Where Do You Live?: A Journey into Truth and Freedom

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FORWARD

INTRODUCTION:

WHERE DO YOU LIVE?

Chapter 1

MY HEART EXPOSED

Chapter 2

LIES REVEALED

Chapter 3

A NEW IDENTITY

Chapter 4

A FAITH THAT’S REAL

Chapter 5

A NEW WAY OF THINKING

A RENEWED MIND

Chapter 6

A NEW PERSPECTIVE

Chapter 7

ARMED AND RESOURCED BY GOD

Chapter 8

FROM GLORY TO GLORY

Chapter 9

UNEXPLAINABLE PEACE

Chapter 10

A WHOLE NEW WORLD

FORWARD

Where Do You Live, by Janet McGee, is a must read for the wives of church planters, and all those who struggle with fear, anxiety, and depression over their perceived failure to achieve success in life and ministry. If you want a book that gives you a game plan for instant success in building a huge mega-church from scratch, this book is not for you. But if you want some instant help in moving from the bondage of cultural definitions of success in ministry to a biblical definition which will take you down the pathway of peace, this book is written for you!

Her journey from external, disciplined service was replaced by internal submission to the radiant savior. When she and her husband lost their home, it was replaced by Christ filling up their soul home and giving to them incredible peace in their rental cottage. Instead of drowning in fear and depression, she decided to rejoice in the Lord. As she did she found powerful new inner freedom when she made the choice to rejoice, and joy flooded her soul home.

The focus of the book is the rediscovery that where we live internally is a personal choice as to whether we want to live in the wilderness or the promised land. If we dare ask the question of ourselves, Where do you live? regardless of our circumstances, we discover we can always choose to rejoice in the Lord and find incredible joy and peace. Ministry then becomes the overflow of our joy, faith, and peace filled journey with the Savior of the world! It works!!

Bryce Jessup

President Emeritus

WILLIAM JESSUP UNIVERSITY

Rocklin, California

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Stadia New Church Strategies: For extending the invitation of God to church-planting and a deeper life in Christ.

To my husband Scott: For traveling this journey with me and being the best example of God’s love to me! Thank you for your faith in me.

To my sister Karen Sturgeon: For being one of my greatest supports in prayer and word, and believing in me to write this book.

To Diana Sturges: The dearest friend a person can have. Thank you for your support and help with the writing of this book.

To my children, Kellie and Lacey: I am so proud of the women of faith that you are becoming. God has an amazing destiny planned for each of you!

To the amazing people who are the Hansen clan! When it comes to family, no one could ask for more!

To the One who loves me more than I ever thought possible - my Jesus!

INTRODUCTION:

WHERE DO YOU LIVE?

One of my favorite movies is the remake of Sabrina, with Julia Ormond and Harrison Ford. There is a scene where the two main characters, Sabrina and Linus, are sitting in a restaurant talking about life. He is talking about his business career and the path of family expectations he has followed his whole life. Sabrina responds to him saying, That’s work Linus; but where do you live? Linus is talking about what activities are in his life, and she is asking what his life is really all about. What does it all mean? That question really struck a chord with me. That question and the search God led me on for the answer is the reason behind this book. I was shocked at what I found.

I was raised in a wonderful Christian home. I accepted Christ when I was eleven years old and I have always loved Him and striven to obey and serve Him. But, then one day I found myself looking up to God in anger and disappointment. I have always believed God could do anything. I have always believed that He was powerful and good. So, what was the problem?

What God has shown me is that there was a big difference between what I believed and the place I was living. We can assent to a lot of wonderful truths about God and not live in them. This is where I found myself. What does it mean to truly live out all that God is in our lives? If we truly believed what God said, we would never fear and we would always be at peace. If we truly believed what God said, our lives would be full of laughter and overflowing with an abundance of joy! We would not see obstacles just opportunities, and the impossible would always be possible! If we truly believed what God said, depression would be something with which we would be completely unfamiliar. You may think that sounds too good to be true, but I believe this is what should describe the normal Christian life.

If this doesn’t describe you then it’s time to start asking the question: Where do you live? As I began to seriously look at my life, God began to walk me down a path of revelation and conviction. A path of liberation filled with His truth and love. But most of all, a path of freedom; a path straight to His heart!

Chapter 1

MY HEART EXPOSED

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

Proverbs 4:23

I will never forget that morning. In all my 43 years I had never been so full of doubt, so completely overcome by anger that I didn’t want anything to do with God and I told him so.

We had arrived full of hope and expectation to Santa Maria, California. We were scared but very excited because we knew the call of God on our lives to plant a church. We had a strong group of prayer and financial supporters. Family members who believed in us and friends we had ministered with over the years who were also convinced that we were going to have great success. We had gone to boot camp which is a two week training seminar for new church planters, and we were just brimming with ideas and strategies for success and we knew that if we prayed and worked hard enough God would bless our efforts.

THIS IS NOT WORKING

But things didn’t go like we thought. Early on we had a lot of interest from people who said they wanted to be part of the church. This was very exciting to us because we were a parachute drop church plant. That meant that we came having no connections to another church or anyone else in the community. Originally we had wanted very much to be a daughter church plant, where you have the support and help of an already established church to help parent you, so to speak. We liked the idea of partnering with another pastor for support and encouragement. We had already decided to accept the invitation of a pastor in Nevada when God shut the door. Actually he really slammed it shut. As we considered these events we both came to the realization that what we really wanted was an easy road. The motives of our heart were not in the right place. Motives play a large role on whether or not there is truth on the inside. God wanted us to fully trust and believe that he was all we needed. But like I said earlier, things weren’t working out the way we had planned.

We started our church with a core group of seven people. Our first service saw 53 people! We were so excited! I remember that day so well. The room felt really full and I remember thinking to myself, We will have to move to a bigger room very soon. I was so sure that the church would just keep growing and growing, after all, God had always blessed our ministries. But I was wrong. After one year we had about 30 people. Oh, every now and then we would get up near 50 people but then some would move away and others lose interest and we would be right back down again. I didn’t know what to think. I felt lost and completely inadequate. I began to sink into a pit of depression.

DROWNING IN GUILT AND ANGER

There were days I didn’t want to get out of bed. I lived in guilt every day. I must not be doing enough, or doing it right I told myself. If I sat down to watch TV I would feel guilty that I was resting instead of out there trying to find someone to talk to about the church. With every person I met I felt I had failed if the conversation didn’t somehow make its way around to the church we were planting. The worst part of it all was that even God seemed to have lost interest. New opportunities would come and I would get hopeful again, but when they yielded no tangible fruit, discouragement would quickly set back in.

I began to question everything I believed. I began to question God: Where are you and why are you letting this happen? What have we done to deserve this? We have spent our lives serving you. All we have ever wanted was to be used by you. We have never asked for fame or even a huge church, just to make a difference in people’s lives. Where are you? My anger began to grow. Sundays became a chore. I would go every Sunday with a smile plastered across my face and a mouth full of hope but I didn’t believe any of it. The truth was I really just wanted to disappear.

So, there I sat that morning, in total despair and fuming at God. My husband tried to encourage me but I just blew. I’m so tired of this, I yelled! Why did He call us here just to play some kind of sick joke on us! I left everything to come here, my friends, my family, a great life and this is how he treats us! It didn’t matter what Scott said there was no stopping this train I had completely lost it! He said something about the book of Job and I just fired back that it was a sick little story about God playing with people. My parting words as I left for work that morning were that I was done playing this sick little game and I was done with God. I walked out of the house in a cloud of anger leaving a worried and somewhat stunned husband in my angry wake.

YOU CAN’T ESCAPE HIS GAZE

You know that feeling you get when you know someone is staring at you? They can be clear across the room from you but you can feel their eyes just fixed on you. No matter how hard I tried to ignore God at work that morning I couldn’t. I could actually feel His gaze. Every now and then I would remind Him that I was not speaking to Him, but the feeling never went away. In fact it grew stronger and although I can’t explain how I knew this I knew that God was smiling at me. To make matters worse, He started blessing me. I work at a community college and it can be very frustrating at times. Things tend to move very slowly there so getting things accomplished can be somewhat trying at times – actually most of the time. But on this morning things kept going right for me. Out of habit I would slip with a Praise the Lord, and then take it back angry that I said it. But His gaze grew stronger and I could actually feel His presence leaning over my desk and He was still smiling. Things just went from good to better all morning.

At that time we had a cooking class that met down the hall from our office. On occasion they would bring down food they had prepared for us to taste. It wasn’t very frequent and sometimes the food was a little strange. But not on this morning! On this morning they came in with my favorite raspberry pastry! Usually it is said that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. But on this day, it was true of this woman.

That did it! I had felt his gaze all morning and when I would allow myself to feel His presence I was fighting to keep from smiling because He