Tag Archives: Flow

Chapter-a-Day

Due Time

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https://open.spotify.com/episode/0L9VEpIAMCClNJHeMTZdkZ?si=Swc0F2IqRFSOlLrXwZn8Bg

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.
1 Peter 5:6 (NIV)

I sat at the local pub one afternoon journaling. Without warning a thunderstorm of ideas rolled in. I began thinking about all of the life lessons I have gained as a result of my career.

“Customer complaints are rarely about the complaint.”
“Systems shape souls.”
“Everyone wants to make rules out of exceptions.”

If you had told me when I was a teenager that I would spend over three decades of my life analyzing tens of thousands of business interactions between clients and their customers I would have invited you to go take a long walk off a short pier. That would have been among the last things on this earth I would want to spend my life doing. Besides, I had my entire life dream planned out.

College. Seminary. Pastoral ministry. Preacher. Author.

God had other plans.

Over 100,000 business phone calls, emails, and chats analyzed. Customer research.
Front-line coaching and training.
Executive strategy sessions.

I was good at it. My gifts and abilities dove-tailed perfectly with the job.

There I sat at the bar writing down all of the lessons I’d learned on this, long, strange trip I called a career. Not just business lessons. Life lessons. Spiritual lessons. Lessons about relationships and human interaction. Lessons about systems that apply universally across humanity. They poured right out of me onto the pages of my journal.

When the storm receded I looked at the list. This was the foundational content of a book. I just knew it.

That was well over a decade ago. The idea sat quietly in my journal for years. It wasn’t forgotten. I thought about it all the time. I even had one occasion in which I spoke seriously with a publisher about it, but the opportunity wasn’t right.

I waited. And, I waited.

My soul aches when I have to sit on a great idea.

Last May I was invited to a Zoom networking meeting with a man named Michael through another networking contact I know in Puerto Rico. I have these kinds of networking meetings all the time. You never know who you’re going to meet. I scheduled the meeting with Michael. I had no idea what he did.

As Michael began sharing his story, something funny happened. I discovered right up front that Michael was a believer. He and his wife had spent years working for a ministry I knew very well. I had a former employer who worked for the same ministry. Our stories were eerily similar.

We both chased ministry.
We both tasted disappointment.
God had rerouted both of us into business.

Michael became a publisher of books about business.

In today’s final chapter of Peter’s first letter, Peter tells his readers to humble themselves before God. I often think of humility as an attitude, but Peter speaks of it as being an action to be taken. Humility isn’t thinking lowly of myself, it’s placing myself willingly under God’s hand.

I’ve learned along my journey that humbling myself before God is really all about surrender.

“Whatever you want from me God.”
“I surrender my will as I embrace and pursue the passions you gave me.”
“I will continually ask, seek, and knock as I press on one day at a time.”

Approaching life with this posture, Peter writes that God “may lift you up in due time.”

Which means that humbling myself before God also requires that I trust God’s timing.

In a brainstorm at the pub God gave me the seeds of a book.
Then He buried it in the soil of time for over a decade

But that didn’t mean it was dead. I thought about it. The lessons marinated in my mind and soul. I added lessons to the list. I continued to make mental and spiritual connections.

The seeds germinated.

They grew roots.

Then one day I had a random Zoom meeting with a man name Michael.

The fruit will be available for you to taste in just a few weeks when the book is published.

I have learned along life’s road that there is a timing to the Story that God is authoring in me.

If I’m going to trust the Story. I have to trust His timing.

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

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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!
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Chapter-a-Day

Prayer, Providence, & Planning

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The king [Artaxerxes] said to me, “What is it you want?”
Then I prayed to the God of heaven, and I answered the king, “If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my ancestors are buried so that I can rebuild it.”
Nehemiah 2:4-5 (NIV)

In the past few weeks I’ve mentioned that I’m currently writing a book. I’ve been getting up at 5:00 a.m. every morning to write for at least an hour when my heart and mind are fresh. The process consumes a lot of my time and thought right now, so forgive me if it bleeds into my daily quiet time, meditations, and blogposts/podcasts.

The idea for this book struck me about 15 years ago. In fact it was ten or twelve years ago that I sat down and outlined the guts of the book in my journal while I was enjoying a pint at the local pub. There in my journal it sat for over a decade. I thought about it often. I prayed that I might have an opportunity to make it a reality. I even reached out to a few publishers over the years. Nothing flowed.

Earlier this year there was a major shift and transition in our business. Many things got realigned. During that period of time I had a random networking contact who happened to be a publisher. I can’t even describe how everything in life aligned. This was the moment. It’s finally happening. God’s timing is perfect.

In today’s chapter, it’s been months since Nehemiah got word about the dire situation in Jerusalem. He’s been grieving and praying. There’s not much that Nehemiah can do about Jerusalem. He’s the right-hand advisor to the Persian emperor. The job doesn’t come with vacation time or PTO. In fact, just having a bad hair day was not allowed in that role and in that culture. When King Artaxerxes notices that Nehemiah is downcast, it could have been a life-threatening moment. Instead, it was a moment of divine providence.

Nehemiah throws up a quick popcorn prayer and shoots straight with Artaxerxes about why his face is downcast. Artaxerxes could have had Nehemiah killed for presuming to lay his burdens on the emperor. The whole matter could have been simply dismissed and Nehemiah could have been instructed to change his attitude, or else. Instead, Artaxerxes asks Nehemiah what might be done about his ancestral home of Jerusalem.

Nehemiah makes an audacious request for time-off, letters of safe passage, and building materials required to rebuild the walls and gates of Jerusalem. Artaxerxes agrees.

Along my life journey, I’ve learned that there is a certain flow to the story God is authoring in me. There is also a certain tension in trusting that story. If I’m passive and don’t prayerfully pay attention, then I totally miss out on what God’s doing. If I strive to try and make things happen, then I get in the way and muck up the works. When I pray, wait, and pay attention, trusting for God’s providence and timing, then at the right time everything flows.

Nehemiah is a great example of the same paradigm. He spent months praying about Jerusalem and what he might be able to do to help. He obviously had even been planning what he ideally might need and how he might go about the project if he was given the chance. Then, he waited. He trusted. God’s providence finally flowed and the planning kicked into gear.

In the quiet this morning, I’m reminded that on this journey I should never stop praying, never stop planning, and never stop paying attention. The hardest part is often waiting for God’s providence. But when it flows, and all the praying and planning fall into place, there’s no doubt that God is at work and I am in the midst of it.

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

Promotional graphic for Tom Vander Well's Wayfarer blog and podcast, featuring icons of various podcast platforms with a photo of Tom Vander Well.
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!
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Chapter-a-Day

Illusion of Possession

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Illusion of Possession (CaD Hos 9) – Wayfarer

They will not remain in the Lord’s land;
    Ephraim will return to Egypt
    and eat unclean food in Assyria.
Hosea 9:3 (NIV)

I was the youngest of four children. I’m grateful to say that we were never in need as children. That said, there wasn’t a lot of extra from an affluence perspective. Early on, I developed a behavioral pattern with both money and things. I developed a possessive attitude towards “my stuff.” I also tended to spend any money I acquired as quickly as possible on things that provided immediate pleasure but had little long-term value.

Over a lifetime as a disciple of Jesus, I’ve gone through major transformation in my thoughts and behaviors towards both money and things. It’s impossible for me to be obedient to Jesus’ teachings and not address matters of money and things. Jesus spoke more about money and treasure than almost anything else.

One of the things that has slowly transformed my thoughts and behaviors is the realization that nothing I have is really mine. The Great Story reveals Jesus as the “Alpha and Omega.” He is the “alpha-point” through whom creation flows. He is the “omega-point” to whom all things return. All that I am blessed to have on this earthly journey is ultimately from the Alpha, and ultimately it will return to the Omega. The question is simply how I will steward those things with which I have been blessed by God to have on loan on this brief earthly sojourn? Will I be generous or miserly? Will I treasure the possession or treasure the people with whom I can bless with it? Will I greedily hoard in the illusion it’s mine, or will I participate with the Alpha in the generous, life-giving flow of all things?

In today’s chapter, the ancient prophet Hosea makes a rather stunning statement about his people: “They will not remain in the Lord’s land.” The Great Story clearly states that the land of Canaan was intended to be given as a blessing to Abraham’s descendants so that “all of the nations of the earth will be blessed.” The source was God. The intention was a life-giving flow of blessing to all nations from a people who understood the source and their place in the flow of the life and blessing. Part of that understanding was that the land was ultimately God’s.

Since the latest war about this land broke out just weeks ago, Wendy and I have been doing a lot of reading and listening regarding both sides’ “claim” to this land. Those claims both reference Abraham. The Jewish people trace their lineage and history in the land back to Abraham through Abraham’s son, Isaac. The Arab muslims trace their lineage and claims to the land back to Abraham through his son, Ishmael (Osama Bin Laden references this belief in his “Letter to America”). I can’t help but mourn the fact that what God meant to be a blessing to all nations continues to be warped by evil, and the evil angels of our nature, into a fratricidal conflict of peoples that has raged for thousands of years.

In some ways, this is not unique. I have witnessed the same types of destructive conflict over family farms here in Iowa. The same deep seeded hatred between siblings. The same lust to possess the land at all cost giving birth to generations of greed, hatred, anger, rage, and even violence. Such toxic and spiritually suicidal thoughts and actions just for the illusion that one can actually possess something that flowed from the Alpha and will flow back to the Omega.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself bringing thoughts of international politics and diplomacy back down to a personal level. There is little I can practically do about the circumstances and situation that continue to rage in the Lord’s land as they have for thousands of years. King David wrote in his lyrics to Psalm 122 to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem.” I will continue to do so.

What I can do, however, is continue to personally learn and apply the spiritual lessons Jesus continues to teach me. All that I supposedly and physically possess on this earthly journey, including land, is illusory from the eternal perspective of the Kingdom of God. The more I spiritually, emotionally, and physically cling to earthly possessions that will rot or pass on to be possessed by others, the less room there is in my mind, heart, and spirit for the eternal things of God’s Spirit.

The further I get in my spiritual journey, the more I embrace the spiritual reality that “my stuff” is actually all “God’s stuff.” I don’t possess things but rather steward blessings. I’m not to cling or horde but to release and let flow. I confess I’m not perfect, but I am growing.

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

Chapter-a-Day

The Mystery of the Voice

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The Mystery of the Voice (CaD Ps 81) – Wayfarer

“I hear a voice I had not known:”
Psalm 81:5c (NRSVCE)

One of the mysteries of the Great Story is that individuals in the story hear God’s voice. God speaks to individuals at various times in various ways throughout the story. In the story of a young prophet Samuel, he first hears God’s voice while a boy living with the High Priest of that time, a man name Eli. The story in 1 Samuel 3 states that it was a time when “the word of the Lord was rare” (This is another part of the mystery, that God would be silent for long periods of time).

The boy, Samuel, hears a voice call his name in the night. He repeatedly runs to the old priest saying, “Here I am!” The third time it happened, Eli begins to understand what his happening. He tells the boy, “If this happens again, respond ‘Speak Lord, for your servant is listening!'”

My own experience with the mystery of hearing God’s voice is multi-dimensional. Four times in 40 years I have heard a very clear and distinct message spoken directly into my spirit. The first time was at the very beginning of my journey as a follower of Jesus. The next came thirteen years later. Then ten years later, and four months after that. These four experiences stand out from any others in my spiritual journey. Someday, when I’m ready to tell my story, I’ll share the experiences in full. It’s not the right time.

How do I know it’s not the right time?

I’ve learned that it is another dimension of how God’s “voice” works. As I perpetually read and study the Great Story, as I have conscious conversations with God, as I journal, and as I continuously keep myself spiritually aware and “listening,” there are things that come to me in a very different way. It has been described as “the flow.” The Hebrew and Greek words for “Spirit” both suggest a word picture of wind or breath. I have found no human word or phrase that adequately describes it. It’s a hearing and knowing of Spirit. There’s a knowing in my being that there will come a time for me to tell the story of the four experiences I described of distinctly hearing the Voice. Maybe there will be more experiences by the time comes to tell the story. I just know that it’s not now.

Today’s chapter, Psalm 81, is a liturgical song that would have been sung when the entire nation of Hebrews gathered for specific festivals scheduled at specific times of the year. The people are “called to worship” in the first five verses, then the rest of the song reminds them of God leading them out slavery in Egypt and what has historically happened when they shut their ears and hearts from listening to God.

It was the phrase “I hear a voice I had not known” that leapt off the page at me as I read the lyrics. I thought of Moses hearing God’s voice for the first time (Exodus 3). I thought of the boy, Samuel, hearing the voice for the first time. I thought of Peter, James, John, and Matthew hearing the voice of Jesus telling them “Follow me.” I thought of a cold February night when I first heard the voice. In every case, there was a process for the individual of learning to spiritually listen, learning to spiritually hear, and learning to spiritually discern.

In John’s revelation, Jesus tells John to write a letter to the followers of Jesus in a town called Laodicea. He writes:

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in….”

In each story I’ve cited today there was both the voice calling and the individual responding. That’s where theologians will tell me that I have “free will.” I can hear and dismiss. I can hear and choose to not to respond. I can even plug the ears of my spirit and choose not to hear at all.

I chose to open myself to the mystery. I chose to respond. I struck out on this journey of learning to know that voice, asking to know more, and seeking to hear more. I’ve never regretted it. Here I am, forty years later. I’m still listening, hearing, asking, and seeking in the mystery of God’s voice.

Chapter-a-Day

Of Layers and Flow

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Of Layers and Flow (CaD Ps 5) – Wayfarer

In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice;
    in the morning I lay my requests before you
    and wait expectantly.
Psalm 5:3 (NIV)

Life has a rhythm. It has a beat and a flow.

One of the things I’ve observed along the way is that God creates things with layers. I’m constantly saying that God’s language is metaphor, and metaphor is always layered with meaning. Life exists on the micro-sub-atomic level and the macro-universe level. My friend Todd, a physical therapist, talked to me over the Fourth of July weekend about the challenges of his profession. The body, he explained, is so infinitely complex that isolating the cause of a patient’s pain sometimes becomes an unexplained mystery. The body is layered with systems that affect one another in strange ways.

In the same way, my life is layered. My well-being and attitude result from the state of many intertwining layers: physical, mental, relational, vocational, social, personal, financial, marital, parental, sexual, recreational, and spiritual.

Over the past three psalms, all written by the song-writing, warrior King David, I can’t help but notice a theme emerging regarding time of day. In the past two songs, David explains that he goes to bed at night and rests with peace and contentment because of his trust in God. In today’s psalm, David explains that his morning begins with time with God. Every morning he lays out his heart, his desires, his fears, his requests and then waits expectantly for God to do His thing.

In other words, David’s day begins with God. David’s day ends with God. In between, David’s day is waiting on, watching for, expecting, and trusting God to respond, act, interact, deliver, surround, save, answer, help, and intercede. The spiritual layer of David’s relationship with God is not just an isolated, religious compartment of his weekly routine that gets opened for an hour at the Temple on Sabbath and during mid-week Torah studies with the small group from his synagogue. The spiritual layer of David’s relationship with God permeated, informed, intersected, and affected every other layer of his life.

In the quiet this morning, I’m thinking about the conversation Wendy and I had early this morning in which we talked about the rhythm of our lives, how our physical and mental layers have changed over time, and what that means to the flow of the spiritual layer of how God is flowing in and through each of us, and both of us.

There are so many layers to life. I’ve experienced in my journey that if, like David, I’ve got the spiritual layer continually connected to God and flowing through all the other layers, the rhythm of each day and night flows better. And, when things aren’t flowing well in my life, I usually find that there’s a layer of my life that got disconnected from the spiritual layer and my relationship with God.

By the way, David’s layers got disconnected from time-to-time with really tragic results. It happens to all of us. I’ve also experienced that the quickly I reestablish connection, the more quickly things get back to a steady, healthy flow.

Time to flow into another day. Flow well today, my friend.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Only When I Receive…

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In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome…
1 John 5:3 (NIV)

In today’s chapter, John states that loving God means keeping His commands.

Stop right there.

When I read “keeping His commands” what immediately, unconsciously sprang to mind in the twinkling of an eye were things like:

  • Going to church.
  • Giving 10% of your income to the church.
  • Don’t [insert that most guilt producing behavior here].
  • Stop [insert that nagging bad habit I know I should break].

Jesus said there were only two basic commands:

  1. Love God.
  2. Love others as you love yourself (btw, if I don’t love myself well in a healthy way, then I’m handicapped in both the loving God and loving others part.

Everything flows from love, and as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the flow originates from God, not from me. This is not a one-way relationship unless I choose not to love God back. The love is always, has always flowed towards me from God. I can ignore it. I can misinterpret it. I can twist it into something it’s not. I can deflect it. I can resist it. I can actively work against it. I can think about it endlessly, and even mentally acknowledge it is there.

It’s only when I receive it that something changes in me.

Along my spiritual journey, this is the one thing that I observe most people not understanding about being a follower of Jesus. I always think it’s about me “obeying His commands” in order to earn His love like a merit badge. I behave like God is miserly standing at His faucet of love ever determining how much love the Ol’ Miser is going to let flow out the spicket (from a limited supply) based on how good I’ve been. That’s often the way it works in human relational economics, I’m afraid. So, it’s easy for me to project that onto God. But, Jesus never taught that.

The love is always flowing to me from the unlimited source.

It’s only when I receive that it makes any difference.

In the quiet this morning, I remember Jesus’ criticism of the religious rule-keepers:

“Instead of giving you God’s Law [Remember: Love God, love others. -TVW] as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help.”

Matthew 23:4-5 (MSG)

Then I hear Him say:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Matthew 11:28-30 (MSG)

When I received His invitation. Things began to change.

Along my spiritual journey, that’s the thing I have to continually remind myself. It’s not about me being good to earn a trickle of love. It’s about me learning to receive freely from the unlimited flow. It’s then that love changes me and directs the flow back to God, on to others.

Chapter-a-Day

Let it Flow

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This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us…
1 John 4:10 (NIV)

As number of years ago our daughter lived in the Catholic Worker community in Des Moines. She participated in the communal living and, as part of that community, daily worked to serve the poor and homeless.

One of the observations she shared with us from her time there was a realization she came to as she listened to people sharing their stories. Person after person shared tales of brokenness and the insecurity of being one step away from homelessness and the hopelessness of having no safety net. Then came the understanding that she has never, and likely will never, experience that reality. She has a safety net. In fact, she has multiple safety nets of family and friends who love her and to whom she could turn in need. Love, safety, and provision had always flowed freely, surrounded her, and remain a phone call away.

In today’s chapter, John continues to write to Jesus’ followers about love. What struck me was that there is a flow to the love John describes:

  • Love comes from God…
  • Everyone who loves is born of God…
  • This is how God showed his love, by sending his son…
  • This is love. Not that we love God, but he loved us and sent his son as a sacrifice for our sins.
  • He has given us his Spirit.
  • We love because he first loved us.

The source is God. God is love incarnate. Love flows down, in, and through.

Father (God for us) love creates, gives, sends

Jesus (God with us) love comes down, touches, gives, and sacrifices

Spirit (God in us) love indwelling, flowing through

As I enjoy being endlessly reminded, the Greek word for Trinity (Father, Son, Spirit; Three is One; One is Three) is perichoresis, literally “circle dance.” When I, standing like a wall-flower at the middle-school mixer, choose to accept the invitation to join God in the dance, then I join the circle. I participate in that dance; I become an active, participating member of love’s flow:

Me (God through us) receiving, changing, forgiving, giving, loving

Then I get to this from John’s letter: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.” Suddenly I find myself thinking of those I’ve met along my journey for whom God is punishment and condemnation. That’s always been their experience just as Taylor’s friends at the Worker who have never gotten to experience love, security, and provision. How tragic that humanity’s penchant for works-driven religion based on shame, guilt, punishment, and condemnation continues to flourish. It flourished in Jesus’ day, too. That’s what He spoke against.

In the quiet, as I mulled these things over in my mind this morning, I realized that there is a certain relationship between my willingness (because willingness plays a part) and choice to accept, receive, and experience God’s love and the extent to which that love can transform me and flow through me to others. And that’s the point. How can love’s transformational work be experienced by those mired in punishment and condemnation if it doesn’t flow through me to them by my acts of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control?

And, that’s where yesterday’s uncomfortable realization continues to motivate me to be willing and decisive to let more and more of God’s love transform me so it can flow through me with greater power to others.

Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Let love flow.

More.

Chapter-a-Day

Jesus: Unwanted

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Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him.
Mark 5:17-18 (NIV)

Wendy and I have a recurring conversation about life. There is no doubt in either of our minds that we were supposed to walk this journey together. It’s a story that I should write someday. Our relationship has been such a good thing that we often wonder: “What if we had experienced our younger adult years together?”

While the hypothetical question is a natural one, we both agree in this recurring conversation that the younger versions of ourselves (me the religious rule keeper and good little preacher boy, she the rebellious wild-child) would likely not have hitten it off. My personal journey, walking through my “Prodigal” years, the failure of my first marriage, becoming a father to Taylor and Madison, were all part of what prepared me for the waypoint in which our story could begin.

Yesterday I wrote about the fact that every follower of Jesus has a unique story. Some follow in one season of life, while it takes others until a later season and waypoint further down the road before they are at the right place to follow. Some don’t reach that waypoint until their final moments on this earth. There is a mystery to the flow of it.

As I read today’s chapter, I found a connected truth. Mark’s version of the Jesus Story continues. While Mark has previously alluded to the miracles Jesus is performing, in today’s chapter he gives three major illustrations: a man possessed by a legion of demons, a woman who is miraculously healed by Jesus without His conscious decision to do so, and a twelve-year-old girl raised from the dead. I feel like Mark is telling me “Look, Jesus wasn’t just healing people from a runny nose or a tummy ache. We’re talking dead people being raised back to life kind of stuff!”

In the midst of these three episodes is a curious event. The people in the towns where Jesus cast the demons out of the man begged him to leave their region. The very next sentence has Jesus getting into the boat to shove off. I am reminded that when Jesus sends out His disciples to do their own internship practicum (coming up in the next chapter) He tells them if they are not welcomed by the people in a town to “shake the dust off your feet” and leave. In today’s chapter, Jesus exemplifies what He will command His followers to do in the next chapter.

In the quiet this morning I find myself mulling over the notion that Jesus does not force His way in. Tell Him to stay away and He is perfectly willing to move along. To the point of yesterday’s post, it may not have been the right season for the people of that region. Curious that the demon-delivered man asks to follow Jesus and Jesus tells him to stay and tell everyone in the region his story. In doing so, Jesus scatters “the seed” through this man’s story and witness which may take root and bear fruit in a future season.

Through many years of my journey, I observed the institutional church often trying to force itself in where it was not welcome and to manufacture converts via what I would liken to a process of systemic spiritual cloning. As I read through the Jesus story, I find Jesus’ actual example to be far more natural, more organic, more authentic, and more trusting of what God’s Spirit is doing in the Great Story and in the story of individuals within it.

Which brings me back to the journey of Tom and Wendy that began when two very different lives found themselves in the right season and at the right waypoint on life’s road to become one.

Chapter-a-Day

The Flow and Right Timing

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If you bow low in God’s awesome presence, he will eventually exalt you as you leave the timing in his hands.
1 Peter 5:6 (TPT)

Along my life journey, I have come to experience what many others have described as “the flow.” Artists and creatives experience the flow as a spiritual, level four energy that empowers their creativity. As U2’s Bono discovered, “the songs are already written.” Athletes call it being “the zone” when the flow takes over and the ball slows down, they know what will happen before it happens, and their game elevates to an unprecedented level. Teachers and prophets experience the flow in both preparation and presentation. Rob Bell describes the flow when he experiences having a thought, a story, a metaphor, or an idea that “wants to be part of something” but he doesn’t know what it is. He records it, hangs on to it, and waits for the right time (which could be years later).

I remember experiencing the flow early in 2004. I just knew that I was supposed to do this thing, but exactly what it was and what it looked like was undefined. It was only a general notion, but I knew it at the core of my spirit. I even remember reaching after it but getting nowhere. Over time this thing I was supposed to do continued to reveal itself like little bread crumbs. Something would happen and I would think, “This is it! It’s falling into place.” But then, it wouldn’t.

That’s the frustrating thing about walking this earthly journey through finite time (as opposed to timeless eternity). We often find ourselves waiting, seeking, and longing for the right time or the right season for things. Wendy can tell you that I’m not always the most patient person when it comes to waiting. As an Enneagram Type Four, I tend to get pessimistic and overly dramatize my impatience and frustration. That’s when my Type Eight wife has no problem telling me directly what I know is true: the time just isn’t right.

In a bit of synchronicity that I honestly didn’t plan, the chapter today was the same text that I talked about in last week’s podcast, and the same text I taught on this past Sunday morning. That’s another thing that I have discovered along life’s journey. When the same thing keeps coming up in random ways, then there’s something God’s Spirit is trying to teach me in the flow. I should pay attention, meditate on it, and wait for it to be revealed.

The thing I was supposed to do eventually did reveal itself after about ten years. When it finally did fall into place it was at just the right time in a myriad of ways I won’t take the time to explain.

The ancient words for God’s “Spirit” in both the Hebrew and Greek languages are translated into English as “wind,” or “breath,” or you might say “flow.” I believe that sensing and experiencing the flow is simply tapping into God’s eternal Spirit who lives outside of time, but breathes into me bread crumbs and seeds which eventually lead to things in their due season and time.

What Peter wrote to the exiled followers of Jesus was that the waiting calls for humility. This past Sunday I defined humility as “the willing, conscious, intentional crucifixion of my own ego,” whose time frame is an impatient NOW, and who tends to demand that revelation and fulfillment happen in my time frame, not God’s.

If you want to know what tragically happens when we try to make the flow happen in our own way and our own timeline, see Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Macbeth and his lady are quintessential examples.

Chapter-a-Day

Mysterious, Mystical, Gracious, and Favorable Flow

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Because the hand of the Lord my God was on me, I took courage and gathered leaders from Israel to go up with me.
Ezra 7:28b (NIV)

I caught a trailer for the movie Birth of the Cool the other day. Musicians talked of the recording session of one of the most iconic albums of all time: Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. The musicians were surprised when Miles had no score for them. He simply had “sketches” handwritten.

“We’re just going to play,” Miles told his band.

What happened in that studio, what flowed through those musicians as they “just played” changed the history of music.

I’m not fluent in the language of music, but I believe there is a parallel when it comes to other things in life. I have experienced “it” a couple of times on stage, and it is almost impossible to describe. The scene I’m playing becomes a separate reality. At that moment there is no audience. The present slips away. There is a sense of otherworldliness to it. I slip into another dimension. When it’s over, it feels like waking from a dream.

There is a similar experience I’ve had writing. Time stopped. The words flowed. They were not my words. They were flowing through me. The words were leaves falling from the “tree of tales,” as Tolkien described it. I just happen to be the conduit. I sat down at the keyboard to write. Suddenly I was on the lawn with two men sitting there in their lawn chairs. I was eavesdropping on their conversation; transcribing what they were saying. I have no idea how long I typed. I just wrote what I was hearing. When it was over I had thirty-five pages of dialogue.

I’ve never been much of an athlete, but I have heard those who are speak of “being in the zone.” Time changes. The ball slows down. You see things before they happen. Everything just flows.

In today’s chapter, Ezra mentions three times a similar flow in his life circumstances:

The king had granted him everything he asked, for the hand of the Lord his God was on him.

…he arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month, for the gracious hand of his God was on him.

Because the hand of the Lord my God was on me, I took courage and gathered leaders from Israel to go up with me.

Favor. Zone. Flow. There is something mystical and mysterious to it, but I’ve experienced it. It is the Hand. It is favor. It is tangible grace. Things just happen and I am doing nothing to create it, cause it, or make it happen. I’m just the conduit.

In the quiet this morning I find myself reminded that we are made in the image of the Creator. When we ask, seek, and knock at the door of our birthright, we occasionally find the gracious, favorable flow.