Tag Archives: College

Chapter-a-Day

“The People Said Nothing”

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"The People Said Nothing" (CaD 1 Ki 18) – Wayfarer

Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”

But the people said nothing.
1 Kings 18:21 (NIV)

Wendy and I had dinner with friends last night. Our friends’ children are in their college and young adult years, and we had a fascinating conversation about children and their spiritual journeys. It is quite common for the college and young adult years to be a time when one contemplates the belief system with which they’ve been raised, and begins to make their own determinations regarding matters of faith and spirit. For me, it was the emotional angst of adolescence that led me to search for what I really believed. I was a little ahead of the game compared to a lot of people’s experiences.

Today’s chapter contains one of the most fascinating and exciting episodes in the Great Story. Elijah urges the people of Israel to stop their duplicitous worship of Baal and Asherah and to commit themselves wholeheartedly to the worship of the God of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and David. Interestingly, Elijah’s appeal receives no response.

The prophet then challenges 450 prophets of Baal to a competition. Sacrifices are prepared and prayers raised for fire to descend from heaven to burn the sacrifices. The God who answers with fire is the true God. Let the spiritual smackdown begin.

The prophets of Baal rave all day long. They dance, scream, cut themselves, and whip themselves into a religious frenzy, while Elijah talks trash from the sidelines. There isn’t so much as a spark. Elijah then repairs the altar of the Lord and prepares the sacrifice. He then soaks the sacrifice and the altar with water. After uttering a simple prayer, fire falls from heaven and consumes the altar and the sacrifice.

The people fall on their faces in awestruck fear and humility.

Along my life journey, I have observed many, many individuals whose faith appears to be like the people of Israel when Elijah made his appeal: non-commital and silently unresponsive. I observe many who go through the religious motions of maintaining membership, giving a little money, and regularly making an appearance for an hour or two. The other 165 hours of the week, however, are void of any tangible signs of faith.

God’s fiery demonstration on Mount Carmel, however, shook people to their core and motivated both change and commitment. I have often observed similar reactions in people when a life event or tragedy shakes them to the core, like that of being in college or on your own in the world without parental supervision. In the routine and complacency of everyday life, it’s easy to fall into spiritual atrophy. No matter what anyone says about my spiritual need, I just go about my life and don’t respond. It’s only when circumstances shake me to the core that I fall to my knees.

I’m reminded this morning that what God desires is not a complacent, silent, religious routine that has little impact on my daily life. What God desires is an ongoing relationship of spirit and conversation with me that informs and motivates my thoughts, words, and actions each and every day.

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

The featured image on today’s post was created with Wonder A.I.

Chapter-a-Day

Path and Purpose

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Path and Purpose (CaD 1 Sam 20) – Wayfarer

So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “May the Lord call David’s enemies to account.”

“As long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, neither you nor your kingdom will be established. Now send someone to bring him to me, for he must die!”
1 Samuel 20:16, 31 (NIV)

Along my life journey, I’ve been aware of the paths on which I was led. God’s hand has guided my steps. In a few cases, the direction and guidance were as unmistakable as an exit sign on the interstate. In most cases, I was simply moving forward step-by-step, and it’s only in looking back that I realize that I was being led the entire time.

A strong sense of purpose is one of the tell-tale motivations of an Enneagram Type Four, so I get that I may sense it more deeply and recognize it more clearly than those who are motivated in other ways. I believe deeply that every life has purpose which may also be the reason I observe and consider the paths I see others taking.

I have always observed with fascination when children’s paths and purpose are placed upon them by parents and family. I have observed some individuals whose life was tyrannized by parents who demanded their children walk the path prescribed for them. It appears to be more common when family legacies, businesses, and kingdoms are involved and at stake. How fascinating it’s been to watch England’s Prince Harry try to separate from the royal family while living off the privilege of the very life he says he wants nothing to do with.

But those are the big examples. They come in quiet, everyday examples as well. I know at least one individual who was specifically raised to take over the family business, a fate for which he had no desire and for which he was never really suited. He eventually attempted to commit suicide.

What I found fascinating in today’s chapter was the motivations of father and son, Saul and Jonathan, which bring the story to a climactic event. King Saul is trying to have David killed, and he tells Jonathan that he’s doing it to preserve the throne and kingdom for Jonathan himself. And, I tend to believe that it’s more about Saul’s self-centered pride than it is about an altruistic desire for his son’s future. Jonathan, meanwhile, knows that his father is a poor leader, knows that David is God’s anointed, and appears to approach the situation with a desire for God’s purposes to prevail. Jonathan makes a covenant with “the house of David,” meaning that he is choosing loyalty to David and his descendants. He is abdicating any “right” to ascend his father’s throne.

This has me thinking back to my own path in life, and to my own choices as a parent. I’m blessed that my parents allowed me to choose my own way and placed little, or no, expectations on me (Thanks, Dad and Mom! I’m grateful.). Likewise, my heart’s desire for both Taylor and Madison was that they follow the path God had for each of them. I’ve always tried to provide guidance and wisdom, but I always believed that my role as a parent was to steward them to become the person God intended for them to be, not tyrannically demanding they become the person I envisioned or desired for them to be. I’ve discovered that entrusting my children to God doesn’t end with choosing a college or a major. It’s a life-long process.

In the quiet this morning, I am so respectful of the choice Jonathan made. Breaking with family, especially a son choosing against his own father, can be incredibly difficult. With the covenant he makes in today’s chapter, Jonathan seals his father’s fate, as well as his own, and his descendants. In so doing, he opens the path to God’s stated purposes and the eventual ascendence of David.

But the story isn’t finished. As I’ve experienced in my own life, sometimes God’s purposes take years to germinate, take root, and grow before the fruit appears. Saul is still on the throne. David is now headed into the wilderness, living life on the lam. God’s path almost always leads through the wilderness. I’m looking forward to following David and reminding myself why.

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

Chapter-a-Day

“Taking the Bullet”

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"Taking the Bullet" (CaD John 19) – Wayfarer

When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
John 19:26-27 (NIV)

Our local schools start up next week. Social media is filled this week with pictures of parents taking their Freshman college students to campus. Many of our friends are among them. Next week it will be pictures of the first day of school and Wendy and I will exclaim repeatedly, “Oh my word, he’s grown!” and “Goodness, she’s gotten so big!” Time marches on.

I remember my parents commenting many years ago about reaching the point in life in which they “dodged the bullet.” They had added up the number of children of friends and relatives who, along the way, they had agreed to take in if the parents met with an untimely end. It was a big number. My parents are good people.

Fast forward to today. It’s Wendy and me watching the children of our friends and relatives becoming young adults coming of age. We’re beginning to recognize that we are getting ever nearer to that same “dodge the bullet” milestone.

Today’s chapter records the torture, death sentence, crucifixion, and death of Jesus. As I continue to follow the theme of identity woven through John’s biography, there were two things that stood out.

The first is the power-play happening between the religious leaders, who could not legally execute someone under Roman law, and the Roman Governor, Pilate, who knows that Jesus was not guilty of anything deserving death. Having been politically railroaded into sentencing Jesus to crucifixion, Pilate has a sign made that identified Jesus as “King of the Jews” in three languages and placed on Jesus’ cross. He certainly did it to insult the religious leaders; Mission accomplished. I could’t help but recall Jesus telling Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world” and Pilate’s response: “Then you are a king.” Was there, perhaps, a hint of respect for this innocent man made political scapegoat?

Jesus hung on the cross naked, bloody, bruised, and beaten. He looks down from the cross to see His own mother. Next to her stands John, the only one of The Eleven with the courage to show up. Taking into account all four biographies of Jesus in the Great Story, Jesus made seven statements from the cross. One of them was caring for His own mother, and making sure that John would care for her. “She is now your mother, John. Mom? He is now your son.”

In the quiet this morning, I think about the roles we play in the lives of others and the way that changes. Last week Wendy had coffee with Kennedy, the daughter of our friends who is heading to college today. Wendy presented her with a ring. It was a rite of passage, and Wendy made it perfectly clear that in coming into adulthood Kennedy was joining a community of women who look out for one another. The ring is to serve as a reminder to Kennedy that she has a community of women she can count on. I guess it was Wendy’s way of acknowledging that she’ll still “take the bullet” for our friends and her daughter, it just hits one differently at this stage of life’s journey.

That’s what community is really all about. We look out for one another and their loved ones. We’re willing to “take the bullet” whether that means raising a friend’s children or helping care for a friend’s parents. We have a role to play, not only in the lives of our friends, but also in the lives of their loved ones. That’s what Jesus was talking about when He told His disciples the previous night: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” As Jesus lays down His life for John and for the sins of the world, John lays down his life for Jesus, and agrees to take in Jesus’ mother as his own.

May I always be willing to “take the bullet” so to speak, and lay down my own life, time, energy, and resources, for my friends and their loved ones.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Freedom, Indulgence, Hard Knocks, and Wisdom

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You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Galatians 5:13-14 (NIV)

Among most of Wendy’s and my circle of close friends we happen to be the furthest down the path of life experience. As we enjoy being grandparents for the first time and watch our adult children embarking on their own adult journeys, most of our friends are somewhere between the stages of young children taxi service and sending children off to college for the first time. Just yesterday I was speaking with my friend who is experiencing the latter.

For young people who have lived in a secure home with engaged parents, going off to college is the first opportunity to experience real freedom. No one is looking over your shoulder. No one is reminding you of what you need to do. Plus, opportunities to experience the appetites of life in all their excesses tend to present themselves in abundance.

For many of us, the years of college and young adulthood are when we learn some crucial lessons on life’s road. Chief among them is answering the simple question: “What am I going to do with my freedom?” 

I don’t know a single individual who didn’t, at some point, use freedom to engage and indulge unhealthy appetites in one way or another during these years. Perhaps there are a few true saints out there. Most parents I know, however, like to conveniently white-wash their own young adult excesses as they place all sorts of appetite controls and lofty expectations on their children.

Along the journey I’ve come to the conclusion that each one of us must learn the hard lessons of how we’re going to use our freedom. It’s part of the journey. We all need to have our own wake-up moments like the Prodigal Son finding himself up to his knees in pig slop. We all need our personally induced wake-up calls when we find ourselves saying: “My own choices led me to this awful place. I think I need to make some changes.”

In today’s chapter of his letter to the believers of Galatia, Paul is addressing this same principle. Legalism is great for creating compulsory obedience to a defined set of rules, but it does nothing for helping us learn the crucial, spiritual maturity lessons of appetite control. It’s no coincidence that Paul’s list of behaviors that mark spiritual maturity include “self-control.”

This morning I find myself praying for our own adult children and our grandchild. The truth I’ve discovered is that the lessons of managing our appetites and developing mature self-control are ongoing throughout our life journeys. So, I’m praying for them in their own respective waypoints on this life journey.

I’m also saying prayers for our friends who are in the stages of raising willful children, teenagers testing their boundaries, and young adults experiencing freedom for the first time. I’m praying wisdom for all those parental decisions about rules, consequences, clamping down, and letting go. I’m also praying for the grace and wisdom of the Prodigal’s father, who knew that his Prodigal had to learn his own crucial lessons and experience the awful places we find ourselves when we use our freedom to indulge our appetites. The father didn’t track his son down. He didn’t send a rescue party. He didn’t deny his son life’s required coursework from the school of hard-knocks. The father sat patiently on the front-porch, said his prayers, kept his eye on the road out front, and waited for a much wiser son to come home.

Chapter-a-Day

God’s Will for Your Life. Really.

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Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NIV)

I have noticed that throughout life’s journey there distinct stages in which followers of Jesus spend a lot of time preoccupied with the question of “What is God’s will for me?” For those who are not so spiritually inclined to consider God in the equation, there are still natural periods of life’s journey when we ask, “Where am I going?”

The first major phase of questioning comes around the time of high school when decisions about college or military service or entering the work force are staring down at you. This can be a nerve wracking time. So many options leading down different paths. Which one is correct? Does God or fate have a role to play? What if I choose wrong?

Another round hits post college or military service when careers and/or family generally merges with life’s natural path. Wendy and I have walked along side our daughters in recent years as they’ve navigated those decisions. “Where am I going?” “Where should I live?” “Do I take the job I’m not sure I want or hold out for the one that I do?”

As a child, I observed that my grandparents and parents generations often settled onto a path for 35-45 years until retirement, when the next round of “What do we do now?” began. Increasingly, I observe that mid-life career changes, a rapidly changing economy, and a mobile society have thrust some of us into ceaseless questioning. It can create all sorts of anxiety, fear, and doubt.

On occasion our daughters and others have asked me my thoughts on these big decisions about life’s direction. I don’t profess to be a Sage, but there are a few things I’ve come to understand. The bad news is that I don’t have a crystal ball. I can’t tell you with certainty God’s will for the choice of your life’s direction, college, spouse, or vocation. The good news is that I can speak with certainty about God’s will for you.

I think we do ourselves a disservice looking for some singular, well defined path that God has ordained for us. While that may be the experience for some, I’ve definitely found that it’s the exception and not the rule. Jesus definitely foreknew that certain things would happen, like Peter denying Him three times, or Judas’ betrayal. Jesus even gave Peter a shadowy prophetic word about how his life journey would end. But Jesus fell far short of providing his closest followers a detailed road map for their lives after His ascension. Life is a faith journey, not a Google Maps prescribed expedition.

What is God’s will for us, however, is well defined. It’s simply and directly provided in today’s chapter.

Rejoice always. Good times are for thanksgiving. Stretches of monotony are for developing patience and persistence. Bad times are all about growing perseverance and character. Rejoicing in each moment, no matter where we find ourselves on God’s road, is God’s will for us.

Pray continually. This life journey is about process. It’s not just about our destination, but about the development of ourselves and our relationship with God. God doesn’t abandon us to figure it out for ourselves, but is with us each step of the way. If we continue to ask, seek, knock, and conversationally process with God, I believe we progress much faster. That’s why it’s God’s will that we dialogue with Him.

Give thanks in all circumstances. It’s easy to fall into the cycle of self-centered pessimism. I do it all the time. Willfully choosing to think about each and every person and thing for which we can be thankful gives us much needed perspective throughout each stretch of life’s journey. I have one acquaintance who, every night before she retires, tweets what she is thankful for. I appreciate her example, and it reminds me that God wants me to do the same.

What is God’s will for your life? If you’re asking me what college you should go to, what career to choose, or whether you should get married then I’m sorry I can’t do any more than help you weigh your options and apply what wisdom is available in making your choices. I can tell you however, without question, God’s will for your life:

  • Rejoice always.
  • Pray continually.
  • Give thanks in all circumstances.

Perhaps if we focus on these three every day, the answer to all the other questions we have about God’s will for us on this life journey will organically take care of themselves.

 

Chapter-a-Day

Walking Backwards Into the Future

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Remember those earlier days…
…So do not throw away your confidence.
Hebrews 10:32,35a (NIV)

Just yesterday, in a Facebook post, I was reminded of my college days and my dear group of friends from Judson Theatre. It’s funny how one thought leads to another. I went to bed thinking about my friends and my college days. Perhaps that’s why this morning I was reminded in my  quiet time of a word picture one of my profs shared in a chapel service. It’s a word picture I’ve never truly forgotten, though I have to dust it off once in a while on a day like today.

Picture a person walking across the platform facing backward, but with his/her hand stretched out behind their back as if being led. This, my prof argued, was what God continually asks us to do. Hold out our hand to be led by Him, but perpetually face backward. Look back across the journey and remember all of the ways God proved faithful: providing needs, guiding, leading, fulfilling promises, healing, restoring, and filling.

This is what the Hebrews did. This is why their exodus from slavery in Egypt is referenced time and time again. It’s referenced by the prophets Haggai, Micah, Amos, Hosea, Daniel, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. It’s referenced again and again throughout the Psalms. As they progressed on their journey through history they have continually looked backwards and remembered all that God has done to faithfully guide, lead, and preserve.

Why? Because remembering all that God has done before reminds me that I can have faith and be confident that God will see me through whatever I might be going through today.

This all came to mind while reading today’s chapter. The author of Hebrews perpetuates the walking backwards word picture by urging his/her readers “Remember those earlier days…” and references a particular period in which the early Christians were persecuted severely. God had brought them faithfully through the persecution. The author then ends the paragraph with “So do not throw away your confidence.” There it is. Turn backwards. Remember. Then have faith. Press on confidently with your hand outstretched to be led.

This morning I’m thinking about the road lying before me on this life journey. I have many questions about where the path is leading. I also confess to more than occasional bouts with fear, doubt and anxiety.  I’ve been reminded this morning by a memory and a word picture from college. I’m taking a little time in the quiet to glance backward instead of ahead. I’ve been following Jesus on this life journey for over 36 years. I’ve experienced many things from God’s miraculous power to God’s presence and peace amidst tough times to God’s quiet faithfulness in the everyday mundane. In the remembering I’m reminded that I can trust God’s power, presence, peace and faithfulness for the road ahead, as well.

Hand outstretched, I’m going to keep walking backwards…confidently.

Featured photo courtesy of Mandee Johnson via Flickr

Chapter-a-Day

The Ever Evolving Definition of “Home”

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And in that day a great trumpet will sound. Those who were perishing in Assyria and those who were exiled in Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.
Isaiah 27:13 (NIV)

Last week I had the opportunity of spending an evening with my friend, Shanae, who is in her first semester of college. As we enjoyed a meal together she shared with me all that she was experiencing in her first months away from the home she’s always known into her new home at college. She shared with me the excitement about where she was, the yearning for people back home, and the mixture of feelings which accompany times of transition. It was only a few days later that I read Shane’s post on Facebook, giving further evidence that the definition of “home” is continuing to expand for her in unexpected ways.

This is certainly not an uncommon experience on life’s journey. I encouraged Shanae that I expected her feelings to continue changing dramatically in the coming months. The landscape on life’s road changes rapidly during the college years. I remember it well, and I’ve recently watched both of our daughters in their young adult years as their definition of home evolves, and then continues to evolve. It does for all of us. Even Madison posted the other week from  her new home in South Carolina about the experiences of the first Syrian refugees in Iowa, and I thought it interesting, her words and feelings about home in Iowa.

As I read the chapter this morning I thought about the Hebrew exiles, uprooted from their homes and taken into captivity in Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt. Not exactly a going off to college experience, nor the young adults adventure of taking a new job in a distant state. Nevertheless, I think we all grapple with the concept of home, and what that means. Our life journeys tend to give us all experiences in which we feel exile, distance, longing, redefinition, nostalgia, and homecoming.

This morning I’m thinking about the upcoming holidays. I’m pondering distance, homecomings, family and what “home” means for me in its ever-expanding definition. I’m reminded that Jesus said He would go and prepare a place for us, and that the end of Great Story we are given in Revelation describes a homecoming.

Perhaps that’s God’s reminder that the definition of “home” will never stops growing, changing, and evolving.

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Random Thoughts, Theatre Journal

Power of the Art of Acting

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I have observed along my life journey that acting is largely misunderstood and under appreciated as an art. To many who have asked me about my experiences on stage, acting is perceived to be nothing more than adults engaged in a child’s game of make believe. That notion certainly contains a nugget of truth, as good actors tap into a child-like sense of play and imagination. It does, however, fall short of the whole truth. One might equally say that a painter is simply “coloring” or a composer is simply “making up songs.” In every one of these examples the notion falls far short of understanding both the art form and the work of the artist.

Acting, to steal a term used by Tolkien and Lewis with regard to their writing, is a form of sub-creation. It is the art of creating an individual being, from the inside out, in all of his or her (or its) infinite complexities. Think how intricately layered each one of us are in our unique experiences, gifts, talents, intentions, thoughts, feelings, desires, quirks, flaws, handicaps,  strengths, and idiosyncrasies. What a Herculean task to start with nothing more than words in a script and attempt the creation of a living, breathing, believably real human being on stage. Even more challenging is the fact that the actor must fulfill this task utilizing his or her own existing body and voice. Imagine a composer being asked to take exactly the same notes, key, and time signature that exist in one piece of music and rearrange them to make a uniquely different work.

An actor’s task is made even more difficult when his or her creation must interact with others on stage whom they do not control.  Your creation, in all his or her uniqueness, must react and respond to others in the moment without the assurance of knowing exactly what will happen or be said (or not said) in that moment. Like all other artists actors put their creation out there for all the world to see. It is a courageous act fraught with the risk. Unlike artists in other mediums, actors are, themselves, the canvas, the composition, the sculpture, the sonnet. When actors step on stage they present their own flesh and blood as part and parcel of the art itself. The risk is more personal and more public than almost any other art form.

In the process of creating this living, breathing creation on stage, the actor becomes psychologist, historian, private investigator, sociologist, theologian, and priest. Actors become among the world’s most accepting and empathetic inhabitants because they are required to find understanding and empathy for some of literature and history’s most heinous villains. In this pursuit of the embodiment of a real person on stage, an actor comes to embody love and grace that believes, hopes, and endures even for the most tragic of characters.

As with all art mediums, there exists in this wide world of actors a diverse panacea of education, talent, experience and ability. You may not find Olivier, Hoffman, Streep, or Theron at your local high school, college, or community center. You may, however, be pleasantly surprised if you take the risk of venturing out and buying a ticket. You will find courageous actor-artists stepping into a real world created on the other side of the fourth wall. They will transport you to another time in another place. You may just find yourself swept up in a story that not only entertains, but also causes you to think, laugh, weep, and feel. Your disbelief may be suspended just long enough for you to care, truly care, about these characters, these persons, these living, breathing, real creations and their stories. That is the power of the art of acting.

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Preparing for a Role: The Rehearsal Process
Preparing for a Role: How Do You Memorize All Those Lines?
Preparing for a Role: Bits and Moments in the Grind
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Theatre is Ultimate Fitness for Your Brain!

 

Photo: Arvin Van Zante, Wendy Vander Well, and Karl Deakyne rehearse a scene from Ham Buns and Potato Salad. Pella, Iowa.

Chapter-a-Day

When It’s Time to Break Camp

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The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Resume your journey….”
Deuteronomy 1:6-7a (NRSV)

There is a chill in the air this morning as I sit in my office and write out this post. The blast furnace of midwest summer has given way to the crisp mornings and cool north breeze remind me of what is to come. The past couple of weeks have brought about our annual transition from what Nat King Cole crooned about as those “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer” to the realities of routine school and work schedules.

Suzanna was home from college for the first time this weekend. When it came time to head back to school yesterday afternoon there was a fair amount of emotion expressed. Wendy and I surrounded her with hugs and prayer and reminded her that this is a normal part of life’s journey in which we learn the necessity of pressing on.

In this morning’s chapter, I picked up the retelling of the story of Moses and the tribes of Israel. As we pick things up in the first chapter of Deuteronomy, they’ve been camped out on Mount Horeb and have received from God the laws and commands about how they are to live as a nation. After the craziness of their exodus from Egypt, the mountain top experience of Horeb had been a welcome respite from their journey. But, God sends word that the respite is over. It’s time to break camp. The journey must continue.

Today, I’m reminded that the long, leisurely days of summer eventually give way to cool days of autumn and the realities of harvest. Summer vacations end and routines resume. Weekends in the familiar surrounding of home offer a respite from the anxieties of an unfamiliar college environment, but classes start again on Monday. Mountaintop experiences are wonderful, but eventually you have to break camp, leave the mountain, and resume the journey.

Press on.

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featured photo :  druclimb  via Flickr

 

Chapter-a-Day

Laying Down the Law

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Furthermore, I [King Darius] decree that if anyone defies this edict, a beam is to be pulled from their house and they are to be impaled on it. And for this crime their house is to be made a pile of rubble.
Ezra 6:11 (NIV)

One of the things that I loved about college was that you got to explore, study, ruminate and argue about all sorts of questions of life. I remember one semester a classmate of mine and I had an ongoing discussion and argument as we worked together in food service at Judson College. The argument was over the best system of government. I started by arguing that a representative republic was best, and he argued that a socialist system was best. By the end of our argument we came to agree that we were both wrong. We agreed that if you had a good, true, intelligent and just person to lead [which, we conceded, you’d never consistently find in this fallen world], then the ideal form of Government was a monarchy.

I won’t belabor or editorialize on our debate. I will say, however, that one of the reasons we came to our conclusion was that a monarch does have the ability to lay down the law. A strong central leader can cut through red tape just like Darius did. Which is why I thought of it while reading today’s chapter.

When we left off, the Hebrew exiles had been harassed by their local neighbors and officials regarding the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. The Hebrews appealed to King Darius that their construction had been decreed by his predecessor. In today’s chapter, King Darius responds, firmly lays down the law, and settles the matter. Sure enough, the King’s scribes found the original decree and he allows the building of the temple to continue. Darius goes one step further and commands that the local officials who caused the ruckus, to their humiliation, assist in the rebuilding. If they don’t they’ll be impaled on a load bearing beam from their own home so that they die and their own house collapses. [Yikes!]

Today, I’m thinking about the fact that all human institutions are fundamentally flawed because humanity will always have to deal with this nagging seed of corruption that God’s message refers to as sin. In today’s example, the outcome was favorable for the Jewish people. History, however, is rife with examples of unfavorable outcomes for the Jewish people. This side of eternity we all must face joyful victories and disappointing defeats for our particular political and spiritual persuasions. Perhaps that’s why Jesus laid down the law in a very different way:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

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