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.”

We have suffered these past couple months from a few setbacks that we’re certain most of you have faced in your life journey and yet, we’re not giving up. We know God is in this and with us.

While praying and inviting God to guide and direct us, He showed us an incredible story in the scriptures, a parable, that Jesus told about a persistent woman, a dear heart that would not give up her asking. It’s found in Luke 18:1-8 and we’re sharing it from The Message version of the Bible…

1 Jesus told them a story showing that it was necessary for them to pray consistently and never quit. 2 He said, “There was once a judge in some city who never gave God a thought and cared nothing for people. 3 A widow in that city kept after him: ‘My rights are being violated. Protect me!’

4 He never gave her the time of day. But after this went on and on he said to himself, ‘I care nothing what God thinks, even less what people think. 5 But because this widow won’t quit badgering me, I’d better do something and see that she gets justice-otherwise I’m going to end up beaten black and blue by her pounding.’ ”

6 Then the Master said, “Do you hear what that judge, corrupt as he is, is saying? 7 So what makes you think God won’t step in and work justice for his chosen people, who continue to cry out for help? Won’t he stick up for them? 8 I assure you, he will. He will not drag his feet. But how much of that kind of persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when he returns?”

Isn’t that amazing!? Why would that story be tucked in the pages of the teachings of Christ? It seems to be an encouragement to not give up.   In another story, located early in the Old Testament (Genesis 32), Jacob fights for a blessing and is renamed Israel because he won’t let go and won’t give up until he is given the blessing from his wrestling partner.

In another story in the Gospels, four friends tear off the roof of a house where Jesus was teaching in order to lower their crippled friend in front of the Messiah–all in hopes that Jesus would heal their friend.

These are just a few of the stories contained in the Bible that in some shape or fashion all share the same sentiments of people who have both hurting and hopeful hearts… hearts desiring for God to move and for God to act on their behalf.  I confess, Robin and I are two of these hurting and hopeful hearts.

These past months have been hard and it’s been difficult at times to see and hear all that God is doing in us and with us. We love the life and freedom that we are coming to know and that others are sharing in with us, but at times it isn’t easy. Crying out to God, wrestling with Him for direction and wading through the hard things to get to Him aren’t fun, but they are good.  For God to provide for us and resource us with friends and allies, finances and direction and protection that guards us at significant times from the enemy is all wound together in the day to day.  I’m learning that my role in all of this has been to not give up seeking and pursuing God.

Persevering in and through trials is seldom fun and yet James 1 invites us to consider it pure joy when we encounter them.  It goes to show that long before Jimmy V. uttered the phrase “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up”, hearts have been championing the phrase as an expression and declaration of a heart that is both hurting yet hopeful.

Whatever it is you are challenged with, struggling through or downright gettin’ hammered by –Don’t Give Up! He is with you every step of the way…

This past weekend I was invited to do a Search and Rescue Briefing with friends and allies in the western part of NC.  I love guiding folks through the Larger Story their story is in and connecting with those hearts wanting to connect to God’s.

The plan was meet with several couples on Saturday night for dessert and conversation around Search and Rescue then step into Sunday morning for two messages; part one of the morning was with the combined adult Sunday school classes then step into the worship service for part two.  Now I have had many encounters, run-ins, quiet moments, conversations, interruptions and disruptions from the One who loves me most… and I have been on the receiving end of countless small and large gifts from a Father who seems to take great joy in either dropping gifts in my lap or putting them in my path to stumble upon.  I believe He loves sneaking around and giving gifts, the kind that if we’ll open them will fill our hearts with both Love and Life.  The trick is to catch Him in the act.

So it’s Sunday morning, the church has been through the welcome moments, the announcements and now we are singing.  I’m the guest speaker and the only thing I’m certain of is the notes in my hand.  The voices sound wonderful and the music is an invitation to shed some of the weight of the world and I’m up next on the morning schedule.  The music transitions to the next song and the worship leader says a few encouraging things and then it arrives, right in the middle of church, right in the center of my lap.  The Father drops a present with my name on it just for me.

Three years ago I started writing a book.  It was, and is a wonderful part of my life journey with God and He and I met over many cups of coffee and in many locations to pull the book together.  There were dozens of moments when I would push away from the keys of the computer or the times before I would lock down in my office to write another entry that I would take a long walk in the woods, well actually it was me, my dog, my IPod and my God that often, pre and post writing, hit the trail together.  There was one song that I would play more than any other, even push repeat to hear it over and over again in those woods.  If there was a theme song to Search and Rescue, the Grammy would go to this one.

Back to church… I’m standing there, in the front row, in the transition to the next song and I unwrap my gift, it arrived and was unwrapped the very second I recognized the next song.  In the eyes of my heart, I believe the Father was standing next to Jesus and nudges him with an elbow… “Watch this, this is going to be soooo good, Michael is going to love this.”  Sure enough, He was right, I absolutely did!  In that moment with the song starting its first words, God whispered to me, “I see you and I made you for this moment your about to share, remember our walks?  Go tell them what you’ve discovered, what we have shared.”  Later that Sunday afternoon, when all the folks were gone and the last hand shake was exchanged and I was on my drive home, the Father and I talked about the morning and I told Him how wild He is and how much I loved my present… He told me (again) how much he loves me.

I just love it when I catch God sneaking around in my life.