Wow. Is it me, or does it feel like the New Year hit like a hurricane?  I think that is the beauty of the break – we walk away from all the to-do lists for a short time and give our hearts to family and friends…loved ones.  Then, when we turn back to the chores, emails, projects and schedules, it all ramps up with gail forces and I often then wonder, what in the world have I been doing these past weeks?

Don’t be fooled by that ol’ voice – the enemy’s old “wasted time” trick. Hopefully you’ve been right where you needed to be – giving time to those you love.  And as you have, the enemy has been waiting – biding time – for the moment to sabotage your good heart with an attempt to give you a side order of guilt or accusation to kick off the New Year.  Tell the waiter, I’m not taking this!… Inform him, I’m not buyin’!

Jesus made us a huge offer when he announced, I came that you may have life and have it to the full (abundant)- John 10:10b.  First of all, may is a pretty important word. You know what it means: maybe, might, possibly… on a few conditions.  Second, in that first part of John 10:10 “a”, Jesus says, The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy but…  Now but is another important word and you know what but means: contrary to, instead of, in contrast.  The question then stands- if these are the options- a: Thief who steals and kills and destroys and b: Good Shepherd who gives Life…    who gets to make the choice?  We do!  So, how’s that going?

Are you aware of the little foxes that come to steal, kill and destroy your joy, your full life?  I dare say, if you aren’t aware of a choice, you can’t make it.

Some never enjoy the beauty of the break on the front end because the enemy has some of us so programmed to be busy, we cant enjoy the rest. Isn’t one of the very reasons we work so hard so that we are able to take a vacation, a break, and move intentionally toward family and friends?  Way too often I’m more wired in as the 8^th dwarf, Hi Ho, Hi Ho it’s off to work I go… all the time!

Do you know that voice of discontent you hear at your desk, Gosh, I wish I was on the golf course or at the spa.  Then, when you’re actually at the golf course or the spa, the tune changes to, Gee, I really should be at work, soo much to do.  Agree with either of them (that’s your choice) and the moment is soured.  Others of us, the beauty of the break is arrested in the midst of the break.  Christmas or New Years or any time away with family is infiltrated by moments of inconvenience or “hassle” or a sudden storm of unmet expectations rolls in.  Bring a group of people together, especially family, and the thief feels more like thieves, a highly organized cartel of rustlers determined to steal the herd or at least the joy from the herd.

If the thieves can’t get you going into your break or during it then, you guessed it, they’ll try to pickpocket you on the way out.  Knowing this can aid and equip us in making some really good choices.

Remember:  the power of a lie is that you don’t know it’s a lie and that you believe it!  Sort out the voices – these messages that come to your head and heart.  Throw away the junk mail of accusations, guilt, diminishment and fear.  Recognizing the good from the bad, the truth from the lie is critical.  Then you can make a crucial choice. Keep the good stuff.   The break it will give your heart will be beautiful!

Happy New Year!!!

I hope you had a wonderful Birthday celebration and received some wonderful gifts as well as enjoyed giving some gifts to the people that are pretty wonderful in your life.  My girls are now 13, 16 and 18… Abbey, Hannah and Ashley.  Each year they seem to get more and more into their giving of gifts (instead of getting heated about whose turn it is to open!).  This year the phrase was, “open this one from me.”  Their gifts were heartfelt and creative…loved that!

The definition for a great gift might be that it is enjoyed long after it is opened.  There have been a few gifts from Christmases past that just keep on giving.  I still use my iPod I received for Christmas five years ago almost every day.  The journal my family gave me last year just got its last entry for 2011.

There was a special gift God gave me for Christmas in 2010 that continued to bring a smile to my face every time I heard it play this year, even a tear of joy on one occasion.  Last year God gave me a song, one that I had heard growing up. It was actually a Christmas Carol… O Holy Night.  It was so tremendous how He did it, and I actually got to tell the story on the first Sunday in January of this past year.  Soooo, I thought maybe you might like to hear the story through a video that captured my excitement then, and I must say, continues to capture my heart even now… Like so many of His gifts, it was a gift that keeps on giving.

The story of God’s gift to me is the first 6 minutes of this video message.  Hope you enjoy.

Dearest Friends and Allies,

We pray your best Christmas gift this year is an open heart ready for all the times that Christ will come to rescue and restore you.

Merry Christmas from Michael, Robin and the Zoweh Team!

The following is an excerpt from the recently released book…

SEARCH and RESCUE, The Life and Love that is Looking for You – By Michael Thompson

During the years of 2008-2011, I spent a great deal of time pouring out my heart, my thoughts and my hopes on some pages that, with a lot of help from some friends, were polished up and bound together.  The process was really good for me and I’m convinced at this point, everyone should write a book.  The best reason for entering the writing process was its affect on my relationship with God and my Life journey with Him. The time searching my heart, reflecting on many attitudes and beliefs I held and then taking those and entering a refining season brought to my heart an alteration of what I believe and what I care about.

I remember the day that the finished book was pulled from a case and placed in my hands… for me it was almost like an infant was being handed over with the announcement, “Mr. Thompson, congratulations it’s a book”.  “Wow!” I thought, “now what am I gonna do? What if someone reads it?  Someone might actually pick this thing up and start turning the pages.”  Novel idea eh?  A few weeks later a friend asked me what my favorite part of the book was.  I didn’t know at the time, then a few months later, the answer came as I was working on the Search and Rescue Journal Workbook so I called my friend and shared, “I think I wrote the first 150 pages so I could write these three paragraphs.  This might be my favorite part.”  So, I share them with you as a hope that they might inspire, encourage, disrupt or invite you… whatever your heart needs and whatever God may choose to do for you in your journey with Him.

Blessings fellow traveler and I pray God rescues you again and again as He has me…

For the Rescue!!!

…the enemy of God comes after God’s image bearers to thwart that True Love and true Life with God. 

We were made for intimacy, oneness and connectedness with God.  We feel most alive when we are being loved. Our enemy knows this better than we do. He knows where and in whom Life is found.  Our adversary is launching an all-out assault to get in the way of our intimacy with God and intimacy with others. In Matthew 22:37, Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is, Love God and love others as yourself. There is a reason this is called the greatest command, and there is a reason we are the most opposed when we seek to fulfill it.

Love makes us come alive because Love is the greatest thing in the whole universe. The Tin Man knew this truth, as evidenced in his request of the great wizard of Oz, “I shall take the heart, for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.” Our friend of tin knew that one needs a heart to love, it is with a heart one can love and we are happiest when we are loving or being loved. Love is what we were meant for, and love is what God is all about.

When we get ahold of this—or when it gets ahold of us—the tide changes, the momentum shifts and the lost ground of our hearts will be taken back. We become more because the deepest needs of our heart are met in abundant supply. When we become more, everything changes; we’re fighting a new war. The Life and Love that is looking for you is God Himself. He is the author of Life, and He is Love. The great mission of God is upon us. This great search and rescue campaign to recover what is most precious to Him is in motion. And what is most valuable to the Father are His children. God has moved heaven and earth to accomplish a mission only He can complete…our rescue!

Search and Rescue; The Life and Love That is Looking for You.  Pages 155-156

I’d love to hear your opinion or to connect with you in the Larger Story.  One thing I know, I don’t have enough friends and allies on this glorious and dangerous journey.  If you have any questions or concerns, comments or thoughts you want to share, please drop me an email, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Renowned journalist and radio personality Paul Harvey made his mark on America with his patented, “Good Day”. One of the daily moments that caught his signature sign off farewell was his radio program… The Rest of the Story. You know the one? Mr. Harvey would, by way of introduction, share with his audience of listeners the headlines or noted highlights of a story.  He usually dropped just a clue then he would say, but do you know, The Rest of the Story. After the well placed commercial break, he would come back and dive right and tell us the rest of the story, the Larger Story and its details. I loved these programs and even collected many of the paperback books that bound these stories together into a collection that read a lot like a daily devotional. I was sucked into that spirit of “I wonder where this will go” as I listened to Harvey tell the story and listened to it unfold. Once in a while I could get two steps ahead and arrive at the story’s conclusion just before my guide, Paul Harvey, did!

Though I haven’t heard from or read Paul Harvey in several years, the offer of The Rest of the Story feels familiar and inviting to my heart these days- the idea that there is more to the story of my life and the story in which I live, provokes me to explore the more. There is no doubt that I was born into something in motion…something that proceeded me…a story that I was placed in and invited to step into and play my part. This is true of all of us. All you’d have to do is work through any person’s family tree to hear more of the rest of the story, to understand where they came from, who they belong to, and what in the world happened to their hearts along the way.

Dallas Willard in his book, Hearing God, offers the idea that the Bible is not a book of exceptions but rather a book of examples. A book filled with the stories where the main character is God and the pages of scriptures they are filled with His story and that of His friends. John Eldredge offers in the book, Epic, the scene from The Lord of the Rings where the two hobbits, Sam and Frodo, are advancing on their great journey to destroy the ring and Sam asks aloud, “I wonder what sort of story we’ve fallen into?” Eldredge suggests that Sam couldn’t have asked a better question! One that assumes there is something larger going on and that they have been swept up into it for a role and a part to play.

Wouldn’t it be great to know with more clarity and more confidence our story? We can.

Christianity offers that. An invitation into the larger story with a role that is yours to play and a story line that is full of adventure (walking with God), battles (against the unholy trinity of Satan, the world and the flesh), and people to rescue (those who are lost or wondering confused by the weight of the story). If you or I live in a story where we are the main character and the plot or story line is all about our comfort and/or control, then we would be living in way too small a story.

CS Lewis, in The Chronicles of Narnia, turned a phrase that is oh so appropriate for our lives when he writes the invitation to come further up and further in. Knowing The Rest of the Story changes everything in our lives. Some days, getting my bearings in the Larger Story is no small achievement. There is one character in your story and mine that would rather you not see, hear or move to your place in the Larger Story, a great evil that thrives on us being lost and disoriented.  But there is One that is for us and offers a way, and even promises to guide us through.

We have a hope as well as a destination, larger than most of us have ever known.  That is what the Great Story and the Great Author calls to us, “There is more and I, the Great I Am, want to show you around. This is going to take a while so take my hand and I’ll show you The Rest of the Story.”