Wayne Jacobsen
12 min read ⭑
“We were never meant to manufacture a righteousness of our own. We were invited into a kingdom where God reshapes us to see others as we see ourselves and to treat them as we would want to be treated.”
With books like The Shack, The Naked Church and Just Love, Wayne Jacobsen isn’t afraid to challenge the assumptions underlying the modern Christian church. Having experienced the transformation that comes with living authentically and truly loved by God, he now wants to share those life-changing experiences with others. In today’s conversation, he discusses how he cultivates intimacy with God, the projects and passions that are moving him and the resources that have ushered him into a deeper relationship with Jesus.
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
Food is always about more than food; it’s also about home and people and love. So how does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind your web bio?
My favorite hometown restaurant is Wayne’s Smokehouse, once a tiki bar on the back patio of the home we bought four years ago. We turned it into an outdoor kitchen with a smoker and barbecue grill because I love the tastes and smells. Beside it sits a large table under an umbrella, with my wife’s Italian garden and a fountain just beyond. Over the fence rises Mount Boney, the defining landmark of our Southern California neighborhood.
Give me a Sunday afternoon with tri-tip in the smoker and family or good friends gathering for food and conversation. They may be neighbors, new local friends or couples visiting from 200 miles away, where we spent the first half of our lives. Over smoked tri-tip and baked cheese potatoes, the conversation inevitably turns to how God is making himself known and what we are learning about following him.
Those unhurried conversations are the special sauce of life. Usually filled with laughter and warmth, and when people feel safe enough, they will share their struggles or explore something God may be showing them, the conversation goes deep.
Last weekend, a couple we have known for more than 50 years joined us. Catching up on children and grandchildren while exploring our shared passion for God made the day both refreshing and deeply rewarding.
Karsten Winegeart; Unsplash
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
What “nonspiritual” activity have you found to be quite spiritual, after all? What quirky proclivity, out-of-the-way interest or unexpected pursuit refreshes your soul?
I stopped separating the spiritual from the secular long ago when I discovered that God makes his home in us and remains there. Even during seasons when I don’t recognize him clearly, the moments when he makes himself known in some unexpected way still delight my heart.
I no longer have a favorite place for that to happen. During an early-morning round of golf, I find it easy to talk with him and listen for his thoughts. At other times, he emerges unexpectedly in a conversation with someone I have just met on the first tee. Recently, I found myself talking with a military chaplain about what we had both endured in former pastorates.
Whenever God shows up in some beautiful way, my heart grows more tender toward him.
Once, on a flight home from the Carolinas to California, an angry man boarded late and dropped into the middle seat beside me. He soon fell asleep, leaning against my shoulder. When he stirred a couple of hours later, I asked if he was all right.
He apologized for being such a grouch and told me about his terrible night — getting drunk and then wandering the streets searching for a friend’s lost dog. When he asked about me, I mentioned some of the books I had written.
He perked up. “I’m a Christian,” he said. Then as quickly, I watched him collapse into shame. “I know it doesn’t look like it.”
He told me he had been sober for nine months after coming to Christ, until the night before.
“It doesn’t not look like it,” I replied.
He was intrigued, so for the rest of the flight, we talked about a Father whose love would celebrate those nine months rather than fixate on his one night of failure. I encouraged him to begin again and discover a love deep enough to hold him in his weakness without abandoning the journey.
His face brightened as he reconnected with God and found hope to continue.
I don’t remember ever stepping off a long flight feeling more alive or joyful. What began as a frustrating trip home became an opportunity to share something beautiful with God.
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness; every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re all broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite and how do you confront its power?
My greatest weakness is assuming that my best wisdom perfectly aligns with God’s desires. I wish I were more sensitive to his direction before a difficult situation erupts into disaster. Too often, what seems to me the obvious way forward is the exact opposite of what he has in mind.
I am naturally direct. When I see a problem, I want to confront it and resolve it, which is often harmful to someone. I forget that I belong to a kingdom where the first are last and we save our lives by losing them. Yet I treasure those moments when, in the middle of something painful, God reveals a wisdom that settles my heart and makes more sense than anything I could have devised. That clarity rarely comes quickly for me.
One such moment followed the betrayal of a coworker. I was determined to make him pay when I returned from a trip. Fortunately, before I acted, God breathed this thought into my mind: I have more to teach you if you walk away than if you stay.
It took me several days to accept that this was what he wanted.
Walking away cost me nearly everything — my ministry, salary, health insurance and reputation — but it also opened a new path God had for me. More than 30 years later, I have never regretted that decision. I had far more to learn than I realized.
And I still need that reminder today: Don’t leap at my first impulse. Pause. Listen. Make room for God’s wisdom, even when the waiting takes days or weeks.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?
The question itself pings my yuck meter a bit. Since I don’t separate the sacred from the secular, I’m not fond of separating the professional from the amateur either. In fact, I like being an amateur — doing something for the love of it rather than primarily as a source of income.
What excites me most these days is the message of my latest book, “Just Love,” co-authored with a South African man I didn’t even know existed two years ago. He wrote to share an observation that eventually transformed my understanding of Scripture and the gospel itself: the word righteousness, as we have come to understand it, is not in the Bible.
Of course, I thought he was nuts.
Through our continuing dialogue, however, I began to grasp what he meant. He wasn’t saying the word does not appear in English translations. He was saying that Jesus and Paul did not use a word that carried the meaning righteousness has acquired for us.
The word was justice: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice” (Matt. 6:33). This is not the vengeful justice we often associate with courts, where punishment is measured against the crime. God’s justice seeks restoration and freedom through love, forgiveness and transformation.
The work of Christ allows his love to write that justice on our hearts so that we become a just people. We were never meant to manufacture a righteousness of our own. We were invited into a kingdom where God reshapes us to see others as we see ourselves and to treat them as we would want to be treated.
What would Christianity have looked like today if, for the last 2,000 years, we had been more focused on being transformed by his love rather than our personal piety or righteous obligations? That’s the question we ask in “Just Love,” and the answers are joyously profound.
I am thrilled to be part of these conversations and to help people rediscover a gospel that is about far more than escaping hell. It invites us to participate in a new creation already finding its way into our broken world.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Whether we’re cashiers or CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need God’s love flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?
I am most invigorated by God’s presence. I know his Spirit is always with me, but when he does something discernible, my heart comes alive.
I don’t always recognize what he is doing immediately. Sometimes it takes days or weeks. But when I finally see it, the weight of his reality redirects my heart and changes my course. Often, that clarity comes through conversations with close friends who help me process what I am facing. Even then, I can be hesitant to trust it because following where he leads can feel incredibly risky.
Recently, I returned from a ministry trip to discover that my wife had left me. In a letter on the counter, she explained that she felt she had only two choices: take her own life or leave. She chose to leave and said we would never speak again except through attorneys.
We had been married for 46 years and had rarely experienced serious conflict. Sara is a kind and loving person, so as I read her letter, my heart broke for her and the pain she must have been carrying. Either she had suffered some kind of mental break, or the life I thought we had shared had been a lie.
After a restless night, I was shaving when a thought slipped quietly into my mind: This is not what it appears to be. I will bring her back to you.
My whole being came alive. On the days I could trust those words, I was at peace and able to give Sara the space God needed to find his way into her heart.
A few weeks later, she reached out, and we slowly began to reconnect. By not forcing the issue or pressing her with the million questions in my mind, I allowed her to do so on her own terms. That response undermined all the fears and expectations her counselor had instilled in her.
After we got back together and she found a new therapist, we discovered the source of her pain: severe childhood trauma that her mind had hidden from her for 64 years. Now, her pain made sense.
We are both profoundly grateful that God rescued us from something that so easily could have destroyed our marriage.
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you in this season?
When I was younger, spiritual disciplines served me well. Over time, however, they became less a doorway into God’s presence and more a substitute for its absence.
The rhythms that best serve my life with Jesus now are simpler: reading aloud to Sara each evening — usually Scripture and a book that provokes our thoughts about God — seeking out three or four meaningful conversations each week with close friends about our spiritual journeys, and spending time regularly in my “prayer closet.”
That prayer closet is an outdoor bed in what we call the Hawaii corner of our garden, where Sara has surrounded it with tropical plants and a waterfall. For years, it was simply my favorite place to read and relax. Then God began meeting me there in unexpected ways.
For a long time, my best conversations with him came during early-morning walks. Now Sara joins me on those walks, so resting on the Hawaii bed in the cool of the morning has become my sanctuary. I didn’t go there seeking a spiritual encounter, so I was surprised when he began to seek me out with insights and impressions beyond my usual patterns of thought.
That doesn’t always happen, which makes those moments even more precious when he does. They remind me that I am not in control of this relationship; he is. So I still go there to read and rest. But when he comes knocking, I set everything else aside to engage him and see what he wants to reveal.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed reality and changed your heart?
Three resources stand out as especially timely in my journey: “Dangerous Wonder” by Mike Yaconelli, “Abba’s Child” by Brennan Manning and the movie “The Matrix.” The first two helped me rest in the Father’s love. The third helped me recognize the religious matrix I had been born into — one that often did more to drain his life from me than teach me how to live with him.
Still, when people ask what shaped me most, my answer is always people. It wasn’t merely their words that made the difference, but the lives behind those words and the practical wisdom they offered during the most painful stretches of my journey.
My father shaped my early years. Later, older men such as Dave Coleman, Kevin Smith of Australia, Tom Moan of Tulsa and Jack Gerry of Maine helped me explore a life of growing trust in God. None of them wrote books, maintained websites or recorded podcasts, but they all lived the life from the heart.
They have all died, so I don’t mention them as resources others can seek out. I mention them as an encouragement to look beyond books, seminars, videos and podcasts. Find the older brothers and sisters around you who live with a deep and contented trust in God. Spend time with them. Pay attention to how they live. You, too, may discover that their example teaches you more than their words ever could.
Certain things can be godsends, helping us survive, even thrive, in our fast-paced world. Does technology ever help you this way? Has an app ever boosted your spiritual growth? If so, how?
My mail app and Zoom account have been among my most valuable resources because they have opened the door to countless meaningful conversations with people around the world who are learning to live deeply with Jesus.
In addition, for the past six years, I have met every other week on Zoom with a group of mature men and women from three continents. We pray together about the state of the world and listen for what Jesus might say to us about it. We also share our struggles and encourage each other.
Those gatherings have transformed my journey. Together, we have learned to gaze with God at the world rather than bombard him with our requests. They have taught me the value of love, rest and even play as we wait on him — and that praying from fear and desperation may be the worst way to attune our hearts to his.
QUESTION #8: dream
God’s continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
I honestly don’t know what the future holds, especially in light of a recent cancer diagnosis. But three things have my attention these days. Each remains somewhat unformed — more a series of glimpses than finished ideas.
The first is continuing to walk with Sara through the aftermath of her trauma and the healing slowly unfolding in her life. I always become a better person as I learn to love her more deeply.
The second is a vision that began several years ago and continues to unfold from time to time. It comes in unimaginable colors and images, sometimes at the strangest moments. When it begins, my heart swells as I am overwhelmed by God’s majesty and mercy. This lies well outside my comfort zone because I have never known anyone else to experience such an extensive vision revealing itself in pieces over years.
The third is a book about the arc of my spiritual journey, something many people have encouraged me to write. I have resisted because memoirs seem suited to celebrities, and I have never wanted to be regarded that way. It would make me less of a brother and, thus, less helpful to others.
Still, those who have read my books and listened to my podcasts have seen how God used painful betrayals to invite me into a richer understanding of the gospel and a deeper awareness of his presence.
I didn’t take the idea seriously until a few weeks ago, when a title dropped into my mind: Engaging the Presence. That is a book I could write because it would be more about him than me. I could tell my story in a way that helps others explore their own engagement with presence.
That has been the underlying passion shaping the arc of my life. I have embraced the realities that draw me into a greater awareness of him and leaned away from those that diminish it.
We love that when asked about the most impactful resources in his life, Wayne didn’t just share books — he shared people. External resources like books, podcasts, videos and sermons are helpful tools on our journey, but it’s the people we learn from who have the biggest impact on our lives.
Consider: the twelve apostles had Jesus. Paul had Ananias and Barnabas. Mary had Elizabeth. Esther had Mordecai.
Who in your life has poured into you? How can you turn around and do the same for someone else?
Wayne Jacobsen is an author and conversationalist who challenges many of the assumptions modern Christianity takes for granted. From The Naked Church to He Loves Me! and Just Love, his writing confronts performance-driven faith and invites readers into a radically different reality — living in the freedom of Father’s affection and a gospel rooted in restoration, not obligation. He is also co-author of the bestselling novel The Shack, which reshaped how millions think about God. Through his books, essays and conversations, Jacobsen continues to call people beyond religious systems into a more authentic life with God. Explore more at Lifestream.org and TheGodJourney.com.