Real Faith Stories #72 Jamie Winship – “I may never see my family again”
Following are my random notes minus the stories from this You Tube clip above introducing Jamie Winship with the minutes such as (5:32) inserted for quicker referencing. My spiritual mentor introduced me to him over two years ago and similarly to Carole Ward just recently, Jamie has opened for me spiritually new doors, perspectives, insights, opportunities, & responsibilities. Enjoy a life changing video. merlin
I desired to be a policeman since 8th grade, met a recovery nurse at 17 after surgery introduced me to Christ, wanted to be a policeman like she was a nurse. 1.) as a WDC policeman, was never to talk religion, NEVER, not even a review process for the infraction; 2.) no where to go to find out how to share your faith, areas we’re not even trained in,
Carried a notebook, Acts my model : in time I learned Lord, 1.) what do you want me to know; and 2.) what do you want me to do? When, in a dead end, situation without precedent I learned, 1.) God still speaks & 2.) his word still cuts.. we (church) don’t believe this anymore…The more we pursue the Lord, the further he’ll take us… he’ll keep (5:32)raising our level of observing his presence in our midst , plus then, he walks us through our fear out to the other side of it, actually we do not become braver, we become less fearful, we become fearless, not this macho, but very calm,
Then the Lord takes us to the next level, because we’re afraid of everything all the time, most of our decisions as humans are all self-protection and self-promotion, Christians as well, we make decisions based on fear, risk assessment, counting the cost, ….. What do you want me to know, what do you want me to do?
(6:50) Question: Give me example: We had an abduction of a 3rd grader in early 80’s when a kid vanished, 2 hrs late on the trail, I told the father “we’re going to find him” not an accepted protocol. Drive away from scene 3 blocks pulled over & stopped. Thinking “What do I need to know & what shall I do?” Can You locate a kid? You are a God of mercy. What’s your probable cause for pulling this car over? Nope- not gonna work! Where did you get the idea to stop that car? I felt the presence of evil! A training officer said “trust your gut, trust your gut,” that’s how cops talk about it. Why would I just sit there and feel bad after the moment of opportunity passed? Definition of obedience in OT is to hear (listen) and respond. Hear O Israel, the Lord is one Lord! “It is not here is a list of rules,” that’s crazy, rather “hear & respond.” Basically, I’d asked the question and God responded, other times I sat on it, not perfect, Too often we get stuck in the listening mode, always receiving & getting fed, so when it’s time to exercise our muscles of faith, we end up just sitting there paralyzed…too busy looking at other persons and how God spoke to 13:00 them, rather than to us.. God doesn’t want us to compare ourselves to others, he speaks to us uniquely, it is all about worship and abiding, I can’t tell you what to know, but I can tell you how to know, the goal is not what to know, but rather how to know….
14:00 Jesus was not about formulas, but how do we know what to do! How did Jesus know to talk to the Samaritan woman? Why did you even go to her? How did He know what to say? “I say what the Father is saying, I see what the Father is doing… It is not how to do evangelism, the Four Laws, how did you even know to go (14:30) to her? I say what the Father is saying, I do what the father is doing, otherwise you’re just imitating whoever.. For example, a person is motivated/prompted to say something by the Lord, but when you hear it, the Spirit of God awakened or prompted your mind so that you heard instead what you needed to hear for the task at hand, …. (15:06) Where does a formula play in there? Not to be locked in to a formula which is false, actually it is the mystery of relationship, based on truth-telling…..
15:50 Question: How did you transition from being a police officer to your foreign assignments in Islamic countries? A walk with Christ is always a progression, and an ascension, every human has a biology of transcension, of looking up and out, all creation is this way, never gets to remain stagnant, stationary, made to move and grow, changing, and be transformed by the “renewing of our minds, then you’ll know the more excellent way”.. as I was practicing this as a policemen, I was progressing into higher levels of interactions, relationships, and getting promoted by being creative with Him, if you’re not creative, something is not right…
(16.49) Phone call from a magistrate to meet a gov official who asked me “how do you do what you do? Had files of every case I’d worked… how are you closing these cases, like this one for example? I don’t think you’ll like my strategy, we don’t care, we do like your results! “It involves my capacity of tapping into hearing God speak, and doing what God says in these different cases” and the guy said “yeah, I don’t like that.” “By their fruit they will know you… we can spend all day explaining to the world why we believe what we believe, and all that, but just do it, we just need to do it, let the world see it, like my nurse when I was 17 in recovery, she never explained anything to me, she just did it, she was it, her “being” informed her “doing” and that connected with me, for years…
(18:40) Question: Can you do this in a Muslim country? 1979. Are Muslims different than other humans? What I’m doing works with humans. Just because you think Muslims are different than you, that is already your mistake.. already your strategies are failing…. Agent spins a real time scenario, JW listening as he always does, “I have the mind of Christ, I have the Spirit of the Living God inside of me, so I’m listening inside the Trinity to the situation, not just me, and I’m using all my past police experiences and what God has taught me, … and so I explained what we’d do… and he says “you’re hired.” Offered package on the spot, that’s how desperate the world is for new ways of thinking about things! Instead of conforming to patterns of the world over and over again. And so that was the beginning of me thinking of employment overseas….
20:22 This is God inviting me into the next level of who I am, identity on a higher scale, with greater risk and opportunity… I will not sign a contract with you because that contract alone with you will destroy anything that would work, it cannot be attached to foreign policy… so I will take the challenge but no contractual relationship. I cannot serve two masters…. It took me three years to prepare the strategy ( Moses of OT gets strategy credit) and the bad guys hired me and put me in their university…. and my wife and I did this work all over the globe for 26 years.. Mission explained. (23:00) Model was “Attack & Extract” during which time I lost my capacity to just listen to God and have Him tell me what to do… I had progressed into an academic framework in my mind, I left my “heart” and went into my “head.” (Amazing analysis and we all fight this battle… Question though is how often until we learn??) Conflict emerged. Got sloppy. Spur of the moment reaction I broke the law of the country. Notified I would be given a 10 yr prison sentence. Fear emerged and consumed me and the 6 member, Once our positive imaginations becomes fear projecting – Self-protection and self-promotion producing an all-consuming anxiety, all on me to figure it out, (30:00) trial account, why am I deconstructing all this stuff, Jesus didn’t do that.. God, I feel this is all my mistake, God’s presence confirmed my suspicions… I broke their laws, insulting their god, I on the spot in my trial asked for God’s forgiveness… He did! Returned to “What do you want me to know, What do you want me to do?” Welcome back Son from the religion of Christianity, into abiding in Christ?
33:10 Does anyone want to speak to speak on his behalf?
38:00 “Listen, I’m doing this for you. When you open your mouth to these pupils, you are insulting them, and their feelings. And I know what you’re trying to say, but you better find another way of saying it..… That is the word of the Lord right to me. Your job is not to go around the world and insult people, and use shame and guilt to convert persons from one religious system to another, you love those people, and you self-empty for them, and you sacrifice for them, and you love them unconditionally, that’s what Jesus does for people. I never forgot that lesson. And the Lord let me walk through all that just to wake me up. What is my goal here? To prove I’m right and they are wrong or is it to be other-focused, self -emptying, sacrificial, loving unconditionally?….. This transforms people, It’s what that recovery nurse did for me while suffering thru my ridicule 5 days. Not built on power and control, built on love..
That’s all for now.
Go forth now and live amazed, continually asking “God, what do you want me to know about this task at hand?” And that being answered, “just what do you want me to do about it?” >>>>> merlin