In a zoo, there are fabricated gaps between us and the animals.  Good for us. Bad if you’re a hungry lion.  In our personal finances there can be gaps between expenditures and income.  Good if income is greater than expenditures. Bad if reversed.  In football, there are gaps on the line of scrimmage.  On the offensive side of the ball they are good if you’re creating them but those same gaps on the defensive side of the ball are bad if you can’t fill them. 

In life, there are gaps all around us.  The key is learning to see the gaps and to fill them. In the Bible, in Ezekiel 13:5, God chastises the religious leaders of Israel for doing nothing to step into the gap and repair the city and prepare God’s people for battle.

Present Reality – city in ruins with people vulnerable for attack.
Desired Future – fortified city with its people living in peace with God, experiencing the shalom of God.
The Gap – the distance between these two realities which brings God’s judgment.

Every time we see a gap between God’s desired future and the present reality of God’s people, there is an opportunity for someone to step into the Gap. 
When the wickedness of the world became great – Noah stepped into the Gap.
When God looked for a people to call His own – Abraham stepping into the Gap.
And when God was going to destroy Sodom because of its wickedness – again Abraham stepped into the Gap.
When God answered the anguished cries of Israel in slavery – Moses stepped into the Gap.
When the existence of Israel was at stake under Persian rule – Esther stepped into the Gap.
When the salvation of humanity was on the line – Jesus stepped into the Gap.

The Lord is still looking for men and women who will stand in the gap.  God’s words in Ezekiel 22:30 still ring true today:  “I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land. I searched for someone to stand in the gap in the wall so I wouldn’t have to destroy the land, but I found no one” (NLT).

Will you be the one so it won’t be said of us “but I found no one.”

What gap do you see around you?
What might God be calling you into?
Are you listening? Will you respond?

We would love to celebrate with you the journey God is inviting you into so be sure to Share Your Story!

William Paul Young is the author of the best-selling book ‘The Shack’.  If you visit the website www.theshackbook.com you will read ‘Willie’s Personal Journey’ in which he says:
          “The Shack will tell you much more about me than a few facts ever could.  In some ways
           my life is partly revealed in both characters – Willie and Mack.  But an author is always
          more.  I hope that someday we can share a cup of coffee, or for me, an extra hot chai tea
          with soy.  If that happens, and if you want, I will tell you a little more about the bigger 
          story and you can tell me some of yours.”

Well, I had the privilege of doing just that, although we substituted a Chinese dinner for chai tea.  And while in the home of his son, who graciously operated the video camera for me, we sat down for an afternoon of honest, open conversation about God, family and of course, The Shack.  What you will see and hear is but a taste of what I experienced that afternoon.  If you’d like to stay current on the journey of William Paul Young be sure to visit his personal blog site at http://windrumors.com .

Thank you Paul for sharing your journey with us, we are better because you have.

Why The Shack? from Shawn Penn on Vimeo.

Response to Critics of The Shack from Shawn Penn on Vimeo.

Desire for The Shack from Shawn Penn on Vimeo.

First, this past week I have been approached by two different and unrelated individuals asking that I consider teaching on the Seven Churches of Revelation.  Hmmm.  The letter of Revelation has always fascinated me since I was a kid because it has such fantastical imagery with a foreboding message – the end of the world as we know it.  But it is one thing to fantasize and speculate about the world’s destruction and the ‘the Mark of the Beast’ and the identity of the ‘10-horned-7-headed Beast’ whose rider is a female ‘Prostitute’ but it is another thing all-together to honestly and objectively teach through this image-driven letter.  What should I do?  I promptly set about studying Revelation with fresh eyes and renewed vigor and have been reflecting upon Revelation 2 since last Sunday.  My take-away thus far?  God is more concerned with my long-term love than my ministry stardom. It takes rigor and discipline to fuel long-term love.  Ask anyone who’s been married for more than 20 years!

This past week my small group started the “Experiencing God” study by Henry & Richard Blackaby in which we’re told at the beginning of the study that the question “what’s God’s will for my life” is the wrong question to ask.  The right question is “What is God’s will” and then “make the adjustments necessary in my life to align with what God is doing.”  My take-away?  God is more interested in my love, devotion and faithfulness than in blessing my plans.

And finally, I read Luke 2:52 which says that “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.”  This is one of the only times we get a glimpse into the early life of Jesus while he was on earth.  Often when we think of Jesus we think (and read) about his very effective and dynamic ministry years.  But those years, which ended in his death on a cross, lasted only 3 years.  3 years.  That’s it.  I think the average passionate person could manufacture a semblance of passion for 3 years.  But what we forget is that these 3 years were built upon a lifetime of character development – 30 years of growing in wisdom and stature with at least 18 of those years (the span between Luke 2:52 and Luke 3:23) done in obscurity.  Wisdom and stature development are not for the faint of heart.  They take time and come only with discipline and experience.  My take-away?  Personal growth and maturity actually demand sustained passion. 

This convergence in my life this past week as reaffirmed my belief that ‘Incarnational Passion’, the Kaleo Life, is biblical and is for everyone but that our action emanates from our character and conviction. 

So how do we build our character and live disciplined lives without losing our passion? Do we have to deny our desire to make a difference or leaving a legacy and resign to flippantly say ‘let go and let God’? Which has always seemed like a cop-out to me. 

Well, what I’m about to share is by no means the only way, but it is helping me right now.  I’ve taken and administered numerous Motivated Abilities Pattern (MAP) Assessments, and Passion Profiles, and Spiritual Gift Inventories and they all boil down to this: alignment.

Passion flows from a picture, an end-result pictured in your mind. When the end is clearly seen and firmly fixed in our mind and heart it provides the resilience we need.  I think even those who say ‘all we need to be is faithful’ or ‘obedient’ have an end-result picture in their mind which sustains them.  I think if you probed far enough that picture might be something like standing before God and hearing him say “well done”.  That is a powerful picture.

My personal picture is similar.  I want to stand before the Lord Jesus Christ and hear ‘well done’ but I imagine him saying that to a guy who expended every ounce of his energy developing every talent and gift he had been given to its zenith while leading others to do the same so they too may hear the Lord’s commendation.

And with the picture firmly rooted, every choice and decision is weighed as to its development or distraction potential in furthering this passion.  That’s called alignment.   The Kaleo Life begins with Passion.  Not sure what you’re Passion is, why not try this little Passion-Finder Matrix developed by Steve Moore.  

You’ll quickly see you need to: 
1. Understand the difference between interest-based passions and issue-based passions. People engage in interest-based passions because they are fun; they give us a source of pleasure. Some people like golf, others tennis, still others painting, etc. These are leisure activities.

People pursue issue-based passions because they provide a measure of fulfillment; they give us a sense of purpose. Some people care about the environment, others homelessness, still others leadership. These are causes that allow us to leave a legacy.

Everyone has both interest and issue-based passions. Leaders who have no room for leisure put their legacy at risk over the long haul. Interest- based passions are often connected with activities and therefore flow from the combination of an interest and a natural ability or acquired skill. We tend to like things we are “good at” and are good at things “we like.”

Issue-based passions are often associated with causes and therefore tend to emerge from experiences. People who are passionate about the urban poor can usually point to some formative experience where the needs of inner city people were imprinted on their heart.

Consider making a list of the interests and issues in your life that fit each of the four qualifying statements.

2. Look for ways to blend the threads of interest-based and issue-based passion together to form an Incarnational Passion. Take for example a person who has musical interests, plays the guitar and sings. If this person had a corresponding issue-based passion of worship, it would make sense to weave these threads together as a worship leader in what I call an Incarnational Passion, that is lived out in real life situations or roles. On the contrary, if this same person had issue-based passions like evangelism or culture transformation, he or she might pursue a very different Incarnational Passion as a mainstream musician.

The more of these two tracks of your Passion Profile you can naturally weave together, the stronger your inner motivation to live out the Incarnational Passion. In turn, you will be more effective when recruiting others to join you, and better prepared to pay an even bigger price to remain true to the cause.

 One Final Word
The passion of Jesus is linked to his suffering and death. The ultimate test of passion is what price we are willing to pay to pursue it? In this sense, we are in danger of producing a generation of passion-less leaders, if they are not prepared to suffer, yes even die for a God-inspired cause.

What are you passionate about?
What price will you pay to pursue it?  

If you know or if you’re at the beginning of your journey to discovering it, we’d love to hear from you!

It is the observations shared by another YouVersion contributor that I share here.  Now, you need to know up front, that the goal of these Reflections is not to steal others ideas but to encourage us all to obediently seek and follow God’s calling upon our lives.  But this one entry caught my attention for several reasons:
(a)    The Post was attributed to MoviePastor.  Now, anyone close to me or anyone who’s been under my ministry knows I’m an avid movie fan and utilize movies and media frequently.  I’ve often been called ‘The Movie Pastor’.
(b)    MoviePastor evidently pastors a church called Crosspoint.  Hmmm.  Before I assumed my current ministry role, I started a church in the suburbs of Seattle, WA called, Crosspointe.
(c)    The Post itself directly addresses the Kaleo Life. 

So, needless to say, as I read this MoviePastor’s entry I found myself asking, “did I submit this?!” I didn’t, but I’m glad MoviePastor did.  May you be encouraged and challenged by what he shares.  And MoviePastor, whoever you are, well, “Thank You”. Here is what he wrote:

“A few weeks ago I had quite a scare with what I thought was a heart problem.  It scared me.  It also made me evaluate a lot of things.  Quite honestly I hope that I always wrestle with the question – how do  I measure what my life is worth – so that I make sure I do the most important things.  This passage in Acts where he meets with the Elders of the church he says something AMAZING:

Acts 20:24 “But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.”

What is my worth and how will I measure if I have been successful?   Only by figuring out what is most important and then doing that.  The work assigned to me by the Lord Jesus.  I know my calling is the Pastor of Crosspoint.  To finish that work of telling people far from God about the wonderful grace of God I must order my life in the right way.
That means I give priorities to things that will help – things like sound financial management, physical health, emotional health, my personal walk with Christ, taking my time off, keeping my family relationships tight and vibrant and flourishing, working with a team of people who are leaders leading leaders so that we “move the ball down the field” instead of just working harder and harder and harder.   Training the right people, taking the right steps at the right time as a church and so on.

You can even see in this chapter – Paul structured his life and journey so that he could finish the task assigned by God.  Paul wasn’t reacting to life and situations.  He had a plan, followed the Spirit as the plan unfolded and evolved, and he did everything possible to achieve the plan and then make sure that others knew how to continue it in his absence.

What is your life worth?  

How will you measure it?  

Do you have a plan to accomplish it?  

Will it carry on after you are done?”

Great questions for us all to seriously ponder as we seek to live the Kaleo Life.

I know there is a distinction and I realize many performance coaches challenge us to make the distinction and then to live by the important.  But I am finding that when my Kaleo begins to really hum is when the important and urgent intersect. 

 The Bible says in Ephesians 5:15-17:
“Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.  Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”

What’s Important? “Understanding the Lord’s will” and “being careful to live accordingly”.
What’s Urgent? My choosing the right lifestyle every moment of every day – “making the most of every opportunity.”

When these two intersect, I am moving into God’s Kaleo for me.

So my question to you are these:
(1) Do you really believe that God is at work in this world and that He is inviting you to join Him in His work? Do you have a real sense that God is working through you? If so, you are doing God’s work. What can be more important than that? What greater Kaleo (calling) can there be than that?

(2) Do you really believe that the time in which we live is evil? Do you believe that there will be a personal return of Jesus Christ and there will be an accounting for how we lived our life and used the resources God gave to us?  God only gives us so many days and years to accomplish his purpose for us. That makes each day and each minute important. What could be more urgent than that? 

God asks us to make every moment count.

Re-read the Ephesians 5 passage, this time from the Message translation.
“Don’t waste your time on useless work, mere busywork, the barren pursuits of darkness. Expose these things for the sham they are. It’s a scandal when people waste their lives on things they must do in the darkness where no one will see. Rip the cover off those frauds and see how attractive they look in the light of Christ.
   Wake up from your sleep,
   Climb out of your coffins;
   Christ will show you the light!
So watch your step. Use your head. Make the most of every chance you get. These are desperate times!
Don’t live carelessly, unthinkingly. Make sure you understand what the Master wants” (Ephesians 5:11-17).

May God’s Important become your Urgent and may we all have the courage and strength of resolve to do what God is asking us to do today.

I’ve been immediately taken with his understanding of sin as the Vandalism of God’s Shalom.  Shalom being a Hebrew concept which refers to rightness, harmony, peace both personally and corporately; it refers to the way God intends things to be.  Sin is the vandalism of God’s intended beauty.  The book begins by retelling the scene from the movie Grand Canyon – you probably know the scene.  Kevin Kline, a wealthy attorney, on his way home from a Lakers game has his Lexus break down in a rough neighborhood.  He calls for a tow truck but before the truck shows up, his car is surrounded by five young apparent gang members.  You remember the scene?

Well just in time, the tow truck shows up and its driver – an earnest, genial guy by the name of Simon (played by Danny Glover) – begins to hook up the disabled car.  The gang protests and so the driver takes the leader of the group aside and “attempts a five-sentence introduction to metaphysics: ‘Man, he says, ‘the world ain’t supposed to work like this.  Maybe you don’t know that, but this ain’t the way it’s supposed to be.  I’m supposed to be able to do my job without askin’ you if I can.  And that dude is supposed to be able to wait with his car without you rippin’ him off.  Everything’s supposed to be different than what it is here.”

 The Vandalism of God’s Shalom.  It ain’t supposed to be like this.  How right Simon is.  The Kaleo Life is a life which has been wrecked and broken by this vandalism and gives itself to partnering with God to restore His Shalom. 

What wrecks you?

How is God using you to restore His Shalom? 

We would love to hear your story.

 If you are at a loss for what this might look like, watch this updated story of Dr. Val Shean and let her story speak to you.  She’s a simple veterinarian in a broken part of this world, living among the contentious, fractious people of the Karamojong in Uganda and yet God is using her to bring His peace to thousands.

Val Shean – Peace Village update from Shawn Penn on Vimeo.

David Gregory – My Kaleo from Shawn Penn on Vimeo.

If you’d like to see his works, a great overview is found on the Christianbook website.

I just received on my desk the Eternal Perspective Ministries Pastors’ Newsletter.  How my name gets on lists is beyond me.  This mailing comes from the pen of best selling author Randy Alcorn and I actually enjoyed this disruption as Randy outlines the principles in his book The Treasure Principle.  This ‘treasure principle’ is a biblical principle and for anyone serious about living Kaleo Life it is a great reminder that our resources and energy move toward what we value.  Jesus put it this way: “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Gospel of Mathew, chapter 6, verse 21).  Randy Alcorn’s reissues Jesus’ challenge to “store up your treasure in heaven” because then every day you’re moving toward – not away – from your treasure.  In a nutshell, that is the “treasure principle”.

 As someone pursuing the Kaleo Life, does your life reflect the treasure principle?

 To help you assess your commitment to the radically surrendered life we call Kaleo, here are Randy Alcorn’s “6 Keys to Understanding the Treasure Principle”:

#1. God owns everything.  I’m His money manager.

#2. My heart always goes where I put God’s money.  Watch what happens when you reallocate your money from temporal to eternal things.

#3. Heaven, not earth, is my home.

#4. I should live not for the dot but for the line. This is my favorite key. This means that from the dot – which is our present life on earth – extends a line that goes on forever, which is eternity in heaven. Living for the line is another way of saying that ‘I am not the point, God is the point. He does not exist for me.  I exist for Him.  Live not for the dot but the line.

#5. Giving is the only antidote to materialism.  Giving is a joyful surrender to a greater Person and a greater agenda.  It dethrones me and exalts Him.

#6. God prospers me not to raise my standard of living, but to raise my standard of giving.

 So, how are you doing?

Thank you Randy for reminding us that our purpose as Jesus-followers is not just to go to Heaven but to be used by God to release Heaven’s resources on planet earth.

 If you’d like to know more about The Treasure Principle, please visit Randy Alcorn’s website .  It is loaded with free resources and free is still a great price!

One Sunday later that summer something happened unexpectedly. My gut tightened and I had an urge to go to NW Hills; so I did. The worship songs were simpler and more direct than I had heard before; yet I really appreciated that directness and the way we sung to God, not just about God. I was also taken by the pastor’s sermon. While I found out that the belief system was underpinned by biblical inerrancy and exclusive salvation (two things I resisted), I liked the message about living one’s total life for Jesus Christ, in whom we find true life. I began to attend NW Hills regularly and on the fifth Sunday, I felt something I had never experienced in any church before-a feeling of being “at home.”  

The ‘Prof’ from Shawn Penn on Vimeo.

Another important event was reading A. W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God. There was a ring of authenticity about Tozer that just blew me away. He wrote that the Bible alone was just a book, but illuminated by the Spirit, it was the Word of God; and he indicated that we ought to make Christ the center of our lives, that the relationship with God must take precedence over everything else. Tozer’s explanation of how pride and the sin of self-absorption blocked us from connecting with God impacted me. Roughly two-thirds or more into the book, Tozer refers to how the intellectual can become a “smokescreen.” I don’t recall the actual context, but somehow those words spoke to me about my own relation to the Bible. It hit me that, while I thought I was reading the Bible in a spiritual light, I was really subjecting it to skeptical scrutiny. Instead of opening myself to God and surrendering to God through the Bible’s words, I was too busy deciding what I did and did not want to believe had actually happened.

Over the following few days, I began to rethink the way I had been viewing the Bible. Instead of literal-factual or metaphorical, I began to think of “more than literal” as a way of seeing the Bible. Thus, my new orientation became one of not trying to ascertain exactly what happened at all, but to trust that God was somehow working through the pages of Scripture. Hence, I realized that my task was to open myself to, and surrender to, the God who spoke through the Bible. I was not to analyze but to listen. I had been blocked by intellectual defenses that kept me closed.

During the same time period, while talking to my friend Megan Brown at Starbucks, it just hit me-God is real, God is right here, I can pray to God, God is listening. I felt a fiery conviction in my gut that this was true-and it was mixed in with a peace and confidence. Suddenly, I “got it.” No longer was I worried about all the efforts I had put into ascertaining the truth or falsity present in the Bible. Instead, I found myself turning to God, to focus on God, as best I could. Also, I found myself feeling that Jesus really is my Savior, and that I need Jesus in order to be who I am supposed to be. Even more, I realized that I am not supposed to follow my own ego or my own lights, but to do my best to follow God as known in Christ; thus, Christ is also my Lord. Suddenly, I began to see things differently. The passage in Ephesians that indicates wives are to submit to their husbands and husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church-a passage that I used to see as sexist nonsense, struck me as different. This was because I now see the God-factor, that it is the husband and wife first submitting to God, and then to each other. I now find myself taking seriously the idea of God, not as an idea any more, but as a present reality, as a personal force integrated into life that should be taken seriously.

A couple of weeks after my conversion to evangelical faith, I read a book that History Professor Gary Ferngren loaned me entitled The Future of Evangelical Christianity by Donald G. Bloesch. Gary figured it would help me delineate between different types of evangelical Christians, but I found myself reading with amazement for other reasons. First, Bloesch gave words to issues I had thought about but was not sure if anyone else had articulated, and he did so more thoroughly than I could.

For instance, Bloesch spoke of how the Bible itself was not inerrant, but that God’s Word (Christ) is somehow present in the Bible, and that is what is inerrant. Second, Bloesch cited Karl Barth’s reference to “superhistorical,” which appears to be the functional equivalent of my term “more than literal,” in describing Genesis. Bloesch’s point (using Barth) is that it is not merely literal or mythical, but more than either. Third, Bloesch argues that the church must stand as a check on the contemporary culture, that when the dominant culture and politics swing left, the church should swing right, and vice versa. To identify too closely with the Republican or Democratic parties was, in his view, to align too closely to kingdoms of this world.

As I was reading Bloesch, I was reminded of your words, Marcus, about how the source of Jesus’ compassion was in his experiences of the Spirit, a transcultural Spirit who calls us to a compassion beyond ourselves. As I look out upon the world, I am struck with the sense that we need this life-giving Spirit more than ever.

The events I have mentioned are the key ones, but there have been others-namely, a lot of seeming coincidences when various evangelical Christians have come into my life at the right time, supporting and encouraging me or simply showing me what they are about. While I am not totally convinced that those who are not consciously saved in Christ are damned (I leave that to God), and while I see the Bible as authoritative as opposed to inerrant, I do see the evangelical emphasis on the authority of Scripture and salvation through Christ as having the utmost significance. Indeed, I have needed this focused evangelical orientation in order to break through the bonds of my ego so as to find real life, the truly meaningful life of following God in Jesus Christ. Importantly, I do not think this is ultimately something I have done at all. That day in Starbucks-when I felt and perceived Christ was real as my Savior and Lord, and when my world changed and evangelical language suddenly made sense to me-was grace.

 Ever have one of those moments when you feel like you are being ‘played’, that you are the object of someone’s manipulation and you’ve been used to unwittingly accomplish their objective?  It’s a horrible experience.

I watched the movie Duplicity with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen this past weekend.  The movie is about two corporate spies who work to pull off the ultimate con job on their respective bosses.  I enjoyed the cinematography and the acting and the pacing but what kept me engaged was the way the movie invited me to discover the plot.  I felt I was part of the story, playing a detective, a spy to the the spy-counter-spies relationship played by Julia Roberts and Clive Owen.  The story unfolded by blending the present with the past which baited me into conclusions and counter-conclusions and multiple layers of speculation.  And just when I thought I had figured out who was ‘playing’ whom and was waiting to make my final accusation, everything came crashing down around me with a ‘no way, you’ve got to be kidding me’ moment.  Spoiler Alert: In a movie where two spies were spying and counter-spying trying to pull the ultimate con on their bosses who were unethically greedy, the movie ends with the realization that the two spies were themselves being played.  The final scene shows Julia Roberts and Clive Owen sitting in a large empty room completed amazed.

 As I watched this movie and evaluated my own feelings the spiritual analogies were numerously apparent.  The one which surfaced immediately is the tension between me, as the main actor working to create a comfortable and secure lifestyle, and God, who by the very nature of being ‘God’ has the ability to either assist or reject my plans.  Now my suspicion is most of us live with this low-grade tension everyday.  We work and plan and strive and in the back of our mind hope we’re on God’s good side so He’ll toss his assistance our way.  And when things are going smoothly we believe we’re in God’s favor.  But when things go poorly we feel like we’re being rejected. 

What the movie Duplicity clearly portrayed is that none of us is really in control of our own lives. There are way too many variables in motion for us to control our destiny.  The movie also clearly portrayed just how much stressful work there is in even attempting to live that way. 

 When rightly understood, the sovereignty of God – the belief that God is supreme over all and in control of all things – brings great personal comfort because we realize there is someone who is big enough to be in control and we’re freed from stress because we don’t have to worry about controlling our world because that is being done for us too. God informed the Prophet Ezekiel in the Bible that “if a prophet is enticed to utter a prophecy, I the LORD have enticed that prophet” (Ezekiel 14:9).  In other words, you may think what you’re doing comes from your desire but in reality God is the one behind the desire.  We see this principle repeated throughout the Bible.  There are numerous times when God says He’s the one who has raised up one nation while taking another nation down; He’s the one who has put certain people in power; He’s the one who strengthens or weakens economies.  It is utter folly to think we have any control over these realities.  It is much more liberating to understand God is in control and then to seek His hand in the situation by asking Him what it is He is trying show-and-tell us.  This is why James says: “you ought to say, ‘if it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15).  And when we do, we will find ourselves sitting in amazement, saying as did Julia Roberts at the end of Duplicity: “I guess on a strictly professional level, it’s…Impressive.”

 As you try to live the Kaleo Life, how are you handling the ‘Duplicity and the Sovereignty of God’?  We’d love to hear your comments.