Tag Archives: Asking

The Flow

July 24, 2025 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

At the Lord’s command the Israelites set out, and at his command they encamped. As long as the cloud stayed over the tabernacle, they remained in camp.
Numbers 9:18 (NIV)

Over ten years ago I had an idea. It was a great idea. The idea was for a book I would write. Everything flowed right out of my head and heart onto the page one day. It was such a great idea that I was really excited about it.

There it sat on the page for more than a decade. I’ve never forgotten it. I’ve even transferred all of the ideas from my journal to my computer. I thought about it often. About six months ago, things began to shift in life and at work. A couple of months ago a random networking contact introduced me to another random networking contact saying the two of us needed to meet. The person to whom I was introduced is a publisher. We connected on multiple levels in multiple ways, including being disciples of Jesus. Suddenly, everything aligned: circumstances, timing, and people.

I’m writing my book.

Along this earthly journey, as I have sought to follow God’s leading in my life, I’ve had to learn about flow. If I really believe what I say I believe, that God is authoring my Story and that there is a plan and purpose for my life, then I have to trust the Story. In turn, that means that sometimes the Story doesn’t fit the narrative that I would prefer if I were to write my Story myself. In fact, I have plenty of examples of trying to author the story myself the way I thought it should play out. That typically does not end well. Sometimes I have to wait. Sometimes it feels like nothing is happening. Sometimes things happen suddenly, unexpectedly, all at once like a flood.

In today’s chapter, the ancient Hebrews are learning about life with God in their midst. There was a cloud that covered God’s traveling tent temple. At night, the cloud glowed like fire. When the cloud lifted from the tent temple, they broke camp and followed. If it remained, they stayed put. Sometimes it stayed for a long time. Sometimes it lifted every day. Their job, was to go with the flow of when God was moving and where God was leading.

In the quiet this morning, I am reminded that God is God and He still operates the same way today as He did with the Hebrews. I don’t have a physical cloud, but I have God’s Spirit within me. I have prayer and discernment. If I am quiet. If I remain spiritually aware. If each day I am asking, seeking, and knocking at God’s door seeking God’s direction, then I will perceive and experience God’s flow.

I’ve discovered across my entire life journey that being a disciple of Jesus means learning to perceive, discern, and follow God’s flow.

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

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Chapter-a-Day

Asking and Seeking Daily

June 24, 2014 Tom Vander Well 5 Comments

…so David inquired of God: “Shall I go and attack the Philistines? Will you deliver them into my hands?” 1 Chronicles 14:10a (NIV)

Wendy and I spend a fair amount of time in conversation about our lives. We give consideration to where we’ve been, where we’re at, and where we’re going. In our prayers we ask for guidance and in our day we attempt to be mindful of seeking answers. We are sometimes surprised by the result.

In 2007, Wendy and I purchased my parents place on Lake of the Ozarks. It has been a special place for our family for many years. Wendy and I wanted to continue that legacy for the next generation. We prayed about building a new house on the property that would be large enough for larger gatherings of friends and family, and began making plans. By the spring of 2009 the plans were laid and we were ready to proceed with construction, but the great recession had hit the economy hard. The banks cinched up their purse strings. Timing and circumstance seemed to provide a resounding answer of “No” to our prayers for God’s blessing and provision for the project. Disappointed, we scuttled our plans and moved on.

Several months later, on a rainy October morning, I was driving to a meeting in Des Moines when my cell phone rang. It was a loan officer from New Century Bank in Belleville, Kansas and he said he’d received a loan proposal from our contractor at the lake. He liked what he saw, he said, and he was presenting it to the bank’s loan committee that afternoon. On the drive home from Des Moines that afternoon, my cell phone rang again. This time it was the bank President. “I’ve got your proposal for a construction loan to build a house on Lake of the Ozarks,” he said. “We’d like to loan you the money to make this happen!”

Not believing what I was hearing, I mentioned the recession, the plummeting housing prices, and all the other excuses we’d heard from banks who’d found the proposal for a second home too risky amidst the worst economy since the Great Depression. “What happens if we get this house built and the housing prices have fallen to the place that it’s not worth what we need it to be worth?” I asked the bank’s president.

“Well then,” he said without skipping a beat, “We’ll just have to live with each other for a while, won’t we?”

When I arrived home, I pulled up the website for this little bank in nowhere Kansas that I’d never heard of. I read:

The name New Century Bank is taken from the beginning of the first century AD from the event that changed the world, the birth of Jesus Christ. The star in our logo represents the Star of Bethlehem that announced the birth of Jesus. Faith gives us Life” What is faith?… It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see. (1) Conviction is Faith in the Present and Hope is Faith in the Future. Our Hope is for your life in the future and that of our Community. If we help you build your life our community will benefit. “It is through faith that a righteous person has life. Our purpose is to be an example of this Hope by standing for something greater than we are… by being a servant to you and the community. We can model our banking services with this purpose as well. Our emphasis is not on the banking product, but how it is delivered and how it benefits you. We offer hope for our customers through Faith Based Financial Counseling.

The loan papers were signed a few days later and construction began immediately.

One of the things that marked David as a “man after God’s own heart” was the fact that he was constantly mindful of God in his decisions and actions. In David’s day it was common for kings and rulers to claim themselves to be gods and make their people worship them. David was the antithesis of that. He lived by a different set of rules. While not perfect, David consistently humbled himself and sought God’s guidance and blessing.

Wendy and I have tried to emulate that spirit in our own lives. The story I’ve just shared is an example of how God can dramatically provide the answer we sought after. The truth is that often the answers don’t make themselves so readily apparent. Sometimes we are left waiting for an answer that never seems to come. Other times the answer is not at all what we wanted or wished for, and that creates intense internal struggles.

We still keep seeking. We still keep asking. We still keep trusting.

That’s what faith is all about.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 25

July 30, 2012 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

1346945421_625c115ff9 — from dnas2 via Flickr

O Lord, I give my life to you.
Psalm 25:1 (NLT)

I spent the past few mornings on the dock in conversation with my friend, Matthew. As is always the case with Matthew, the conversation meandered like a trail through the woods. We ducked in and out of different subjects and took turns leading. As I look back across the terrain of words that we traversed in our communication, it seems to me that there was a theme that rose out of the constant give and take which was this: the kingdom of God runs opposite of the kingdom of this world and we often miss the most obvious of differences to our detriment.

Perhaps that’s why David’s opening lyric in today’s Psalm jumped off the page at me. It is such a blunt statement of commitment: “I give my life to you.” How often do we approach God about what we expect God to give us?

“Give me safety.”
“Give me health.”
“Give me wealth.”
“Give me a spouse.”
“Give me a child.”
“Give me a job.”

Don’t get me wrong and hear what I am not saying. God makes it clear that He wants us to bring our requests to him. Jesus said, “Ask and you will receive.” I believe, however, that David understood an important principle of Kingdom economics. There is a relationship between giving and receiving. The more we give ourselves completely to God, the more capacity we have to receive the fullness of what He has for us. If we are miserly towards God with our heart, soul, spirit, body, and possessions – then we will be so full of ourselves and the stuff of this world as to have little or no capacity to receive anything God has to give us out of the fullness of His Kingdom.