Tag Archives: Growth

Chapter-a-Day

God’s QA Program

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https://open.spotify.com/episode/2JOwhFElZee9XvvTzDyTgz?si=8u3fEcyhRH65iF4GqnhB5Q

For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Peter 1:8 (NIV)

I was up very early this morning working on a report that has to be delivered to the client first thing this morning. It’s the first report for 2026 and there are always a lot of small changes that have to be made when one year shifts to the next.

The report in this case is for three client teams. On an ongoing basis, our team analyzes calls between the client and their customers. There are a set of behavioral service skills we listen for in each call. These are skills we know from research positively impact overall customer satisfaction. We track the behaviors, report on them, and coach team members to incorporate them into every conversation. As consistency increases, satisfaction rises. Satisfied customers become loyal customers. Everyone wins.

One of the life lessons I note in my upcoming book is that what I do at work is really no different than the way God operates with me. God has His own Quality Assessment process — not one of condemnation, but of cultivation. In fact, it’s sitting there in plain sight in today’s chapter. Peter begins his letter by encouraging believers to live “godly lives” that reflect God’s “divine nature” and not the “evil desires” of the corrupt world we live in.

Peter then defines the behavior criteria that are the calling card of godly lives:

Faith
Goodness
Knowledge
Self-control
Perseverance
Godliness
Mutual affection
Love

One of the things I’ve learned in my career is that teams don’t become consistently world-class at customer service overnight. It takes months and years to develop the behavioral habits in which it flows in every interaction. In a similar fashion, Peter encourages me to “possess” God’s QA criteria “in increasing measure.”

God’s not looking for perfection. He’s looking for progress.

Progress doesn’t happen without purposed intention.

At work, my team listens to phone calls and looks for evidence of behavioral criteria. What if I write down the list above and have it on a card for quick reference? At night before I go to bed, or once a week when I have a moment of quiet I walk through the list.

Where has there been tangible evidence of each quality in my life this week?

What words, behaviors, or actions could I consciously attempt to increase in my interactions with others — my relationships with family, friends, and colleagues — that would help each quality “increase”?

One of the reasons that clients hire our company is for the disciplined accountability to track, coach, and encourage the improvement.

Who do I have in my life to help me be accountable to “increasing” the demonstration of God’s QA qualities in my life? Who will help me track it, coach me, encourage me, and celebrate with me?

In the quiet this morning, I’m simply reminded that spiritual growth is no different than physical, mental, or business improvement. The process is the same. God has defined what he wants to see in my life and relationships in increasing measure.

It’s my responsibility to participate in the process.

God has never forced me to do it. He wants it to come from my own heart’s desire. God simply reminds me that there’s a personal reward I’ll experience as I make progress which He calls shalom — a deep wholeness, an inner steadiness that no external chaos can steal. He also reminds me that there is an eternal incentive sitting out there.

And so I enter another day of this earthly journey.

I’m working on increasing my consistency of goodness today.

How about you?

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

Attention and Maintenance

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Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
Hebrews 6:7-8 (NIV)

When Wendy and I built our house ten years ago, it became a long-term lesson for me in lawn care. In the division of labor here at Vander Well Manor, you’ll find my name at the top of the org chart when it comes to the outdoor lawn and landscaping. Looking back, there were so many things we would have done differently from the very beginning.

It took several years for us to get our lawn to a point where it looked decent, and it required regular treatments and on-going maintenance. Finally, it was beginning to look great and I was feeling better about it than ever. So, I decided to save a few pennies and take a year off of the treatments to see if it was healthy enough to simply perpetuate.

Weeds. Bare spots. Brown patches. It was awful. Ugh!

Today’s chapter contains a passage that has stirred controversy within the church for centuries:

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance.
Hebrews 6:4-6a (NIV)

The question, of course, is whether salvation can be lost? Can a person be saved and then lose that salvation? My friends of pentecostal persuasion tend to say “yes.” My reformed, Calvinist friends say “absolutely not.”

In the quiet this morning, my heart finds no joy in wading into that debate. Instead, my meditations pulled back to look at the context of what the author of Hebrews is communicating to the weary, persecuted first century believers. He follows this passage about fallen away believers with his metaphor of land drinking in the rain.

There are two contextual references the author is tapping into. For his Jewish audience, his metaphor resonates with the Law of Moses in Deuteronomy 11 in which God promises that the land will be blessed in obedience but cursed if the people lose faith and are disobedient. He is also referencing Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount when He states that the rain is going to fall on the land, both good and bad. The question is what the land is going to produce.

The rain will fall. The sun will shine. When I was dutiful in tending my lawn, feeding it and mindfully tending it, the land produced a thick carpet of healthy grass. When I took a year off it began to produce weeds, bare spots, and brown spots in unhealthy ways.

That’s the simple spiritual lesson the author of Hebrews is trying to communicate to his readers. He is not harshly warning them of a bean counter God who holds salvation in the balance ready to yank it away based on who knows what infraction. The author is simply adding to the message he began in the previous chapter about his readers not spiritually growing into maturity. The seeds were planted, the lawn sprouted, and it even looked healthy for a while. Life will continue to happen. The rain will fall. The sun will shine. Without regular maintenance the land will not be healthy and fruitful, but rather filled with weeds, thorns, and thistles.

So, I am reminded in the quiet this morning that my spiritual life, just like my lawn, needs regular attention and maintenance if it’s going to be healthy, mature, and fruitful. The rain of grace keeps falling; what I tend determines what grows.

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

My Green Thumb Pursuit Continues!

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From [Christ] the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Ephesians 4:16 (NIV)

It’s summer, and here at Vander Well Manor my annual pursuit to develop a green thumb is in full swing. For anyone who has followed my posts or podcasts for any length of time has heard me speak of my life-long brown thumb and inability to keep plants alive and growing. But, I’m not giving up. This year Wendy got her cactus to bloom. I started an indoor herb garden this winter that has been highly successful for a long time. I even transplanted a couple of them and moved them outdoors and they are doing well. Then, the indoor herb garden became a breeding ground for little fruit fly type bugs, so I’m having to start over with that.

It’s a process. And, I’m getting better.

In today’s chapter, Paul shifts the subject of his letter to Jesus’ followers in Ephesus from the supremacy of Christ Jesus to the difference this should make in the lives of those who believe. Belief is not the endgame, but the entrance of a life-long journey that is a process of growing, maturing, developing, and becoming. Paul describes the endgame of this journey in today’s chapter too:

...so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

That’s like me and my brown thumb becoming a master gardener.

He goes on to describe the journey to that destination as one of a perpetual growth cycle in which I am constantly “putting off” things such as:

falsehood,
anger,
mooching off of others,
worthless and ‘unwholesome’ conversation,
bitterness,
rage,
slander,
and malice.

Instead of allowing those things to take over like weeds in my garden, I am constantly learning and growing in character qualities such as:

honesty,
truthfulness,
peace,
hard work,
generosity,
worthwhile conversation,
encouragement,
mentoring others,
kindness,
compassion,
and forgiveness.

It’s a perpetual spiritual growth process. It’s learning how to develop a spiritual green thumb in which my life becomes a garden of life-giving, growing, and fruitful thoughts, words, relationships, work, and community.

Like developing a green thumb it takes time. If happens in fits and starts. Mistakes are made. Things die. Weeds take over. Bugs breed. But lessons are learned, and as I persevere there is more growth than withering, more life than death, more fruit and blooms and less weeds and bugs.

This weekend in separate occasions we had friends over for some life-giving conversation and refreshment. I was able to offer and make some refreshing summer cocktails made with fresh basil and mint from my herb garden. It was a lot of fun.

In the quiet this morning, I’m reminded that being a disciple of Jesus and developing a green thumb are basically the same pursuit.

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

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Chapter-a-Day

The Fruit of Generosity

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Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
2 Corinthians 9:1o-11 (NIV)

I confessed in yesterday’s post/podcast that I wasn’t very generous when I was young. I explained my generosity has increased with my spiritual growth and maturity. If you actually read the chapter today, you’ll notice that there is no textual separation between the end of yesterday’s chapter and the beginning of today’s. It’s like those who determined where the chapters and verses should be (btw, that happened in the early 1200s) put the chapter break smack dab in the middle of Paul’s discussion about generosity and the Corinthian believers making a financial offering to the believers in Jerusalem. So, as today’s chapter continues his discussion of generosity, I’d like to continue and dig a little deeper into my own experience of generosity growing with spiritual maturity.

I have a tat on my right bicep referencing Psalm 112. Many years ago as a young adult, husband, father, and businessman I happened upon Psalm 112 in my reading. I was at point in my life journey in which I wanted God’s blessing. I wanted to do things right, and be who God created and called me to be. Psalm 112 begins: “Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands.” It goes on to describe a blessed man of God and it penetrated my soul as I read. This described the man I wanted to be – the man I was striving to be.

I memorized Psalm 112. I quietly began using it as a personal guidebook. Twice in the lyrics of the ancient Hebrew song it references generosity:

Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely,
    who conducts his affairs with justice.

…and few lines later…

He scatters abroad his gifts to the poor,
    his righteousness endures forever;
    his horn will be lifted high in honor.

(Note: I read and memorized Psalm 112 in an older version of the NIV translation that used masculine rather than gender neutral language. For the sake illustrating its impact on me personally at that time, I’ve quoted the older, masculine version.)

As I recited, meditated upon, and sought to live out the description of Psalm 112, I continued to run headlong into the theme of generosity not just once but twice. It was at that point in my life that I began to seriously think about and address my family heritage of Dutch frugality (and well-hidden greed), my own deep seated patterns of financial irresponsibility, and my complete lack of generosity.

Wouldn’t you know it, as Paul addresses the subject of generosity as a spiritual matter with the believers in Corinth in today’s chapter, he references Psalm 112. I love the way God connects everything.

Two observations about generosity from my meditations on the chapter this morning:

First, Paul references what I had to learn along my life journey. Generosity is a spiritual matter of the heart first and foremost. God’s Word and Spirit had to sprout and take root inside me and force me into some much needed personal cultivation and pruning. Only then, through time and process did the fruit of generosity begin to emerge consistently and with increasing abundance. Paul is referencing this same spiritual process within both the Corinthian and Macedonian believers.

Second, generosity follows a clear spiritual pattern that is rooted all the way back with the freed Hebrew slaves in Exodus when He provided for them “daily bread” in the form of a miracle food called Manna.

Here’s the pattern:

God provides me with what I need daily —>

I spiritually learn to be content with what I need (not want) —>

What I have beyond my needs, I “scatter abroad” to others —>

Note that the metaphor here of “scattering abroad” is that of a sower sowing seed. This connects to Jesus’ parable of the sower sowing the seed of the Word of God. Now, hold that thought.

My generosity produces a crop of gratitude, thanks, and praise in others that both returns to me as a gift of righteousness and spreads through the others as they grow spiritually and are inspired to become generous themselves. Their gratitude, praise, and growth is righteous spiritual fertilizer that comes back to me and boosts the yield of generosity in my own life.


Paul repeats that the result of generosity is spiritual abundance in both the giver and the receiver that then spreads to others.

I can’t help but once again contrast this with what I’ve always heard spewed by televangelists and prosperity gospel preachers. They preach that if you give (them and their ministry) money then God will bless the giver financially as if generosity is an affluent financial investment strategy. Give ME your money, and God will give YOU MORE MONEY. The focus is on the money, especially the money going into their pockets.

In the quiet this morning, I come back to Psalm 112 that I had placed as a tattoo on my right bicep because the right arm is a metaphor of blessing, and the bicep is a metaphor of strength. It reminds me daily that my strength is in being a man blessed by God; The blessed man God created and called me to be is increasingly and perpetually content, generous, grateful, and fruitful.

That is what Paul is trying to teach his friends in Corinth.

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

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

I’ve Never Regretted Being Generous

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And here is my judgment about what is best for you in this matter. Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.
2 Corinthians 8:10-12 (NIV)

Wendy and I quietly reached a milestone in recent weeks. In 2007, we began sponsoring a young girl in Kenya named Nyaguthi through Compassion International. Our small, monthly financial gift helped provide for Nyaguthi and her family’s basic needs along with her education. This was not, however, just a mindless financial transaction. For almost twenty years we have corresponded with Nyaguthi, learned about her life and desires, celebrated her birthday and holidays, and she has likewise gotten to know our family through our letters and photos.

Just a few weeks ago Compassion informed us that Nyaguthi is now finishing up her university education. At 22, she is graduating out of the Compassion program and will launch into finding a job and starting her life journey as an adult. I can’t explain the joy this makes us feel. We’ve watched her grow up. Her photos have been ever-present on our refrigerator. We have and will continue to pray for her.

In today’s chapter, Paul addresses a specific matter with the followers of Jesus in Corinth. The followers of Jesus in Jerusalem were experiencing terrible persecution. Some were being killed. The were being ostracized socially and financially which made life difficult just to manage life’s basic needs. Others were desperate to flee Jerusalem and seek safety in other regions, but lacked the means to do so. Paul and believers in the area of Greece were generously gathering money to send to Jerusalem to help out their spiritual brothers and sisters in Christ.

As I read Paul’s encouragement to the Corinthians to be generous, I was struck by his emphasis on desire. He directly writes that he is not commanding them, twisting their arms, or manipulating them. This is not a televangelist’s trickery of promising God will turn their financial gift into profitable personal gain. He simply appealed to the desire to be generous that he’d witnessed in them the previous year. He appeals to their eager willingness to be generous, to give what they can for others who are in need. Paul goes on to reference what he also wrote about to the believers in Philippi (Philippians 2) regarding Jesus’ example leaving the riches of heaven to become an impoverished human being, that anyone who believes in Him might know the riches of God’s grace and inherit Life both abundant and eternal.

I confess that I was not a generous person as a young man. Generosity has been something that has grown within me as I have grown and matured in God’s Spirit. Wendy has taught me much in both her heart and example. One of the things that I continuously realize and remind myself: I have never, not once, regretted being generous. Not only do I lack any regret, but I look at Nyaguthi’s face on our refrigerator, think of how she’s grown in body, mind, and Spirit over the years, and I feel a surging desire to be more generous. The words “eager willingness” that Paul uses in today’s chapter describes my feelings rather well.

So, in the quiet this morning I am celebrating Nyaguthi’s launch and also thinking about the task Wendy and I have before us of beginning our sponsorship of another child.

I am eager to do so. I have never regretted being generous.

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

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

Soil and Spirit, Weather and Weeds

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Soil and Spirit, Weather and Weeds (CaD Matt 13) – Wayfarer

Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
Matthew 13:8 (NIV)

Happy Easter! It is spring and here in Iowa the landscape is quickly changing from the dull neutral tones of gray, beige, and deep brown that dominate the death of winter into vibrant and lush green of new life and a rainbow of blossoms that it brings. Here in Pella, the tulip beds are in full bloom and our annual Tulip Time festival is just ten days away.

In today’s chapter, Jesus famously teaches the crowds in parables, and the subject of His parables are all about soil, seeds, and weeds. This got me thinking a bit about the spiritual parable of my own experiences this season…

I’ve already mowed my lawn a couple of times. It was 10 years ago that Wendy and I moved into our newly constructed house. The company we hired to do our lawn was one of the more difficult contractors we worked with in the process. The soil on our property wasn’t the greatest and we had loads of black dirt brought in to supplement it. Even so, the yard was not grated well, and the soil was not spread well. The result has been a decade of trouble and hard work. Every spring as I break out the lawn mower and begin working the lawn I confess feeling a bit embittered regarding how much better and easier it would be if the soil had been done well, and done right, from the beginning.

Meanwhile, inside the house I’ve been experimenting with one of those countertop herb gardens advertised online. I have confessed many times in these posts/podcasts to my brown thumbs and lack of ability to successfully garden, even while living my entire life on the richest, most productive farmland on the face of the earth. I’m happy to say that my tiny little herb garden has been highly productive despite the multiple mistakes I’ve made getting started. I’ve been supplementing my dinner salads with Romain lettuce from countertop. Our supply of fresh Basil is slowly growing, and I’ve got plenty of fresh mint growing to mix some Mojitos to enjoy on the back patio this summer.

One of the things I’ve noticed about my little countertop herb garden has been both the soil, which I’ve never seen anything like it in my life, and the watering system which is genius in allowing the soil to soak up what the plants need without drowning them and takes my human incompetence and lack of disciplined attention out of the equation.

Which has me thinking about Jesus’ parable in the quiet this morning. The difference between the 25% of seeds that became productive and fruitful plants in Jesus’ parable and the 75% of seeds who didn’t make it was the quality of the soil. Which has me thinking about my contrasting experiences with my lawn and my countertop herb garden. The profoundly simple question Jesus’ parable, and my experience, leads to is: “What is the quality of the spiritual soil of my heart, mind, and life?”

As I meditated on Jesus’ parable, I realized that there are both things that I control and things that are out of my control with regard to the spiritual cultivation of my heart and mind. I don’t completely control the weather of life, the circumstances around me, or even the weeds that might have been sown to my right or left and are flourishing to my perpetual aggravation. I do, however, control the inflows of what I draw into my eyes, my ears, my heart, my mind, and my body. I control my time and my energy expenditure. I can push my spiritual roots deeper where springs of Living Water can nourish me, or I can simply choose to soak up the shallow and toxic run-off this world ceaselessly sheds from its surface.

The words of the Serenity Prayer came to me as I pushed my roots deeper this morning:

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Or, in other words:

Lord, help me to be the best spiritual soil I can be for Your Word to take root that my life might be as fruitful and productive as possible today. Grant me patience, grace, and peace amidst the weeds and weather of this world that I do not control. And give me wisdom to know the difference.

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

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

Chapter-a-Day

“How Not to Be a Dick”

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“How Not to Be a Dick” (CaD Matthew 6) – Wayfarer

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”
Matthew 6:1 (NIV)

My buddy Nathan is a senior in high school this year. When Wendy and I got married, she was the last of her “Golden Girls” friends group to get married, but none of the five of them had babies at that point. At our wedding rehearsal dinner, Nathan’s mom told the girls she was pregnant. Nine months later, Nathan was born. Wendy and I have enjoyed being a part of his life. His mother blames Wendy and me for instilling in him a love for baseball. I had the honor of mentoring him in his profession of faith. It’s hard to believe that in a few months we’ll watch him graduate from high school.

When Nathan was entering adolescence, I read a review in the Wall Street Journal of a clever little book by Meghan Doherty called How Not to Be a Dick. It’s a brilliant parody of the old Dick and Jane books that schools used to use to teach kids reading. Doherty uses the parody to teach young men some of the basics of how to be respectful and capable young men as it relates to being around others, girls, and adults. We gifted it to our young friend.

As I read the middle chapter of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” this morning, my heart and mind continued to notice the contrast between His instructions and the instructions God gave His people through Moses in Leviticus. Once again, I couldn’t help but notice that there are plenty of “dos” and “do nots” but they are different.

Take for example some of the “dos” and “do nots” from Leviticus 18 contrasted with Jesus’ “dos” and “don nots” from today’s chapter:

God in Leviticus: “Obey My laws and follow My decrees.”
Jesus: “Seek first [God’s] Kingdom.”

God in Leviticus: “Don’t have sex with family member, including in-laws.”
Jesus: “Don’t brag about how much you give to the poor.”

God in Leviticus: “Don’t take your wife’s sister as a rival wife.”
Jesus: “Don’t give showy public prayers to be seen by others.”

God in Leviticus: “Don’t sacrifice your children on the altar of Molek.”
Jesus: “Don’t worry about your life, clothes, needs, or future.”

Can you see the contrast?

Leviticus was like a Dick and Jane primer helping little children figure out some of the spiritual basics of life like my five-year-old self trying to figure out how to phonetically sound out words and read a simple sentence. Jesus in His sermon on the Mount isn’t calling for strict obedience to the parent’s household rules or dealing with prohibitions of incest and child sacrifice. Jesus is talking about choosing in to a hearts desire for the things of God and more addressing spiritual issues of the heart like sincere faith, doing things with right motives, and developing faith as an antidote to fear. It’s as if Jesus is addressing a humanity moving into adolescence how “not to be a Dick.”

In the quiet this morning, I’m thinking about entire churches I know who perpetually treat their members as children as if they are spiritually learning how to read. They approach life with black-and-white rules of morality, lord over people like strict parents hovering over toddlers they expect to be naughty, and punish disobedience with tactics of fear, shame, and the threat of being ostracized. God, however, calls on me to be “mature” and Jesus moved beyond such spiritual basics to address deeper matters of the Spirit and my heart’s motives and intentions.

As a child, I learned to obey behavioral rules because my parents demanded it. As an adult, I learned to avoid certain behaviors to avoid the painful consequences while maintaining other behaviors simply because I know they are the right and healthy things to do for myself and others.

As Paul put it in his letter to the followers of Jesus in Corinth: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”

In other words, somewhere along the line I graduated from learning how to read about Dick and Jane, to choosing not to be a Dick.

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

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

“New Things Come”

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“New Things Come” (CaD Lev 9) – Wayfarer

On the eighth day Moses summoned Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel.
Leviticus 9:1 (NIV)

I have learned over almost 45 years as a disciple of Jesus that this spiritual journey as His follower is all about my transformation. It’s the gradual migration from my earthly and worldly mindset into having my mind fixed on the things of God. Treasures on earth lose their perceived value for me as spiritual treasures are considered increasingly more priceless in my mind. What I desire becomes less significant (in fact I desire things less) and what God desires of me becomes more of a priority. This is literally what Paul was writing about when he told the Corinthian believers: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

In today’s chapter, Aaron and his sons are facing an abrupt transformation. The chapter begins by describing the events as taking place on the eighth day. In yesterday’s chapter, God told Aaron and the boys to camp out at the entrance of His tent for seven days. Granted, this seems like a strange request to our logical sensibilities. Today’s events take place on the eighth day. God is using His base language of metaphor again. What does everyone know, from the very beginning of the Great Story in Genesis took place in seven days? Yep, creation. How long were the dudes camping with God? Yep, seven. It is now the eighth day. Something is new. A spiritual transformation has taken place. Something new has been created in Aaron and His sons. The dudes are now priests of the Most High God.

In today’s chapter, Aaron performs the priestly duties and sacrifices for the first time. This is new. Another thing that is abundantly clear is that Aaron performs the offerings exactly as prescribed by God through Moses. The text is painfully repetitive as it recounts Aaron’s exact actions detail for detail. In fact, it’s one of the strange things about Leviticus that drives modern readers bonkers. As I meditated on this in the quiet this morning, two things came to mind.

First, I returned to the reality that these are events are taking place in the toddler stage of humanity thousands of years ago. Writing is a relatively new technology that few know and reading isn’t even a thing for the masses. Things were passed down orally and as an actor currently working on my lines for a role in a play I am reminded that repetition is the key to memorization. When toddlers watch Sesame Street they are introduced to a letter and a number and those are repeated over and over and over again in that episode. The repetition was likely helpful and necessary to the ancient Hebrews learning these detailed instructions.

Second, there is a spiritual lesson taking place even in Aaron’s exacting conformity to God’s instructions. Five hundred years or so later, the Hebrews will decide they want a king and they will choose a guy named Saul. Saul will subsequently decide that he can perform these offerings even though he’s not a son of Aaron as prescribed. Samuel tells him:

“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
    as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
    and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”

One of the spiritual lessons God is attempting to teach His fledgling people through this sacrificial system is the importance of obedience. The obedience is more important than the sacrifices themselves. In fact, God makes this abundantly clear in Psalm 50:

“Listen, my people, and I will speak;
    I will testify against you, Israel:
    I am God, your God.
I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices
    or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.
I have no need of a bull from your stall
    or of goats from your pens,
for every animal of the forest is mine,
    and the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know every bird in the mountains,
    and the insects in the fields are mine.
If I were hungry I would not tell you,
    for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
    or drink the blood of goats?“

At the end of the chapter, as a result of Aaron’s obedience in presenting the offerings according to the instructions, the “glory of the LORD” shows up in the form of fire. So this spiritually transformed dude who is now a priest obeys God, does as instructed, and God responds. It’s the eighth day. It is a new beginning for Aaron and the boys. Old things have passed away. New things have come.

Which is exactly what God has spiritually done in me through being joined with Christ thousands of years later. In fact, spiritually speaking that transformation includes making me a priest of the Most High God, as well (see 1 Peter 2:9).

In the quiet this morning, I find myself marveling once again at how God’s message is consistent even as He communicates it differently at different points of the Great Story, even as I communicate about these same things differently to my toddler granddaughter than I do to her adult parents.

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

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

Ceaseless Maturation

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Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.
1 Corinthians 14:20 (NIV)

I had a conversation the other day with parents who have a child in their late teens. As with most parents, they were struggling with that fact that this intelligent, capable child regularly makes really stupid choices and foolish decisions. Yep.

I shared with my friends that Wendy and I both observed a major shift in our daughters as they reached their mid-twenties and their brains were fully developed. I learned how much the brain is a part of our maturation process. We don’t control it. It just is.

At the same time, I know fully functioning adults who continue to act like teenagers as if their brains never fully developed. They allow themselves to be led by their self-centered appetites and passions. They repeatedly make foolish life decisions. Their lives are always in chaos. They are perpetually trying to escape the painful consequences of their own childish foolishness.

Paul is dealing with people like this among the Jesus’ followers in Corinth. In today’s chapter, he once again tells the Corinthian believers to “grow up” and stop acting like children.

One of the things I thought as a foolish child was that adults reached a level of complete maturity around the age of 30 and then it was sort of smooth sailing after that. You act like an adult and the rest of life is easy. It was around the age of thirty I started making some of the most foolish and childish life decisions of my entire journey!

As a disciple of Jesus, I’ve had to embrace that the process of growth and maturity never ends. Jesus said He was the Vine and I am a branch of that vine. What healthy plant stops growing, developing new growth, and bearing fruit? So it is with life in the Vine.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about the many ways I still need to prune, water, feed, and cultivate continued spiritual growth and applied wisdom in my life. I do this so that as my aging body wanes my life continues to grow, flourish, and remain spiritually fruitful until the end.

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

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

Perpetually Growing

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Perpetually Growing (CaD 2 Thess 1) – Wayfarer

We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing.
2 Thessalonians 1:3 (NIV)

Wendy and I spent the past week at the lake with the kids and grandkids and good friends of theirs who have a daughter Milo’s age and another baby on the way. Wendy and I had a great time with them and enjoyed playing host. We got home late in the day on Saturday, and yesterday we joined our local gathering of Jesus’ followers, including my father.

It’s a fascinating season of life for me. I’ve been meditating on this a lot in recent days. Our kids are in the throes of parenting young children, being first-time homeowners, building careers, and paying the bills. At the same time, we’re walking with my 87-year-old father who is learning about life without his spouse of 60-plus years, living in a relatively new community, and managing the aches and pains, bumps and bruises, and perpetual medical diagnoses that come with the human body in its inevitable decline.

While at the lake, our daughter asked, “Were you overwhelmed all the time when we were little kids? I don’t remember you seeming overwhelmed.”

I laughed. Oh man, was I overwhelmed.

I shared that story yesterday morning with a young man who was in high school with Taylor and Clayton and is in the same season of life. His father, now retired, was standing there with him. We had a good talk and a few laughs about life’s stresses and being overwhelmed in that season of life. His father then added, “I hate to break it to you, but I sometimes feel just as overwhelmed today!”

And, it’s true. The things that overwhelm us change, but life has its challenges in every season on life’s road.

Today we begin Paul’s second letter to his friends in Thessalonica. It was written shortly after the first letter. It’s shorter than the first, and the themes are relatively the same. He wants to applaud how they are handling continued persecution. He wants to address issues surrounding Jesus’ return, and he wants to give them encouragement.

In today’s opening of the letter, Paul acknowledges that their faith is growing “more and more” and their love for one another is “increasing.” One of the things that struck me about this was reading in the context of a post I wrote last week in which Paul encourages an increase in the Thessalonian believers’ faith and love. They took his encouragement to heart and continued to grow in faith and love.

This takes me back to Taylor’s observation and question about young children being relatively oblivious to their parents’ being overwhelmed. I have found along the life journey that we have certain perceptions of what life will be like down the road that are simply wrong. I used to think that at some point on life’s road, I would feel like I’ve “arrived” and things get easier. They don’t. The challenges simply look different. Along with this misguided sense of “arrival,” I thought that one sort of reaches a pinnacle place of spiritual maturity in which you’ve learned it all. Quite the opposite, the further I push into spiritual maturity the more aware I am of how much further I have to go. As C.S. Lewis put it, there’s always more to reach for “further up, and further in.”

And that’s why I loved Paul’s acknowledgment of the Thessalonian believers’ increase in faith and love. They were fledgling believers, but they were growing and increasingly producing spiritual fruit.

In the quiet this morning I am reminded that this should never end on this earthly journey. As long as I have life and breath I will be pushing further up, and further in toward God’s Kingdom. I will perpetually be letting old things pass away so that new things may come. I will always be spiritually growing, learning, repenting, and increasing in faith and love, even as my body begins and continues the slow decline to physical death.

It is the beginning of another work week. I have a number of things on my task list this week. I have added “Grow in and exhibit more faith and love” to the top of the list. If I’m not increasing in that, accomplishing all of the other tasks is eternally meaningless.

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