Your word is a lamp for my feet,
a light on my path.
Psalm 119:105 (NIV)
God’s Message is not a high-beam that reveals the road ahead.
It is a foot-lamp that helps you manage the next step wisely.
Tag Archives: Choices
Steering Out of Unhealthy Ruts in Life’s Road
Return to your rest, my soul,
for the Lord has been good to you.
Psalm 116:7 (NIV)
There is an ebb and flow to life. Things cycle. Relationships repeat familiar refrains. We often wander thoughtlessly from day to day, then wake from a daydream to realize that we are in the same place we’ve been before. If you’ve noticed, our life journeys follow patterns of our own unconscious making. Like tires that slip easily into the well worn ruts of a dirt road, we slip into well worn patterns of thought and behavior.
Over the past few days I’ve found myself in an emotional valley. I recognize this place. I’ve been here many times before. I’ve come to know that the depth of winter is a difficult seasonal stretch of the journey for me. Short, gray days give way to long, dark nights. The holiday hoopla is over and with it comes a certain physical, emotional and relational hangover. My subconscious links familiar sensory stimuli to painful memories of seasons past. With my guard down, anticipation for the year ahead is lined with an uncertainty that easily lends itself to anxiety and fear. Ugh. Back in the rut.
I ran into the above verse this morning and I heard in it the whisper of the Spirit calling gently to my soul. Return to the rest God has for me in healthy paths and patterns. I have learned from experience that the first step in progressing out of unprofitable emotional or behavioral ruts is to recognize that I’m in it. Once aware of the situation, it takes a conscious resolve to steer out of the rut, which may require an initial jolt of personal effort and energy:
- Replace: Combat negative thoughts with positive affirmations.
- Replenish: Do one tangible thing each day to show care for myself.
- Refresh: Do something loving and unexpected for someone else.
- Relate: Make time with friends and family who will encourage and fill my life and love tank.
- Return: to familiar, healthy patterns and paths that have led to good places in the past.
- Remind: myself daily. Without conscious attention, I easily slip back into mindless, unhealthy ruts.
- Repeat: There are cycles and patterns to life. Healthy, positive ruts will not made by doing things once, but many times over and over and over again.
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A Mysterious Tension: Personal Initiative and Divine Timing
As surely as the Lord lives,” [David] said, “the Lord himself will strike [Saul], or his time will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish. But the Lord forbid that I should lay a hand on the Lord’s anointed. 1 Samuel 26:10-11a (NIV)
Last week I shared a sliver of the story of how I began working for the company of which I am now a partner owner. It happened in the summer of 1994. I had been working for a parachurch ministry for a year, and had been raising financial support from friends and family to do so. The agreement I had with my employer had been that I would raise financial support for one year. It had been a good year in many regards and I enjoyed what I was doing, but as the end of that year drew closer my employer remained silent regarding the plan for what was going to happen next.
Months before the end of our one year agreement I began to ask my employer for a plan. I even offered to continue raising support if we could sketch out an agreement to reduce the amount I had to raise over a period of time. The answer I received multiple times was “I’ll put it on the board agenda for next month.” After the board meeting I would hear “We didn’t get to it. We’ll talk about it next month.” Finally, my year ended and I still had no answer from my employer. I felt a responsibility to my financial supporters who had faithfully sent me money that year to support me and the ministry I worked for. Many supporters had asked me about it, but I had nothing to tell them because my employer refused to talk to me about a compensation plan.
Suddenly, I felt a stirring inside me. While I wasn’t unhappy with my job and hadn’t really considered another job change, I realized that I could not trust my employer. There was a principle involved here that I needed to heed as it wasn’t just about my employers integrity, but also about my own. I had asked my supporters for a year commitment and the year was over. I felt dishonest asking them to continue their support. The problem was, I had a family with two small children and no earthly idea what I was going to do. I had no job prospects. I didn’t even have a resume put together.
Nevertheless, I knew in my heart that I had to make a move. One morning just after the one year anniversary passed, I began calling my financial supporters and telling them not to bother sending another check. On the list of supporters was my old employer and mentor.
“What are you going to do?” he asked me on the phone.
“I don’t know,” I answered, then explained my reasoning. I shared that I felt I couldn’t in good conscience ask my supporters to extend their commitment when my current employer wouldn’t even talk to me about extending his. I admitted that I had no plan and no job prospects.
“Are you really going to leave? Have you told your employer?” my friend and mentor asked.
“I haven’t said anything yet, but I really think I’m going to leave,” I answered.
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Make a firm decision by noon and call me back,” he said abruptly. When I called him back an hour later to let him know I had decided to leave he said, “Meet me at 2:00 at Village Inn.”
We met that afternoon and he offered me a job. Within a few hours of deciding to leave, I had another job. Of course, my old mentor made a step of faith in asking me to join his consulting firm, but he also felt the divine timing of events. He did not have enough work to pay me much and had to trust that there would be new projects coming that he couldn’t see. The new opportunity was not a slam dunk or a sure thing by any stretch of the imagination. I was leaving a tenuous position to an even more tenuous position, but it was the right timing and I knew it in my soul. As I drove home that day, and I pulled into the driveway I heard Holy Spirit whisper clearly in my soul:
“Take this job and stick with it. You will be blessed.”
I took the job, stuck with it, and have been immensely blessed. That was 20 years ago next summer.
Along life’s road I have found a mysterious tension between taking personal initiative and waiting on divine timing. I even struggle to define it well, yet I can look back and see how certain circumstances and life decisions happened at what I know to be a divinely appointed moment in time. Had I attempted to make something happen by force of personal will it would not have worked out the way it was supposed to happen. Yet, it was important for me to be sensitive to God’s hand moving in my circumstances and listening for Holy Spirit’s whisper in my soul.
Today we read about the second of three opportunities that David had to take the life of the man who was hunting him: King Saul. His men even encouraged David to take personal initiative when the opportunity to do so presented itself. David, however, was sensitive to the tension between personal initiative and divine timing. David understood that Saul, despite his flaws, had been God’s choice to be King and God alone should end Saul’s reign.
Today, I’m grateful for God’s perfect timing which I see in many different experiences along life’s road. I want to continue holding that mysterious tension between personal initiative and divine timing, as elusive and ill defined as it seems.
Related articles
- Perfect Timing; Respecting the Plan (tomvanderwell.wordpress.com)
- Peace Amidst the Crazy (tomvanderwell.wordpress.com)
- Striving Against Divine Design (tomvanderwell.wordpress.com)
- Unexpected Curves in Life’s Road (tomvanderwell.wordpress.com)
- Ducking the Spear – David and You (fimupdate.wordpress.com)
- Winds of Change: Saul and David (jmdansville.wordpress.com)
Perfect Timing; Respecting the Plan
“May the Lord judge between you and me. And may the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you.” – David (1 Samuel 24:12)
“I know that you will surely be king and that the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hands. Now swear to me by the Lord that you will not kill off my descendants or wipe out my name from my father’s family.” – King Saul (1 Samuel 24:20)
“Timing,” as they say, “is everything.”
When I was a young believer in high school, I had an afterschool job. My boss at this particular job became a mentor to me. He spent an early morning each week studying God’s Message, taught me disciplines critical for this faith journey, and generously provided opportunities for me that became essential to my maturity. He also had a vision of starting a consulting business based on Biblical principles, and he wanted me to be a part of it. One day while having lunch at Wendy’s he laid out his vision, asked me to consider going to business school and getting an M.B.A. with the expressed intent of joining his consulting group. As much as I desired to please him, I knew in my heart that it was not the right step to take. I went a different direction, and during college my mentor and I lost touch. I did not speak to him for many years.
For anyone who has read my blog for any length of time, you know that I chose (though I believe my steps were directed) a different path than the one my mentor wanted for me. Rather than business, I chose to become a theatre major. Fast forward past college. Rather than a consulting practice I chose to go into pastoral ministry and then into parachurch ministry in which I raised financial support to cover part of my income. In a series of events I will not take the time to share in this post, I suddenly found myself being directed away from this particular parachurch ministry with no earthly idea what my next steps would be.
As fate (a.k.a. God) would have it, one of my financial supporters was my old boss and mentor with whom I had gotten back in touch after six or so years. When I called him to let him know not to send a support check the next month as I was leaving my position he asked what my plans were. I told him I had no earthly idea what I was going to do next, but I knew I had to leave my position immediately. That afternoon he asked to meet with me and offered me the position with the consulting firm he had envisioned and discussed with me back when I was in high school. I took the position and in 2014 I will celebrate 20 years in my job. In 2005 my dear mentor and friend retired and I have been privileged and blessed to be a partner and owner of the company ever since.
I look back on this experience and it has been a life lesson to me of God’s timing. My boss had a clear vision of the path I should take and the position he wanted to hire me to fulfill. When he laid out his vision to me I knew in my heart that it was not the right path, nor the right timing. As I have written elsewhere in this blog, I now see with 20/20 hindsight how being a theatre major uniquely prepared me to be successful in the position I was hired to fill. Likewise, my experiences in six years of ministry taught me life lessons that were essential to preparing me for the role I would eventually fulfill in business.
In today’s chapter, we continue to watch as the story of David’s ascent to the throne of Israel unfolds. He was anointed as King of Israel while a young man, but he was not ready to take up the mantel of monarch. It would be 20-30 years before David would be in the position God ultimately had for him. Over those many years David would develop the experience and skills necessary for his position as King.
We also continue to see the contrast of the bookend monarchs. David refuses to take a shortcut on God’s timing. He refuses to try and make his ascent to the throne happen by killing Saul even though he appears to have justifiable reason for doing so. David wants the throne in God’s time, not his own. Saul, on the other hand, continues to pursue David despite knowing that God’s anointing has left him and gone to David. He refuses to humble himself and instead gives into fear, seeking to kill David before David wipes out his family and his legacy.
Today, I am grateful for God’s timing. I believe that there is a divine plan for me. I can look back and see it unfold. I can look forward and trust that it will continue to play out. My job is to trust God, be faithful in walking the path laid out for me today, and respect the ultimate plan.
Related articles
- The Bookend Monarchs (tomvanderwell.wordpress.com)
- Striving Against Divine Design (tomvanderwell.wordpress.com)
- Peace Amidst the Crazy (tomvanderwell.wordpress.com)
- Of Robin Hood and Corrective Lenses (tomvanderwell.wordpress.com)
- Being wrongly suspicious (dailymedit.wordpress.com)
- Missing the Signs (tomvanderwell.wordpress.com)
- That Green Thing (sheilavon.wordpress.com)
Responsibile Conduct
For we are each responsible for our own conduct.
Galatians 6:5 (NLT)
I’m on the road this week working with a client. I find it fascinating working with different businesses and interacting with employees at different levels from the executive suite to the new front-line employees. Every business has its’ own unique culture, and it’s interesting to experience those different cultures.
Part of my job is helping my clients understand what their customers really want, and to consistently deliver a service experience that will lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty. We do the research to know the customer, to know what’s really happening in customer interactions and we base all of our recommendations, training and coaching on data. The data from our research often reveals that what the company, a department, a team or an individual is doing and saying needs to change if they want to satisfy their customers. That’s when the fun begins.
When I begin challenging people to change and do the work required to deliver a higher level of service, I hear every excuse:
- “You don’t understand. Our team is different.”
- “This is just the way I have always been. I can’t change.”
- “Your data is wrong.”
- “I can’t let my manager see your report. I’ll get fired.”
Human nature is a funny thing. It’s really no different in every day life. Rather than doing the work of change we make up every excuse. We blame others. We blame genetics. We blame brain chemicals. We blame depression. We blame our family. We excuse our poor habits and behaviors as if we have no choice in the matter.
But, we do. We have a million choices each day in what we do, what we say, and how we choose to interact with others. We are each responsible for our own conduct.
Let’s conduct ourselves in such a way that we make a positive change today.
A Thread in the Tapestry
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Psalm 100:5 (NIV)
Last week Wendy, her sister Suzanna, and I had dinner with friends who traveled to Europe over the summer. In hearing about the things they enjoyed seeing in their journey, I learned about the Bayeaux Tapestry. It’s a giant tapestry 230 feet long which dates from around 1070. It tells the story of events that happened from 1044-1046 in the Norman conquest in England. I’d never heard of it and so it was fun to hear about what intrigued our friends with it. My curiosity led me to look it up and learn a bit about it on my own.
I thought about the tapestry this morning as I pondered Psalm 100 because I’ve always thought that tapestries (large, woven textile works that often tell a story) an apt metaphor for family history. I’ve done a good deal of genealogy work on my families on both my father’s and my mother’s branches. It’s fascinating to me to find out where I came from and to discover family history. My curiosity has been more than a trivial pursuit, however. My desire has been to get a better grip on who I am, how I came to be, and what threads of family history were woven into the tapestry of my own personal story. I discovered the good, the bad, and the ugly in my research.
I have come to realize that what God has said in His Message is essentially true. Sins of the parents are passed down through subsequent generations. They are passed along because behaviors are both learned and systemic. Psychological, sociological, and spiritual factors are all at work.
Yet, if the sins of the parents are visited upon subsequent generations, then the opposite is equally true. The blessings of the faithful are also visited upon subsequent generations. Just as you can trace threads of alcoholism, greed, or abuse back through multiple generations you can also trace threads of faith, generosity, and love. As David’s lyric states, God’s faithfulness endures through the generations of the faithful.
In my journey and pursuits I have come to the conclusion that the real question that I need to answer is this: Who am I going to be in light of my family’s stories? Certain behaviors and bents have generational roots, but it is within me to choose how I will behave today. We are influenced by previous generations but we are not enslaved to them. The choices I make in my thoughts, words, actions and decisions today are a thread in the tapestry which will influence the ultimate shape, color and design of my own family’s story.
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- Mom Left Footprints in The Fabric of Time (my52sundays.wordpress.com)
- Life Happens (jeanpeh.wordpress.com)
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Relational Investment Choices
Do not speak to fools,
for they will scorn your prudent words.
Proverbs 23:9 (NLT)
I have a retirement account and a person who manages my investments in that account. Each month I check the account to see how it is performing. I need my administrator to make wise investment choices for me. If it is invested well and I get a good return on my investment, the compounding interest will give me even bigger yields and provide for my future retirement.
As I get older I find that I look at relationships much like I do financial investments. The days roll by and I realize that I have limited time on this Earth. I want to invest my time, energy, and resources in relationships that are life giving and produce good results for both me and the other person in the relationship. My financial advisor would steer me away from foolish stock or mutual fund choices that would not be in my best interest. In the same way, I find myself evaluating the veritable plethora of choices before me regarding those with whom I spend my time and relational energy.
I have no time for fools. That’s like throwing money into the stock of a company headed into bankruptcy. I find myself wanting to invest in a diverse portfolio of relationships with my limited means. Some relationships are sure things and safe investments. Investing in my wife and kids and family are no brainers and I need to invest heavily in those. Wise friends are like well performing funds which are solid, dependable and offer a good return on investment. I need to direct a good chunk of my relational investment in those. I also want to find those relationship investments which are diamonds in the rough. Like penny stocks, it may not seem like there’s much there, but a little investment could pay off substantially for both parties and bring great reward.
If you study Jesus relationship choices you’ll find that He made very clear and even harsh decisions about whom He would invest time, energy and resources. He rejected some who wanted to follow Him. He said “I have no time for you.” He chose three among his closest followers to pour a greater investment of Himself into, and in doing this He created hard feelings among the twelve. In his final three years of life on this Earth Jesus made conscious choices, as the eldest son of his earthly family, to pull investment out of his earthly family and pour it into a diverse portfolio of risky relationships. His twelve closest followers can be described as risky penny stocks at best, but Jesus saw the future yield His investment in them would produce.
This morning I’m asking myself these questions:
- In whom am I investing my time, energy and resources (emotional, relational, and spiritual as well as financial)?
- What foolish relational investments have I made which are draining my resources and leaving me with a personal deficit? From whom do I need to pull my relational investment away?
- Who would it be wise for me to put more relational investment into? How can I make that happen?
- Have I fallen into the trap of spreading my relational resources so thin across so many relationships that I can’t possibly manage it all well? Is it time for me to adjust my relational portfolio, make some tough choices and bring it into a manageable level?
Related articles
- God’s Plan for Our Productivity (jcossey.wordpress.com)
- Getting Away from Crazymakers (tomvanderwell.wordpress.com)
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- Life Giving Conversations (tomvanderwell.wordpress.com)
[An index of all Tom’s chapter-a-day posts covering every book and chapter]
Getting Away from Crazymakers
A troublemaker plants seeds of strife;
gossip separates the best of friends.
Proverbs 16:28 (NLT)
Over the years I have learned: Just as important as choosing good companions for the journey, it is equally important to avoid sharing life’s sojourn with “crazymakers.” Like the troublemaker in the proverb above, crazy makers plant seeds of strife wherever they go. They waste our time and suck us in to the black hole of their neediness. They passive aggressively pit people against one another and stir up dissension. In her book, The Artist’s Way, Julie Cameron nails it with her description of crazymakers:
- Crazymakers break deals and destroy schedules. They show up two days early for your wedding and expect you to wait on them hand and foot. They rent a cabin bigger than the one agreed upon and expect you to foot the bill.
- Crazymakers expect special treatment. They suffer a wide panopoly of mysterious ailments that require care and attention whenever you have a deadline looming.
- Crazymakers discount your reality. No matter how important your deadline or how critical your work trajectory at the moment, crazymakers will violate your needs.
- Crazymakers spend your time and money. If they borrow your car they return it late with an empty tank.
- Crazymakers triangulate those they deal with. Because they thrive on energy (your energy), they set people against one another in order to maintain their own power position dead center.
- Crazymakers are expert blamers. Nothing that goes wrong is ever their fault.
- Crazymakers create dramas – but seldom where they belong. Whatever matters to you becomes trivialized into mere backdrop for the crazymaker’s personal plight.
- Crazymakers hate schedules – except their own. If you claim a certain block of time as your own, your crazy maker will find a way to fight you for that time, to mysteriously need things (you) just when you need to be alone and focused on the task at hand.
- Crazymakers hate order. Chaos serves their purposes. When you establish space that serves you for a project, they will abruptly invade that space with a project of their own.
- Crazymakers deny that they are crazymakers. “I’m not what’s making you crazy,” they will say, “It’s just that … [add something else to blame].”
I have found that the path to increased levels of life, growth and understanding is often the one path that leads us directly away from a crazymaker.
Related articles
- Playing Fast & Loose with the “God Told Me” Card (tomvanderwell.wordpress.com)
- Living in the Mystery (tomvanderwell.wordpress.com)
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- Think twice speak Once… (nenosplace.wordpress.com)
- Seeds and Seasons (jangrace.com)
We All Follow Footsteps…Choose Well
Follow the steps of good men instead,
and stay on the paths of the righteous. Proverbs 2:20 (NLT)
As I walk this life journey, I travel in the footsteps of good men and women. I have been blessed with a host of mentors who made a positive difference in my life:
- Parents who love God and taught their children the values of honesty, hospitality, hard work, loving your neighbors well and serving others the way they’d want to be served.
- Grandparents who laid their own set of footprints for my parents and siblings.
- Siblings who loved their little brother, protected him, and let him hang around.
- Primary teachers who cared about me as a person, who prayed for me without my knowing it and encouraged me to develop my talents and abilities.
- Friends who encouraged me to do the right things.
- Spiritual mentors who took me under their wing, taught my by example, and poured more time and energy into me than I deserved.
- College professors who put up with a young man’s maddening mix of pride and insecurity while patiently pushing and pruning.
- Business mentors who led me by their every day example.
We all follow in the footsteps of others. Choose well.
If you haven’t chosen well, today is a good day to find different footsteps to follow.
Related articles
- Wisdom’s Whisper (tomvanderwell.wordpress.com)
- A Day in the Life of a Fool. (kendmiller.wordpress.com)
- In life, you need a mentor (or mentors) (patricktay.wordpress.com)
- Relationships (howtobeagoodgodlyman.wordpress.com)
- Purpose – the Ultimate Anchor (moderndaymomme.wordpress.com)
- Hollywood Moments of Decision (tomvanderwell.wordpress.com)
Hollywood Moments of Decision
But when they stopped for the night and one of them opened his sack to get grain for his donkey, he found his money in the top of his sack. “Look!” he exclaimed to his brothers. “My money has been returned; it’s here in my sack!” Then their hearts sank. Trembling, they said to each other, “What has God done to us?” Genesis 42:27-28 (NLT)
What a Hollywood moment when the brothers who beat-up Joseph, plotted to kill him, then sold him into slavery arrive in Egypt hungry and desperate. Joseph had every reason to feel resentful, angry and to get even with his brothers. At that moment he had all the power and could easily have exacted his revenge. His initial reaction to throw them all in prison and send only one brother back home leads me to believe that he was at least struggling with some of those old feelings of resentment. But, after three days of mulling it over, Joseph changes tactics and extends undeserved favor to his brothers at every turn.
Human nature being what it is, most of us have individuals in our lives with whom there are ill-feelings, bad blood, or old resentment built up around ancient wounds. It may not be as grand a Hollywood moment, but from time to time we are all faced with the ironic opportunity to bless or curse those who have wronged us. We all stand in Joseph’s sandals now and then. Joseph chose against his initial instincts and blessed his brothers rather than curse them.
I found the reaction of the brothers fascinating. Rather than feeling as though they got away with something when they discovered their payment returned, their feelings of guilt and shame multiplied. Had Joseph responded with curses and followed through with his initial inklings of retribution, they might have eventually felt justified in their youthful assessment and actions toward their little brother. “You see,” I can hear some of them saying, “I knew that kid was bad news! We should have killed the runt when we had the chance.”
Joseph’s blessing, however, added fuel to the fire of the guilt and shame that God was already stirring in their hearts. King Solomon hit the nail on the proverbial head when he observed the same truth:
If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat.
If they are thirsty, give them water to drink.
You will heap burning coals of shame on their heads,
and the Lord will reward you. Proverbs 25:21-22 (NLT)
God, the next time I have a little Hollywood moment and the opportunity to “get even” with someone I don’t like, please remind me what Joseph did when he had his own Hollywood moment of decision. Thanks.