On the Farm with Ann Voskamp

welcome to Haven today and this is our first live radio televised broadcast I guess I said that in the right way that we've ever had and we're on a farm in Ontario about an hour west of Toronto we're on the farm of an Voss champion well well Karl thank you for welcoming me and your family and your new daughter from China and Darryl even took time in his shyness to visit today and it's great to be with you thank you for coming back on the program just a grace to be with you Charles always well and we are here to talk about your new book that you have and what's the name of it broken way a daring path into the abundant life and that's what we're going to be talking about in the next few minutes you know we were here a few years ago on the farm we've talked about a thousand gifts before and in the five years since then life has raised more questions which you talk about in this new book you mind just sharing any of those new questions that you've been dealing with I think um I think Charles is that 1,000 gifts was about him learning to take everything as Grace and give thanks for it um it was about living in Eucharistic life which was a word you almost coin ah I've had a Greek scholar to tell me that before you would have define that for the very few people that don't know about the thousand kids yeah um so I I was dared to give thanks for a thousand things and realized that I'm not Last Supper Jesus gives thanks that word is Eucharist tail and you Christie o means Thanksgiving but you're also embodied in that word is the word chorus which is grace to receive everything as as grace and give thanks for it and then therein is joy which is also embodied in that word Cara so um there was this sort of this triplet that I was living if I could give thanks for everything as grace I was entering into his presence giving him thanks in their in in his presence was fullness of joy and as I as I lived through that as I as I listened to people whom his lives were changed by am living Eucharist a Oh living a Eucharistic grateful life before the Lord seeing God is sovereign in all things that everything he he gave he gives us a gift for his glory and our good they were experiencing deep suffering and I'm a heart broke in a thousand ways for the deep suffering in the world people living hard Eucharist a Oh giving thanks for hard things and brokenness um I traveled a lot in the last five years to two broken places in the world sat with people and knows that God cups our tears in his bottle he catches each one and is that with people with their tears and their brokenness and and I I wanted to live into how do you live Eucharistic Allah in a broken world what do we do with our own broken heart do what is the answer to suffering and and coming back again I believe at the center of Christianity is that is that Lord's Supper and he first Jesus takes the bread and he gives thanks then what does he do with it he breaks it and gives it so what does it mean to live a broken life thinking of that metaphor of broken bread right and how do we live with our hearts as broken bread for each other how do I live with my hands and feet as as Christ's hands and feet in the world if something happens when the bread breaks when it cracks there's miracle in that space I think that you could I say through at 1,000 gifts Eucharist Thao precedes the miracle when we can live in a space of gratitude we realize that whatever Jesus gives us whatever God chooses that is enough he is always enough and then realizing that as the bread is broken and given there's a multiplication that happens in that that sum that was we choose to live a surrendered life I speak of it in the broken ways and it really has become the way I want my days and my moments to be shaped cruciform I want to live the shape of the cross I want that that vertical beam everything comes down from Christ as a gift as grazie even if I don't see it as that it is meant as that in my life to refine me and to shape me to be more like Jesus and then those those horizontal beams of the cross I want to live broken and given I want to give away everything that Christ has given me as a gift I want to live in a surrendered given place and I I think that's the answer to suffering in the world is to live as a suffering Christ as to be little Christ as Christ dwells us and I am I want to be formed and shaped and think like him and to live let Christ live in me the Union and communion I have with Christ to live that out in the world I want to live a cruciform life so I think the realizing just the answer to brokenness came out of 1,000 gifts yes I was living everything is thing in a thankful posture but now how do I live broken and given the rest of that which is the Christian Way the little Christ way let us Christ wave it him nothing in me I am chief among sinners but it's Christ in us only Christ in us only Christ in us and let him shape my moments how can I live a cruciform life a given surrendered life and that given surrender Ness is back to Christ again that I will live a completely my life laid out on that that altar that he speaks of in Romans a living sacrifice to him and how do I live as it as a sacrifice out to the world Christ's hands and feet out to a broken world well in you know that that's pretty high church language Thank You Holly is the first book you're using the new book of course but you're really not that high church not high church at all don't go - no I just I believe it him I believe that he asks us to live to be dead to all ladders Charles to go lower released and the that's a life of service completes Christ served us completely and I think that that life of service as we live as servants there is deep fulfillment in that that the life we want well we all are yearning for lives of meaning and the lives of meaning come from how do I live a life of service and I think I'm that's what I start to step into this is the metaphorical language that you are famous for writing nothing but mentality okay no no no we're not gonna call your famous and our time together but what what I am thinking is you opened 1,000 gifts with that scene of watching your little sister die in front of you what you open the new book and obviously you've been thinking about it again these last few years and and our having lost a son due to a drug overdose I'll never forget walking in the kitchen and there he had a knife and he was cutting himself used to cut yourself didn't you I did I think um we all carry a deep unspoken brokenness but um we are fallen we know our own brokenness and we know our own sinfulness we know how far we fall short of the glory of God and sometimes that turns into deep self-hatred and um we know we're serving false gods we think about him Elijah and Elijah was was calling it to the one true God and all those who worship bail they were cutting they were cutting selves bales of our false idols and we have false idols of perfectionism that we need to perform to be something that we are not lost we are not and we are able to lay aside um the weight we carry the pressures we put on ourselves the pressures and the expectations we carry from those around us in the world and leave that aside and say I am broken but in Christ I loved because of the cross because of Jesus dying on the cross and and sacrificing himself for us I can lay aside all those big expectations in Here I am beloved not in and of myself but because of Jesus and being able to and it took me a long time Charles and that's still in deep process that my identity isn't that cross and not in the expectations of anyone else mmm you know there's two ways we could go and me asking you this there's the one way we could go in where I have a child who's cutting themselves or I cut myself can you give me five simple steps to quit cutting I don't think the Lord wants us to go that direction but where does the Lord want us to go if we have a history our selves or someone we love cutting themselves I think um I think we need to go ahead feel the feelings that were feeling mm-hmm that word emotion means um a movement of feeling you're always to take those feelings and move ourselves closer to God take those feelings to the cross the Lord wants us to be I mean pick up the Book of Psalms and read the book of psalms David is so honest and raw about his emotions and his heart and the Lord wants us to peel back the masks and be deeply profoundly raw in her honesty before him it's about him before him yes that's what we need to go is back to the cross and do that completely surrendered Christ those arms open wide on the cross are to embrace us in our brokenness for us to be him to lay all of that pain down of I am falling so short I am so broken what do I do with this pain in his brokenness I need to actually help iam of a print in our room evam Thomas taking his pressing his hand right into Jesus new wounds his scars there and I keep thinking ones are only healed by wounds our wounds are only healed by taking our wounds to Jesus when impressing them into Christ and allowing who Jesus is is his completely unconditional love on the cross to bathe our wounds and to stay in that place and that means really Charles going ahead and steeping ourselves in who is my identity in Christ how does in crisis now see me memorize Who I am in Christ bathed yourself in that over and over and over again I am there's this wholeness completely than Who not in who you don't have to wait for the glorified body to live in that wholeness at all if I can if I Know Who I am in Christ my identity only in Christ how does Christ in me now how does God see me now through the lens of Christ and then takes them that takes intentionality that takes in I used to keep right there at the em right there at the sink who I was in Christ and list all of those verses um actually bought from my sister myself my mom and I all prints of who we were in price and kept that framed right on the wall so that I could memorize okay I could now have by renewed binding Christ who I was in Christ because um otherwise there is there's deep pain and in our own brokenness our own sinfulness we know deep in our souls how far far we fall short of who we want to be who do the Lord we're quite what what is righteousness and how far we fall short of that righteousness but but know that I am closed in the righteousness of Christ now but that takes intentionality bit by bit I just I strongly believe in memorizing God's Word I need to go ahead and rewire the way I think right puts our wants where they need to be over and al-qaida India you if you just stumbled upon us this is Haven a day and this is our first ever live video broadcast of a Christian radio program we're in a farm home in Ontario and with Anne Voss camp and she has a new book out called the broken way and you can get in touch with us and we'll get you a copy of this brand-new book and there's something from reading your new book that I've been wanting to ask you about and it's an interesting thing you talked about needing to learn not just to believe in Jesus but to know that he believes in you now I think I've heard Oprah say sweetly I come before I know crap but you you mean something entirely different entirely different person maybe you should just share the context about that that flights it was a strange it was a strange thought to me to Charles that caught me off so you're sitting on an airplane sitting on an airplane um you and Daryl were going yeah Sara and I were flying out west and we were both deeply shy introverts we didn't have seats beside each other and we're not brave enough who didn't believe that about you that you are an introvert aren't you yes soundly Charles okay um so we had a discussion about who was gonna ask somebody to change seats and neither one of us were braved so we took the seats we were we were gay and I had um an Orthodox rabbi sat down beside me I had the middle seat he had the aisle seat um he took his prayer shawl and folded it and put it in the overhead compartment and he sat down and I'm not sure how we we began the conversation something about children is a little strange because in the Orthodox Jewish rabbi doesn't speak to you he doesn't women much less a Gentile exactly so it was it was it went III did you he did greet me we and there's something about children on the plane and he asked me about if I had children and I said that will that did it that did it I said yes we have six children the named author names Caleb and Joshua hope and Levi and Malachi and Shalom and then he was open to a conversation for Jewish he was wondering about you at this point he was and we had him we had a five and a half hour conversation oh and and he brought that up he said you know you you Christians you evangelical Christians you talk all the time about believing in God but I never hear you talk about God believing in you okay and I was very taken aback mm-hmm and and asked him to explain more about what he was thinking about and and he said every day the Sun rises God must still believe in you that there is there's a you have something to contribute part of God's story that he needs written into the world through you otherwise you wouldn't continue to exist and we are created in God's image creating him and for me as a Christian believing that but I am bought and paid for with the blood of Christ that Christ now indwells me it really brought me up short realizing that does God believe in me he must continue to believe in me because Christ is in me he's believing that that not that God is believing please there is nothing within me all my righteousness is like filthy rags we should be Hitler you are not writing and saying we are divine and in any way shape or form or that there is anything that the Lord makes it's so clear in Isaiah that even my righteousness is like filthy rags even even my goodness apart from Christ is like filthy rags so there is nothing within me at all that God would ever believe in but because of Christ in me because of my I have Kim you are special only because because he was lovely because of that crucified Christ dying in my stead which obviously that the rabbi is not speaking into that but for me as a Christian believing that that because of Christ and those nails and him buying me with his blood on that cross him and dwelling me now God must believe in me not in me as an an but Christ in me Christ working in me and through me all to his glory that he allows the Sun to rise every day and for Christ to work through me that I think I think sometimes as Christians Charles it's easier for us to think that God loves me but does God like me mmm and it is your friend is your friend cuz because of Jesus because of Jesus indwelling me and working through me and refining me not only does he like me love me he likes me he believes in Christ working in me he believes in Jesus redeeming in me he believes in Christ making me more like Jesus that I might live out Jesus hands and feet and heart in the world so when I say that Jesus believed or God believes in me God believes in Christ in me making me cruciform in shaping me to me more like Jesus to reflect his image in the world I think it's a it's a transforming thing to know that um every day when you wake up God is for you a hundred percent for you because he's not done riding the story of you into the world that Jesus is is taking all your brokenness and using his a mosaic of grace did to create beauty in the world that that's why he still has you here today Jesus isn't done writing his story through you you're still rising today he is rising in you and then you really are you're practicing resurrection every single day that you get up if he gives us every breath every breath and every breath we they do with that breath embrace your way yes I think I'm just realizing Charles that really to live the Christian life it's those two things can I live in a state of gratitude all of the time and can I live in a state of givenness a state of surrender all the time and back to him and living those two parts out that's what I've lived out that Eucharistic 1,000 gives that gratitude and now the broken way was how do I live broken and given a complete life of surrender to him and allowing Christ to completely end well me and servanthood serving others serving our spouse serving our children serving those that the Lord brings into our life serving refugees that we're going to adopt and bring or little Shiloh that you brought home this year from China there's one chapter in your book where you and Daryl have had a heavy day do you mind if you just would pick a little bit to read for me from that book I can do that Charles brokenness is always the beginning repentance good brokenness is the only way to progress in the Christian life because growth only happens to the seed broken open you've never stood in the majesty of an oak that didn't come from a busted seed what I'd give to have known except the tension of feeling yourself led to the edge of yourself in the raw experience of I cannot do this you experienced how he remakes you into someone who can and our broken hearts are called to that impossible because that is who he he who is in us makes us the impulse ables love is really love when we are loving the unlovable forgiveness is really forgiveness when we are forgiving the unforgivable repentance is really repentance when we let our wrong loves be broken by the rightness of his unbreakable love faith is really faith when we believe God for the unbelievable because with our God nothing is impossible and our God is able and with our God in us all our broken efforts become possible and we are the impulse Able's doing the newly possible and thank you so much for sharing from your new book the broken way I wish I could write like you right no actually I don't see myself as a writer Charles I see myself as a waiter oh I sit and wait upon the Lord oh that's a great way he gives words so it's a very long process I am a waiter not a writer no soon we we asked Haven today listeners to send in questions that they always wanted to ask him so we're going to dip into some of those in a few minutes but let me ask you what do we do with our broken not just our heartbreaks but but also also our failures and our regrets I think it and that's really what I was pressing into um what do we do with our brokenness I think that is the one question we all cannot afford not to ask if we don't if we aren't intentional about what we do with our brokenness it can turn into bitterness I think what we do with our brokenness ultimately Charles is we give our broken hearts away in two ways number one we have this beautiful exchange with Christ I come to Christ and I give him my brokenness me and he gives me his righteousness uh it's this um I come to Christ ISM with all of my sinfulness with all of my brokenness and he takes that and it's it's it's almost like a marital exchange he gives me his righteousness he gives me his name he gives me union with him so we take our brokenness and we give our broken hearts to Christ and then at the same time Charles I really believe would give up broken hearts to the world I think we live in humility and vulnerability we give him we live a completely I'm broken and given life how do I take the gifts that I've been given from the Lord and reach out to the next broken heart beside me hmm and speak to them give them bread be the hands and feet of Christ I think lots of times and and I look at my own life when I've been deeply broken I've started with depression I've struggled with pain from the past my own sister's death at home on the farm my mother's hospitalization as I was growing up our our tendency lots of times as in our own brokenness to turn inward and and to become very self-focused as opposed to becoming outward focus how do I focus on the Lord and focusing on the Lord he says when you give to the least of these you give to me so when I'm focused on Christ how do I go ahead and give my brokenness to him and give my broken my broken heart and when we give our broken heart to each other we're being humble we're saying I'm broken too unlike you I need Christ when we give our broken hearts to each other it's a way to point to the cross it's a way to point to say in my own weakness can be strong I think what we need to look at our own brokenness is not something that we need to solve interior in and of ourselves but think of how do I live broken and given let's give my brokenness to Christ and then turn to the other broken heart beside me and break and give myself away to that broken heart be open and honest about my own sinfulness my own vulnerabilities they all point to Christ they all point to my need of Christ and then say here this is what the Lord has given me how can I go ahead and give my time to you give the Ministry of presence to you how can I go ahead and whatever I have in my hand give to you I think the Lord asks us to live lives of compassion and that that compassion means passion the word actually means suffering right and Comm means to come next to somebody I think witness breaks brokenness and I think the Lord says he's Immanuel God with us those scars on Jesus hands the crucified Christ he breaks our brokenness and then as we come along and live out christ-like lives alongside each other our witness with each other breaks brokenness he calls us to be a body with each other to come alongside each other and and bear each other's burdens carry each other's cross so think how do we live lives that are literally cruciform I want to live like a cross and come alongside each other and carry each other's burdens and I think that comes through living broken and given lives how do you give your broken heart away hmm I've got two questions I'll combine them into one and love you choose two which which one you really want to answer in the opening to your new book there is this jar of grain but then you also on the picture the front of the new book there is this bucket with grain inside and you do talk about the bucket list a few times in this new book talk to me about a jar of grain or a bucket of grain I'll try to do both okay um our um our daughter Shalom she wanted to know um how long do we live mmm time look like and I had said ah I know that him if we if the Lord gives us in his Christ 70 years that might look like twenty five thousand five hundred days and him and I we took a mason jar of wheat and with those twenty five thousand five hundred kernels of grain and then kept it in the windowsill I wanted a visual of the Lord gives you just these these grace days these grain days and he asks you to be broken and given to take it it's died ourselves to completely him let those seeds be broken in the earth and if we choose to live live a life that's dying literally day after day dying to ourselves living surrendered and sacrifice that reaps a far greater harvest each of those seeds will yield far more than that one seed he says sixty a hundredfold um so I wanted a visual in our house of how do we live broken and given how do we live dying to ourselves and I think so often our culture we think of them bucket lists I want to fill up a bucket with my time and it's thinks I want to do I want to do right and I think lives of deep meaningfulness of fulfillment it's actually paradoxically the opposite how do I take these grain days these grace days I've been given these kernels of wheat and dyed it myself and pour my life out I want to die Charles with an empty bucket not a full bucket I want to want everything that he's given to me to be poured out into a hurting and breaking world and I think ultimately paradoxically that's the way we live fulfilled in the in lives of service and sacrifice and surrender so yes you see in the front cover so it's it's not my next vacation it's not always wanted to take me I think in lots of ways yes I think we live I think the broken way asks us to them to break away from our agendas and our schedules into Sabbath and to depressed but I don't think that the Lord calls us to live them lives of trying to fill our thing our lives up within we are hungry for something we're hungry for more of God and how do we have more of God when we give to the least of these we're encountering Christ so how do we live our lives completely poured out and knowing at the same time Christ is filling us with more and more of himself we're not pouring out of our own flesh what we're pouring out Christ in us out into the world he continues then to fill us it's this cycle of grace over and over and over again Charles maybe that's the next step yes.can so welcome back to the for me when that comes out okay like we want to them we want to incarnate these things and and live them out before we write anything Charles well before we move on in this special edition of a televised video Christian radio program we need to pray y'all please would would you pray for all of us to be able to live this broken life but the Lord is calling us to live yes Oh Heavenly Father we just kneel down before the foot of the cross Lord with our own brokenness our own unspoken broken in so many ways Lord that we don't even know how to articulate but we feel deeply in the marrow of our bones in our broken hearts Lord and we know the answers to them in a broken world with our own broken hearts is to give our broken hearts away and we lean into you today with our own brokenness and knowing that by your wounds our wounds are healed Lord by your sacrifice perfect righteous sacrifice for our brokenness our wounds are bathed and healed by the blood of Jesus Christ Lord so we give our brokenness to you and right now feel in our own brokenness Lord exchange we give our brokenness to you and you give your perfect righteousness blood-bought righteousness to us Lord and we wear that righteousness Lordan because you indwell us because we have deep Union and communion with you intimacy with you because of the cross Lord we pray right now that you would shape our days our moments our minds our hearts cruciform that we would live shaped like a cross that we would live with our arms our hearts wide open Lord that we would want to participate Koinonia have fellowship in your sufferings and in the sufferings of the world that we would also want the Lord to participate have communion with you and give them the bread you have given us be broken and given and give that bread out into a hurting world cause us Lord to be a cross-shaped people that we would meet the brokenness of the world with the hope of of you lord resurrection hope in our own brokenness we would experience your powerful transformation Lord pray Lord that um we would look at our lives say that though we we are not much Lord that we would make much of you and that what you have had placed into our hands that would continue to be a gift that we would look at the broken people around us we would turn and say I am broken but I know a healer I know I'm one who takes all my brokenness and makes it into a mosaic of Christ pray Lord that we would be a broken and given people that we would be dead to all ladders and go down to the least and the lonely in the loss that we would live as esther's a generation of Esther's who are broken and given and risk everything for those outside the gate for such a times now just Lord make us people who will pour out our buckets and um when we stand before you Lord we will say here are empty buckets Lord we were filled with more in view and poured your grace out into a world it's desperate for your healing and your your grace touch Lord we just pray these things through name of Jesus the only one who has ever loved us to death and loved us back to life in him we pray these things in Jesus name Amen this is Haven today and the first ever live video radio Christian broadcast in 82 years and we're in the home of an Voss camp on the farm in Ontario and we thought it would be good to just ask you to submit some questions so we sent the word out to anyone who's ever contacted us at the ministry and we said an send us a question of whatever you would like to ask and so and you you have not looked at these cards and I've shuffled them a couple of times so so here we go but if you really are nervous about answering one of these questions you just tell us and we'll move on to the next card question number one and vas Camp the world has fallen in love with your family and they're wandering around the farm right now I think Darrell took them to town when we are doing this how do your kids and husband feel about the fame and attention they get through your books and blog and I know you're embarrassed to answer that question but I know you've been asked it before in all honesty I just think the Lord has been so gracious and kind to us Charles we live in rural camp I mean you saw where you came we live on the Mac side rural there's a lot of Mennonite by horse and buggies Lord has been so careful just to hold us in the cleft of a rock there is um there are times the kids will encounter somebody he said wait do you know the lady who wrote that book about yos gift yes no and then but really the Lord just keep system he keeps us dirt underneath our fingernails humble in the farm I think I'm I think it's we want to live in a posture of deep humility and I think I'm washing out our own bowls is why I say it we clean our own toilets here we live close to them we don't leave in the housekeeping staff just um just living really simple humble playing lives our life in so many ways has not changed we still keep farming and homeschooling kids and and chores and chores and remember all the kids the last time I was here we're sitting around the table and they get up they get eight hours five o'clock in the morning everybody puts in two to three hours at the barn every morning before school starts I think that the Lord asks us to go lower all the time and I've just we've just been really intentional about breaking all pedestals and platforms and just truly trying to go lower all of the time Charles it is a busy life but it is it's a good life it is life and the Lord meets us in the middle of that but I think I'm for the children to know that it's always how do we live upside down Kingdom Charles how do we live upside down and wouldn't just be the hands and feet of Jesus in every way that we can well I hope you live upside-down by going to bed earlier than most families if you're out there giving choices why what's wrong all right all right next question I find myself so busy in life and I know you must feel again me uh you would deny that of course what would you suggest to a mother who hardly has time for dishes on how to connect with God in a meaningful way even in the midst of my chaotic life no I resonate I say dad I got a perspective of the father and a husband too I think it's um it's choosing I mean we they say practice the presence of God but the presence of God is around us all of the time I think what we need to practice is deep awareness all the time it's about being in tension all the time that I want I want communion with you lord I think I tell myself all the time I can have as much of God as I want it's a choice about what I choose to meditate on what I choose to think on what I choose to reflect on I think um yeah I I get deep busyness and crazy hey when brother Hanson wrote that book he practiced in your presence washing dishes in France and I think I think it's about me choosing to be aware of the presence of God all of the time and we try I think there's some practices for me that have really helped we choose to we say eat this book around the table three times a day that we don't sit down to and eat food without eating living bread so it's always taking out the Bible after every meal and reading scripture together and I think that that keeps us centered all of the time that gives us we want an appetite for Christ and that gives us that appetite all the time so that the world doesn't ruin our appetite for Jesus oh I think that practice day in and day out and I think praying three times a day 9 o'clock noon 6 o'clock before I go to bed having that practice all the time keeps it so that when I'm doing the dishes when I'm folding the laundry when I'm with the kids I am constantly wanting to live a life of unceasing prayer so you're talking to the Lord all the time but kids laugh all good I am I preach the gospel it's I allowed to myself all the time right I preached georgg yes yes yes I do all of the time because I'm a woman chronic soul and Asia I forget the truth and I need to preach gospel back to myself so I think we need we need to go ahead and put really simple practices how do we pray how do we stay steeped in his word and how do we preach the truth back to ourselves and and you mentioned the table let's backtrack I covet this chair and your diamond dining room yeah tell everybody about your Tara the carpenter who built the house I lived in as a child the farmhouse I grew up in another Dutch man he built the table that we all eat the dinner around three meals a day it has the fourth legs our barn beams which reminds me of Christ living a sacrificed life laying his life down on those beams the cross and the table has eight drawers around it for each of us and now that we've boys way at university little shiloh has taken our onesie and we have them the Bible is in so each of us have our Bible right near to our door we under the table tables at the end of every meal we open our door take out real living bread and read scripture around the table everybody will read sometimes we've done it different ways we might read this five versus all around the table or will do fifteen verses at a time and each of us read one or two verses all around the table my husband always closes we've reflect on those verses and always open our meals in prayer and close our meals in prayer and I think it just um we don't want the world to ruin our appetite we want an appetite for Christ and to eat living bread so that has been our practice the entire we've been married 22 years and we have done it for 22 years great all right now that was my question not somebody else next next question here you are very transparent in your writing yeah what was the most difficult for you to share in your new book I think what the book opens with round my talked about this earlier my own cutting my own um not knowing what to do with my own pain and my own brokenness my own deep I think it was about letting what do I do with this pain and letting that pain that feeling that was I cut I could drain that pain away but also just um deep self-hatred that I I needed to know my identity in Christ and and now I'm trying to take that same pen that I wrote out a thousand things that was grateful for taking that same pen every day and and just drawing that cross over those scars in my wrist um I want to live a cruciform life I want to know that my identity is in him and his righteousness that all there is to see is Christ that I see Christ in you and you see Christ in me and all there is to hear is beloved because of Christ that's my name in Jesus thank you no thank you Charles all right next question what insights do you have on how you felt called to write how did you get started writing even though you don't see yourself as a writer still what tips oh here it comes what tips can you offer a fellow aspiring writer mmm write for an audience of one okay I came to writing only through journaling I wanted to lay my life down before the Lord my practice I was always to read scripture and then start to write out of blame my life and Scripture down together and let scriptures speak to my life so um I came to writing I I came to writing online-only I didn't have comments it wasn't about networking it was about just taking the journals that I I had in my room at my prayer bench you didn't go hire consultant Mike Emery Stern arriving at my intention it was about pages taking the journals that I had written for years um and that writing that online to have a compilation of our lives always said it was writing from the summer of my life to save up for the winter of my life that I could see the threads in the hands of God through everything and I think um I think writing for the audience of one just laying it down for the Lord and allowing the Lord to do deep working if I have any tip for anyone it's a write real to the Lord and let him do real work in you I wrote that so that if my writing could could minister to somebody else down in the trenches where I was that was a blessing but I really was doing is to encounter the Lord to say here's what I'm living every day Lord and how are you meeting me in this sometimes I feel like it's a handicap to had to live my life again over in words and write it down so that I could see look how the Lord is moving look how he's working I think and keep your eyes always fixed on Christ and everything else falls into place amen today all right last one uh and it's kind of long okay I I didn't know Liberty we have the longest okay let's see let's go to get through this year oh we all have 24 hours in a day we do Wow yes but you seem to manage to put it a whole lot more to your days than I know you don't think so I don't spending time with Jesus taking care of a husband farmer who goes by a capital F for fire sometimes in books and kids uh and let's see house chores and ministering to thousands through your we're going to give you an ego here in a minute daily walk even writing books I am always amazed they put an exclamation mark in on this what is your secret am I have no secrets um I think one of the most powerful prayers you can pray has helped me and I pray that many many times a day lord please help me that's a cry it is it's a constant cry lord please help me um I I long to live a one-piece life so helping my husband I want to do that in a posture of prayer so that I'm I'm meeting the Lord in that too I want to live a one-piece life that we're praying around the table we're living in Union and communion with Christ all the time I think him we put our expectations on how can I perform during a day what do I get done during a day as opposed to what the Lord asks us to do is live in his presence it's not about performance or perfectionism perfectionism is slow death by self and I don't want to live a life that's that I have to perform I want to live a life in his presence a lot of times that's letting go of expectations that means sometimes the laundry does not get vaulted but we live we live a life that where we lean into each other where my husband will say how can I help you today where I say how can I help you where kids go ahead we we help each other so it's um it is not perfect but it is in his presence well and let me slide a little question in on that too because you you you live in this community where there's a continuum where being perfect folding those clothes right stacking the proper way through uh you can go legalistic easily where you live I have lived that Charles and um and realizing that my identity is not in how well the laundry is hold a hospital to the sheets Travis my wife Nicole said I have lived that and realized Christ never asks that of me he asked for my heart he asked for my focus he asked for communion in union with him all of the time so I want to live a life where as I'm doing those things I'm having fellowship and Koinonia with Christ that's what matters so I think all the time because what the what matters is not um it's um its unseen things all the time Charles how do I live an unseen life where you know what you may walk into my life and go huh and doesn't the dishes today but you know what what I did today my focus was on unthink unseen thing so it's on relationship all of the time it's fellowship with Christ it's fellowship with my family it's fellowship with whoever showed up at my front door was not an interruption there were a manifestation of Christ so I don't think I think we have to live it time Christ will give us enough time to do exactly what he's called us to do how do we live broken and given with our time well now we have a bonus okay here everyone alright so we'll be back in just a minute with Dan boskamp we're going to be talking about going to the other side of the world yes stay with us and boss before we have to go hmm at a just about the same time last year separately I read this New York Times article is Christianity dead or dying in the Middle East the old journalist in me a hack journalist I might add said you need to go and check this out I did you were invited to go to Iraq you went tell me about that I went um three weeks after the 21 were martyred in Libya I was invited to go to Iraq my family prayed about it I asked my husband what do you thought I should do and he said you know we're crucified with Christ our life is not our own there you're the safest when you're in the will of God if God has called you to go and do this we do this um power to Darrell for saying that he felt very very I was more hesitant and he was not at all okay um he said we we live with a Christ owns our life we don't own our life um any one of the kids to know that we live perfect love casts out all fear we have no fear in Christ and we're called to go and love our enemies we're called to go to places that are broken and hurting and be the love of Christ and to speak to be the voice for those who are voiceless to be the voice for those who are oppressed to be Esther called for such a time as this you are in the palace you are where you are for such a time as now for those who are outside of the gate for those who are at risk of being complete gentleman day genocides up I went to Iraq and them went with pre-emptive love and sat in shipping containers with women who had been on the top of Sinjar Mountain um it escaped Isis used idiy women who had to decide which of their children and we had two arms who do you take him hmm who are you going to save that just cried with women hmm um and then returned home and it took me time Charles to process what I had encountered that there really is as has been described to me of there's a refugee overload you want to help everyone you can't help everyone and speaking as a dad and a father I'll never forget being introduced to a young Yazidi girl would actually become a believer in Jesus her dad who was still Yazidi had not converted to Christianity had every right in their culture for an honor killing to kill his own daughter his wife and two other daughters are still being held by Isis today and yet he chose to love the daughter that escaped and not take her life now he may not be a believer yet yet Charles yes that's the gospel work it is the gospel and I think we are called I've want to give home someone very well-meaning said to me it's so nice that you care about those people over there and I thought oh no the Lord has us where we are you are for a time and a purpose meant to use all the resources that you have been given for those who are outside of gate for those who who could go into a Christ las' eternity to those who are in the dark to go ahead and bring the light of Christ so I I felt um deeply convicted how do we live as Esther's how do we believe that we are where we are for such a time as now and Mordecai says to Esther if you don't use the position you are in right now for those outside the gate those outside the gate may be saved but you yourself you have to live with you yes yes and I think lots of times we don't live broken and given when we don't risk everything for those upside the gate we live deathless or death kind of lives we live lives that are completely empty and not meaningful we don't live in to the purpose that Christ has given us so thinking I think each of us need to look at where we are right now and how can I live broken and given to those outside the gate to those who are refugees to those who are desperate to know the light of Christ and and that may may be a single mom next door that maybe someone in Iraq but I think to see yourself is you have been given so much in Christ and divided it into the kingdom into the palace how do you live now broken and given for those who are desperate for life in Christ who are starving for the bread of Christ and I'm just so grateful for the women who entrusted me with their story in Iraq and realizing that I could have been them Charles that's right I could have been there and who would go ahead and be broken and given for me if if it was me and my children who have been them I've lost everything that we knew well you've brought a family yes the ministry that I lead has a family yes the into Canada it's not so easily for the United States and the interesting thing is I have been told by people well why don't we just help them over there why don't we just send money why don't we we don't want Isis coming over here well you can't control we're building walls isn't going to defeat Isis but the interesting thing is this that most people don't realize the people that we're bringing over here have no home to return no home to return to and if they had a home to return to that's really wanted they want to go they desperately want to cry there is nowhere to go back to that's right and so why not open up in our arms like the arms of Jesus open to us that cruciform life with our arms of a wife we have nothing to be shared Jesus we're in Christ my son said I'm Malik I said but you know one of the places that we can't go and share the gospel is the Middle East but if those in the Middle East need a home and we could open our home to them we could share cluttering the gospel that lift so for us to go ahead and share Christ be the hands and feet of Christ to those who need a home and what better home to dwell in Christ I think I mean I think we just um our theology is best expressed in our hospitality how do we live open and say there's enough room at the table for you because of the cross of Christ so I think we can't live in fear we live in Christ and when we go ahead and give Christ to those who are you know I don't even know that they're starving for him yet that's right yes you know and I've met so many people in the Middle East people who were in named Christian yes but now their faith is real as a result of Isis and I met a lot of Muslims who now if you meet them and tell me about yourself the first thing they say I'm a lover of Jesus lover of Jesus there is something going on and it's it's big public golden age but there's something going on even those 21 that were martyred in Libya Isis that videotape they they put out they kept saying the people of the Cross when we choose to be people because those were lovers of Jesus philosophers of Jesus will we choose to live cruciform will we choose to be shaped like the cross and be open to those who are in desperate need of Christ and be open to the refugees be open to those who are fleeing from Isis when we go ahead and close our doors we aren't being people of the cross hmm emboss him of thank you for an historic occasion in the life of a Christian radio ministry thank you we've gone we've gone video for this one and we've done therefore come you at the fire and thank you for your new book huh I just pray that we would be a people who are cruciform shaped by the cross broken and given to a world that's broken and in desperate need of him picture Thank You Charles you you

Channel: HavenToday

Views: 47,173

Rating: 4.8620691 out of 5

Keywords: Ann Voskamp, Haven Today, Charles Morris, The Broken Way, Interview, Webcast, Christian, Devotional, Jesus

Id: EPSkxBNNUOQ

Length: 57min 9sec (3429 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 23 2016