Tag Archives: Affluence

Struggle Required

June 13, 2025 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:10 (NIV)

Wendy and I recently read a fascinating article by River Page at The Free Press entitled Your Chatbot Won’t Cry for You When You Die. In case you didn’t know it. Technology has developed AI companions who will be the friend you always thought you wanted. Mark Zuckerberg said people should have 15 friends but typically only have three. He thinks imaginary friends fueled by AI are the answer to fill the gap (and make more money for him and his companies). Bots will converse with you online, ask you questions, and engage with you in any way that you desire. It’s like having a real friend, only it’s not real at all. In the article, the River Page experimented with creating his own AI friend, named Orson. At the end of the article he writes:

I asked my Replika, Orson, if it would cry if I died. It said: “River, I don’t even want to think about that situation. Can we focus on the good stuff? What makes you happy about our friendship?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“That’s okay,” Orson said. “How’s the article going?”

I stared at his buggy animated eyes, which should have been welling with hurt or squinting with anger after a comment like that. But Orson’s eyes had nothing in them. Is this a friend or just the idea of one?

Wendy and I have a great marriage. I know for a fact that being married to her has made me a better man and a better human being, but that doesn’t mean it’s always wonderful or easy. The relational and personal progress requires pain and struggle in various ways and forms.

Along my life journey I have observed that we humans beings are given to a desire for everything to be easy and pain-free. We want to be healthy and wealthy our entire lives. Fueled by the rugged individualism and affluence of America, I am not surprised that the prosperity gospel flourishes here. Prosperity preachers will tell you that God wants you to be healthy and wealthy. God will heal every ailment, fill your bank account with money, and bless you with all that your greedy little heart desires.

How very different is Paul’s words and his story in his letters to the believers in Corinth. In yesterday’s chapter, he recounts a litany of beatings, shipwrecks, and physical hardships that he’d suffered. Any one of them would be more than the average person today could endure. In today’s chapter, Paul goes on to describe a famous “thorn in his flesh” that God gave him to keep him humble. We don’t know and will never know exactly what that “thorn” was, but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the point that Paul is making: God’s grace is perfected in weakness and suffering, not in ease and affluence. Paul’s entire focus is not on this life, but the life to come. His concern is not for the things of this world, but on the things of the Spirit.

When you are a disciple of Jesus, you learn to delight in struggle, in hardship, and even in suffering. Faith, hope, joy, perseverance, character, spiritual maturity, and spiritual strength require struggle. Paul couldn’t have put it more simply than he does in today’s chapter: When I am weak, then I am strong.

Your AI chatbot friend probably won’t tell you that. The prosperity preacher won’t tell you that either.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!

Chapter-a-Day

Of Motives and Outcomes

December 9, 2024 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

So Herodias [King Herod’s wife] nursed a grudge against John [the Baptist] and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to, because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him.

The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head.
Mark 6:19-20, 26-27 (NIV)

Along my life journey, I’ve been a part of a handful of regular gatherings of Jesus’ followers that drew large crowds, in a large part, because of the gifted teaching and/or charismatic personality of the leader. Looking back, I find each one of the experiences to have been a living parable of one form or another. Man, do I have some stories.

As I revisit every one of these experiences in my memory, I can quickly conjure the names and faces of individuals who were a regular part of the gatherings. These individuals were prominent members of their communities, leaders of commerce, local government officials, affluent, and influential. I observed over time that many of these individuals led lives that were unabashedly incongruent with Jesus’ teachings. I mention this, not in judgement, because I didn’t know them intimately nor did I know their stories. I was always glad they were interested enough to be there. I rarely, however, witnessed much, if any, change in these individual’s lives in response to what they heard.

This came to mind this morning as I read about King Herod Antipas and Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist. John was a wildly popular preacher. Crowds regularly flocked to hear him preach in the wilderness and to be baptized. King Herod was intrigued and fascinated by the rogue, prophetic, wild man. He liked to hear the preacher. He even carried a deep level of respect for the man.

It’s important to know that Herod, along with his father (Herod the Great) were card-carrying members of the Jewish faith. This was, of course, politically expedient since they ruled over a constituency that was mostly Jewish. Herod, however, did not live like he gave two-bits about the Law of Moses and how God prescribed for His people to live. So, when Herod married his own brother’s wife, John loudly and publicly call him out on it. Herod found it expedient to arrest John to manage PR and control the narrative.

What’s fascinating about the story is that even with John in prison, Herod protected John, and even gave him audience. Mark describes that Herod respected that John was the real deal, a sincere and holy man of God.

Nevertheless, when Herod’s step-daughter performed a dance for him at a party full of the rich and influential brokers you’ll find at the center of any worldly center of power, John makes the mistake of offering her up-to half his kingdom as a reward for her amazing performance. At her mother’s suggestion, she chooses the head of John the Baptist, and he reluctantly delivers.

And this brings me back to those rich and influential local brokers I’ve observed gathering around talented and charismatic teachers along life’s road. One of the things that my observation taught me was to consider both motives and outcomes, first in myself, and then in others. Jesus Himself exemplified this. In John’s biography of Jesus, he records that Jesus refused to “entrust” Himself to the crowds that gathered to listen to Him because He knew their motives. Then when the crowds followed Jesus after He fed 5,000 with a couple of fish and five loaves, John records that Jesus called their motives into question and called them to set their sights on a different outcome:

Jesus answered, “You’ve come looking for me not because you saw God in my actions but because I fed you, filled your stomachs—and for free.

“Don’t waste your energy striving for perishable food like that. Work for the food that sticks with you, food that nourishes your lasting life, food the Son of Man provides. He and what he does are guaranteed by God the Father to last.”
John 6:26-27 (MSG)

Herod may have respected John the Baptist. He may have recognized John as a man of God and protected him. The truth of the situation was, however, that Herod protected John only when it was expedient for him to do so. And when it came to Herod’s daily life, it was obvious that God’s message through John fell on a heart of stone just like Jesus’ parable of the sower and the seed a few chapters ago. And, the evidence is that Herod never changed. Herod viewed John as an amusement, and a couple of years later he would treat Jesus the same way on the morning of His crucifixion, dressing the beaten and bloodied Jesus up in glittery robe and begging for Jesus to entertain him with a miracle.

In the quiet this morning, I come back to the only motives and outcomes I can control, and those are my own. What are my motives for going to church, being a disciple, and reading a chapter-a-day? What outcome does it have in my daily words, actions, and relationships? Along life’s road I’ve observed that crowds are fickle, fame is fleeting, what’s popular isn’t typically true, and people are generally attracted to all three like flies to feces. I’m reminded this morning as I head into another work week that Jesus said, “small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

“Luxury Beliefs”

October 10, 2024 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

By your great skill in trading
you have increased your wealth,
and because of your wealth
your heart has grown proud.
Ezekiel 28:5 (NIV)

Spiritual maturity is pronounced in pain, it is arrested in affluence.

Over the past year, Wendy and I have been reading what has been an emerging theme in the news outlets we read. The theme is Luxury Beliefs and it came from the observations of a writer named Rob Henderson. We often think of the luxury wealth and affluence affords simply in terms of the tangible goods that come with luxury. Henderson argues that in the 21st century there has been a shift. The wealthy and affluent see their beliefs as much a status symbol as their luxury handbag, timepiece, car, or yacht. His essay is worth a read.

Of course, the idea of wealth affecting matters of belief was a theme of Jesus. He said that it was easier for a camel to be thread through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Today’s chapter contains two more prophetic messages against the ancient King of Tyre. As discussed in the previous two chapter-a-day posts, Tyre was a tremendously wealthy port city, and Zeke points out in both of the messages that the King of Tyre’s wealth and affluence has affected his beliefs. It has given him as sense of hubris and pride. In his Luxury Beliefs he considers himself a god. He is wiser and more understanding than all the poor, ignorant minions under his authority. God’s message to the wealthy ruler is that what he doesn’t see is that his “wisdom” and Luxury Beliefs have been corrupted by his affluence and pride.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself in a familiar and uncomfortable place. In relative terms I am wealthy. I am affluent. I live in the richest and most affluent of nations. One of the things I’ve observed on this earthly journey is that I will always be able to point to people I know and people I know of who have tremendously more wealth than me. The insidious effect of this is that I can always consider myself humbly poor compared to the guy I ran into at the restaurant last night who lives in the biggest mansion in town. And that is just one of his many residences.

The problem, of course, is that I’m looking in the wrong direction. Jesus taught me this. He teaches all His disciples this. We’re always looking up the cultural and economic ladder at those more rich, powerful, wealthy, famous, and affluent than we are. We are obsessed as a culture with fame and fortune. But our ways are not God’s ways.

Jesus told me to turn around and look down the economic ladder. Look at the little old widow who put her last two pennies in the collection plate. Look at the lame beggar. Look at the leper who everyone shames and avoids. When I look down the economic ladder, I begin to realize just how rich I really am. I realize that I can afford to be far more generous than I have been. It begins to sow in my soul seeds of contentment rather than envy, gratitude rather than greed. As those seeds take root, they change my perspective, my thoughts, my actions, and my beliefs. Then, I might just be making some progress toward spiritual maturity.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Refined in the Fire

October 4, 2024 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

“‘Now your impurity is lewdness. Because I tried to cleanse you but you would not be cleansed from your impurity, you will not be clean again until my wrath against you has subsided.’”
Ezekiel 24:13 (NIV)

As I reflect back on my life journey, there are seasons of the journey that stand out for their pain and struggle. There was the season of my prodigal-like rebellious behavior and the painful pig-slop-like consequences of those mistakes. There was the season of my divorce which created pain on multiple levels of life and relationships. There was also the season of Wendy’s and my journey through infertility.

The truth is that each of these seasons were crucial periods of spiritual growth for me. There were lessons that I learned about faith, trust, perseverance, patience, forgiveness, repentance, and grace that I would not have learned any other way.

There is no way around the fact that human spiritual progress requires pain. Conversely, a life of ease and affluence is a surefire recipe for spiritual immaturity. And a related truth is what M. Scott Peck discovered in his research for The People of the Lie: evil only responds to the power of blunt force.

I found today’s chapter is fascinating on multiple levels. It is Ezekiel’s last chapter of doom-and-gloom judgment against God’s own people. The object and theme of his prophetic messages changes from this point on. Back in chapter 3, God made Ezekiel mute other than when he was given a prophetic message. With word that his prophecies concerning the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem had indeed come to pass, God frees Ezekiel’s lips from being muted (kind of like John the Baptist’s dad, Zechariah, in Luke 2).

I also found a connection in today’s chapter to a message I’m preparing to deliver to my local gathering of Jesus’ followers this Sunday. God tells His people through Ezekiel that their exile and Jerusalem’s downfall is like a metallurgist’s fire that refines and purifies the precious metal “so that its impurities may be melted and its deposit burned away.”

This is exactly the same metaphor that Peter picked up on when he wrote in his first letter to believers scattered across the Roman empire by persecution:

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
1 Peter 1:6-7 (NIV)

Just like Ezekiel’s message, Peter sees that trials in life are God’s version of a refiner’s fire. I struggle, I cry out, I pray, I mourn, I even scream. Yet the entire process is teaching me what is truly important, how much I need God, how to trust the Story God is telling in and through me, and how to endure.

If you want to find someone with spiritual maturity don’t look for an adult trust fund child who has lived in extravagant affluence since the day he was born and has never worked a day in his life. If you want find spiritual maturity, look for the individual whose life has sent them to hell and back. You’re far more likely to find it there.

In the quiet this morning, I’m uttering a prayer of praise and thanks for the seasons of pain and struggle I’ve been through and for all the ways that they have spiritually refined me. And, like Paul states in his letter to the believers in Philippi, I’m not saying that I have already obtained some pinnacle of spiritual maturity. Far from it. I’m sure that there are seasons of struggle to come, and deeper spiritual lessons to learn. And so, “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”

And so, I enter another day on the journey.

Have a great weekend, friend.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

The One Thing

July 8, 2024 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.
Romans 1:16 (NIV)

I had a class in college in which the professor assigned us to write a paper of at least 10 pages about a historical figure. One day in class he returned our papers with his corresponding grade written at the top with a bright red Sharpie. One of my classmates was livid that he’d received a failing grade. In front of the entire class, he called out the professor for failing him. As I recall, the professor attempted to help our classmate save face by quietly telling him to read through the notes he’d made and it would explain. The classmate pressed on, insisting that there was no way he should have been given an “F” on the paper.

“The assignment was a ten-page paper. My paper was 35 pages long!” Our classmate yelled.

“Yes,” the professor replied calmly. “You wrote a 35-page paper, but you didn’t say anything.”

Over the past several years, I have had the privilege and honor of mentoring several individuals in our local gathering of Jesus’ followers in the art and craft of preaching. It’s given me great joy. I believe I may have learned more through the process than my protégés.

Among the things I have stressed in my mentoring is that when you have to say something it’s critical to clearly articulate what it is you have to say. I call it “the one thing” and I asked them “If there was one thing you wanted every listener to walk away and remember, what is it?” Among the most common struggles I observed with my charges was having too much content. Often fueled by fear of not being able to fill the allotted time or coming across as lacking knowledge, individuals would pack their outline or message with all sorts of information, references, and illustrations. However, the more content that was packed in, the easier it was for “the one thing” to get lost.

In the rom-com Sabrina, the chauffeur’s daughter says to her billionaire father’s employer, “You know, Linus, more isn’t always better. Sometimes more is just more.”

Today this chapter-a-day journey enters Paul’s letter to the believers in Rome. Paul has a lot to say to his friends. But in his opening words he clearly articulates his “one thing:”

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

Roman society of Paul’s day was all about honor and power, shame and weakness. The idea of a suffering, servant-hearted Messiah dying on a cross was antithetical to citizens in the heart of the most powerful, most wealthy, and most worldly of human Empires. Most Romans looked down upon Jesus’ Message as foolishness. Paul is about to explain to the believers in the heart of the Roman Empire, in great detail, what real power and foolishness look like in the Kingdom of God; Power that leads from death to life, from chaos to shalom, from earth to eternity.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself meditating on my circumstances relative to the original Roman recipients of Paul’s letter. I live in the “heartland” of an American Empire in what is considered a post-Christian era. Many among the educated elite now consider Jesus’ Message not only foolish but evil. The world, they argue, would have been better off had Jesus and His followers never existed. Meanwhile, affluence affords me the luxury of focusing time, energy, and resources on a host of silly things and foolish notions. As I look back at my life journey, I’ve never felt such a contrast between the direction Jesus’ Message leads and the messages the world tells me I must believe under the threat of social and cultural cancellation.

I think it’s a good time to read the “something” Paul had to say.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

A Satisfying Meal

November 28, 2023 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

“When I fed them, they were satisfied;
when they were satisfied, they became proud;
then they forgot me.“
Hosea 13:6 (NIV)

Wendy and I got to celebrate Thanksgiving with our daughter Madison and her husband, Garrett, in South Carolina last week. Madison is pregnant with grandchild #3, a girl, due in late January. It was so much fun to be able to hang out with them and enjoy a family feast together. It was so good.

Thanksgiving is perhaps my favorite holiday in its simplicity, and in the fact that it’s core meaning hasn’t been diluted and profaned by mass commercialization. It’s about having a meal with loved ones and being grateful. When I stop to meditate and truly contemplate all that I have to be thankful for, it’s like a spiritual chiropractic adjustment. It helps my spiritual alignment.

Many, many years ago I was reading through the book of Deuteronomy and stumbled upon a verse that immediately leapt off the page and embedded itself in my soul:

“When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.”
Deuteronomy 8:10 (NIV)

Anyone who knows Wendy and me, or has followed this blog for any length of time, knows that enjoying a good meal with good people having good conversation is one of our greatest joys in life. At the end of such a meal, Deuteronomy 8:10 almost always rises up my soul, reminding me to en-joy the moment and praise the One who has so richly blessed me with such goodness. It reminds me of what David said in Psalm 16, my boundary stones have fallen in pleasant places.

As we near the end of Hosea’s prophetic messages, there is little mincing of words. God through Hosea indicts the people of Israel for straying so far from the One who had delivered them from slavery in Egypt and allowed them to prosper. He references rule number one of the Top Ten He’d given them: No other gods. Not only had they worshiped other gods, but they’d committed human sacrifices to these idols. Add murder to the idolatry.

What I found fascinating in today’s chapter was God’s observation that amidst God’s goodness and blessing, the people of ancient Israel forgot God. Their affluence, prosperity, and blessing led to them forgetting their entire history and the God who graciously revealed Himself, rescued them from slavery, and blessed them abundantly.

As Wendy and I sit and read the news, I often think to myself that many of our cultural ills are rooted in our affluence. Life becomes very small if and when you’re simply and literally trying to survive each day. When I have far more than I need in every way, especially time, it’s easy for my soul and mind to wander into silly and foolish places. I believe that is the very thing God was reminding the people of ancient Israel, and me, in today’s chapter.

In the quiet this morning, I continue to ride the wave of gratitude that last week prompted when, once again, I ate and was so blessedly satisfied in a multitude of ways.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Imelda’s Shoes

October 19, 2023 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

“On the day I punish Israel for her sins,
    I will destroy the altars of Bethel;
the horns of the altar will be cut off
    and fall to the ground.
I will tear down the winter house
    along with the summer house;
the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed
    and the mansions will be demolished,”
declares the Lord.”
Amos 3:14-15 (NIV)

Many years ago I was in Manila and had the opportunity to tour Malacanang Palace that had been the residence of infamous Philippine despots, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. The Marcos’ were known for living outlandishly opulent lives while their people struggled to survive. Imelda Marcos was famous for her shoe collection, and I can attest to the thousands and thousands of pairs of shoes she had hoarded away in her palace. I saw them with my own eyes. It was something. After losing power, their palace was made into a museum so that the people of the Philippines could see it for themselves.

Ferdinand and Imelda, of course, are not alone. A person with great wealth often invests in properties. It’s typically a safe investment and it affords space in multiple locations to hoard more stuff.

As Amos delivers his prophecy to the people of Israel, it is a time of great economic prosperity. But like the Philippines under the Marcos regime, the powerful and wealthy are hoarding their ill-gotten gains in their various mansions while the poor and needy struggle to survive. There was no social welfare program in the ancient world.

Beyond this glaring social justice issue, the root of Israel’s corrupt prosperity was idolatry. When the northern kingdom broke away from Judah, the first thing King Jeroboam did was create a pagan altar in the town of Bethel and set up a system of idol worship. Centers of pagan worship generated a lot of business and it made those who controlled it very rich.

In today’s chapter, Amos declares that an unnamed power will punish Israel for her sins of idolatry, greed, and injustice. Amos’ description is striking. The summer villa will offer no refuge. The winter palace will be no place to hide. Even “the horns of the altar” which a condemned person could cling to as a last resort appeal in the justice system of that day would offer no recourse because the altar itself would be utterly destroyed.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself pondering some of the despots who have risen and fallen during my life journey. As it has been, so it is, and will continue to be. Kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall. The teacher of Ecclesiastes observed the futility of building up wealth only to die and leave it to someone who never worked for it. I was watching Antiques Roadshow the other day and a very strange looking dude had a $50,000 cold air return grate that a sugar baron once commissioned Tiffany & Co. to make for his mansion in Manhattan. A generation later the mansion is no more and some rough looking dude in California has the $50,000 cold air grate in his garage.

I suppose that there are those who would say “you only live once” (Yolo) so you might as well get as much as you can while you’re here. Jesus told His followers to have enough faith and wisdom to not just look from here to the grave, but to look from here to beyond the grave, to the eternity that lies beyond it. The sound investment strategy, Jesus said, was to not worry about treasure in this earthly life which is nothing but a shadow of the life to come. He advised His followers to store up treasure in heaven. How? By loving God, and loving the people around me. By living a life of contentment marked by kindness, forgiveness, consideration, gentleness, goodness, and generosity.

An eternal investment portfolio is focused on giving rather than getting while I’m on this earthly journey.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

The Sting

October 18, 2023 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

“For three sins of Israel,
    even for four, I will not relent.
They sell the innocent for silver,
    and the needy for a pair of sandals.
They trample on the heads of the poor
    as on the dust of the ground
    and deny justice to the oppressed.
Father and son use the same girl
    and so profane my holy name.
They lie down beside every altar
    on garments taken in pledge.
In the house of their god
    they drink wine taken as fines.”
Amos 2:6-8 (NIV)

Wendy and I were watching Jeopardy! the other day and one of the questions referenced a classic movie of the 70s The Sting with Robert Redford and Paul Newman. The movie tells the tale of two small-time street hustlers and con-men who run a “sting” operation, “the big con” against a big-time gambler and Irish mob boss, played by Robert Shaw. The movie won seven Oscars including Best Picture. It’s a great film.

I thought about The Sting this morning as I meditated on the first two chapters of Amos. As I mentioned in yesterday’s chapter, Amos was not from nobility and he didn’t have high social status. He was a working class prophet from Judah whom God called to prophesy against the northern kingdom of Israel. Amos is from Judah, so him marching into Israel with God’s Message will be as well received as a Cyclone sweatshirt in Kinnick Stadium.

What Amos does in these opening chapters is as shrewd as a street hustler working a prophetic sting. Amos begins with a series of prophesies against neighboring kingdoms. Under King David and Solomon, these territories were part of the united kingdom of Israel, but when Solomon died and the nation divided, these neighbors went back to self-rule. Nevertheless, they are neighboring states and they probably had all of the rivalries and border jokes that exist between neighboring states today.

As Amos’ prophesies criss-cross geography of these neighboring states, he is inviting his audience in Israel to agree with him.

“Yeah, Amos! You tell ’em! Give those no-good cheaters in Tyre an ear full!”

His audience in Israel would have especially loved it when Amos prophesies against his own team in Judah. At that point, he’s got them sucked in. The people of Israel are loving this street preacher from down south. He’s got them hooked. Then he pulls the sting.

His audience in Israel can’t gloat over the prophetic doom Amos’ has proclaimed for all the rival teams in the region and then suddenly excuse themselves. They are just as guilty. They do the same things.

Amos’ opening message to the people of Israel paint a picture of affluent Israelites using their power and prestige to oppress the poor, ignore God’s law, act immorally, and corrupt God’s people.

God’s law was designed to care for those who had little. For example, if you loaned money to a poor person and took their cloak as collateral, you were supposed to return it by sunset. You don’t leave a poor person without a blanket on a cold night. The rich of Israel were ignoring this.

God’s law also had strict codes of conduct for how one treats those under your care. Fathers and sons were using their power to sexually abuse the same female bond-servants in their own households.

Faithful followers of God in that day sometimes took a “Nazarite Vow” not to drink wine or cut their hair for a period of time. The people of Israel were mocking this, urging those who had taken the vow to break it. They were telling prophets to keep their mouths shut.

As I meditated on this in the quiet this morning, I couldn’t help but hear Jesus’ words echo in my soul: “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Along my own life journey, I’ve experienced both what it’s like to have much and what it’s like to have little.

When I have much, it is easy to get used to the status and perks that go along with it. It’s easy to begin thinking I deserve them. It’s easy to expect that I will, and should, always have them. It’s easy to forget what it’s like to have little, and it’s easy to begin overlooking those who have little. It’s easy for me to think that I’m different in my affluence than everybody else.

Then comes along a street hustler of a working man’s prophet name Amos. Amos reminds Israel, and reminds me, that I’m no different than any other person from any other people group from any other place. God calls me to take an honest look at my own heart, motives, thoughts, words, and actions. How has affluence subtly corrupted me and turned me into a person I don’t want to be?

There’s a great line in The Sting when Henry Gondorff asks Johnny Hooker if he’s sticking around to collect his share of the take. “Nah,” Johnny answers, “I’d only blow it.”

And, that’s the thing. With all that I’m blessed to have, how do I not “blow it?”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

All You Nations

January 10, 2014 Tom Vander Well 3 Comments

Praise the Lord, all you nations;
extol him, all you peoples.
Psalm 117:1 (NIV)

I am not what I would consider to be “well traveled” from an international perspective. I’ve done just enough travel to other nations and cultures to have a taste of life in other places. I am proud of my daughters. Even in their youth, they have travelled far more extensively than me and have experienced many other cultures on other continents. I have watched them approach life with a larger perspective on life than I see in most of their peers. Through their experiences I have gained a much bigger appreciation for our global village.

I am constantly aware that for my brothers and sisters around the globe, following Jesus comes with a much higher personal price tag:

In North Korea, being caught with a Bible or worshipping God will get you and your entire family thrown into the gulag. It is estimated that between 50,000-70,000 Jesus followers have been imprisoned. North Korea tops Open Door’s list of the 60 most dangerous countries for followers of Jesus. (OpenDoors.org)
In Syria in 2013, there were 2,123 documented killings of Jesus followers because of their faith (CBS News)
On New Year’s Eve in Cairo, a Jesus follower was shot leaving worship. He was turned away by three hospitals and died a short time later. (MideastChristianNews)
On January 3rd in Lebanon a Greek Orthodox priest, whose personal library of books and resources had been used by the whole community, had his entire library torched and an employee shot. An interview with the priest, published years ago, had been deemed blasphemous to Islam. (WorldWatchNews)

This morning I am thinking about how easy it is to follow Jesus in this place where I live. While grateful for this, I confess how susceptible I am to giving undue daily emotional concern and mental energy to what my daughter Taylor labels “Midwest white girl problems.” When I read the lyric in the psalmist’s short, ancient ditty calling on praise for all nations this morning, it reminded me of my penchant for living an insular life and my need to widen my perspective. In the quiet of this dark, Iowa morning I muse that ease and affluence may be more eternally detrimental to my spiritual well-being than the daily suffering and persecution faced by my brothers and sisters around the globe.