministry of WDA (spoiler: there’s a podcast coming)! Good things ahead. Stay tuned!

Donald Trump is a spiritually dangerous choice: a Response to Wayne Grudem

I admit, I’m addicted to this election. It has provided endless hours of entertainment, anxiety, hilarity, disgust, and incredulity. But last week, a sobering thing happened that registered heavily on my radar as a follower of Jesus: Wayne Grudem endorsed Donald Trump for president bringing his full weight to bear as a theologian and professor of ethics. Grudem’s book, “Systematic Theology” is a mainstay in most seminaries and his endorsement will ease the anxieties of many conservative evangelicals who feel keenly the tension of voting for someone as obviously unchristian as Donald Trump.

I’m not too surprised by the myriad Christian leaders such as Jerry Falwell Jr. who have come out swinging for Trump so far. After all, Trump seems to know us better than we know ourselves. He knows that there is one thing conservative Evangelicals in our culture hunger for more than anything else (hint: it’s not Jesus). So in a recent meeting with Evangelicals, Trump made his case plainly to the applause of his born-again audience:

“…And I say to you folks because you have such power, such influence. Unfortunately the government has weeded it away from you pretty strongly. But you’re going to get it back. Remember this: If you ever add up, the men and women here are the most important, powerful lobbyists. You’re more powerful. Because you have men and women, you probably have something like 75, 80 percent of the country believing. But you don’t use your power. You don’t use your power….”

It’s easy to imagine how evangelicals who stand to gain power and influence through a Trump presidency could jump on the bandwagon. But Grudem at least appears to be arguing from an ideological perspective. As far as I know, he has not been offered a spot on Trump’s “Evangelical Advisory Board” (though as it happens, he DID sit among Rubio’s evangelical advisors). What this means is that respected Christians leaders and theologians are now attempting to develop a serious and sophisticated apologetic for supporting Donald Trump.

Thankfully in the last few days, a number of excellent rebuttals to Grudem’s article have surfaced from thoughtful Christians who see through Grudem’s irenic tone to the abundant fallacies of his argument. Theologian Scot McKnight says it well in his article:

“Instead of coating with Christian make-up Donald Trump’s obvious lack of Christian convictions and character as Wayne Grudem did... he should have reduced his endorsement to the following sentences:

1. Evangelicals need to align themselves with Republicans. (That is, Grudem is saying “I believe the Republican party is closest to Christian convictions.”)

2. Hillary Clinton is a Democrat and so deficient that one cannot vote for her as an option. (That is, Grudem is saying “I cannot in any way vote for Clinton or the Democrats.”)

3. Donald Trump is the Republican nomination.

4. Therefore, vote Trump.”

Instead, Mcknight argues, Grudem used his authority as a theologian and ethicist and “affirmed the unaffirmable and defended the indefensible about Trump... Vote for him, Grudem,” McKnight says. “Just don’t pretend your years of teaching Christian ethics lead to an endorsement of the man’s character, even if you think he is a good candidate with ‘flaws.’”

Grudem argues that Christians should pragmatically evaluate not only Trump as a candidate, but the kind of nation that would result from a Trump presidency. He discusses at length the profound impact Trump could have on the Supreme Court and what that would likely mean for abortion, gay marriage, and religious liberty. He even goes so far as to say, “Such a court would likely overturn Roe v. Wade and return abortion laws and the regulation of abortion to the states.” This of course rests on the likelihood that Trump is genuinely prolife, will not go back on campaign promises, is generally honest, and is not simply pandering to his conservative base to get their votes, all of which Grudem incredibly seems to assume on faith. (For a moderating opinion on Grudem’s apocalyptic vision of a liberal Supreme Court and the “Trump card” this has been for the Republican nominee, check out this article.)

From this argument, he jumps into a general defense of Republican policy, going so far as to claim that Christians “ought to” support lower taxes, decreased spending, and a stronger military. This to me is simply irresponsible coming from a theologian. I’m certain Grudem feels sincere convictions about taxes and the military, but they are not theologically superior convictions nor should he not pretend they are.

But my real concern about Grudem’s article and the idea that 78% of white Evangelicals will exercise their “Christian conscience” in voting for Donald Trump in November is that in the end, we just might get everything we want: political influence, a conservative supreme court, stricter immigration policies, tougher abortion laws, and greater religious freedoms (for Christians anyway). But in the process, we will lose our moral clarity, our prophetic voice, even our very souls. Seriously.

If Grudem’s unlikely vision becomes reality, Evangelicals may enjoy an unprecedented season of political power and a legislative environment friendly to evangelicals, their policies, and their institutions, but not their gospel. Because we will so blunted and morally bankrupted by the back-breaking work of contorting our spiritual convictions into a Trump-style conservatism that there will be no gospel left for us except “stay safe, destroy our enemies, and fight for our rights.” We will find ourselves slipping away from the Jesus we first loved to a Jesus who agrees with all our opinions and blesses all our agendas. We may in the end gain the political influence we crave but sacrifice our spiritual and moral substance in the process.

What I saw at the RNC a couple weeks ago and throughout the Trump campaign was the emergence of a truly Satanic culture built on fear, bitter vindictiveness, the muzzling of opposition, a shared hatred of a common enemy which Pastor Mark Burns identified as “Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.” Like a personality cult, what is left of the Republican party now orbits around the whims of a single individual. All of this is dressed up in a Christian façade to ease the conscience of Evangelicals who want so desperately to believe that they are voting for what Grudem calls, basically “good, but flawed” candidate who will faithfully represent them and their conservative interests.

To really wrap our brains around a vote for Trump, we will need to soft-pedal his narcissism, foolishness (see John Piper’s excellent article, “How to Recognize a Foolish Leader”), and unrepentant sin (I still don’t see a shred of evidence to substantiate James Dobson’s claim that Trump is now a “baby Christian”.... See also Matthew 7:16.)

To truly support Trump as Christians, we will need to stop calling these things “evil” and start calling them (as Grudem does) “flaws” or (as author Eric Metaxes writes), “foibles, peccadilloes, and metaphorical warts.” Both authors make a limp-wristed effort to identify the concerning qualities of Trump’s campaign but then essentially sweep them under a rug by essentially saying, “He doesn’t mean that stuff. He’s just being a blowhard. And even if he is a tyrant, congress and his advisers will keep him in check so no big deal.”

In dressing Trump up as a basically good (even Christian) candidate now, we have already begun eroding our conscience and blunting the edge of our moral clarity. We have become complicit with a personal evil which will—no matter WHO’S on the cabinet—translate to systemic evil, which Christians will no longer possess the moral clarity to identify or challenge.

Should we bomb the families of terrorists? Well, Grudem states this is merely a “mistaken idea... that he must later abandon.” And the spitefulness, the vindictive behavior, the sexism, the demonization of Mexicans and Muslims, his hesitance to rein in “angry fringe supporters”?

“These are certainly flaws,” Grudem says. “But I don’t think they are disqualifying flaws in this election.” In fact Grudem states clearly, “I don’t think it is right to call him an ‘evil candidate.’ I think rather he is a good candidate with flaws.”

This moral ambiguity and hesitance to call evil what it is should be a jarring wakeup call for evangelicals. Because if America DID start “taking out” the families of terrorists, or rounding up Muslims, or passing discriminatory laws and executive orders targeting immigrants or minorities, we would at that point be so morally numb that we may simply sit on our couches bemoaning “what a pity it is that it should come to this” and then change the channel reminding ourselves that we picked a “good candidate with flaws.” And since white evangelicals would be the last group to suffer under such policies, we could keep on soft-pedaling, insisting that it is “business as usual.”

Beyond the theological and moral gymnastic required to airbrush Trump’s candidacy from a Christian worldview, I’m watching Trump actually change the beliefs of evangelicals far more than they are changing him. While evangelical leaders insist they are asking Trump “tough questions” I’m watching these leaders slowly begin to embody the anxious jargon and hateful rhetoric once reserved only for Trump’s fringe supporters. It concerns me greatly when I observe the rudest, most sarcastic and spiteful Trump supporters on social media also quoting the most bible verses. Some of these people are family and friends. And people like Grudem are giving them permission to absorb into their lives the very “flaws” which we whitewash as the “lesser of two evils”. In other words, Donald Trump is discipling evangelicals and we are letting him.

The outcome for Christians will be the qualities Paul describes in 2 Timothy 3, which already fit Trump so perfectly:

“There will be terrible times in the last days.  People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.”

So let me make a recommendation not as a matter of politics but as a matter of Christian conviction: have nothing to do with Donald Trump. Have nothing to do with the personality cult, which has become his whole platform and policy. Do not vote for him. Do not excuse him or defend him. Do not embrace him, even as the “lesser of two evils.” No matter what he offers, stand against him and the truly evil foolishness that his life and policy engenders.

Lest you think I’m judging him too harshly, listen to these words from James: “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.”

You may think I’m unfairly singling out Trump when so many politicians are wicked and corrupt. The reason I’m doing so is because while I do believe character counts in any leader, James has more to say about the “bombastic” leader (or teacher) with an untamed tongue, which “makes great boasts” (James 3:5). This is not “just another flaw.” He says that those who cannot control what they say will also be unable to control their bodies (v.2). Their words will be like a rudder that steers a ship or a spark that ignites a forest fire (v.4-5). In this case, the angry narrative and “bombastic” language of Donald Trump are not benign “mistaken ideas”. They are the rudder and spark that will steer and ignite a nation toward deeper fear, anger, and division. And if we get sucked into the gravity well of this narrative, we will find ourselves becoming passively complicit (or actively engaged) in actual atrocities.

Dr. Kevin Baird says it well: “It is without question that Christians have and will be ruled by morally corrupt, flawed, and evil people. The question that is never answered is, are we required to empower those people to leadership? I can accept God’s providence in allowing an Ahab or Jezebel to rule, but am I expected to empower either one to that position?”

At the end of the day, the gospel of Jesus has survived the harshest political climates in history. But Christians should be careful of the dangers of compromising with brazen evil in the name of gaining cultural influence for themselves or their policies. Jesus stares this false pragmatism in the face when he says, “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?”

Wherever you line up politically, Christians should have to courage to stand against evil from within as well as evil from without. They should be the first to challenge systemic evil, even the evil that benefits them. We should have the courage to say along with Martin Luther, “my conscience is captive to the Word of God... To go against conscience is neither right nor safe. So help me God. Amen.”

But far from marching blindly into cultural obscurity, I believe this act of courageous faith in maintaining our moral clarity in the tension of impossible decisions is the only way to restore our prophetic voice and moral authority in our culture. If we are willing to surrender our political influence in rejecting the “lesser of two evils” approach and refusing to enthrone Trump, we will find a much deeper cultural influence than the one promised by Falwell’s “moral majority”. In other words, those who lose their life will find it. And those who lay down their influence will discover it in wonderful new ways.

I can’t tell you what party to align with, which policies to support, what taxes to lower, or what walls to build. But I can say this to all evangelicals without hesitation or apology: Don’t ever defend or support Donald Trump.

And if at the end of the day, you still feel you MUST vote for him, then do it eyes wide open. Recognize that you are voting for what the bible would call a wicked and foolish leader. (As Proverbs says, “when the wicked rule, the people groan.) So if you do vote for him, then you must also be the thorn in his side. You must be dogged and vocal in maintaining your moral clarity and calling for accountability in every one of his “mistaken ideas” and “metaphorical warts”. This will be difficult if not impossible to do. But don’t whitewash him. Don’t call him “a man who believes in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Don’t call him “a good candidate with flaws.” He is not. Regardless of whom you vote for, stand strong against fear, hatred, and evil wherever it is found. Stand against injustice, especially for those outside your group.

Don’t get drawn into the hatred and fear of a false narrative. Be a peacemaker. Because, “The wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.”

Clarifying your Calling in No Easy Steps

I lay spread eagle on my bed, 3 fans blowing hot air on me, dripping slowly into my warm African foam bed. Even the “cold” shower water was hot from the sizzling Ghanaian sun. I had nothing to do in the heat of the day but try to rest and stay hydrated. So I lay there, as if in a trance thinking about my life, and what the heck I’m doing with it.

I thought about this last year of my life since I returned from Ethiopia last March to a hospitalized asthmatic son and one simple mandate from the Holy Spirit: stay put.

I did stay and I worked hard on a lot of personal issues that make staying put so hard for me. But I’ll admit I was never peaceful about it. I felt every day that the thing that gave me so much purpose (my work in Africa) had been pulled out from under me and nothing could ever replace it.

I tried. Oh I tried to find something else to fill that void, to renew a sense of purpose and vision in my life. I tried to start and do so many things that year. But everything I tried hoping to scratch that itch fizzled almost immediately. I just had to stay put and feel the discomfort, just as I now lay on my bed embracing 106 degrees of discomfort. And somewhere in that squirming, purposeless discomfort, I grew up a little.

I thought about the fact that now I’m BACK in Africa and I’m getting hit with a realization: I’m no actually very good at this. I mean, I’m pretty good at traversing new cultures and eating exotic food in beautiful temperate mountains with English speakers who love me and share my faith in Jesus. But this?? Sweating in a flat scrubby bush-land eating food I really don’t like (sorry Ghana), sharing God’s love with Muslims (NOT my gift) whose language I can’t speak and who have a reputation for kidnapping outsiders? It’s risky. But more so, I often feel uncertain, sometimes bored, and OFTEN lonely.

It got me thinking... maybe this whole thing is simply rooted in my need to be liked and validated. Maybe I only like Africa when Africa likes me. Am I only in this for the exotic adventures in beautiful places with friendly people?

But then I thought about my 13-year-old self sitting at my friend Steve’s kitchen table tracing lines across the 5 or 6 West African countries where then felt strangely called to, and I now work ... I was certain then (for no obvious reason) that God was calling me to this part of the world and up until today that certainty has never left me.

Laying there, I took a rough inventory of all the commitments, involvements, dreams, passions, and ideas I have. It’s a LONG list. With every one of them, I said, “Boy it would be great to ____________! ....Until it wasn’t great anymore. Then I’d probably quit.” Boy it would be great to have a music career. Until it wasn’t great anymore. Then I’d be out of there. Boy it’d be great to own a hobby farm. Until it wasn’t great anymore. Boy it’d be great to start a coffee shop, be in an intentional community, plant a church... until, until, until.

But when I thought of my involvement in this sweaty scrubby bushland among Ghana’s nomadic cattle folk, my self-absorbed caveats evaporated. I thought to myself, “wow I’m so not cut of for this. And it might get a lot worse in years to come. And in spite of that, and even if it gets harder, I know I’ll keep coming back for more.” Not because I’m the faithful steady type (I’m not). And not because it’s all I know how to do (it’s not). And not because it makes the most objective sense for me (it doesn’t).

I’ll keep coming back because this is where I’m supposed to be. I just know it is deep down. Because more than any other area of my life, God has been most obviously involved in leading me in this area, in roundabout ways to this strange place and this foreign people. This is where I’m supposed to be. Not because it’s fulfilling, but just because its where I’m supposed to be.

It’s been very clarifying for me to think about the things I’m essentially committed to not because it feels good or because I’ll feel guilt if I don’t do it but because I know deep down it’s what I’m supposed to do. I may not always get to do those things in the ways I imagine, but it’s very centering to have them at the front of my mind when I’m chasing down passions and making major life decisions.

Do you have anything like that in your life? Try making a list of all the things you LOVE and are passionate about and dream of doing some day. Then try to imagine yourself getting to do those things and it being far more painful and far less fulfilling than you ever imagined. Would you stick with it? Why or why not? And for how long? Is there anything in your life that maybe doesn’t make as much “sense” that you would wake up and do every day no matter what just because? Is there something beyond your fulfillment and enjoyment and gratification that drives you forward each day? Where did those things come from? Are they from childhood vows or childhood wounds (maybe not so healthy)? Or are they driven by a deeper hunger, a strange certainty, an “I’ve-just-gotta”, a mysterious calling?  Maybe it’s a relationship, a task, or an inner commitment.  

I have that “just do it” feeling about my marriage, my parenting, one or two friendships, and my commitment to seeing the extraordinary presence of Jesus break into my ordinary life.  I’m not saying they are unshakeable, just that they are pretty core to what makes me “tick” even when I’m all “ticked out”. They are a few of the most anchoring things within me that make me trudge along even when doing so defies reason.

So what about you? What makes you tick for no apparent reason?