"I look forward to more podcasts about sin," wrote one listener. The feedback and interest about God seeing our sin the same way Wayne saw Sara's trauma has been nothing short of amazing. This week, Wayne and Kyle dive into a number of emails and blog comments as people expand the conversation through their own stories and perspectives. The theme through it all is our trust in a Father's love that goes beyond our "why questions," beyond shame, and beyond the arrogance that would seek impose God's rules on others as more important than opening the door to his love.

Podcast Notes:

* Here is the video of our recording session.

* Road Trip: Wayne and Sara's meanderings through Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona

Sara joins Wayne again for this brief conversation about how difficult it is to hide your struggles from people you love and how much lighter the load becomes when you have someone who cares alongside you. Religious performance taught us to hide our doubts and failures from others as a means of protecting our reputation. And yet, there is so much to be gained by living in the light with people who can hold your heart well.

Podcast Notes:

* There was video made of this recording session.

* My Friend Luis Podcast

* Road Trip: Wayne and Sara's meanderings through Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona

What if the story of the Garden of Eden was not two selfish, disobedient children making a bad choice but the most innocent of humans victimized by a more powerful, malevolent force? A long-time God Journey listener poses that question. The Garden scene has all the elements of a traumatic encounter where Adam and Eve were overwhelmed by a superior entity and went away from it, blamed for doing so. Wayne and Kyle examine Genesis 3 in light of this suggestion after first contemplating how religious addiction has the same elements as substance abuse, the reason why we are asked to turn the other cheek, and the power of viewing human brokenness as a corporate reality rather than an individual one. Lots here. Have fun!

Podcast Notes:

* The video of this recording session.

* Road Trip: Wayne and Sara's meanderings through Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona

Wayne and Sara revisit the conversation they started a month ago about how God might view sin differently than most of us have thought. They outline the environment in which Sara began to find her healing and ask the question, isn't this a better process for sin than the one religious groups have used for centuries? Instead of a performance track with "know the rules, follow the rules," Jesus invited us into an intimate friendship with himself and his Father. Safe and soothed in his presence, even before anything had changed in them, gave them the opportunity to discover his truth in a state of growing trust. That's where Sara has found her growing freedom from her trauma, and it may just be the best place for us to find freedom from the bondage of sin as well.

Podcast Notes:

* Sorry, there was no video made of this podcast.

* Road Trip: Wayne and Sara's meanderings through Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona

* He Loves Me Book Club meeting this Sunday at 1:30 pm PDT. Get more information on the He Loves Me Facebook Page.

 

"No humans who lived before were actually capable of wiping the human race from existence (by) screwing things up so badly and permanently." Wayne's been listening to a podcast about the existential risks to humanity's future, including nuclear war, artificial intelligence run amuck, virology lab accidents or misuse, unintended consequences of super-collider experiments, natural disasters, climate change, or even an asteroid or gamma ray surge from space. Many scientists are talking seriously about the challenges we'll face to survive as a species for the next 100 to 150 years. Wayne invites Kyle to consider with him what these risks and the current state of our world hold for God's children, and we can respond with faith in his working rather than fear of uncertainty.

Podcast Notes:

* The video recording of this podcast

* The End of the World Podcast

 

Wayne and Kyle ran out of time last week, so they continued their exploration of how God might view sin into a third week, where they incorporated more comments and questions from their listeners. Part of their discussion talks about how easy it is to love the victims of sin but not their perpetrators until we come to see them also as victims of a loveless world.

Podcast Notes:

* The video recording of this podcast

Wayne and Kyle continue their exploration of how God views sin and what we can do about it with comments and questions from listeners. Are we helpless and powerless in sin, and does God see it as something to blame us for or something to set us free of? Wouldn't that overturn our sin management techniques that we have fruitlessly deployed for 2000 years? Does our Western view of sin stand up to the language of the New Testament? Transformation cannot come by human effort but only out of a soothing relationship of love with the Father that brings us inside the work of the cross.

Podcast Notes:

* The video recording of this podcast

Could it be that God views sin not as something we chose but as something that happened to his beloved Creation? Sara and Wayne began pondering this question last week, and Kyle joined in this week to explore it more with Wayne. Wouldn't it change everything if God didn't see us as co-conspirators in sin and evil but as helpless against it without his redemption and rescue? That's what the New Covenant seems to suggest. Rather than God confronting our sin in anger, he invites us into his love where he can untwist the distortions caused by the self-preferring nature we all inherited and a sense of abandonment by the Creator that shame gives us. Wouldn't that be more faithful to the Gospel?

Podcast Notes:

* The video recording of this podcast

Wayne is pondering a major shift in his view of sin and wants to ponder it with Kyle. However, a series of circumstances made Kyle unavailable to record. So, instead, Wayne's wife, Sara, stepped in, allowing us to also catch up with her healing journey as they settling into their refurbished home. Then, they talk about how God might view sin, which is different than how they were raised. Could it be that God looks on sin, and our life in this broken world, much like Wayne has come to view trauma in Sara's life? Is that why Jesus found it easier to forgive those who executed him and why he saw the lost not as co-conspirators in darkness but as "harassed and helpless."

Podcast Notes:

* We are sorry, but we did not make a video recording of this podcast

* Sara and Wayne's story from a year ago is told in the Redeeming Love Podcasts from The God Journey.

 

Have you ever honestly told someone what you thought and they responded, "I don't believe you?" This is where relationships go to die. Of course, if you are lying it will help them not be misled. If, however, you are telling the truth and they don't want to hear it, their unbelief  destroying the relationship. How might this apply to that enigmatic passage where Matthew said that Jesus couldn't do miracles in his home down "because of their unbelief?" Had their lack of faith not earned his working, or was he talking about something else. His work unfolds where people respond to his nudges even when we'd rather not and discover in him the life that truly is life. Kyle and Wayne look to unravel this knot.

Podcast Notes:

* The video recording of this podcast

* Wayne reads from 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 in The Message