Going to Thailand!

Dear Friends and Family,

As I wrap up my first year of college, I’m excited to share about an opportunity God has opened up for this summer. Over the past couple of years God has been putting Thailand on my heart, specifically the orphans in Thailand. I’ve wondered why God would break my heart for a country I’ve never been to. This summer God opened a door for me to pursue that question.

I stumbled upon an orphanage that really caught my eye. The Family Connection Foundation is an outreach arm of the Chiangmai Christian Fellowship church. After seeing a glimpse of their passion for the orphans they work with and their heart for the Thai people, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I had a Skype interview with one of the head guys and everything he shared got me more and more fired up for the opportunity to serve with them.

The way they run the orphanage is different than the typical setup. As a church, they support host families that bring kids into their home long-term. As I serve with them I am going to spend time simply loving on the kids, learning about the Thai culture, and serving the workers any way I can. They also expressed the need for good photography to share with others what is going on in Thailand, so I will be documenting my time through that avenue. One of the most exciting opportunities I have is to go on a four day trip with the director to one of the poorest cities in Thailand. Because of the poverty it serves as a hub for the sex trade in Thailand. This is another big area that God has broken my heart for and I’m excited to be able to love on some of the orphans there and learn what is needed there to break the sex trafficking cycle. As I prepare both physically and spiritually, I am sensing that God has some really big things for me coming up and I can’t begin to express my excitement.

I will be leaving for Thailand on July 6th and returning home on August 18th. Until I leave, I will be shooting senior portraits and a wedding which should cover my airfare there and back. The money I have left to raise is going to be around $3000. This includes all accommodations, on-site transportation, materials, and fees. This needs to be paid in full by June 21st.

This time is going to be an amazing opportunity for growth in my relationship with Christ, direction in my future, and a chance to love on the Thai people. Please pray for protection and a chance to pour Jesus out to these kids. I also ask that you pray about financially supporting me. If you feel led to donate, you can make tax-deductible donations to their US-based funds processing agency:

Circuit 'Riter Ministries Intl.
Attn: Ryan Dunnewold
P.O. Box 635
Kittredge, CO 80457

While I am over there, I will try to keep up my blog with both stories and photos on here.

Thank you for your prayers and support,
Ryan Dunnewold

Good Works

For years, I’ve struggled with the idea of “good works.” What are they? How do we do them? From an early age my parents have taught me that we aren’t saved by good works but rather because of God’s grace and Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. That has never been an issue for me. Post-salvation good works are where I struggle. I’ve heard sermon after sermon where the word grace is used but good works is preached.

Why are we so stuck on good works? I think the reason good works is our goal so often is because we are stuck in a law-abiding, rule following, right and wrong mentality that we were born into. The first problem with this is that the law awakens our sinful desires (Romans 7:5), and the second problem is that we are no longer called to live under the law:

“But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.” (Romans 7:6)

Am I saying good works are bad? Certainly not. Paul says quite clearly that good works are part of our design:

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)

For years, I’ve looked at this from the perspective of the law, which says that the sole reason I was created is for good works. Time after time in the last several weeks God has taken me back to the garden where He continues to show me that His design for us as a human race was and is relationship, not good works. Good works have never been ultimate; they have never been our purpose. The ultimate (our purpose) has always been to know Him, to walk in relationship with Him.

The other day, God showed me a powerful parallel for the role of good works in a Christian’s life. Just as sex is not the purpose of a relationship, neither are good works. If we live our lives with sex being the end goal (our purpose) we will go down any path that takes us there. Even if we end up going through the God-ordained path of marriage, our focus won’t be on that relationship but rather on sex. Just as so many times our focus is on the good works rather than the relationship.

When good works is our end goal, we will go down all the wrong paths to get there. It may be selfishness, pride, or some failing attempt at salvation. Regardless of what it looks like, it takes the place of relationship in our lives. This lie, this false focus is so engrained in our lives that even when we hear the truth that God wants relationship, we assume that it is only a way for Him to get good works from us.

Because of this, even when we go down the “proper path” of relationship, often times it is motivated by the end goal of good works. Just as someone who has been used in a relationship assumes that the next time someone is interested in them it is solely for sex. Relationship becomes just a means to an end.

God is calling us to make relationship the means and the end. Just as sex is a natural and wonderful expression of a marriage, good works becomes a natural and wonderful expression of our relationship with Christ when we lay it down as the end goal. God’s purpose in your life is not good works. His purpose in your life is you.

Inadequacy

For most of my life I remember praying, even begging, for God to fix me. I just knew that if God would take away my pride or my selfishness, if God would take away my junk I would be free. I even convinced myself that I wanted it so that I could “serve Him better.”

The past several weeks has been filled with God bringing a lot of my issues to the surface. I’ve been seeing more and more of the junk that comes with being human. I’ve been more aware than ever of my pride, my selfishness, my judgmental thoughts, etc… Through all of this I’ve been pleading with God to fix it. Take it away from me God.

Yet through all of this I heard God say, “Ryan, stop asking for adequacy, and ask for dependence.”

That is big for me. That goes against my years and years of striving to be good enough. As Christians we are offered and we offer steps: “14 Steps to a Better Marriage”, “11 Steps to Humility”, “26 Ways to Love Your Neighbors”, but in all of this we tend to neglect what Jesus truly called us to.

In John 5:19 Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”

Jesus got it. He knew that his power was in the Father. He knew that his life was in the Father. Here we are running around trying to do life on our own, and Jesus is walking in relationship, in restful intimacy with the Father. When I take time to look at my motives for asking God to rid me of my pride it becomes pretty clear to me that I was striving for adequacy, to be able to do it on my own.

Living a life of dependence on God is a lot harder than living by steps, rules, and regulations. As humans, we gravitate to formulas and cookie cutter rules. Sure it’s easy, but there is no life in it. There is no relationship in it.

One of my favorite quotes is in “Wild at Heart” by John Eldridge:

“The problem with modern Christianity’s obsession with principles is that it removes any real conversation with God. Find a principle, apply the principle—what do we need God for?”

God never intended us to live by right and wrong. He intended us to live dependent on Himself as Jesus did in intimate relationship. In a world where independence is freedom, God is calling us to new levels of freedom in utter dependence on Him.

I Need You More

In the past several weeks, God has been revealing that He is the ONLY source of joy and life. So many times I find myself making other things my source of joy. Whether it is my friends or my achievements, I seem to try and make my own joy. I don’t always enjoy God’s methods of teaching because it often involves stripping me of things that I rely on. Lately, it has been Him showing me that my friends won’t satisfy or fulfill my needs. As hard as that can be, it’s incredible because along with it He has been showing me that He does meet my needs, that He does satisfy.

About a week ago, I was listening to Kim Walker sing “I Need You More.” One section really caught my attention:

“I need You more, more than yesterday I need You Lord.
More than words can say I need You more.
Than ever before I need You Lord, I need You Lord.”

I need you more than yesterday. That’s so backwards from how I live. So many times the Christian life is a process of becoming more self-sustaining. We know how to sin less, we know how to teach our children, we know how to relate to our family, we serve more, we love better, and we are good Christians. If we’re honest with ourselves, isn’t that what we strive for? We strive for independence. We need God for salvation and then to teach us how to live, but it is a dwindling dependence on Him as He shows us more. We treat God like the parent raising His kids, gradually giving His kids more independence until they are ready to fly on their own.

That is so far from God’s heart. God’s desire is for us to become more and more dependent on Him because regardless of how many books we read, how many self-help classes we take, how often we read our Bible, we CANNOT live independent of Him. There is no life or love apart from Him. In our world, independence is freedom, but in God’s Kingdom there is true freedom in dependence.

God’s moving us away from independence towards dependence. Our society fights it, our flesh fights it, our mind fights it, but deep down our heart longs for it, our heart NEEDS it.

Life in the Garden

Several months ago I came upon a book that threatened to challenge my view of Christianity. I actually look for the books that challenge my beliefs about God, because often times that is where He brings growth in my relationship with Him. For example, The Shack has been very influential in shaping my view of God. For years and years I've heard about a God that loves me, but I hadn't ever seen a picture that applied it to me in a real way like The Shack did. It opened my mind and my heart to the possibility and reality that God is personable and that His heart for me is deeper and softer than I had ever imagined. The God I had viewed for so long as a gatekeeper deciding on people's eternity based on what their lives looked like became a God that wants to spend time with me where I'm at, in the midst of my junk, in the center of my disbelief, because He simply wants me.

All that to say, God speaks very powerfully to me through books. So when I stumbled upon another book that would likely bring a challenge to my views, I was pretty excited about it. I started on it as soon as I could get a hold of it and was quite impressed by a lot of what I was reading. Several chapters into the book I came upon a quote that challenged the very core of who I believed God was and what He wanted from me.

I read it several times through, looking for some sort of loophole to change what it actually said, but to no avail. In paraphrase it said: “The core of Christianity is not simply that God loves us, but that God loves us so that His glory, His name, and His gospel will be spread to all people.” There is something about that that appeals to me. It helps me to explain why God sent His son to save me. He wanted everyone to see how amazing He was. That makes more sense to me. That is something I can take hold of. So on the surface it appeals to me, it catches my eye and confirms a belief I've had about God, that He wants to use me and that is why He sent Jesus.

HOWEVER, that is not where the issue stopped. Deeper down, something didn't feel right. There was something about it that challenged a deep core belief that I had. It challenged the belief that God did everything simply because of love. The belief that I didn't owe Him anything. As I wrestled with this idea, God took me back to the garden, back to His heart for creation.

When God created Adam and Eve it was for relationship. God walked with them, talked with them, and had perfect relationship with Him. That was it. There was nothing else that God made them for. He didn't make them to name the animals, He could have done that. He didn't create them to take care of the earth, He could have done that. He didn't create them to spread His glory, His name, and His gospel to the nations. They were all people and they KNEW Him in a perfect relationship. His purpose for creating them was simply relationship. There weren't any strings attached, His love was everything. They didn't even know the difference between good and evil, they didn't need to because they walked in perfect intimacy with Him. As soon as they decided to step out of that perfect intimacy and “become like god” they broke that perfect relationship. Their sin changed the course of history and affected everyone that has lived since, it had that power. But sin has never had the power to change who God is.

The God who created Adam and Eve for relationship is the same one that we talk about and write about today. Somehow we've accepted a God that needs us to pay Him back for what He's done for us, and ignored the God that just wants to walk in relationship.

One of the hardest things to fathom is that God would just send Jesus because He wants relationship with us. There has to be some catch, some ulterior motive for God's love. In a society where “FREE” means you have to read the fine print, it's hard to fathom life in the garden. But that is where God is calling us back to. He wants to take us back to His heart, back to relationship.

Perfection

I’ve figured life out. I have figured out the secret to being perfect. For years, I’ve had people telling me that I am a sinner and that I just need to not do drugs, or drink, or smoke, and then I’ll be fine. While yes, not doing those is a good thing, it’s not a solution, and really good behavior shouldn’t be our goal. Our goal should be perfection.

How can I say that? How can I say that perfection is even possible? What is perfection?

Perfection – (n) Freedom from fault or defect.

So am I saying that we can possibly have perfect behavior? Once again, behavior isn’t the end goal. Christianity is not a behavior improvement program. In one moment, we are made perfect. Post-salvation life is not a journey towards perfection. It is a journey with perfection.

In Colossians 1 Paul writes this:

21“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”

So because of the cross we are presented as holy, without blemish, and free from accusation in His sight. In other words, we are perfect in His sight. I have always pictured God looking at me and holding His hand over His eyes to cover up my blemishes, so that he only sees the good part of me. I know a lot of people that look at it that way. How is it possible that I bought into Satan’s lie that the God of the Universe would make Himself ignorant to my sins? It seems more reasonable that He would see me the way I really am. God sees us as perfect, as holy, without blemish, and free from accusation. That means we are perfect. We are holy. We are without blemish. We are free from accusation.

Maybe our behavior isn’t God’s focus. No longer are we judged by our behavior. We are perfect and blameless.

God isn’t interested in your behavior. God wants you. God’s life in you brings new behavior in your life, but it is never the goal. There comes a desire from God’s life to let Him live through you. It never needs to be you trying to cleanse yourself or to perfect yourself.

You are already perfect!

Life after DTS

For starters, my DTS was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. It was a time where God stretched me, grew me, pursued me. It was a time that I started to understand the importance of my relationship with Him. It was a time of healing, of freedom, and of incredible joy. I wouldn’t trade those four and a half months for anything. I know that that is exactly what God had planned for me after high school.

In the last couple weeks of DTS, my staff offered advice about the transition back home. I heard over and over that the transition was going to be the hardest part of DTS. I figured after some of the incredible stretching God did on outreach, transitioning home would be a breeze. I’d be home again with my family and friends, and the only difference would be that I was more in love with God than before.

I was pretty off on that assumption. I got home a little bit just over six months ago, and I can pretty easily say that this has been the hardest six months of my life. I had made the decision before DTS that I would take the full year off and start school in the fall. With a large majority of my friends off at college, and the rest in high school, I found myself with lots of time to myself. And for those of you that know me well, you know that that isn’t something I enjoy. I would much rather spend my time with other people.

I knew that God had something special for me in this time. I knew that there was something He wanted for me. My dad said something to me shortly after I came home. He said, “Ryan, I’ve been praying for you, and I know you have been lonely, but I feel like God is saying that this season is a really special time for you and Him.” I agreed with that wholeheartedly. I wanted to get started right away. What I didn’t realize is that it wasn’t just “Spend time with me alone, away from your friends, and you are going to see incredible growth.” It was more as if God was calling to me, “Lay down everything, let go of everything, pursue me. I’m enough.” I didn’t realize He was saying that to me. All I knew was that God had said that this season was for me and Him, and I was seeing absolutely nothing coming from it.

I felt like my quiet times were dry. I felt abandoned my Him at points. “God, I did this for you, and now you are just leaving me. I spent four and a half months of my life pursuing you, and now you aren’t going to pursue me. Where are you?” I found myself wrestling with obedience. On DTS, I learned that God genuinely wanted relationship with me. Now I was wrestling with the idea that God only wanted relationship with me so that I could do stuff for Him.

I kept looking around trying to find God, only to find that I had shut him off, because I felt like I was being taken advantage of. I’d try to open back up to Him, but something kept me back. Needless to say this was a pretty rough time for me. I still knew that God hadn’t left me, but it sure felt like it.

Now to the fun part. Over the last six months God has asked me to give some things up to Him. Some small, some big. But all of them were things that hindered my relationship with Him. Some I couldn’t give up and I asked Him to take them from me, expecting He wouldn’t. He did.

In the past week, God shook some things up that needed to be shaken, and I was able to let of some things that I needed to let go of. And as we broke through my last wall keeping Him out, He ran full speed and swept me up in His arms. I think that is about the only way I can describe it. In the past week, I have seen the past six months come together in an awesome way. “Oh, I see why you did that God, sorry I was shut you off.” “Oh, thank you for doing that, even though I was mad at you about it.”

I have fallen in love with God at a deeper level than I have ever seen in my life. I have had more joy in the last week, than I have had the whole time I’ve been back home. And rather than God saying “I told you so,” He said, “I love you. I’m so proud of you. You’re mine.”

Thank you God for who you are!