Thin Spaces: Recognizing When God Breaks Through

By Jeff Jernigan PhD BCPC FAIS and Nancy Jernigan PhD LPF LPC

God is with us in our daily lives, and if we’re attuned to Him, we will experience His presence in powerful and profound ways. That’s an important reminder for all of us as followers of Christ, and that’s the message of this encouraging book from Jeff and Nancy Jernigan.”

—Jim Daly,

President, Focus on the Family

Hearing from God and noticing when he breaks through in our life is not a sub-point to life, but a supreme purpose of our life and faith walk with God.

Thin Spaces is a term from early Celtic Christianity more than 1,000 years ago describing those places where God breaks through into our lives in a personal encounter.

• This book is full of stories illustrating ways God breaks through into our lives.

• The concepts and illustrations are supported by scripture.

• Biblical stories are used to illustrate how God speaks to us, reveals his character, and teaches us his ways.

• The book guides the reader to understand how to recognize, test, and grow in their understanding of how and when God breaks through an ordinary life and the role this plays in restoration.

God’s deepest heart is for our restoration to him in relationship. Restoration brings healing, health, and hope as we grow in grasping the expansive love of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9798385012176

Jeff Jernigan PhD BCPC FAIS

Jeff Jernigan, PhD, BCPPC, FAIS Jeff is a Board-Certified Mental Health Professional, Fellow with The American Institute of Stress, Pastor, and Medical Missionary. He is ranked among the top one percent of mental wellness experts in the nation as well as a global thought leader for treating trauma and stress disorders in children and adults. Nancy Jernigan, PhD, LPF, LPC Nancy is an internationally recognized leader and educator known for leadership development and developing healthy teams in the midst of growth and change. A pastor, executive coach, leadership multiplication expert and teacher passionate about developing and multiplying leaders and teams. Jeff & Nancy are founders of the Hidden Value Group, and both serve on the board of Olive Branch International Inc. The two organizations deliver healthcare, education, leadership development, and family support responding to mass violence and disaster around the world. They serve and teach together as mental wellness experts treating trauma and stress disorders and helping organizations and groups all around the world bring healing, heath, and hope. They have three children and seven grandchildren.

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THIN

SPACES

RECOGNIZING WHEN GOD BREAKS THROUGH

JEFF JERNIGAN, PHD, BCPC, FAIS

NANCY JERNIGAN, PHD, LPF, LPC

Copyright © 2024 Jeff Jernigan, PhD; Nancy Jernigan, PhD.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

844-714-3454

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Author photo by Katie Fechner of KFechPhotography

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV Bible® (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 979-8-3850-1215-2 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-1216-9 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-1217-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023921399

WestBow Press rev. date: 1/15/2024

To Lt. Col. Daniel Jernigan,

son, husband, father, and marine; your journey is a part of ours

and a seed of inspiration behind these pages.

A better man cannot be found.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to genuinely thank the WestBow Press editorial, production, and marketing teams. This book was significantly enhanced through their editorial expertise, creativity, and vision. We are very grateful for your teamwork.

Thank you to the many friends and family members who are contained in these stories. Your influence and inspiration in our lives is included throughout these pages. A special thank you to both our CCV small group and Bible Study who prayed for this project, supported us throughout the process and are included in this book.

The lives of our parents have influenced us and are contained in these stories. We want to honor and acknowledge how our parents inspired us. Each in their own way they have impacted this book.

ENDORSEMENTS

God is with us in our daily lives, and if we’re attuned to Him, we will experience His presence in powerful and profound ways. That’s an important reminder for all of us as followers of Christ, and that’s the message of this encouraging book from Jeff and Nancy Jernigan.

Jim Daly,

President, Focus on the Family

A beautiful book that encourages the reader to look for and to listen to God and desire to encounter Him in the thin places. Jeff and Nancy share their hearts and their own personal journeys of thin spaces along the way. They desire to help you step into these thin spaces and experience your own unforgettable, life-altering God moments, in order to encourage and sustain you along your journey.

Kim Moeller,

National Christian Foundation, San Diego Area Director

As one of Jeff and Nancy’s pastors for many years, I know them as faithful servants of God with a love for their family, church, and community. That faithfulness and love form the foundation for Thin Spaces – a book that will help you to see with practical and personal clarity how to connect with God in every circumstance of life.

Tom Holladay

Saddleback Church, Purpose Driven Training, P.E.A.C.E Plan

DrivetimeDevotions.com

It’s often when we find and recognize our thin space that deep understanding comes from God. Jeff and Nancy taught me that sometimes our breakthroughs with God are found in the simplicity of life. A thin space is where heaven and earth seem to be closest. For me I find that what the Celtics taught over a thousand years ago about thin spaces is relevant in my pain and quiet surrender to God. You will love this book and it will help you draw closer to the Lord.

Jim Burns, PhD

President, HomeWord

Author of Have Serious Fun and Doing Life with Your Adult Children

Being close to God and feeling His presence is a place we all want to be. Over a thousand years ago, the Celtic Christians understood this concept well. They called it a thin place. Nancy and Jeff have laid out a pathway to help guide you to that ‘thin place’ today.

Greg Leith

CEO, Convene Corporation

www.convenenow.com

Jeff and Nancy bring out a unique approach in understanding how to recognize, test and grow in the ability to hear from God and the role this plays in our spiritual restoration. Recognizing how God breaks through our preconceived notions, our bias and stereotypes, and our uncertainty to make himself known to us is an art and discipline. God longs for a deep connection with every believer and this relationship brings wholeness of the soul.

Erik Rees

CEO, Jessie Rees Foundation

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 Role of the Holy Spirit

Chapter 2 Disciplines of Presence

Chapter 3 Connecting the Dots

Chapter 4 Listening to the Whispers

Chapter 5 Recognizing a Thin Space

Chapter 6 Signs, Wonders, and Miracles

Chapter 7 Finding Restoration

Chapter 8 Prayer

Chapter 9 Filters and Bias

Chapter 10 Doing Life Together

Chapter 11 Contentment

Chapter 12 When God Is Silent

Chapter 13 Resources

The Road to Wholeness

Mental Wellness

Hidden Shoals for Discontent

Stress Disorder Patterns

A Prayer of Surrender

Thin Spaces Prayers

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

Thin spaces are gifts from God. This gift of his presence in our lives is as relevant today as in the beginning of time. We unwrap and explore this gift in the chapters to follow. How does God communicate to us? Why do we miss the message at times? Is it our imagination or personal desires that are giving us impressions? When it seems God is silent, how should we understand the silence? Where can I find God when I need his guidance? Is there some kind of test to determine if what we sense is really from God? Does God really want a personal relationship with me? In more than forty years of ministry, we have been asked these questions over and over again by people just like us from all over the world. More importantly, we have struggled with these questions as well.

Thin spaces is a term from early Celtic Christianity more than a thousand years ago, describing those places where God breaks through into our lives in a personal encounter. Some ascribe thin space status to a particular inspirational location, while others view locale as wherever it happens. I first remember hearing the term used by Tim Bohlke, founder and director of Rogue Journey, a Harbor Ministries event for pastors and Christian businessmen who want to finish well.

Nancy and I have a lot of thin spaces stories to tell you in this book. Our journey through life and ministry together has covered forty-two countries in forty years, many of which were considered risk zones at the time. Our ministry of healing, health, and restoration of people, teams, and organizations has focused on finishing well. We help guide people to solutions in life that produce thinking, feeling, and acting in ways that create healthy physical, social, and spiritual well-being.

Another term you will find used occasionally is whispers. Nothing mystical here, just a great word picture of how the Holy Spirit often gets our attention. We teach people how to listen for the whispers in the sense of the conversation Elijah had with God when fleeing Jezebel’s vindictive wrath.

God did not speak in the storm, or the earthquake, or the fire.¹ He spoke in a low whisper, and Elijah heard it. It may even be a word spoken louder, as in the case of Isaiah instructing the people to listen to their teacher.² Breakthrough is a term most of us do not associate with personal encounters with God. Yet this is exactly what Isaiah was speaking about when he observed God was doing a new thing, bewildered a bit that no one seemed to perceive it even though it was breaking forth.³

The idea of whispered messages and supernatural breakthroughs may be off-putting to some. There was a time in my life this was certainly true for me. I am an engineer, pastor, hospital administrator, and board-certified mental health professional with a huge need for evidence-based insights due to a naturally skeptical nature. And then there was a breakthrough in my own life. Thin spaces have been misunderstood and ignored for years but nevertheless are still thin spaces.

The occasion was a middle-of-the-night need to move our platoon from one location to another immediately, with full packs and weapons. Already worn out and dehydrated, I was not doing well, falling behind and on the verge of collapse. The consequences of collapsing were unconscionable. At this point in my life, I was well churched and believed there was a God and Jesus was his Son but not much more. Crying out to God, I said, God, if you are real, please help me! The man behind me stepped up just off my left shoulder out of line of sight and helped lift my pack as we ran together.

When we arrived at our destination, I sought him out, or at least who I thought it was, and thanked him. He denied even getting close to me, describing his own struggles as nearly overwhelming. I asked around. Nobody helped me, some even saying they saw me running alone with no one around me. Befuddled, I chalked it up to the stress of the moment and walked away from the experience without so much as a thank you to anyone. It would be a number of years before I became a follower of Jesus Christ in the sense of a personal relationship and put the experience into new context. It would take longer to begin to recognize other thin spaces in my relationship with Christ and learning how to take ego out of evaluating authenticity. How do I know if this wasn’t just wishful imagination, bias, trauma-induced stress, or some other human factor? How do I test this experience to know it was valid and true? There are commonsense, practical, and replicable ways to test reality and draw your own conclusions.

In our ministry, we teach people how to listen to the whispers and recognize the thin spaces. Both continue to be part of our life and walk in Christ, some fitting into normal life almost unnoticed and some far more arresting, as you will see. We also have come to understand that God is constantly doing two things in our lives: deconstructing outworn ideas and convictions while at the same time creating new understanding and beliefs. Whispers and thin spaces are part of this process for everyone. Our world changes around us all the time as a function of history. Nothing stays the same in our lives, and we move forward with these changes as well. If we are not learning, transforming, maturing even as adults, it is less likely we will notice the whispers or recognize a thin space when they occur since we really are not looking for them or the changes they may bring. The problem of insensitivity is addressed from a very practical perspective in this book as well. Nancy likes to say, If you are doing the work God approves, life is an adventure! Here, she is to introduce herself.

As an ordained pastor, executive coach, master life coach, leadership development trainer and teacher, I am passionate about developing and multiplying leaders and teams at churches and nonprofit organizations. From a very young age, I had a passion to encourage and teach others. As early as the fifth grade, I would teach the neighbor children sitting in the basement using old desks rescued from a local school. Years later, while finalizing my bachelor of science degree in education and continuing my career in education and marketing, I felt a strong desire to surrender my career to God, confident I wanted my work to be guided by God, serving kingdom purposes. After spending some years at Christianity Today and then Focus on the Family and moving from Chicago to Southern California, I recall a very important breakthrough moment and an important thin space experience.

At midnight one evening, I was awakened by what I knew was God telling me to Go and leave a happy, contented life in Southern California and make the move with Focus on the Family to Colorado Springs, Colorado. I did not want to leave this newfound paradise (compared to Chicago) with year-round great weather, new friends, and sandy beaches for an unknown life in Colorado. So, at midnight, I called the one person who would pick up my call and not be mad about being awakened at this very late hour. My sister Cindy listened to me share the story of my encounter with God and immediately said to me, Great, I think this is where you are going to meet your husband. She went on to say, I agree with God, Nancy. Go to Colorado Springs! Still complaining, I did go, and I did meet my hero and best friend, Jeff. In due time, we fell in love and were married and have shared many adventures for many years now.

The scripture I kept on the top of my desk and looked at practically every day for years leading up to meeting my husband was And I will lead the blind by ways they do not know, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I do, and I will not forsake them⁴ (Isaiah 42:16 NIV). Little did I know this scripture would not only carry me through this unforeseen change but be an encouragement to myself and many others in times of stress, tension, and difficulty. It remains for me a beautiful description of how God carries us when our hearts, souls, and minds need the