• it has helped me fall more in love with Jesus

• it has helped me move towards emotional wholeness by revealing the hidden motivations in my life

• it has given me the language to understand my own story with more grace and compassion

• it has helped my marriage immensely, providing a lens to see how my wife and I’s default survival mechanisms differ, and how we are not actually enemies!

• it has provided a toolset for loving and serving others well.

I used some Enneagram language and typology in my devotional, You Are Enough: Learning to Love Yourself the Way God Loves You. I used it specifically to help us identify some of the trauma patterns in our lives and the habits we have constructed around our deepest fears so that we can gently love ourselves back to wholeness. More on that here, if you’re interested.

But where to begin? I get asked this question fairly regularly, so I’ve put together a quick guide for where you might want to begin your Enneagram journey. There are many teachers on the subject and they range in quality and reliability. This is by no means exhaustive but it should help you get started. Most of my journey with the Enneagram has been self-led, through books and podcasts but there are Enneagram coaches out there too if you want that.

1. Listen to some podcasts to get a high-level overview.

2. Take a test to find your type

3. Read some books to get a deeper understanding of yourself.

4. Combine it with other practices to help you grow.

5. Use the Enneagram to understand more about your relationships.

1. High-level overview

Start by listening to a podcast such as my interview with priest, therapist and Enneagram teacher, Ian Morgan Cron, where he provides a high-level overview of the Enneagram types and some reasons why they might be useful to you.

Follow that up with another overview from a different teacher to get a slightly different flavour. My interview with author Chris Heuertz covers some of the history of the Enneagram system and how it relates to finding our purpose in life.

2. Find your type

Take an online test to get a ballpark reading of your strongest types. Some tests are better than others, I recommend these two:

The RHETI test from enneagraminstitute.com (costs $12)
yourenneagramcoach.com/dont-know-your-type (free)

Tests are a great way to get started because you don’t have to try and understand the whole system at once, you can just focus on your top one or two types. That said, tests should not the be-all-and-end-all indicator of your type(s). Once you’ve done more of a deep dive into the system, you will likely see yourself represented in the descriptions of one or two types more clearly and consistently than others, and that gut-level response is better than any test.

3. Build a robust view of yourself

The strength of the Enneagram is in understanding your hidden motivations, keeping the good bits and choosing what to do with the destructive stuff. That’s a work that requires a bit more time and consideration than just reading a funny Instagram Ennea-meme. Read a few books and other resources to develop a robust understanding of yourself.

Read the free type descriptions and other materials at enneagraminstitute.com and yourenneagramcoach.com.

Order The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery by Ian Morgan Cron & Suzanne Stabile
Order The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth by Christopher L. Heuertz

Ryan O’Neal, AKA Sleeping At Last, has written and produced an incredible series of songs for each Enneagram type, featuring musicians of each type performing on each song. You can listen to the songs on the album Atlas: Enneagram (available everywhere) and hear a full breakdown of each song with related Enneagram teaching, on the Sleeping at Last podcast. Here are each of the episodes: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine

4. Combine with practices to heal and grow

Simply knowing things about yourself is great but to make deep, sustainable, gracious changes in your life, you’ll need to lean into other tools and practices. In my own journey, I combined my Enneagram-driven knowledge of self with contemplative prayer practices, inner healing, parts-work and professional therapy from a psychotherapist. Together, all of this helped me explore the layers of my inner world, move towards wholeness and see God and the Gospel in beautifully fresh ways. I’ve turned some of my own journey into a 30-day devotional which you might find helpful as well. (You can download a free sample here.)

Order The Brain-Based Enneagram: you are not A number by Dr. Jerome D. Lubbe
Order The Enneagram of Belonging: A Compassionate Journey of Self-Acceptance by Christopher L. Heuertz

InterVarsity Press have released a series of 40-day devotionals for each Enneagram type, called “Enneagram Daily Reflections.” Each one is written by an amazing author and the series is edited by master Enneagram teacher, Suzanne Stabile. I highly recommend it! One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine

5. Expand your awareness of the other types

Once you’ve spent some time working compassionately on yourself, embracing your shadow side and leading it towards the light, it’s a good time to expand your understanding of the types to include others. Learning about the types of your spouse, your kids, your close friends, your colleagues, and others can build new layers of compassionate understanding into your world. Go back through all the above resources but focus on the types of others, rather than yourself.

Digging into the ways the types combine between couples is can be really helpful (and humorous). A great place to start is this list of type combinations: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/the-enneagram-type-combinations

Remember that no single type describes us, each of us are endlessly multifaceted. As my friend Dr. Jerome D. Lubbe says, “You are not a number!”

I hope that helps get you started!

Here are some other books and resources and I can recommend:

• The Typology Podcast from Ian Morgan Cron

• The Enneagram for Spiritual Formation: How Knowing Ourselves Can Make Us More Like Jesus, by AJ Sherrill

• The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective by Richard Rohr & Andreas Ebert

Related Posts

I’m a successful self-published author (plus I used to run a publishing house) and I want you to have the benefits of my knowledge and research. Why? Because I believe in the power of words and I want you to have that power too.

But wait! Maybe you don’t want to become an expert in all this? Maybe you just want to get your words out there and you don’t want to learn about BISAC categories and ISBNs and global distribution agreements? If that’s you, then consider hiring me as a self-publishing consultant. You’ll keep 100% of your ownership, book rights and sales and I’ll take care of the details for you. My rate is very affordable because in my opinion this work is easy and I happen to enjoy it.

If you do want to do it yourself then let’s press on!

Jump to a section:

Content and Design
Metadata & other key decisions
Amazon KDP (for paperbacks and Kindle)
Draft2Digital (for the rest of the ebooks)
IngramSpark (for pre-orders, bookstores and more)
What about audiobooks?

Content and Design

For the remainder of this guide I’m going to assume that you’ve already written your manuscript, have a beautiful cover design and are ready to get this thing out to the world. If that’s not yet the case then here’s a super quick checklist for how not to add to the dumpster fire of unprofessional self-published books:

• Find 10-30 people willing to be beta readers and send them your “finished” draft. Listen to their feedback and incorporate the changes as necessary.

• Hire a professional editor (like me) and have them polish—or totally reconfigure—your manuscript. Expect to pay between $1000 and $3000 depending on the length of your book and how much work it needs.

• Find a graphic designer to produce a beautiful and stylish book cover. I offer services in this area as well. 99Designs and Fiver are also great places to start your search for a designer. Expect to pay between $100 and $1500 depending on the designer’s skill, how clearly you have defined your look & feel, how nitpicky you are, etc.

• If you’re doing a paperback and really want it to look excellent then get your designer (or a typesetting company) to take care of your interior layout as well. You can just upload a Word document and rely on a standard layout but a trained eye can tell when you do that. I provide basic typesetting services that fill most needs and for higher-end jobs, I trust Medlar Publishing Solutions. Expect to pay between $400 and $1500 for typesetting / layout work, depending on length of your book, etc.

With that taken care of, now you want to know if you should use KDP or IngramSpark or both. You might also want to know how the heck to do KDP Paperback pre-orders. Let’s get cracking!

Metadata & other key decisions

Regardless of which platform(s) you release your book on, you’ll need to give them a bunch of information about your book, such as the back cover description, pricing, categories and so on. I recommend you start by determining all this metadata first because having to stop and think about it later—when all you thought you were going to do was hit upload—is annoying. 

Here are the major things you will need to decide:

Title — Perhaps the single most important piece of metadata and something many authors and publishers flub. Choose a title that is punchy, memorable and clear. Google 3-word movie titles and get some inspiration. See if anyone else is using the title already; it’s not the end of the world if they are, just make sure your book will stand out from the crowd.

Subtitle — I love subtitles and so does the publishing industry right now. Try and spell out the entire message of your book in 10 words or less.

Author & Contributors — This is probably your name but if you have a foreword written by someone else, or illustrations, or if your book has a number of contributing writers then make sure you have the correct spellings of everyone’s names.

Description — This is another of the most important pieces of content for your book. Usually the same text as you put on the back cover of your paperback, it will be displayed prominently on the detail page for your book online and is used by search engines when people are looking for books. If you’re writing non-fiction, then the description needs to describe clearly what your book is about and do so in as few words as possible—in a way that clearly addresses a problem the reader has. Yes, you do want to inject some of your message and language, but you need to solve a problem for the reader. I like to start with a question that peaks the reader’s interest followed by some bullets laying out exactly what the reader will learn, and why I’m the guy to tell you. If you’re writing fiction, then the description needs to be thrilling and intruiging. Don’t spell out all your mysteries but do give the reader an interesting hook. You can include endorsements in your description but I recommend you only do so if they A) Help you describe what the book is about, or B) Are from someone your readers will recognize and consider influential in their purchasing decision. Your description should be no more than 350 words including endorsements and brief bio (if applicable).

Keywords — Come up with 10 or so keywords that your book could be categorized under. These keywords help with categorization (we’ll get to that next) and will help people find your book when searching for it online with Google, Amazon, etc. Keywords should be words that other people actually use, not clever jargon or the names you give stages in your life-changing process that you’ve thought up on your own.

Categories — Categories help sellers place your book where it belongs, where it will appeal to the right readers. The publishing industry has traditionally relied on a set of standardized categories called BISAC, produced by the Book Industry Study Group. Amazon uses their own categorization but there’s a lot of overlap so its sensible to use the BISAC category search tool to determine your categories. Browse the BISAC list here and note your top 3 best matches.

Publication Date / On-Sale Date / Release Date — Different platforms mean slightly different things by this date but you need to decide the following: what date your book will release to the public. Traditionally, professionally published books launch on Tuesdays (and often still do). There’s no real reason for this except that if you’re doing a bunch of marketing support around launch day, who wants to do all that first-thing Monday morning!? We’ll discuss pre-order dates further on.

Language — The language your book is written in / the language of your audience. You usually can’t change it once its set.

Publishing Rights — You’ll be asked if you own the copyright to this book or if it’s a public domain work. If you wrote it then it’s yours. If you paid someone else to write it for you and you have a clear contract stating that it’s yours, then it’s yours. If the words aren’t yours then you can’t sell it because that would be stealing. Public domain refers to material that is no longer under copyright, such as the King James Bible or countless other works whose copyright period has lapsed.

ISBN — Every print book needs a unique ISBN (International Standard Book Number) though ebooks and audiobook don’t require them. US authors should buy an ISBN from Bowker. Canadians can get them free from Library & Archives Canada. You may have heard that Amazon offers ISBNs for free, and this is true, but it can only be used on Amazon. If you plan to release your paperback in other outlets and markets (as I will argue you should) or if you want to set up pre-orders on Amazon for your paperback (something that can’t be done with Amazon’s own tools), then you need to get yourself an ISBN from a legitimate provider.

Age & Grade Level — Optional to declare but if you’re writing for a younger audience, you will be able specify it in some platforms.

Print Dimensions — If you’re only doing an ebook, then skip this. Print Dimensions are the actual final size of your paperback or hardcover book. Browse the books in your house or at the library and find a book in the same category as yours that looks and feels good to you. Measure the book then check those measurements against the list of standard measurements offered by IngramSpark. Even if you don’t use end up using IngramSpark, their dimensions reflect those commonly used in the industry—if you want your book to look professional then don’t pick a wierd size. (Amazon’s print-on-demand service allows custom dimensions so in the off-chance that the dimensions you pick from IngramSpark’s list aren’t officially offered by Amazon, it’s not a problem.)

Interior Print — Do you want to print in black & white or color? Don’t print in color unless you have a major reason to, it’s far more expensive and most readers don’t care.

Paper Type — You will need to choose between white, creme or groundwood (IngramSpark only). Most paperbacks are easiest to read and look best with creme paper. If your book includes pages for taking notes on (such as a journal) then you might want to choose white paper. Groundwood is similar to what a trade paperback novel would be printed on.

Cover Finish — Choose between matte and gloss. Unless you’ve gone back in time and are publishing in the early 2000s, don’t choose gloss. (IngramSpark also offers a Digital Cloth cover for hardcover books, as well as a dust jacket option. Very tasty, very expensive.)

Binding Type — This choice is largely irrelevant now and is not always even offered. A normal spine-glued book is called “perfect bound” and that’s what you probably want. Amazon and IngramSpark both offer hardcover books as well. If you’re making a really thin book and want it stapled along the spine, that’s called “saddle-stitch” and is increasingly not available from anyone.

Price — Deciding what to charge for your book is another important decision. In industry terms, this is called the MSRP (manufacturers suggested retail price). As you see, it’s a suggestion: retailers are free to sell the book at a lower price, something Amazon will do whenever their algorithm wants to. You don’t earn 100% of the MSRP, various other players will take a cut, as I shall explain. 

For ebooks, things are pretty straightfoward: Amazon and the other platforms will usually pay you 70% of your retail price. (There are some scenarios (foreign markets, etc.) where you’ll only make 35%.) Look at a few books similar to yours and find out what they’re priced at. Pick something low enough that people won’t hesitate to buy your book but high enough that you’re happy with 70% of it. Amazon KDP offers a useful tool (only available once you’ve set all your other metadata AND uploaded your manuscript) that calculates the highest earnings based on # of sales vs. price. In my opinion, this tool prices too low since it assumes that you’re going to see viral growth from a cheap, popular ebook. It’s a decent sanity check but I usually price my books a bit higher than the tool suggests.

For print books, things are a bit more intricate. You’re going to need to choose a price high enough that leaves room for bookstores and distributors to make some money and for the physical printing cost to be covered, before you earn anything. The math works like this:

1. Customer pays bookstore the MSRP ($20)

2. Bookstore buys from distributor at 60% of the MSRP ($12)

3. Distributor buys from publisher (you) at 55% of the MSRP ( $11)

4. Publisher (you) pay the printer roughly $4 for a 200-page paperback and your profit is $7.

If you use Amazon KDP for your print-on-demand needs, the picture is slightly improved because Amazon acts as both distributor AND retailer and so they’ll pay you 60% of MSRP directly. When dealing with IngramSpark and using expanded distribution (which I recommend, and which we’ll get to shortly), you do have some control over the discount that retailers get, within certain limits. That said, many bookstores won’t buy your book if they don’t get their standard discount. Ingram takes roughly 14% as distributor but we’ll discuss that later.

The long and the short of it is that you should probably price your book similarly to others in the market, but do a bit of math to make sure it’s worth your while. 

You’ll also need to decide the price for international markets. The easiest thing is to base the international price on the US price. If you have a lot of international readers, however, this does have some drawbacks. For example, if you base the Australian price on the US price then your US$20 book will be sold for AUD$26 downunder. Why should Aussie readers have to pay more for books than Americans? This approach is even worse for consumers in Mexico or India, for example. If you have an international audience they may appreciate that you do a little extra research and find out what people are happy to pay for books in the countries you care about. If you don’t have international readers, then just base it on the US price. This is a significant rule to follow for the Canadian market. Practically all Canadian bookstores have to buy their products from the States, in US dollars. If they don’t do an equivalent exchange on the retail price then they can’t make money. It’s a crappy situation for Canadian consumers but if you want bookstores to even consider carrying your book then you must base the Canadian price on a converted US price (roughly 1.3x the US MSRP, at present). IngramSpark let’s you set a Canadian MSRP but it’s basically meaningless because Ingram’s actual bookstore customers have to pay the US price. (Yes, I’ve been burned by this and had to re-price books after Indigo and others refused to carry them because the retail price I put on them was less than they were buying them for.) 

Territories — Decide if your book should be available worldwide or only in certain countries/territories.

Phew. I know that’s a lot to take in but the good news is that it’s all fairly smooth sailing from here on out. It’s time to decide which platform(s) to use to sell your books and I’m going to argue you should use them all. Here goes!

Amazon KDP

The big gorilla in the self-publishing space is Amazon. Their tools are easy, there are no fees and with a few clicks you can have your book available on the largest marketplace in the world. Amazon’s self-publishing platform is called KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). In includes both print-on-demand for paperbacks (formerly called CreateSpace) and Kindle ebooks. I recommend everyone use KDP in addition to some other tools we’ll discuss soon.

To get started, go to kdp.amazon.com and login using your existing Amazon account. Provide any further information they need from you (address, bank account data, etc.) and you’ll be taken to your empty bookshelf. Once there, it’s as easy as clicking the button to create a new Kindle ebook or Paperback, and then you’ll walk through a very straightforward process of entering in all the metadata you decided upon above.

When creating a Kindle ebook, you’ll have a few extra fields in addition to the above:

Digital Rights Management (DRM) — This uses Amazon’s tools to try and prevent piracy of your book. In general, it’s not really necessary and it just makes lending, giving and borrowing books between friends more difficult. I always set to it No.

Kindle Book Lending — Do you want to allow people to lend the book to others? I always select Yes.

KDP Select — This provides certain tangible and theoretical benefits if you enroll in it, but doing so requires your ebook to be available exclusively on Kindle. I don’t recommend it as you will not be able to sell on other platforms such Nook, Kobo, Apple Books, or even your own website. In terms of benefits, some of the markets where Amazon only pays 35% of your ebook earnings move up to 70% if you’re in KDP Select. You may (or may not) receive additional promotion across Amazon’s websites and apps. Finally, your book is eligible to earn a cut from a large pool of money divied up each month between KDP Select titles. Full details from Amazon are here but I recommend against it. Your mileage may vary. 

Pre-order — When publishing a Kindle ebook you can set a release date in the future. Your book will go on sale as soon as it’s approved by KDP but customers won’t get their downloads until launch day. This is a great feature and should be part of your marketing strategy. There are 2 important things to note: 1. KDP lets you start selling your ebook before you have the final files uploaded. This is handy but you absolutely MUST provide the real, final copy of the manuscript a few days before launch date. You won’t be able to make any changes for the final 72 hours before launch and if your final files aren’t there then KDP will remove your book and potentially ban you from the platform. They take this one very seriously since it’s a major hassle for customers. Avoid the hassle and upload your files right away. 2. Pre-orders are for Kindle only. KDP does not let you do pre-orders for paperbacks but there is an easy work-around that we’ll discuss shortly.

Finish clicking through the book creation form, supply all the data and upload your files. You will finally be asked to submit and KDP will then begin validating your files. Your book will be available for sale typically within 6-12 hours of submitting everything. Voila!

Once you’ve created one format and it has been approved, an option will appear alongside the book to create a Kindle version or paperback version, whichever format you didn’t yet create. This will speed up your creation process for that format as most of the fields will be pre-filled.

Within a handful of clicks and a short period of waiting, you’ll have a perfectly good self-published book available on Amazon in paperback and print. You can order copies of the book for yourself and sell them on your website, at events, whatever you like. If that’s all you want to do, then you’re done, but if you want to go the full distance and get your book onto Apple Books, Kobo, Nook, etc. as well as get it into bookstores and libraries, then keep reading.

Draft2Digital

There are so many ebook platforms now it’s hard to count them all. Amazon Kindle is by far the largest but there are many countries where Amazon isn’t available and/or where local culture isn’t favourable towards US corporate behemoths. If you tried to submit your book to all the different ebook platforms out there you’d be running around for months… there’s a better way.

Draft2Digital is an ebook distributor who will handle getting your book onto Apple Books, Kobo, Scribe, and many other ebook platforms. They take roughly 10% of the retail price for each book sold and don’t charge you any other fees, so it’s very easy to get started.

You can actually use Draft2Digital to publish to Amazon as well, so if you wanted to keep everything in one place then you could use D2D instead of KDP.  However, I don’t recommend this myself, as you’ll be losing an additional 10% of your potential revenue to D2D, and you get more control and some useful advertising features from Amazon by using KDP directly.

To get started, head over to draft2digital.com and click Sign Up. Create your account and then fill in any further fields they need (address, banking info, etc.) Once you’re at the main dashboard, hit “Add New Book” and you’ll be presented with a form to fill out. Fill in all the fields as you did with KDP and make your way through the form.

Draft2Digital offer some helpful features (that I never use) but which may be of interest to you, namely the ability to insert additional pages dynamically into your ebook, such as promotional material, about the author pages, etc. If you’re very new to this and are just using a Word document as your book and haven’t planned out all the normal front matter and end matter, then this might be useful. If, however, you’ve followed my advice and your typesetting company / designer gave you a proper ePub ebook file to upload, then you can’t use these features anyway.

Once you submit the book it’ll take a day or two to reach the first few outlets (Apple, Barnes & Noble, etc.) and then up to a week or more for some of the slower platforms (Hoopla, etc.). Now your book is available on the widest selection of popular ebook websites. Well done! If, for some reason, you don’t like Draft2Digital, there are other options, including Smashwords and IngramSpark, which we’ll get to next. As of this writing, I find Draft2Digital is still the best.

But what about local bookstores? And what if your marketing plan was wisely built around pre-orders of your paperback? Or what if you want a fancier hardcover book? Then read on!

IngramSpark

IngramSpark is the original print-on-demand supplier and they remain a power player that you should not ignore. The big reason for this is that Ingram (IngramSpark’s parent company) is the world’s largest book distributor. That gives them staying power and deep industry integration. If you are remotely interested in your book being available to bookstores around the world (or you want jacket-bound hardcovers and paperback pre-orders) then you’d be wise to include IngramSpark in your plans. They charge up-front fees for listing your book but you can often find a discount code to reduce or waive them. In my experience, it’s worth it.

As mentioned briefly, IngramSpark does also offer ebook distribution so you could use them instead of Draft2Digital if you want.  I don’t advise it, because they only pay out 40% of sales, which is much lower than what you can get using KDP and/or Draft2Digital. If you want everything in one place, however, then maybe you’re willing to lose some earnings to gain some simplicity. They do continually improve their service and the number of ebook outlets they supply.

Now, in regards to getting your book distributed to bookstores, libraries, etc. technically Amazon KDP does also offer “expanded distribution.” But guess who they rely on to do that? That’s right, Ingram. And before your book would make it to Ingram, Amazon would take a cut as well. You also don’t get as much control of your distribution as if you had done it directly with IngramSpark, so I don’t advise using KDP’s expanded distribution feature. There’s really no good reason to not use both KDP and IngramSpark together for your paperback strategy and obtain the best results from both platforms directly.

Here are the major reasons to include IngramSpark in your plans:

Worldwide Distribution

Ingram was pretty much the first to get into the print-on-demand market and they have print facilities in the US, the UK and Australia. You’d be hard-pressed to find a bookstore anywhere (including the big chains like Barnes & Noble, Indigo, etc.) who don’t already order from Ingram. In fact, many bookstores rely exclusively on Ingram for their inventory.

Cheaper Printing

Your mileage may vary on this one but in my experience IngramSpark is just a bit cheaper to print than Amazon, when I’m ordering copies for myself.

Paperback Pre-orders

This might be why you found this blog in the first place. If you’re serious about marketing your book then you probably already know that pre-orders are a huge part of a successful book launch. The hitch is that Amazon KDP does not allow paperback pre-orders. You might have read a forum post somewhere about a hack involving Amazon Advantage consignment shipping... but yeah, no. Just no. Use IngramSpark. When you set up your book with IngramSpark and select Global Distribution, they supply your book to Amazon. You can set a pre-order on-sale date and a book publication date and that information will pass through to Amazon, allowing your future readers to pre-order your self-published paperback on Amazon, which will be printed and shipped out to them on launch date.

So why use KDP for paperbacks at all? Why not just rely on IngramSpark for absolutely everything? Well, that’s obviously what they’ve designed their platform to do and they’ve done it quite well. What I recommend, however, is that on or shortly after your book launch date, you release the paperback in KDP directly. KDP will automatically take over production from IngramSpark for any books bought on the Amazon websites, and Ingram will remain the global distributor for everywhere else. Here’s why this hybrid approach matters:

Profits — If you use IngramSpark to distribute to Amazon, then both companies will take a piece of the pie and your cut (before print cost) will be at most 55% of MSRP. If you use KDP for your paperbacks your cut will be 60%. That 5% difference can add up.

Amazon Advertising — Amazon have some great advertising tools that are only available to KDP users. By publishing your book on KDP you’ll be able to do sponsored ads throughout Amazon’s network of websites and apps, something that is usually only available to major publishers.

Amazon.ca Stock Issues —  For some reason, Amazon’s Canadian store is like the bastard child they forgot about. When you rely on IngramSpark to supply Amazon with your paperback, it should appear in all Amazon global markets but there’s a very good chance that the stock levels will start to get wacky on Amazon.ca. I’ve seen many times that a print-on-demand title handled by IngramSpark will show as “in stock” on all other Amazon sites (as it should—it’s a POD title, it doesn’t need to have any stock) but it will go to “out of stock” on Amazon.ca as soon as launch day arrives. If a customer orders it they’ll still get their order but the stock status message is a big deterrant to people ready to buy. When you use KDP for your paperback, it remains “in stock” and Prime-eligible everywhere, as it should.

I know that may be a lot to take in, so I’ll recap the steps shortly. The point is, you should seriously consider using IngramSpark for global distribution and if you want to do paperback pre-orders or a jacketed hardcover edition, it’s your only option.

To get started, head over to ingramspark.com and hit Create Account. Get all your account basics set up as elsewhere and you’ll arrive at your dashboard. Under Upload a Title you can click to create a Print & Ebook, Print Only, or Ebook Only. Once again, work through all the fields and supply the necessary data for your book. You’ll be getting familiar with this by now!

There are two important fields that you will need to consider with IngramSpark:

Discount — When you establish the price for your book, you also have some control over the wholesale price that Ingram will pass on to bookstores. You can set the discount as low as 30% or as high as 55%, theoretically meaning you keep more of your sales. This is all a bit meaningless though, because bookstores expect a discount no less than 40% and Ingram will also take their own cut of approx 14% (which they don’t bother to mention). Add those two discounts together and you really need to select 55% if you want any bookstores to seriously consider your book. For the record, if you’re serving Canadian bookstores then you MUST set the discount for both United States and Canada to 55% (and as discussed earlier, the retail price for Canada will need to be around 1.3x the US price—depending on the exchange rate).

Returns — Something you need to be very careful with in IngramSpark is returns. Most bookstores expect the freedom to return stock to their distributor if it doesn’t sell; many bookstores won’t even look at your book if it’s not returnable. Returns do happen and when they do, IngramSpark will either ship the returned book(s) to you—charging you for the shipping, of course—or they’ll just pulp the book and recycle it. The choice is yours. Now, if you’re outside the US then IngramSpark will charge you international shipping PER COPY they send to you. You could end up on the hook for $10 (or significantly more) for a single copy of the book, which might not even be in resaleable condition. You’ll also be docked whatever royalties you already earned for that book, since the purchasing bookstore got their money back from Ingram. For this reason, it’s highly advisable for anyone outside the US (and many inside the US as well) to select DESTROY for returns. Your options for returns are:

Yes - Destroy
Yes - Return
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Once you’ve clicked through the form and filled out all the fields, you will be able to upload your files. IngramSpark requires a specific layout for your cover design which your graphic designer will need to supply for you. The details are here. Once that’s done, you’ll need to pay the listing fee and then your book will be validated. Like the other platforms, this is usually a matter of hours even though they say it can be a few days. What can take a few days is for the book to show up on Amazon via IngramSpark, but it shouldn’t take long.

Speaking of Amazon, here’s a refresher on how to deal with the pre-orders:

1. Set up your paperback in IngramSpark and set the pre-order date earlier than the publication date (the publication date is your launch date). Within a few days you should see it come through on Amazon and be pre-orderable. Hooray!

2. Set up your paperback in KDP also but do not submit it (leave it saved as a draft) until your launch date arrives.

3. On your launch-date, submit the book in KDP and then wait for Amazon to approve it.

Once approved, Amazon will begin supplying the book instead of passing the order through to Ingram. With my last book, IngramSpark actually fulfilled all of the Amazon pre-orders except for those on Amazon.ca (again… why so strange Canada?). Amazon KDP were the supplier for pre-orders from Amazon.ca purchases. Bizarre, but functional. If you do things this way, you can get professional looking pre-orders on Amazon with all the associated benefits, and still have access to the other benefits of using KDP post-launch. Your sales royalties will be coming form multiple sources for your launch window but it’ll be seamless for your customers. You’re welcome.

The only other thing to mention at this stage is that Ingram does offer another print-on-demand service if you are establishing a small publishing house, called LightningSource. If you’re just self-publishing for you, then IngramSpark is everything you need, but if you’re going to be publishing for a number of different authors and want more control over the whole operation, then you should sign up for LightningSource instead. Same parent company, similar procedures, just more control and options. I’ve used both in different roles before. LightningSource is only necessary if you’re managing lots of books for different authors.

What about audiobooks?

By now your book is out there (or it will be) in paperback and ebook, on every platform, with pre-orders and everything. You look amazing. But your friends are asking if it’s going to be on Audible. Audiobooks are currently growing faster than all other book segments (ebooks plateaued a few years back) and there are now some great options for getting your book onto multiple audiobook platforms.

As you might expect, Amazon has their own platform (called ACX). ACX allows you to distribute to Audible, Amazon, iTunes and more, they also have a useful feature for finding narrators if you don’t plan to perform the reading yourself. However, all ACX contracts last for 7 years! During that time they retain control of your audiobook, including not letting you remove it from sale if you decide you need to make changes. You also wouldn’t be able to sell it on your own website.

For that reason and others, I recommend you use AuthorsRepublic instead of ACX. With AuthorsRepublic, you retain all rights and control of your audiobook and you can submit it to a ton of platforms (including Audible, Amazon, Apple Music, etc.). At the time of writing, AuthorsRepublic is entirely free, they don’t even take a cut of sales. Their customer service is also excellent. Another option is Draft2Digital, who you’ve already met; they began beta testing an audiobook distribution service back in 2019 but I haven’t used it myself.

To get started, head over to authorsrepublic.com and hit Register. Fill in the forms and get yourself all set up. Once logged in, hit “Publish an audiobook” on the menu on the left. Again you’ll have a form to fill out with lots of very familiar fields, and a few new ones:

Amazon Sales Inventory Number (ASIN): — This is a unique number Amazon uses for inventory tracking and it’s necessary to have one to get your audiobook onto some platforms (such as Audible). The good news is if your book is on Amazon in any format, it already has an ASIN. If you login to your KDP dashboard and look at your book, your ASIN will be listed right there (there’s a unique ASIN for each format but it doesn’t matter which you use.) If you published via IngramSpark and don’t have access to KDP, then go directly to the Amazon.com page for your book and scroll down to the Product Details section, where ASIN will be listed alongside page count, etc.

Print Copyright Year vs. Audiobook Copyright Year — Not too complicated really, but you need to specify the year that the print edition (if there is one) of the book came out and also the year that the audiobook will be released. 

All the other fields are pretty straightforward though uploading each of the audio chapters can take some time. In a future blog I’ll write a guide for preparing those files.

Once submitted, AuthorsRepublic will do a quality control check on your files and then pass them on to their partner platforms. This can take a while! Audible can sometimes take up to 60 business days or more, so be prepared to wait. Apple is usually a lot faster, for the record.

You’re done!

That’s it! You’ve now got your book published through all the major outlets in all the important formats. Well done! Let me know how it turned out for you and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

Again, if you want to hire me to take care of all the nitty-gritty work for you, I offer self-publishing contracting services for a bargain. All the best!

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I’ve grown up with the mentality that every problem is solvable and that I am welcome in every space to bring my knowledge and my help. But I’m learning right now that neither of those are true. The fact is, there are problems that I cannot solve and there are spaces I am simply not welcome in.

Do either of those statements offend you? I can promise you it’s been offensive to me! I’ll unpack the notion of not being welcome another day, today is all about the problems we can’t solve and to do about that. Over the last few months, I’ve sat and listened as many people have told me their stories. Some here in my own home, others over the internet, and still others abroad on my travels. Here’s what I’ve discovered:

Some problems are not going to be solved in a way any of us find satisfactory. They’re either too big or too complex. There’s just no solution.

A year ago I wouldn’t have been able to admit that. Even now, saying it, I can feel much of my programming freaking out inside me. But admitting that some problems can’t be solved isn’t pessimism, it’s just an honest, eyes-open, fully-informed assessment of reality. Don’t believe me? Jesus himself said that the poor would always be with us (Mark 14:7). That’s a shocking and tacit admission from the Lord of the universe that global poverty is not something we’re going to find a solution for in the foreseeable future. That doesn’t mean God couldn’t address it or that we shouldn’t work to lift the burden of the poor, it’s just that we won’t solve the problem of poverty itself. If that upsets you, then consider the number of other problems Jesus didn’t solve while he walked the earth. Yes, he healed many people, possibly even everyone he encountered… but he didn’t provide an ongoing cure for cancer, he didn’t deal with the Roman oppressors, he didn’t even remove the corrupt religious establishment that he so frequently spoke about. But he did show us how to endure impossible situations and how to come alongside others while they endure them.

The sooner we accept that there are problems that we are not going to solve, the sooner we can actually do something useful for those who are suffering. Just because we can’t solve their problems doesn’t mean that we should do nothing. 

What we can do is to listen. We can offer the gift of our presence. When we have the freedom to walk away or close our eyes, we can choose to stay and be present. We can help bear the pain of another. We can enter that pain and help them carry it. If we can bring them a glass of water, or put a roof over the head, then we should do that too. But whether we can eradicate their poverty, heal their cancer, or restore their mental health or not, we can help to make an unbearable situation bearable by offering the comfort of our presence. By connecting with the humanity of another in honest, eyes-open, ears-hearing humility, we can help bear the load.

I say humility because for many of us, not being able to solve a problem feels humiliating. It’s extremely uncomfortable. We’re so used to being problem-solvers, especially those of us white people raised in relative privilege. To sit in silence with someone without a wise word or the ability to remove the pain is something that most of us just aren’t used to. But it’s often the most precious gift we can give to those who are hurting.

It’s far more than thoughts and prayers, it’s blood and tears. In the face of problems that we can’t solve, we can walk alongside someone for as long as God would have us do so, being present to them, feeling their pain with them, helping them endure the hardship. It’s the loneliness that turns a hard situation into a hellish one. Our unglamorous, unrewarded companionship can keep others from the hell of abandonment. In one sense, it costs us nothing. In another, it costs us everything. But it may mean everything to someone else, for you to stay.

The next time you encounter an impossible situation, don’t run away from it. Lean into the pain carried by others. Lean into the pain that you don’t have to feel. Lean into the humiliation of not being able to solve their problems. Lean into the loving presence of Christ, who promises to always be with the downtrodden and the poor in spirit.

For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

P.S. You can do the same for yourself, when you’re the one facing an unsolvable situation!

Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Breathe in deeply through your nose then exhale however you feel most comfortable. Repeat 3 times. Put your hand on your heart and picture what you looked like as a 5-year-old child. Imagine that 5-year-old is holding all of your emotions and all of your pain. In your mind’s eye, see them coming and sitting on your lap. What would you want to say to that child? What encouraging, supporting, kind words would you want to share with that part of yourself that hurts and feels alone?

Maybe something like, “I’m so sorry for this situation. I know it has overwhelmed you. I know it was too much for you and you felt like you were left alone to deal with it. I’m so sorry. I don’t know if I can solve the problem, but I can promise you this: you are not alone. I will never leave you or forsake you. I see you. And I commit to staying with you and walking with you. Whatever this journey holds for us, I will be right here with you.”

Sit for a while in that safe space with your emotions and feel how your heart responds. This hidden sacredness is the same thing we offer those around us who are in pain. Seeing them. Staying with them. When we speak (and embody) this truth of never being alone we enter into the work that God is doing in this world. We communicate his loving presence to ourselves and to others. And that’s what makes all the difference.

There are some situations that we just can’t solve. But we can walk alongside someone all the same and help to make an unbearable situation bearable.

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A reader recently asked me, “How do I draw closer to God, if I have a fear of him?” I was touched by the bravery and vulnerability it took to ask it. I suspect that many of us have felt this way, or feel this way still, and often struggle to admit it to ourselves.

There are countless reasons why we are afraid of God. Here are a few that come to mind for me:

• We’ve been told that we have to fear God. That the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

• The God that we’ve been raised with is angry and unpredictable, or cold and distant.

• Our gender or our skin colour don’t match the God we were told about. We are fundamentally different.

• We’re told that God knows everything, and if he knows our deep secrets, then how could he be anything but angry / betrayed / disgusted? If God really knew us, surely he couldn’t still love us?

• Our fathers or mothers, or other people in authority, who were supposed to model God’s love to us, did a poor job.

Whatever the events are in your life story that have contributed to your fear of God, fear is a powerful emotion. It’s a natural part of our psychology and it helps keep us alive. Fear of falling off a cliff (or fear of a wild animal) are good things! But fear can run amok and control us, ruining our relationships and confining us to self-created prisons. Trust me, I battled depression and anxiety for years, I know the dark side of fear. 

When the Bible speaks of fear of God, it is typically talking about fear as awe and reverence. Respect and honour. This is good and healthy, in the same way that I might fear the strength of a horse that I am training to ride, or fear the power of a V8 engine that I am driving. These are far from perfect analogies, but each are powerful forces easily beyond my control, which I can nonetheless grow close to and benefit from. This fear of God is healthy. It is awareness of our place and his, of our power and his, of our might and his.

Fear of God that is so strong that it prevents us from drawing close to him is not good fear at all. We’re allowed to identify and reject that fear as a negative influence in our lives. The truth is that God loves us and that all of his power and might and glory are offered to us for our enjoyment and healing.

Here’s some more truth for you:

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” - Romans 8:15

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. - 1 John 4:18

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. - James 4:8a

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. - John 10:10

Another helpful way to think about “fear of God” when you read it in the Bible is that it’s just shorthand for “fear of the destruction that sin can bring into your life.” You don’t need to be afraid of God, he isn’t out to get you. But it’s sensible to be afraid of the harm we can cause ourselves when we live for ourselves and not for God and others.

Here are my steps to help you draw near to God when you’re afraid of him. These are broadly applicable any time you find yourself hindered by something you believe.

Step 0: I believe… help my unbelief.

If we’re afraid of God, it’s hard to actually pray and ask God to help us draw closer to him. It feels dishonest. But, we can ask God to help us want him to help us. Tell God that you want to want him more and let him do his part in you. It may take some time but you can keep doing your part while you wait.

Step 1: Identify the fears.

What exactly is it that you are afraid of about God? What is the flavour of the fear? Where does it sit in your body? What does that remind you about your story and about your upbringing? Spend some time journaling about your fear. Find out what it is exactly.

Step 2: How did it happen?

Consider what traumas or events may have contributed to these fears. If you’re comfortable doing so, ask the Holy Spirit to bring some memories to mind that contributed to this fear. There may be specific instances, or there may be major, systemic issues (race, societal pressure, etc.). If God allows the painful memory to come to the surface, trust that he is also willing and able to heal you from it. This can be a scary place, and it’s OK if you feel afraid. Don’t give up though!

Step 3: Account for the loss.

Truly consider what it is that this wound, this fear, has stolen from you. Account for the loss in your life. This can be extremely painful to do with honesty but it’s your way forward. Stare down the loss, the grief, the disappointment and understand deeply what was taken from you. Your dignity? Your value? Your personhood? Journal this out or talk it through with a trusted friend.

Step 4: Forgive the loss and release the pain and fear to God.

Once you understand what was truly taken from you, you can make the choice to forgive it. Forgiving is not saying that you’re at peace with the loss, or that you’re OK with it, or that you want anything like that to ever happen again—it is very simply the declaration that you are not holding anyone responsible for it any longer. You don’t have to trust these people again. The facts haven’t changed. But your response to those facts can change.  “I will no longer hold ______ accountable for this. I forgive them. Their debt is to God, not to me. I release them. They do not owe me anything. I choose to forgive them.” And then make a conscious choice to relinquish your hold on these people / systems / God / yourself. Ask God to help you let go and to release the pain to him. I often imagine myself bringing Jesus a basket full of my pains and leaving them with him. This simple image often helps my heart walk it out.

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” - John 20:23

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” - Matthew 11:29-30

Step 5: Retrain your mind with the truth.

Your emotions, your brain, and your body all develop familiar patterns of operation. They’re used to doing and thinking about things a certain way. You need to retrain your mind and emotional system if you want to live free from this fear. Speak loving truth over yourself. Find scriptures or statements that are true and that counter the fear you believed in the past. Speak them over yourself. Every time you catch a thought that is like the old fear, pause… take a deep breath, identify the thought, consider the process you have gone through and mentally push the thought away. Speak the truth over yourself once again. 

Step 6: Leave God room to work and practice letting him in.

Much of this life is a mystery. We need to leave room for the mystery. As we do, we can practice allowing God in in small ways. “God, help me remember a time when you were faithful to me.” And then let your mind go and explore the memories he is leading you to. “God, show me a time when you cared for me like a perfect father or mother would.” And see what happens. I believe God will prove himself to you.

The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.’ - Jeremiah 31:3

We love because he first loved us. - 1 John 4:19

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. - 1 Peter 5:7

If you’d like to go deeper, then check out my devotional book, You Are Enough: Learning to Love Yourself the Way God Loves You. Over 30 readings I teach you how to accept your body, sense the presence of God, feel safe there, and begin to show yourself the same love that God has for you. You can download a free sample of the book here, or learn more about the book and how it has helped other people right here.

Grace and peace to you, brothers and sisters. May you grow ever more in the knowledge and the experience of God’s great love for you.

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• It makes it more difficult for children and youth to observe their parents worshiping God, hearing scripture and praying with the church community.

• It can reinforce the lie that “real church” isn’t something that children or youth are welcome at or will benefit from.

• It imposes a roadblock for parents in the process of spiritually training their children and youth.

• It robs the elderly of the joy of children and young people.

• It reinforces the assumption that all of your adults are already being offered the best kind of instruction / learning method / celebration style and that it couldn’t be improved upon.

There are multiple ways to address these issues of course, especially if you also have groups meeting in homes—something that I think is absolutely critical—but Family Sundays provide a few amazing benefits:

• They let us hit reset if we’re trending towards any of the negative things above.

• They remind us of Jesus’ words, “The kingdom belongs to such as these [children],” and let us put it into practice.

• Powerful stuff happens when generations come together to worship God. We see incredible things every Family Sunday: God encountered, lives impacted, families healed and changed.

There are many ways to accomplish this and you’ll want to adapt it to your own context as appropriate, but here are some tips for getting started with a multi-generational, all-member-participating, family church meeting:

1. Change up the room

Church-goers are predictable. We usually sit in the same spot and talk to the same people. To force a change in mindset, change the seating arrangements. We meet in a gym at a community centre so it’s easy for us to change the layout of chairs. For Family Sundays, we set up long tables with chairs around them, encouraging people to talk to one another and not fall into the mindset of passive church consumerism. That includes having the MC/host, teacher, pastors, etc. walking throughout and around the people rather than just standing at the “front.” This obviously requires a wireless mic but if you’re reading a blog to improve your church service, you’re probably already good to go.

2. Participation / Interaction

The New Testament church was typified by the participation of every member. If your church looks and sounds more like a lecture—with a concert at the beginning—there’s room to encourage more participation. We try to foster this through intentional activities (more below) and also simply leaving room for people to organically interact and engage. That means not filling every ounce of their morning with “program” but leaving room for discussion, contemplation, eating, etc.

3. Food

Nothing fosters discussion and community like food. On any given Sunday, we have fruit, crackers & cheese, cold cuts and tea & coffee available on a side table; on Family Sundays we put it out across all the tables. It helps to relax the atmosphere which invites friendship and promotes engagement. It’s also especially helpful when newcomers arrive on a Family Sunday and are a little bewildered: “Here, eat a donut… everything will be fine.”

4. Worship

Our worship leaders tailor their song choices to a morning with family participation in mind. That usually means fewer “intimate” worship songs unless we know our kids are up for it. It often means singing songs that the kids have been singing in Kids Church, and it also means the worship leaders can’t introduce their new favourite song that week (there are plenty of other Sundays for that). Worship at our church is very expressive: you’ll see people dancing, waving flags, laughing, crying, and jumping up and down. It’s our understanding that God is more than happy with us offering him the full range of our emotions. We make flags available for people to dance with and encourage children to join in.

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5. Fun and games

I once heard a preacher bellow from the front of the stage, “Quiet those children down! This is the house of the Lord, not a playpen!” I categorically disagree, and I wager Jesus does too. Our community likes to have fun when we gather and you’ll hear plenty of jokes being cracked any time. On Family Sundays, we play games and do skits. Sometimes we’ll plan the games to intentionally reinforce the teaching theme for that day but we also just like to goof around. Laughter—and a little bit of adrenaline—helps people open up and encourages vulnerability.

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6. Teaching

My grandfather taught me that if a 12-year-old can’t understand your sermon, half the adults won’t either. He encouraged me to always preach to the 12-year-old in the room. On Family Sundays we loosen the typical structure of our meetings somewhat and flip back and forth between activity, teaching, game, teaching, skit, activity, teaching, etc. This means very brief, bite-sized teaching moments. We have plenty of kids younger than 12 present so I basically try to ensure about 60% of what I’m saying would make sense to a 6 year old and 90% of what I’m saying would make sense to a 12-year-old. It’s fine if a little bit goes over some people’s heads. Reality check: plenty of things you’ve said probably went over your people’s heads already.

7. Activities and practice

Skits and hands-on activities help cater to different learning styles. We cover all the tables with paper and put markers and crayons out. This helps more than just the kids, trust me. Our last Family Service was on the subject of prophecy (hearing God’s voice for other people), and we put out Bible character flash cards, as well as animal flash cards, for a simple exercise. Everyone was invited to partner up and quickly ask God which animal or character their friend was like and then encourage them with that. Simple activities like this encourage interactivity and you’d be surprised how touched many people were touched by this activity in particular.

8. Ministry Time

Part of our normal gathering is offering prayer to people at the end of a meeting. We encourage folk to come forward and our prayer team prays for anyone who wants it. That sometimes includes prophecy and even very light spiritual healing ministry, if the moment seems to warrant it. For Family Sundays, we often do this ministry at tables and invite everyone to take part. No special training required, just pray for your brothers and sisters. There’s nothing else in the world like watching a 5-year-old child lay their hand on an elderly person and ask for God to bring them peace and healing.

Quite often, we’ll provide some direction for this related to the topic at hand. Last time, I led people in a simple meditation, such as the following: “Put your hand on your heart and remember what you looked like when you were 5 years old. Now imagine that 5-year-old sitting in the lap of your current self. Ask Jesus what words of encouragement he would like you to say to yourself.” The tears were flowing in no time as people connected with God through a simple exercise that disarmed their rational, self-critical minds.

That’s it! If you give this a try (or if you already do things like this), I’d love to hear about it.

Here’s my final tip: don’t limit what God can do in your midst. He is able and willing to invade your gathering, transform your lives and take your community to new places. Don’t limit him. He is good and he is trustworthy. It’s his church anyway, so just let Jesus be the head of this body and see what he does with it. It’s worth the risk.

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My book study group is currently reading Fearless in 21 Days: A Survivor’s Guide to Overcoming Anxiety, by Sarah E. Ball. One reading stood out to me particularly last week, in fact, it brought me to tears.

The journey of life is convoluted and often confusing. Whether you face mental health challenges or not, life doesn’t go the way we expect it to. Sometimes we can see our desired destination right in front of us but the road we’re on takes us through deserts and the valleys before we get there. It’s that journey which forms us into people of greater stature, capacity and compassion, people who can actually possess the land of our destination. But our hearts can be hurt during the journey. We find ourselves asking, “God, do you even care?”

God does care and in our hour of distress, he rescues us. Psalm 18 forms the backbone of Sarah’s reading on Spiritual Deliverance which moved me so much. She’s not talking about demonic deliverance but about being rescued by the Lord in times of distress.

The visible reality:

The sorrows of Sheol surrounded me;
The snares of death confronted me.
In my distress I called upon the Lord,

The hidden reality:

He heard my voice from His temple,
And my cry came before Him, even to His ears.

The promised reality:

Then the earth shook and trembled;
The foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken,
Because He was angry.
Smoke went up from His nostrils,
And devouring fire from His mouth;
Coals were kindled by it.
He bowed the heavens also, and came down
With darkness under His feet.
And He rode upon a cherub, and flew;
He flew upon the wings of the wind.
He made darkness His secret place;
His canopy around Him was dark waters
And thick clouds of the skies.
From the brightness before Him,
His thick clouds passed with hailstones and coals of fire.
The Lord thundered from heaven,
And the Most High uttered His voice,
Hailstones and coals of fire.
He sent out His arrows and scattered the foe,
Lightnings in abundance, and He vanquished them.
Then the channels of the sea were seen,
The foundations of the world were uncovered
At Your rebuke, O Lord,
At the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.
He sent from above, He took me;
He drew me out of many waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy,
From those who hated me,
For they were too strong for me.
They confronted me in the day of my calamity,

But the Lord was my support.
He also brought me out into a broad place;
He delivered me because He delighted in me.

If I’m honest, that picture is terrifying. Comfortingly terrifying. The creator of the universe enraging the heavens on my behalf. Rage-smoke rising off him, fire pouring out of him, flying through the air riding an angel, stealthy and dark. For my problems: utter devastation. For my soul: utter rescue. That’s why I cried. I think I needed to be reminded that he delivers me because he delights in me. We can lose sight of that so easily.

He delivers you because he delights in you.
He delivers you.
He delights in you.

In our hour of trouble, God is flying towards us in a fury of deliverance. His wrath—which we are so fearful of—is only ever aimed at that which ensnares us. His anger is our salvation. The manifestation of his wrath is the actualization of our rescue.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. (Psalm 40:2)

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. (Ephesians 6:13)

And when he rescues us, he does so in a way that equips us to stay rescued. He would bail us out over and over again if that was necessary but it wouldn’t serve us very well. When he rescues us he puts our feet on a rock and makes us firm and places a sword and plowshare in our hands. He delivers us in a way that affirms our worth, our strength, our power, our freedom. He honours us. If he just bailed us out every time, there might come a day when we start to suspect he’s enabling our problems because it keeps him in the picture. Like someone with a saviour complex.

Our saviour is the only one without a saviour complex.

When we cry out in desperation, aware of our frailty and our unworthiness, he rushes to us, cleans us off, heals our wounds, and calls us beautiful.

And lest we fear that he rescues us only to leave us to fight our next battle alone (or to imagine that we might no longer need him), that simply isn’t the case. His nature is now our nature, his life, our life. It’s like God himself comes to dwell within us. Because he does.

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Some men are pigs. Some women are manipulators. I’ve witnessed plenty of displays of ugly masculine and feminine power. As a person who doesn’t naturally like conflict and who doesn’t consider himself a physically imposing alpha male, while also being compassionate and tender-hearted, I often end up torn by indecision when I witness ugly uses of power. It’s all too common to see ugly power being used by men over women, but it also happens from women to men, and from men to men and women to women, especially as relates to race. Whatever the direction and angle, when I see ugly power I want to step in and speak up, do what’s right. But I don’t always know how. I want to protect but I’m not always sure if I’ll be effective. I want to call out injustice but I don’t always know the words to say. I want to speak against the voices that slander and slime but I don’t always feel sure of my own power.

When I saw the advertisement that Gillette recently produced, “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be,” I felt empowered. I felt inspired. Someone had painted a picture of an ideal and it was one I knew I could reach. The shot where one man gently but firmly held another man back and said something simple but direct, like “Hey, not cool, not cool…” made me sit up in my chair and say, “Yes! I could do that too!” It gave me a demonstration of what my power can look like. It wasn’t much, it wasn’t complicated, but I benefited from that demonstration.

The irony is that most people are so caught up in trying to control the things they cannot control — other people, circumstances, or outcomes — that in the process they lose control of themselves. And here is the real paradox. It is only when you do take control of yourself that you will begin to have significant influence on those other things: people, circumstances, and outcomes. People in control of themselves do the most to influence everyone and everything around them to good ends, results, and profits. But they start with themselves, and that is the essence of boundaries. - Dr Henry Cloud

You and I were created to be powerful people. God guaranteed it when he used his own image as the model for humanity. He sealed the deal with the words, “Let them have dominion…” We are capable of incredible power but it must be bound by intentionality and purpose. What is our power’s best purpose? To love others, to serve them. Not to control, manipulate or destroy but to get under and help, encourage, transform. I think that’s why we love superheroes so much; deep inside we know we were created to handle incredible power and to use it to benefit others. In Captain Marvel, Air Force test pilot Carol Danvers must learn to embrace her humanity, connecting with her emotions and her deep self in order to unlock her power. Once she has unlocked her power, her natural inclination for the use of that power is to help others, because that’s what the inner heart journey does to us all. It produces compassion. Self-control disarms our need to control others.

Masculine power is not best used for violence or fear, it is best used for tenacious struggle; hard work; the pursuit of a worthy challenge. Feminine power is not best used for control or manipulation; it is best used for the creation of nurturing environments and the fostering of life in the face of extreme odds. And here’s the kicker: each of us have access to both masculine and feminine power regardless of our gender. It is the power of God himself who creates life out of nothing and then tirelessly pursues that life when it turns against him.

We must learn to control ourselves and orient our lives towards loving transformation of the world around us. We do this through a process of self-discovery and Christ-discovery. As Dr. Cloud points out, it’s only when we master ourselves and serve others that we actually have any real power at all. The power of toxic humanity is no power at all. Jesus showed us what true power looks like: loving self-sacrifice for the benefit of others. And his spirit is willing and able to take up residence within you today and manifest his love within you for the world around you.

Do you want to become powerful? If so, learn to master yourself. It is a process that brings each of us to our knees in humility. In the dust, staring at the feet of Jesus, you will hear him whisper that you are more beautiful and valuable than you ever imaged. He will clothe you with dignity and honour, and will unlock your power and potential in ways that you could never imagine.

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The gift of prophecy is a helpful, edifying tool for the church. When we hear God’s heart for us, expressed through another flesh & blood person, it can encourage us, inspire us, sharpen our focus and help us course-correct when necessary. We can all—or should learn to—hear God for ourselves but this doesn’t negate the benefit of prophecy shared within a community.

Tragically, the prophetic ministry is often abused. I know people who have experienced extremely private things being called out in public, or being told specific, prescriptive things that they should do in order to “please God.” This is not how the gift is meant to be used and if this has happened to you, I’m so sorry. See my article, “What to do with prophetic words” for a healthy primer.

Whether God has promised you something directly or through a prophetic word from another, one thing many of us struggle with is what to believe when the promise does not come to pass. Did we hear things wrong? Did we mess something up? Have we somehow blocked God’s blessing in our lives?

It can certainly be confusing and heartbreaking. In my observation there are three primary things to consider:

1. You misheard God.

2. Circumstances changed.

3. It hasn’t happened yet.

Mishearing God

Here’s a scenario you might be familiar with: Wolfric meets Diana at a party and they have a fun evening. They get to know one another over the next few weeks and he quickly becomes infatuated with her. He’d like to marry this woman, he thinks, so he seeks God’s guidance and hears something like the following, “Wolfric, my son, I love you and am proud of you. I have brought Diana into your life. She will challenge you and bring up insecurities in your heart. I want you to work on these things, so that you can be a good husband.”

Wolfric is very excited and seriously pursues the relationship. After 3 months of dating, Diana decides Wolfric isn’t what she’s looking for and she breaks up with him. Heartbroken and confused, he cries out, “Lord, I thought you said we would be married?”

This sort of thing happens all the time and it’s a really common mistake people make in learning to hear God’s voice: we focus on specific outcomes rather than the journey of transformation. We don’t know whether God actively brought Diana into Wolfric’s life or not but we should know that God is always inviting us to deal with our insecurities. Wolfric had made Diana into something of an obsession, and so he heard God’s voice filtered through the context of his obsession. When we have made someone or some situation into an idol, we often hear God filtered through that idol.

Here’s a story from the Book of Ezekiel:

Some of the elders of Israel came to me and sat down in front of me. Then the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces. Should I let them inquire of me at all? Therefore speak to them and tell them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: When any of the Israelites set up idols in their hearts and put a wicked stumbling block before their faces and then go to a prophet, I the Lord will answer them myself in keeping with their great idolatry. I will do this to recapture the hearts of the people of Israel, who have all deserted me for their idols.’ - Ezekiel 14:1-5

If we have an idol in our hearts that obscures us from seeing God clearly, God doesn’t stop speaking but we often hear God through the idol. This happens so that we might continue walking on the path towards God, having our eyes and ears cleaned out progressively. Put it this way: dealing with his insecurities would have been a good thing for Wolfric to do, regardless of Diana’s involvement.

Circumstances Changing

Diana grew up in a small town. She sensed the prompting of God to move to the big city, so she said goodbye to her friends and family, packed up her stuff and moved to the big smoke. In the city, she tried out a bunch of things that she didn’t have access to back home. She became quite a good photographer, among other things. She met Wolfric and they dated for a while. By the end of two years in the city, with many trials and tribulations along the way, she had learned many things about herself. She was at a crossroads: she could continue living in the big city; return home; or follow her passion for photography and move abroad. She enjoyed her time with Wolfric but felt that they were moving in different directions. She decided to return home for a short while, and then go abroad.

We are all blessed with free will. God led Diana to the big city where she discovered the beauty of her own passions and creativity (likely God’s plan all along) and she chose to pursue those away from the big city. Did that mean she had heard God wrong about going to the city? Not at all! She was free to choose to adapt to the circumstances around her. It’s possible that God directed Wolfric into Diana’s life to aid her in her journey of self-discovery, but even if he did, that doesn’t mean she’s stuck with him or has to follow any specific course of action. It’s all a lot bigger than the little narratives we get fixated on.

It hasn’t happened yet

Most of us have a strong tendency towards impatience. If God says something is going to happen, we want it now. But the vehicle that delivers God’s promises is very often labeled “waiting” or “suffering.” What takes place in our character while we await the fulfilment of a prophetic word is sometimes the reward itself. Keep waiting. And while you wait, learn to keep your heart sweet and free from bitterness. I wrote a little book all about the subject, it’s called You Are The Solution to Someone’s Problem: Finding Meaning and Purpose When you Feel Passed Over. It’s available for free right here.

Here’s one last story and it’s personal. I spent years holding on to a prophetic word about a specific promotion I wanted. I felt deep in my gut that this would come to pass and I had received many confirmations from other people. I was unshakeably confident. Finally, I learned that I was in the running for the job. I felt excited and ready. When I learned that I did not get the job, I was… surprisingly at peace. The role had gone to a good friend and I knew that he was a fantastic choice. As time moved on, I felt more and more relieved that I had not been chosen for the job. Eventually, I left the organization and pursued an entirely different career path, one that I can now see is so much more suited to me than the job I desperately wanted. Many years have passed and more than anything I feel relieved that my gifts did not end up as a ring on the finger of a career-path I would no longer choose.

I don’t know whether this was a matter of fixation or plans changing or what… but I know that God loves me, and I know that I am happier now than I ever planned on being.

God came to give us life and life more abundantly. Whatever stage you’re in, if you’re awaiting the fulfillment of promises in your life, I know how you feel and my heart reaches out to you. God also knows how it feels and God’s heart overflows with love for you. God eagerly awaits the right time for your promises to be made real. God’s love towards you is not based on your behaviour but on God’s faithfulness. You are not the foundation of God’s love or promises for you. Take heart. You are in the centre of God’s gaze and the centre of God’s hand and God’s intentions towards you are good. See if you can find a perspective that allows you to be joyous, thankful, productive and restful, while you wait patiently and expectantly for the fulfilment of your prophetic words.

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Over the last 32 years I have lived at more than 20 addresses. I’ve lived in houses, townhouses / row-houses, and apartment buildings. In all these years, I have never had to live through construction or remodelling, which I’m very thankful for. Right now we’re building a sauna but it’s in a room that we can easily isolate and close off from the rest of the house. No dust, no construction debris, no worries. My wife’s cousin bought an old home and renovated it while living in it with their 2 young kids. He said it was a nightmare and he’d never do it again. I don’t blame him, a job site is a crazy place to raise a family. For many us though, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do, only the job site is the deconstruction of our religious framework rather than our physical house itself.

For those desperate to move away from the toxic, controlling, death-bringing view of God and life that they were raised with, how do you go about deconstructing and rebuilding, while discipling your kids and raising them in faith? A reader recently put it to me like this:

I feel like I should be doing more to raise my kids in faith. But what do I teach them? I’m not even sure what I believe myself. I’m scared that I’m going to look back and realize that I screwed up. The only thing I know for sure is that I don’t trust anyone to teach my kids the same BS I grew up with in some church basement somewhere.

I can totally relate to that. I’ve gone through many years of deconstruction and reconstruction myself. We didn’t attend a traditional church for 10 years; the first 7 years of my kids’ lives, in fact. As a kids pastor I can also tell you that the majority of the curriculum that crosses my path is filled with religious phariseeism that I won’t teach anyone’s kids. The struggle is real.

Here are 4 things to consider as you try to raise your kids while deconstructing your own faith:

1. Protect the valuables.

If you are new into your deconstruction journey and can’t talk about faith without poison spilling out then just do your best to protect the peace for your children. That’s all you can do. It’s important that you go on your journey of deconstruction and it’s also important that you don’t do it selfishly. I’ve witnessed too many people (mostly men, unfortunately) go on a journey that ends up costing their family immensely. Don’t be selfish. Be aware of what your own discovery costs those around you. Protect your valuables from damage while you tear the walls down.

2. Demolish selectively.

It’s tempting to rip the whole house down and start over. To a certain extent that’s what I did; my wife and I moved abroad, quit church, and hit reset on our entire spiritual life. But we didn’t have kids then, they came two years later.

Children thrive best in an environment of safety, peace and consistency so be mindful of what you say and do in their presence. This is especially important if you’re a verbal processor. Don’t talk loudly about how you hate the church and all the bad things done in the name of God if your children are in earshot. Have terrible things been done by the church? Absolutely. But children are very black & white and will never want anything to do with the people of God if they hear you talking this way. You might say, “Fine. I want nothing to do with the church either,” but you can’t tell where your journey will take you. I ended up a pastor with children in Catholic school and I can tell you I didn’t plan either of those. Much of parenting is sowing seeds that will bear long-term fruit in our children’s lives. Do your best to maintain a stable, peaceful environment for them while you deconstruct. Don’t tear down the roof at the same time as the walls.

3. Identify the plan.

Deconstruction is a valuable part of the renewing of our minds but it’s the not the whole of it. You also need to rebuild your faith foundation and God will lead you through every phase of this process (even if the religious people around you think you’re still backsliding). Here’s the question to ask yourself: What are the core elements that God is using to reconstruct me and my faith? These are the same things you can focus on with your kids.

For me, the first “building block” was the discovery that God existed outside of the traditional church and that he was doing very well out there too. That discovery blossomed into the understanding that God is actually everywhere, in all things, involved in the lives of all people. Scripture even says that God holds all things together. Someone say, “All things!” That’s become one of the core tenets of my new, living, breathing faith, and it was an easy place to start with my kids.

4. Rebuild sustainably.

If your kids are under 5, what you communicate to them about faith is going to be very simplistic. At this young age, children are busy growing in their basic mental and physical capacities, they won’t understand and don’t need complicated theological training. A couple of high-level themes and concepts are all they’ll benefit from. Introduce concepts organically as you go about life and then just keep living them authentically. If you’re struggling to identify the building blocks that God is using with you, here are some that might work for you:

• God is good.

• God is everywhere.

If your kids are around 5-7 years old their capacity to understand is higher and their interest in thinking things through will be starting to grow. They are still not able to reason logically but you can expand on the basic themes you introduced when they were younger:

• God loves everyone.

• God cries when you cry.

• God is never going to leave you.

From 7 and 8 upward you can start to unpack a lot more details as they will be able to understand logical thought and eventually abstract thought. You should move at the pace of your own reconstruction and of your kids’ desire to learn. If you’re still on building blocks with God yourself then don’t try to explain atonement to them. Give them the basics as you understand them and trust God for the rest.

• God sees all the good and bad in the world and he is committed to loving everyone anyway.

• Nothing you can ever do will separate you from God’s love.

• God’s love changes us. It makes us more like him. In fact, that’s why we’re here, to become more like God.

• We can invite God’s spirit to come and live inside us, and he will!

Bonus tips!

Here are a few things to remember:

• Dialogue is your best friend. Let your kids ask questions and don’t give pat answers. If you don’t know an answer, admit it. Or say you’re not sure yet but you have some ideas. Discuss those ideas.

• Kids can often hear from God much better than we can. Helping a kid hear from God is as easy as inviting them to ask Jesus to speak to them and then have them listen to their imagination. If what they see/hear/picture is loving and kind, it’s God. If it’s not kind and loving, it’s not God.

• God loves your kids more than you do and he will never stop loving them. You don’t need to have all the answers at the right time; in fact, you won’t.

• Less is more. Don’t feel the need to fill up all the spaces. God has been speaking to your kids since before they were born and he’s speaking to them now. You should definitely help them on their journey but it’s their journey, let them experience it themselves.

• You have been given the job to steward these kids but you are not the only Jesus they will ever see. God knows just how flawed you are and he still entrusted them to you. He’s not worried and you don’t need to worry either. Don’t be irresponsible but don’t be anxious either. Lean in to God and he will guide you.

I hope that helps! What’s working for you with your kids as you deconstruct your faith?

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We recently entertained six 9-10 year old boys for my eldest son’s birthday party. We had planned to take them all to a virtual reality arcade and as we were loading everyone into our SUV I ran into a dilemma: one of the parents had dropped off a booster seat for their son. 

Only one of them.

The problem was not that the other boys needed booster seats but that only one did. I was worried he would be singled out. How was I to get that booster seat installed without drawing attention to the fact that he was the only one who needed it? I stood outside the car frozen by indecision. How to honour the parents’ wishes without exposing the child to potential ridicule from his peers? Eventually I decided to ask the boy whether he wanted it or not. I got into the driver’s seat and asked him nonchalantly if he wanted the booster seat his dad had sent with him, like it was no big deal.

And it was no big deal! In fact, he was already sitting on it. He had grabbed it himself when he left the house. He said, “I’m so little that I need a booster seat just to see out the window!” And no one laughed at him. I spent the rest of the night marvelling at the kindness and acceptance of 10-year-old boys. These were a different breed from the ones I grew up with.

The kid who gained 30lbs over the summer break because his step-mother passed away.
The kid who sucked at video games.
The kid who fell asleep first.
The kid with the red hair.
The jock kid.

When I was a child, each of these were categories for ridicule. I was never chronically bullied myself but there were a number of specific instances. The remember names, the insults, the rejection. And I remember participating as well. Anyone who was different was a target. I believe in toxic masculinity just as much as I believe in toxic humanity. When we are at our worst we do incredible harm to those around us. And that harm is often targeted and categorized. I’ve grown up watching boys and men shame each other for all kinds of things that no one made in God’s image should have to endure.

But the boys I see today are nicer than the boys I grew up with. I know that schools talk about bullying more than they did when I was young. I know that we live in a more pluralistic society then I grew up in, which I’m sure contributes as well. I suspect also that parenting is evolving in a positive direction. In any case, it brings me hope. Despite damage to the earth, despite a chronic lack of political role models, despite fake news, gun violence and #metoo, some aspects of our society are improving for the better and our kids are the proof. 

Which reminds me that these boys and girls are watching us. We have the privilege of doing the emotional, psychological, inner life work that the generations before us couldn’t or wouldn’t do, so that they can benefit. We’re not going to war. We’re not checked out on assembly lines or working down a mineshaft. We can teach these kids about kindness. And anger. And gentleness. And the usefulness of aggression when properly harnessed. We can help them understand what neuroscience has taught us about creativity and depression and punishment. We can teach them about the benefits of hard work, of becoming a wise steward and caring for others. We can help them be nicer and stronger.

And I suspect we can learn from them too, if we’ll sit quietly and observe for long enough. When I do that, I am deeply encouraged.

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Make a list of all the things you spend time doing in a regular week. Call this list “Busy.”

Make a list of the things you are willing to commit the next 10 years of your life to. Call this list “The Deep Dive.”

They say it takes 10 years or 10,000 hours to truly become a master at something. Mastering requires a deep dive. As you reach your 30s and beyond, three categories of people will emerge around you: those who have done a deep dive, those who have not done a deep dive, and those who can’t do a deep dive. The majority of people will fall into the middle category; they are neither driven enough to stick with something nor sufficiently wounded to be stuck. They’re just busy. And busy is tempting because it looks productive and normal.

Don’t fall for it.

Subtract all the items on the Deep Dive list from the Busy list. These are the things that you do all the time, which by your own admission you are not willing to commit to for 10 years. Which of these things can you just stop doing? Maybe you should think about that.

Now subtract all the items on the Busy list from the Deep Dive list. These are the things that you are willing to commit to but are not presently taking any steps toward. Stopping the busy is only half the battle; now you need to start the deep dive. Set to the clock to 10 years, and begin.

If you’re too afraid to take the risks necessary in order to make a deep dive then you need to be honest with yourself about this. No one is going to bail you out or magic your life into something different. Whatever happened to you was probably not your fault and yet you are invited to become responsible for your recovery all the same. The trouble with trauma is that it stifles and blocks, it freezes us and locks us down. Trauma is the person that your heart became in response to your deep wounds, and trauma is desperate to not be wounded again. It wants you to stay exactly where you are, the way you are, so that it will never fear that you might abandon it. Trauma doesn’t want to be left alone but it is a dominating and controlling personality.

Don’t fall for it.

You can instead befriend trauma, listen to it, earn its trust, show it love and draw it out into the light. Find people to journey with, people who you can introduce it to, who will love you the same way you have learned to love yourself. In time, you won’t find trauma speaking to you anymore. There will only be you and you will be ready for the deep dive.

As for those of you who are in the midst of your deep dive, my encouragement is to find others who are deeper still, or who have returned already as masters. Befriend them. Invite them to speak into your life. Form a community that rejects busy, commits to one another and dives deep together, in order to bring healing to the trauma around you.

It’s worth it. Trust me.

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In an ideal scenario, sex is a manifestation of loving commitment. There’s no experience more intimate or more exclusive. We communicate our loving passion by serving one another in pleasure while opening ourselves up in vulnerability. “I am open to you, I will not hide, I risk being hurt by you and I will only love you.” Our bodies, minds and hormones respond by reforging the bonds of love, making the connection ever stronger.

But… there is also housework and children and work and miscarriages and emotional withdrawal and porn and all manner of trauma and day-to-day mundanity that keep us from being present enough or emotionally whole enough to able to celebrate sex as it can be. So men often become dominating and misogynistic in the bedroom or they become beggars asking for a sexual handout. And women often become manipulative and withholding of their sexuality or they become doormats. In your relationship these roles might very well be reversed, the point is, these are all expressions of the same two things: control and fear. Which are what most of us fall back to in order to protect ourselves from pain.

I don’t think any of us should be let off the hook by simply saying “I’m not the mood.” That’s a sentence that needs to be completed. I’m not in the mood for what?

I’m not in the mood to demonstrate my love for you with sexual pleasure.
I’m not in the mood to receive your love and pleasure.
I’m not in the mood to be vulnerable.
I’m not in the mood to allow your large, strong, imposing body to press atop mine and potentially hurt me.
I’m not in the mood to connect with my own heart in order to be present to your heart.

These are all things to be examined in our own hearts and in our relationship. Excusing real trauma and marital dysfunction there are, of course, simply times when sex isn’t practical or when we’re just not in the headspace to be able to connect with ourselves or with one another. In these situations, how can you turn your partner down for sex while avoiding the emotional backlash that often comes in response? Whatever your gender, my advice is the same.

How to Turn your Partner Down for Sex

For many men, sex is the primary means of communicating love. Turn a man down for sex and he hears that you don’t love him. But you do love him! Like most men (and plenty of women), he’s probably not very in-tune with his emotional state. That makes sex a higher-stakes exercise for him (or her) than it needs to be, because it may be the only way his heart knows to receive your love.

Your partner might present that sex is all about passion and carnality or even (boringly) about a “release.” Great sex will certainly include those things, but deep down we all know that sex is about connection and intimacy. The reason it hurts to be turned down for sex is because we fear we are being personally refused loving connection. If your partner has a history of looking at porn then there will almost certainly be some jumbled wires in this regard, but healing this is very possible (though not the subject of this piece).

To turn your partner down for sex, honour the connection.

I’m going to write this next section in gendered terms because it makes the writing easier. Feel free to replace yourself in either scenario whatever your gender.

Wives, you can communicate love and care to your husband even while turning him down. Tell him something like, “Husband, I can sense your desire for me. And I love it. I want you to take me. But right now I am feeling like crap / unsafe / emotionally depleted, which means I will not be able to connect with you while we make love. I would like to connect with you. Can we prioritize some time tomorrow / Saturday to be alone together? I would like to be alone with you.”

Husbands, you can communicate love and care to your wife even while turning her down. Tell her something like, “Wife, I can sense your desire for me. And I love it. I want to give you what you need. But right now I am feeling like crap / unsafe / distant, which means I will not be able to connect with you while we make love. I would like to connect with you. Can we prioritize some time tomorrow / Saturday to be alone together? I would like to be alone with you.”

To the partner who is being turned down, it is now your responsibility to own your response to this. Your spouse is not rejecting you so you need to own your emotional state and be responsible with your heart. Your partner wants you and is willing to put the work in to not be a sleepy sex-doll or a booty call. Be an emotionally mature person and delay your gratification / let your partner pursue you. Should you be honest about your disappointment? With yourself, sure. With your partner, only if you’re confident it won’t be perceived as emotional manipulation.

While you wait, use your spouse’s words of commitment and desire to encourage your own heart about the connection. This may make all the difference for you. I’ve recently adjusted my morning routine to include a period of helping my heart know that it’s loved. You might call it meditation or prayer; basically I remind myself of how loved I am. I let my mind drift back over memories of loving actions people have shown me and I talk to myself about how much I love myself. I own my love need. As I connect with my own heart and actually feel what it’s telling me, I feel God smiling over me. After a few minutes of quietly being present to myself I usually feel that my love need is significantly improved. After a month of doing this daily I feel an amazing sense of emotional cohesion which has reduced the sense that all my needs must be met through sex.

From this place of wholeness & inner stability I can make more generous love to my wife because I am an individual operating from a stable foundation, not a beggar looking for a handout. Does it still sting when I get turned down? Of course it does, I want the candy now, dammit. But working together we can maintain connection, build anticipation and grow as individuals.

The only thing better than candy now is the candy you’ve been waiting and working for.

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I recently provided some practical discipline tips for parents and I encouraged parents not to take privileges away in a punitive fashion. In another article, the 5 punishment languages, I went as far as saying that if you take things away from kids who have the love language of gifts, you will crush their spirit and teach them a false relationship between behaviour and possessions.

All of that could easily lead you to believe that we never take privileges away from our children and that I don’t condone it under any circumstance, but that’s not true. Like most parents, access to certain privileges is an important tool in our parental discipline toolbox. Like almost everything else in the subject of parenting, what matters most is being intentional rather than reactive.

One of the definitions of mature adulthood is the ability to delay gratification, and one of our key jobs as parents is leading our children toward emotional and psychological maturity. To that end, it is often useful to control access to things our kids love or want in order to teach them the basics of delayed gratification and rewards for doing hard work. By intentionally using things the kids want to craft a mentality of ownership and responsibility, you can help your children develop resilience and self-regulation. This is very different from simply taking things away when our kids make us angry.

Here’s a scenario:

Your kids are fighting over the TV or Xbox. You’ve had enough and you go to the TV room, unplug it from the wall and shout, “That’s it! No screen time for a week!” Your kids yell and scream, and you stomp off. Everyone’s frustrated but at least you’re back in charge, baby!

Here’s an alternative:

Your kids are fighting over the TV or Xbox. You take a deep breath and remind yourself that you are playing the long game. You go to the TV room and let them know that if they cannot play together peacefully, you will turn it off. You tell them they have 5 minutes to sort out their argument and you remind them that in 25 minutes the day’s TV time will be over in any case. And then you leave it at that, regardless of whether the fighting stops or not. During dinner that night, you bring up the subject of them not getting along during screen time and you help each of your children unpack what it is that is getting under their skin.

Maybe your eldest child is subtly manipulating their siblings in order to get their own way; your younger children know they’re being cheated but can’t figure what to do about it. Help your eldest see that this behaviour is selfish and unloving. Help your other children understand what they are feeling is called anger and it comes in response to their rights being violated. Let them know that anger is OK and that they can learn to control it, listen to it and not hurt people when they feel it.

Maybe one of your children is playing the peacemaker and feels overlooked and like they never get their way. Appreciate them and help them understand the beauty of peacemaking and how necessary it is in the world, and also that it’s OK to assert themselves and speak up in a kind yet firm way. You demonstrate how to do that by having this very conversation.

You also suggest to your children that they do play a lot of video games and it does appear to be causing a lot of strife in their relationships. You kindly remind them that it is a special privilege to have sufficient wealth to own an Xbox and sufficient spare time to spent on it each day. You ask them what actions they could do to help develop a greater appreciation for these things and for one another. In that discussion, you suggest a break from video games for a week, or similar. If you don’t see a change in their behaviour over the next week, then bring this point up again and insist they a break from this privilege.

The very first time we had this discussion there was mutiny at the suggestion of no video games. We were firm though and we insisted that they would be surprised by what they learned if they had to come up with other things to do. We weren’t being vindictive or reactive, we knew what was best for them and we wanted them to discover it too. Naturally they ended up discovering all kinds of board games and Lego they had forgotten about and eventually they created all kinds of new games and activities in *mostly* peaceful harmony. Though the house was a mess…

Six months later, after they had returned to their video gaming ways and were sliding back towards chaos, we had a similar conversation and we reminded them of how good a time they had last time we took a screen break. We suggested another break and they actually agreed to it peaceably. We were as surprised as you are. But if we are genuinely helping our children to grow in maturity, love and care for themselves and one another, then we should expect that their hearts will become more discerning of their own selfishness as time goes on. We shouldn’t be surprised if we’re putting in the hard work. We should expect intentional loving discipline to be effective.

The filter I encourage people to use is this: “Does God do it this way with us?” Don’t answer the question out of your own reactivity, but take the time to evaluate how the God of gracious love has treated you throughout your life and then work to treat your children with the same selfless love. How exactly you implement this in your own family needs to be guided by the Holy Spirit. My point was to demonstrate the difference between taking a privilege away reactively and using privileges intentionally as part of your wider discipline strategy to help your little people become big people on the inside.

Grace and peace to you. You can do this!

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I sat in the office chair clenching and unclenching my fists beneath the table. Breathe in. Breathe out. Stay cool. Don’t shout. Be gracious. Take the heat. Don’t respond in like manner. Be humble. Breathe.

Me: “God, what on earth is going on here?”
God: “I have hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”

The Biblical narrative tells us that God promised Abraham a land for his descendants to dwell in. Abraham moves there and in time, his son, grandson and great-grandsons establish themselves in the land. But then there’s a famine and everyone has to leave. We don’t know why there’s a famine but God provides a place of safety and respite for Abraham’s children in Egypt. Specifically, in the land of Goshen, a lush, fertile area. Time moves on and the descendants of Abraham end up overstaying their welcome and they are enslaved. God sends a messenger to command Pharaoh to release his people. Pharaoh refuses. The narrative actually states that God was the one who hardened Pharaoh’s heart. After much trial and tribulation, Abraham’s descendants leave Egypt and return to the Promised Land where they were always meant to dwell.

Back to my situation in the office. I sat there having my character and my professional work ethic assassinated for 45 minutes by people whom I respected and honoured as Godly men and women, in a place that I felt like God had provided for me just when I needed it. It was confusing. As I silently cried out to God for rescue and the grace and wisdom to know how to respond, I received the strong impression that God had hardened these people’s hearts against me in order that I might leave. It was strange but as I considered my situation, I realized that I had been feeling for a while that I was a square peg in a round hole, and that this place was probably not meant to be my home. This was a place of reprieve that God had graciously provided, and it was a place that seemed like a good fit, at first. But as time went on it became increasingly clear that this was not a good match for me or for them, and in truth, it was already beginning to degrade my personhood. I apologized for the disappointment I had caused and returned to my desk shell-shocked but clear-headed. It was time for me to go. Like the Israelites, I had been unwilling to do that which I most desperately needed to do. And so God stepped in and got my attention. I resigned the following day.

When it comes to free will, I don’t exactly know how it works for God to harden people’s hearts. But I’ve pondered it for a while and I can imagine something like the following taking place in Ancient Eqypt:

God: “Hey Pharaoh, I bet you think you’re pretty great.”
Pharaoh: “I am Pharaoh, I am the sun and the moon. Witness the works I have created.”
God: “Yeah, see though, those works were built on the backs of my children, who I established to be a blessing to the nations, and I brought them to your land in the first place. I don’t think you could have done it without them or without me.”
Pharaoh: “I am Pharaoh. Test me and try me.”
God: *rolls up sleeves*

I suspect that God knows us well enough that he can work — within the bounds of our free-will — to bring about his plans and purposes in our lives without ever violating said free-will. We are more free than we think but perhaps not as clever as we think.

We all have the capacity to be both Pharaoh and slave but we were not made to be either.

Sometimes we experience famine and we must depart from the life we are meant to live, for a time. If we stay in that land of reprieve too long, however, we will become enslaved to it. If necessary, God will give us a push to move us back into our destiny. I hold nothing against those who God used to give me a push. If anything, I am thankful.

You were always meant to be powerful and free and on a great mission. Your promised land awaits. Forgive your Pharaohs, let go your slavery mindset, and walk freely into your future.

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One of my great passions is helping people live in the freedom and love that they are capable of living in. As a parent, children’s pastor and deep thinker I’m convinced that much of our limited view of ourselves and our potential is due to the disciplinary practices we were raised with, as well as the bad theology underpinning them. To help parents raise their standard I’ve introduced the concept of un-discipline: parenting that is rooted in the self-sacrificial love of God, which we see most clearly in God allowing us to crucify him for our own sake. His selfless love paying the price for us can be our model for parental discipline. I’ve also written about how most of our attempts at discipline are just a manifestation of our desire for punishment and control and how they damage the love connection with our children. I’ve also addressed a few of the methods we use at home, namely time-in and strategically ignoring bad behaviour, but a number of people have asked if I can write further practical tips on how sacrificial parenting really works out on a day-to-day basis.

Before I do so, I want to offer two further points of clarification.

Discipline vs Punishment

Discipline is about teaching and instilling values. It promotes and enriches a child’s personhood and their intrinsic worth. It equips them for a higher standard of living. It requires hard work, it requires you to lay down your life for them so that they may thrive. Conversely, punishment is about correcting, enforcing and controlling. It relies on fear and the power to take things away or to inflict pain. This is specifically the kind of power that God categorically rejects the use of. I have gone as far as calling Godly discipline un-discipline because they way God models it towards us, and the extravagant cost that he pays, is so far above our worldly values and what we expect from him.

Spirit Guided

Successful, life-laid-down parenting is not going to come about from lists of tips and tricks. It comes about from intentionally pursuing the heart of your child, listening to the Holy Spirit, and paying whatever price is necessary to accomplish what the Spirit wants to do in your child’s life. It’s hard and costly and painful and will take years to accomplish, but that’s the crux of it. And it’s why I hesitate to provide a simple checklist, because very often that puts us back into the realm of punishment: one-and-done external applications based on specific instances of bad-behaviour rather than an ongoing process of intentionality.

With that said, here are my practical tips for parental disciple that is non-violent, grace-filled and based on self-sacrificial love.

8 Tips for Godly Parental Discipline

1. Own your own sh*t.

Most of us don’t have a very strong awareness of our own inner emotional world but our hearts will not let us ignore them forever. Thus we often end up projecting our trauma, our anger, our confusion onto others around us including our children. If your children are triggering you, own that issue. Do the heart work necessary in order to be a pure and clean love conduit for your child.

Scenario: You are brushing your child’s teeth and they clamp their mouth shut and refuse to cooperate. You try to force their jaw open, which hurts them and they spit in your face. You shout at them never to spit in your face again and you send them to their room.

Alternative: Control your own reaction and breathe through the trigger. Remind yourself that dirty teeth are better than hurting hearts. Sacrifice your pride and let your child have their own way, then examine your heart. Why is this child’s lack of cooperation, followed by dishonour, causing me to have a level 10 reaction to a level 3 problem? What painful memory or trauma from my own past is my child triggering here? Seek help if you can’t identify and work through the issue yourself.

2. Model a higher standard of behaviour.

Let them see your consistency, your self-control and your grace. Your kids love you and look up to you. They already want to be like you, and repeat whatever behaviour they’re seeing. They’ll want to model poor behaviour even more than good behaviour because it looks powerful. By modeling a higher standard you are promoting self-control and positive behaviour, while building trust through your consistency.

3. Do be clear about expectations.

By being consistent and setting a high standard, you earn the right to establish clear expectations for your children. Don’t shackle them with a thousand rules and don’t come down hard on them when they fail, but do clearly establish what kind of home you expect to have and what kind of behaviours society will deem appropriate as the grow up. Do they want dessert? Dessert comes after dinner. This teaches the benefits of self-control, which you’re already modeling.

4. Match their energy, not their attitude.

As emotional, energetic children develop self-awareness they often feel at odds with their stoic, non-emotional parents. This can contribute to their sense of alienation and lack of trust with you. By intentionally allowing your emotions to display around them in a safe manner, and by working to reach their level of excitement, they will feel a sense of kinship and understanding with you. Contrast that with the shouting match that occurs if we get suckered in to matching our kids’ poor attitudes.

Scenario: You have been with your friends for dinner and it’s time to go home. You tell the kids and they start screaming and yelling because one of them hasn’t had their final turn on the Xbox. One shouts, “I hate you! I wish we hadn’t come here! I never wanted to come here.” You get angry, and shout back, “Fine! I wish I hadn’t brought you!”

Alternative: Breathe through the anger and remind yourself that your kids are tired and beyond the point of being able to control themselves peacefully. You probably should have been more attentive to them throughout the night. You’ll do that next time. Harness your own frustrated energy and use it to match theirs, allowing you to say, “Son/daughter, I know how frustrated you are. I’m sorry that you missed your last turn. Let’s make sure you get to play first thing tomorrow morning, and we’ll work harder to make sure everyone gets their fair turn. Now let’s race up to the front door and see who can get their jackets and boots on the fastest. Bonus screen-time for you tomorrow if you can beat me up the stairs!“

5. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

They’ll screw up and miss the mark. They’re kids. Let them misbehave and act out. Better now than when they’re adults. If you’ve done your heart work it will be easier to be a non-reactionary parent. Create a safe space for them to test the boundaries, explore their morality and learn about different types of power. Play the long game and don’t correct them all the time. At best it’s a distraction and at worse you’ll exasperate yourself and them. Your faithful witness will usually be more impactful than your words.

6. Do be intentional and communicative.

Don’t withdraw from them when they frustrate you, stay present and engaged. Don’t tune out from pain or frustration. Learn to lean in, embrace the fear that they will never change, and let love wash through you to them so that they do change. Don’t behave in ways that communicate your withdrawal, including sending kids to their room alone or taking privileges away in a punitive fashion.

Scenario: Your daughter has ignored your repeated instruction to finish her meal and clear her dishes from the table. Instead she has helped herself to desert and then run off to watch TV. You go to the TV room and tell her her behaviour was not acceptable. She ignores you and you take away her desert privileges for the week.

Alternative: You sacrifice your plans for the evening and join your daughter in front of the TV. At a suitable moment you turn it off and attempt to discuss the behaviour that you saw and the behaviour that you would rather see. She is silly and doesn’t appear to take you seriously. You escort her to her bedroom and remain in her presence while she plays and calms down, until she is eventually prepared to listen. You explain why the standard of behaviour matters and you ask her what might be an appropriate action for her to consider doing in response. Help her follow through with the action, and move on with your night.

7. Let the truth do its work.

You’re planting and watering seeds, not carving ice sculptures. God’s perfect, limitless love took time to manifest in your life, how much more will your own flawed loved take time to manifest in your children? But manifest it will, this is God’s promise. Learn to see the beautiful souls underneath the chaos and keep calling them out. It will keep your perspective healthy as the years tick by.

8. Pray.

Pray for yourself and for your child. Pray that God’s good and perfect will would be accomplished in their lives, and offer yourself as a living sacrifice to see his will be done. Friend, I know it’s easy to read and write this stuff sitting in quiet isolation in my tidy living room and I know it’s a different thing to put it into practice on Monday morning or Friday night. But God loves you and your children more than you do, he gave his own life to show you his way of love, and his spirit gladly takes up residence within you if you invite him. Put all your successes and failures in his hands, and rest in his love for you and for your children.

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If you’ve ever lived away from established friends and family you’ll know the importance of intentionally making friends and building community. When we lived in Finland we worked hard at connecting with others in order to create family and community around us. Within a few years we were surrounded by an amazing group of people who took care of one another and shared their lives together. Our door was never locked, people would come and go through our house daily, meals would be shared, neighbourhood children cared for, hearts held, victories celebrated, and the seasons of life observed. It changed our expectations of what life, church and friendship could be.

When we left Finland and returned to Toronto it never occurred to us that we might be lonely. Toronto was our home after-all, so we took it for granted that we would find our old relationships ready to go. For a variety of reasons that was not the case and by the end of our first year back we were tired, lonely, isolated and hurting. Our attempts to establish regular, committed presence with a few friends were met with sympathy but no willingness to commit. I grieved the closeness we had left behind and I resolved to not put myself out there in the same way I once had, so fearful was my heart of being turned down once again.

Fast-forward a few years and we had settled in a new city and a new church. We had hung out a few times with an old friend of mine and were getting to know his wife and kids. One Sunday morning she came over and asked me if we might possibly, maybe, if we didn’t think it was weird, be willing to consider talking about having dinner every week together, just if, you know, we didn’t think that was too much. I gave her a huge hug and told her she had no idea how much that meant to me. We’ve been having dinner every Friday night since then and we often end up sleeping over.

These kinds of relationships are special and unique, but they don’t have to be rare. Warm, committed friendships that blossom into a wider expression of present community can be nurtured and grown. Melissa shared her part of the story recently on her own blog and recommended 6 steps to making adult friends and building community. I’m sharing them here because they’re so practical and excellent, and I’ve added a few thoughts of my own at the end.

Practical Guide to Building Community (aka: Making Adult Friends)

We were having dinner with friends who just moved to the city next to us. We were really still getting to know each other as couple friends. Imagine being on a fourth date with someone—you really like them but you're still trying to make a good impression. There we were in their house, at their table, eating dinner, everything was going great. We had so much in common! Phew! So much in common that they used the same glass water bottles we did at the table. You should know this wasn’t an individual water bottle situation, this was the water for everyone to pour from situation. In my relaxed state, without even thinking, I did something entirely out of habit: I grabbed the bottle, popped off the lid, and started to drink out of it. Mid-drink, I suddenly became aware of what I was doing. I was so shocked at my own behaviour that I suddenly spat the water out EVERYWHERE and turned beet red while choking back laughter and water. When everyone realized what had just happened, the table erupted into laughter and the host said to me, “The fact that you felt so comfortable with us that you just did that without thinking makes us feel so special as your friends.” They are, to this day, our weekly hang out friends, and every once in a while we still giggle about the “water bottle incident.”

Here’s hoping these practical guidelines help you cultivate meaningful community around yourself.

1. Find people at a similar stage in life. You should have friends of all ages, types, and sizes because that’s just healthy and it gives you different perspectives on life. However, when it comes to finding close friends, find ones who understand what you’re going through—you’re single and love cheese, they’re single and love cheese 😜 Or they have kids, you have kids, you all have to crash at someone’s house, dinner is a bit of a gong show, and trying to put the kids to bed is a bit of a circus, but it’s something all of you are going through together. You get it, they get. Suddenly, a Friday night hang out is a little more crazy, but also a lot more fun. And trust me, you’ll still find enough differences to keep things interesting. Ever notice how everyone parents their children the exact same way? Oh, wait…


2. FOOOOOOD! Glorious food. Eating with people to build community is as old as time. IT WORKS. Food gives you something to do, something to enjoy together. Every Friday we eat with our friends, we ask them to bring something so it always feels shared. For example: We are making burgers tonight, someone bring a salad and someone bring a desert! We all make an effort, we all feel a part. And there’s something about a home-cooked meal that takes connection to the next level. Inviting someone into your home, apartment, or condo invites them into a more intimate part of you. And if you can’t cook, all the more reason to learn and ask your friends to join in! So pop open a bottle of wine or sparkling juice if you prefer!


3. Make memories. Be intentional and put yourself out there. Plan to make memories—better yet, make ones that put you out of your comfort zone. We go camping with our friends, including ALL THE KIDS. We plan beach days, family sleep overs, all day outings, and more. Whether the memories turn out just as you imagined or take their own shape, you have just made a moment that bonds you together. These moments become anchor points (thank you, Jonathan Puddle) in your relationship with them.


4. Let it be awkward. People are funny and messy and weird. There are times (especially in the beginning) when there will be awkward moments of silence. Don’t rush to fill the void. When we become comfortable in the silence, we become deeper, more relaxed friends. 


5. Vulnerability. OK, vulnerability does not mean crying all the time or being a “Debbie downer.” It also doesn’t mean airing out all your dirty laundry the first time you hang out. BUT as you build trust, your heart should also open up. Trust and vulnerability are what true relationships are built on. As you open up a little more, trust is built. And as trust is built, the more you can open up. You see what’s happening here? I don’t want shallow, “nice” community. I want deep connection, friends who will lift me up when I am low, pray for me when I need strength, cry with me when I need to mourn, and laugh with me when I need to celebrate. 


6. Be inconvenienced. Here’s another trust builder. At the heart of true community is self sacrifice. Laying down your own life for others. Your friend is sick? You go out of your way, and make them a meal. Your friend’s babysitter fell through? You’ll take their kids for the night. You see, as you allow yourself to be inconvenienced for others, the bonds of friendship grow. You have each other’s backs. You are actually, practically there for each other. You might not have family near by to help you out when you’re in need, but you can build family. 


May you find friendships that will last a lifetime, and may the friendships you already have grow deeper. May you find that you are not alone in this walk called life.

Melissa’s original post is here: https://melissajoy.ca/home/2019/1/29/practical-guide-to-building-community-aka-making-adult-friends

Whatever else healthy community may be, I’ve observed that it can be boiled down to two things: vulnerability and availability.

True vulnerability, as Melissa says, is not about airing your dirty laundry. It’s not about sharing all your garbage with others, it’s about allowing your walls to come down. We tend to think of vulnerability today in terms of what’s inside coming out, and that’s certainly part of it, but it’s equally about allowing what’s outside to come in. The word takes its meaning from being open to attack from the outside. When our walls of defense are up we are safe from attack but we’re also prevented from receiving the love of others. In a mutually vulnerable relationship there can be sharing of kindness, sadness, joy, and love.

Availability is being there for others when they need you, not necessarily when it’s convenient for you. Melissa specifically encourages us to allow ourselves to be inconvenienced. Availability is what it looks like for mutual vulnerability to be put into practice. To let others need you and to let yourself be in need and to respond to those needs with action. If your group of friends is vulnerable but not available then it’s group therapy, not community. If your friends are available but never vulnerable then your relationships will remain shallow and eventually become dehumanizing.

I first heard community put into these terms by my friend Jacob Murphy, who pastors a community-focused church in North Carolina. He heard it from his friend Andy Raine who leads a monastic community in England. It immediately made sense of what we had learned in practice in Finland. Here are 4 reasons I would urge you to put the work in:

1. Most workplaces are built on dehumanizing frameworks. The places where we spend the majority of our daily lives do not typically endorse human vulnerability or availability. I’ve argued elsewhere that this can change, but the fact is, community reinforces your identity as a human being, as a son or a daughter, a friend, a mother, a father. Your heart needs this.

2. Your marriage may come to depend on it. Almost everyone I know has hit rough patches in their marriage, and unfortunately, family are often not capable of counselling you through them. Our own parents can be so dedicated to us that they are blinded to the difficult and painful heart work we need to do in order to heal a hurting marriage. This frequently means that the strength of our marriage has a direct relationship to the strength of the community around us.

3. Your children will do better with more adults, more role-models, more safe places and more alternatives to you. You will always be the most important relationship your child has, but the power dynamic that exists between a parent and child has a huge influence on their development. Having relationships with adults who do not share the same power dynamic allows for children to develop in areas of their mind and personality that would otherwise be delayed until later in life. Building a rich, multi-generational community will positively impact your child for the rest of their life.

4. God is a community of love: 3 persons endlessly pouring love into one another. We are all invited to enter God’s community of love, and to also make it manifest here on earth. Forming community here on earth that is defined by love and submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ is life transforming for those involved and for those who observe and are drawn into the community.

I’m more thankful than words can describe for the gift that our community is in our lives and I join my prayer with Melissa’s, that you too would find friendships that will last a lifetime.

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That’s not what the passage of scripture says, but I think it’s what I’ve believed much of my life. Love your neighbour instead of yourself. This worked for me because in my framework, I was the helper, I was the giver, the one who took care of others. Self-sacrificial love was one of my core values. I lay my life down for you, and I encourage you to do likewise for others. That’s what it means to love powerfully.

But some part of my heart became resentful of the love that I gave away to others. My emotional state began to yo-yo. I have been blessed with incredible, life-giving friendships and a rich communal life. When we are together, we encourage one another, we spur each other on, we touch, we hug, we laugh, we eat and we cry. When we’re not together, I get a bit desperate, which might be OK on its own if it wasn’t for the fact that my wife and kids feel ignored, that I start to emotionally obsess about my community, and that I slide towards depression and withdrawal as soon as I am removed from the presence of friends.

The love that you experience as a result of others pouring into your life is most likely going to have a natural ebb and flow associated with it, in relation to your proximity to others, how frequently you gather, what your love languages are, how vulnerable or available your community is, etc. The love that you have for yourself can help you create a much more consistent emotional space, and loving yourself well will defuse inner resentment while you love others.

Loving ourselves is really an act of worship to the creator. And true self-sacrifice for the sake of another requires the sacrifice to have value. All throughout the Old Testament we see the sacrifice had to be perfect, spotless, sinless. God’s invitation for us to live lives of self-sacrifice is itself a declaration of our worthiness to be sacrificed. You are valuable! You are worthy! You are worthy of your community’s love, and most importantly, you are worthy of your own love. And if you don’t love or value yourself, then you dishonour the creator and you cannot really love anyone sacrificially.

As my friend Rochelle recently said, “Loving your neighbour as yourself is a pretty crappy deal for your neighbour if you don’t love yourself very well.”

So start with you. Love yourself. Tell yourself you love you. Do it right now. Put your hand on your heart and say, “[name], I love you. You are beautiful. You are creative. You are powerful. You reflect your creator. You are worth getting to know. I am sorry for not listening to you and for living as though you didn’t matter. I want to get to know you better, starting today.”

The love that God has for us is immeasurable and constant, yet our awareness of it is inconsistent. The love that our friends and family have for us varies from person to person, and circumstance to circumstance. Your awareness of it may be strong or it might be non-existent. It may come and go like the wind, but at least it’s present, physical, manifest. The love that you have for yourself can become a healthy medium between. Not necessarily limitless, but steady and powerful and one that you are consistently aware of. You can start that journey today.

What if my kid is loud and boisterous?
What if my kid is emotional and standoffish?
What if my kid is a constantly moving, wriggling, excitable, feral creature? 
What if my kid is an annoying handful?

What if nothing needs to change?
Except us.

As a kid, I was constantly being asked to talk quieter, to dial it back and usually to stop talking all together. I wasn’t especially sporty or physically energetic. I loved the library. I loved ideas. I loved sharing those ideas. Especially with my classmates. In class. While the teacher was also trying to share her ideas. Challenge accepted! Challenge… not appreciated.

Now that I make my living as a communicator, my childhood energies make sense to me. I can see now that communication is my gift. But it took time to work out the rough edges, to find my voice, and to learn that volume alone isn’t the most powerful form of communication. It also took me time to ditch the shame and emotional baggage, to disbelieve that I was too loud, that I talked too much, that I myself was too much for people.

Our challenge and our privilege as parents is to see through the outer layers (the things that drive us crazy) to the precious hearts within our children. And to call them good. And to help our children call themselves good. That noisy, high energy kid? That’s exactly who they’re meant to be. That broody, emotional volcano? Right on track. The wriggly giggly worm that simply cannot sit still? Perfection in progress.

We can become the kind of parents who see the hidden, inner beauty of our children, and who choose to ignore the outer chaos. I’m not talking about letting a child hurt someone and just smiling about it. I’m not talking about overly permissive, non-engaged, parenting. I am talking about present, strategic, engaged parenting that knows when to not sweat the small stuff, and when to dive in and help a little person become a big person on the inside. That requires trust and emotional cohesion and for a child to not feel like they’re a problem to be solved. It requires us to strategically ignore behaviour that makes us go batty.

If your child is acting out their emotions in genuinely destructive ways, that’s something that needs to be addressed. If your child is such a handful that they can’t get along well with other people, you’ll need to help them work on that. That’s your job and if you don’t do it then society will do it for you, but it will be done brutally and without mercy. 

For almost everything else… it’s entirely possible that nothing needs to change. Except our hearts toward our children.

I wrote in my last article that any anger or frustration God feels at our behaviour is the very fuel he uses to feed the fire of grace that never stops burning. You can capture that feeling of exasperation towards your child, and hold on to it and put a bit in it’s mouth and direct it. Your frustration can become fuel for commitment to do the hard work of helping your child discover that volume does not equal power.

1. Start by asking God for new eyes to see your children. Let someone babysit them and then ask them genuinely what they think of your child. Talk to another parent or a kids worker or someone who loves your child, and be prepared to gain a new perspective. Do whatever it takes to have your eyes opened to see their beauty.

2. Continue by teaching your frustration to honour the beauty you’re seeing. Get on your knees. Thank God for everything he is doing in your child’s life. Praise your child. Tell them what your heart thinks of them. Let them revel in your love and your adoration. Watch what it does to them and watch what it does to you.

And if you genuinely, really, can’t find the capacity to do this, there’s only one thing for you, my friend: your heart must learn to revel in the Father’s love for you.

This year Maija and I decided to implement a family devotion time before bed. Our first session was not particularly successful, as our eldest son (10 years) refused to participate, especially in prayer. We gently cajoled him and tried to persuade him and incentivize him and do all the usual things, but he was not interested. And he was disruptive. And his attitude sucked. I finally told him that he was welcome to go to bed if he didn’t want to participate with the family. He stormed off, “Fine!”

If you’re a parent, I’m sure you’re familiar enough with this scenario. You try your best, then give up and dispatch the misbehaving child to their bedroom for some time-out. It feels good. It makes everything quiet and peaceful again. At least, for us it does.

What if what you chose to do at this moment, as they stomp away, was the turning point in your relationship with your child? What if you didn’t leave them alone for time-out, but instead joined them for time-in?

I would have been very glad to let him go downstairs on his own and leave him there. I was annoyed. But I can’t escape the reality that God has never sent me to be alone and “think about what I’ve done.” Rather, Scripture tells me he is always with me, he never leaves or forsakes me, and he even leaves the 99 others to come and find just me.

So I went downstairs and knocked on my son’s door. I asked if I could come in. He grunted. I went in, and climbed onto his bed and lay down beside him. He didn’t acknowledge me. I said hi. He didn’t acknowledge me. I put my hand on his back. He didn’t acknowledge me. After a minute he grunted, and forcibly removed my hand from his back.

Those kinds of reactions aren’t disobedient or naughty, that’s just a child self-actualizing and expressing their emotions. I don’t react to that stuff anymore. I asked him if there was something going on. Truth be told, he’d been less and less engaged spiritually for about 6 months. His refusal to join us for devotional time was not an isolated incident. Similar disengagement was happening at church and within our community gatherings with friends. 

He just grunted again in response. So I waited. As adults, we should have a far greater capacity for silent waiting than our children do. Eventually he said that yes, there was something going on, but he didn’t want to talk about it. 

It’s easy to feel frustrated when your child stonewalls you. But pay attention to what’s going on here: my child had actually just opened up. Maybe only a crack, but a crack is all we need.

I wanted to make sure his heart felt cherished and secure. I told him a story about how, when I was about his age, I did something I knew was wrong and I was scared to tell my parents about it. I wanted to tell them because I felt like there was a terrible burden hanging over me, but I was also scared. I didn’t want to disappoint them, I didn’t want to hurt them. I felt trapped. It was horrible. Eventually I found the courage to tell them, and while it was difficult, I felt so much better afterward.

I didn’t share this story to guilt him about his refusal to pray with us, but to let him know that I knew how it felt to not share something, and how much better it would feel if he opened up. I asked if there was something he was wrestling with, something he was having a hard time with. The crack widened just a little more, as he said, yes, there was something.

I gave him more time. Then I told him another, similar story. And then I told him that nothing he could ever tell me would change the way I felt about him. That I loved him, and he would always be my son, and there was nothing wrong with him. Through tear-filled breaths, he began to tell me his burden. He felt that there were two forces inside of him: one telling him to do bad things, the other to do good things. He felt like the bad one was starting to win and that scared him. He was ashamed and he felt powerless to stop it.

I gently explained the concept of the sinful nature, and how Jesus triumphed over sin and allows us to share his victory. I told him that since he is a follower of Jesus, he can claim Jesus’ victory just as much as I, or anyone else, can. I asked if he’d like me to pray for him. He said yes. We prayed together to help him surrender to Jesus, and for Jesus’ strength to fill him and be made perfect in his weakness.

We talked some more. Our hearts connected. We prayed some more. I asked him how he felt. He said much better. And then we went back upstairs to rejoin the family. I think it was 20 minutes, all told.

An hour later I was sitting on the couch doing some editing and he came and sat down right beside me, put his arm around me, and asked what I was working on. I can’t remember the last time he shared his physical space with me that intimately; he’s not super physical. This was a boy who knew he was safe and cherished, and the only place he wanted to be was close in his father’s embrace.

And I could have chosen to leave him there in his room to deal with his fear, his shame, and his weakness, alone.

The specifics of your situation may differ, but taking the approach of intentional time-in with your children will reap dividends over what simple disciplinary time-out might accomplish. Time-in is far more costly to you, but is infinitely more valuable to your child. The best you can realistically hope to accomplish from time-out is an outward behaviour modification that temporarily restores the standard of behaviour that you’re looking for (“Go away and calm down. Come back when you’re ready to be quiet.”). Time-in, on the other hand, can restore a child’s heart to a place of strong connection and equips them for a higher standard of self-regulating personhood. It provides you the opportunity to have conversation, or physical connection, or quiet time together, or even to just tidy their room while they ignore you. That’s 4 out of 5 love languages right there, simply by choosing to stay with your frustrating, misbehaving child rather than leave them alone.

If you’re so wound up that you can’t be with them at all without being a danger to them, then by all means give yourself some space until you can get yourself under control. But understand that at that point the issue is your behaviour, not theirs.

Friend, there is grace to help you with this. God always stays with you and always pursues your heart. Any anger or frustration he feels at our behaviour is the very fuel he uses to feed the fire of grace that never stops burning. His anger at our sin manifests itself as passionate commitment to do whatever it takes to restore us. Your anger can be harnessed as commitment. You can lay down the retributive violence that your anger makes you feel is so necessary, and instead let your anger drive you to pursue the heart of your child just like God pursues you.

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When our kids misbehave, most of us have a strong tendency to lash out. Unless we have truly done the long, hard work of dying to self (which is an ongoing process), then most of the time, even if we dress it up in fancy language and justifications, in the heat of the moment, we just want revenge. We want to feel powerful. We want to tip the scales back in our favour.  We want to punish and teach our kids a lesson.

In my observation there are 5 languages of punishment that we naturally gravitate towards:

• Spanking / physical punishment

• Time-out

• Taking things away / threatening

• Yelling or unkind language

• Forced labour / chores

The way that we were raised will have a lot do with the methods we gravitate towards with our children, but here’s the catch: each of these approaches are uniquely damaging to the heart of a child.

Over 20 years ago, Dr. Gary Chapman, a pastor and clinical psychologist trained in anthropology, identified five “languages” of love that humans use to show love to one another. Each of us are wired to “hear” love most clearly through 1 or 2 of these languages, and we also have a natural tendency to use 1 or 2 of these languages more than the others when trying to communicate love to others. The opportunity for each of us is to learn how those we care for receive love most effectively, and develop skills in those languages if they’re not our own strong languages. Your children each receive love most clearly and impactfully through one or two of the five languages, as follows:

• Physical Touch

• Quality Time

• Receiving of Gifts

• Words of Affirmation

• Acts of Service

My top 2 languages are physical touch, and words of affirmation. Early in our marriage, Maija would pour herself out with acts of service, and buy me loads of gifts, because those are her natural ways to express love. But they didn’t do anything for me. She couldn’t understand why I didn’t appreciate everything she was doing and buying for me, and I didn’t understand why she didn’t love me. For her part, she had to learn that the most effective way to communicate love and affection to me is a touch on the back, reaching out and touching my arm during conversation, making eye contact, affirming me with her words, etc. And I had to learn that when she served me and bought things for me, she was communicating her love to me. We both had to grow in these languages. I recently met Dr Chapman and was impressed by his kindness, his humour, and his down-to-earth nature. He’s a proper Southern Gentleman. If you haven’t read his books, I highly recommend them.

If you don’t know your children’s love languages, identifying them isn’t particularly difficult. If you consider your child and think about how they respond to you, you may quickly see some trends emerge. Depending on their EQ and how self aware they are, they might even be able to identify their own love languages.

Can you see the parallels between Dr Chapman’s five love languages, and the five languages of punishment that I listed above? When we utilize these methods, we do not simply communicate that a child has misbehaved or missed the mark. That might be all we are trying to communicate, but punishment actually damages the love relationship between us. Rather than hold up a warning sign or place a healthy boundary marker, by punishing we exert power over the child which wounds their heart, causes them to fear and mistrust us, and places them into a love deficit. That love deficit and the associated trust issues will only serve to exacerbate the behavioural issues that we’re already facing. Here’s the bad news:

If you spank a child who’s love language is physical touch, you will crush their spirit and confuse them about the safety of physicality and healthy touch. At the extreme end of this path lies assault and rape.

If you send a child whose love language is quality time to be alone in their room, you will crush their spirit and communicate to them that they are not worthy of having time spent with them. At the extreme end of this path lies isolation and suicide.

If you withdraw privileges or threaten to remove things from a child whose love language is the receiving of gifts, you will crush their spirit and teach them a false relationship between behaviour and possessions. At the extreme end of this path lies greed and poverty.

If you yell at or verbally abuse a child whose love language is words of affirmation, you will crush their spirit and bewilder them about the power of communication and the nature of truth. At the extreme end of this path is lying, deception and manipulation.

If you force a child to do chores or other kinds of labour whose love language is acts of service, you will crush their spirit and teach them that they must perform perfectly to be worthy of special things. At the extreme end of this path lies perfectionism and workaholism.

You are might argue that we should simply use a punishment method that is not going to harm our specific child. If my child isn’t a quality time kid, then what’s the harm in time out? The fact is, a wealth of research affirms that all forms of punishment are damaging to a child’s heart, and damaging to the parent-child relationship (the single most important relationship in a child’s life). Successful discipline has very little to do with behaviour correction, and almost everything to do with connection, boundaries and helping a person learn to self-regulate and live up to their full potential. That requires an intentional investment of time, of love and of other resources which are aimed specifically at your child and based upon their unique needs. Your response to their bad behaviour is important, but it’s far less important than your intentionality with them at every other moment of the day. The love languages are a useful starting point for your discovery of how to unlock your child’s potential for self-regulation.

Let me quickly say that I know how difficult this is. Parenting is incredibly hard. I have three of my own and I’m a Children’s Pastor of 25 children between the ages of 2 and 13, who all meet in one room. I keenly understanding the anger, the frustration, the fear, the shame and the guilt that can typify so much of our feelings towards our children. But there is hope! God is a perfect father and he has endured everything you and I could ever face, and he does it with boundless grace, mercy and humility. He never sends us away from his presence, and he never lashes out. He lets us nail him to a cross to demonstrate that he will never lift a hand in violence against us. If you submit yourself to him then his spirit takes up residence inside you and will give you his grace and mercy. That’s the good news.

I’ll talk about practical, God-centred, self-sacrificial alternatives to punishment in the next few articles in this series. Grace and peace to you, dear parents. You’re doing the work of God.

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