Tag Archives: Growth

Chapter-a-Day

“In the course of time…”

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In the course of time…
1 Chronicles 18:1a (NIV)

"In the course of time…" (CaD 1 Chr 18) – Wayfarer

Yesterday was Father’s Day here in the States. I was honored to be asked to deliver the message among a local gathering of Jesus’ followers near Des Moines, so Wendy and I took off first thing in the morning. We have friends among the gathering there and were joined by other friends who accompanied us for a wonderful lunch. We headed over to spend the rest of the afternoon with our kids and grandkids. Last night, we had other friends who joined us for a semi-regular Sunday evening visit which usually turns into a debrief on our respective lives. It was a really lovely day.

As Wendy and I made the drive home, I sat holding Wendy’s hand and found myself thinking about our lives together. We are so blessed. Life is so good.

Not that our lives have been perfect. In fact, they have been far from it. Wendy and I both have dots on our respective timelines in which we made major mistakes in life. We both have had seasons of life marked by serious moral lapses. The skeletons aren’t in the closet, either. We have been open about these things. Why? They are part of our respective stories.

The Chronicler begins today’s chapter with the words, “In the course of time.” This is his way of telling us as readers that he is being loose with the chronology, and he has been. The Chronicler has chosen to present David’s story in a certain way. He begins by presenting David as the “priest-king” who “was a man after God’s own heart.” He wants us to see that David put God first as David brings the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem and restores the tent temple of worship and the sacrificial system as prescribed by the Law of Moses.

Now, the Chronicler shifts to telling us about the victorious warrior-king who defeated the surrounding kingdoms. He’s also sure to point out that it was through these victories that David collected the gold, silver, and bronze that would eventually be used to furnish and decorate Solomon’s Temple.

It’s a perfectly lovely big-picture description of David. He put God first and was blessed and victorious…in the course of time.

The Chronicler leaves out some of the details. David wasn’t perfect. He had dots on his own personal timeline marked by mistakes. He had seasons of serious moral lapses. The Chronicler, however, is looking back through the lens of history and presenting the larger story of David that he sees. He’s presenting the big-picture view of what God was doing in the larger context of the Great Story that God is telling from Genesis to Revelation.

In our cynical, tabloid-driven culture of tell-all scandals and true-crime podcasts and documentaries, the Chronicler’s version of events might strike one as dishonest. In the quiet this morning, I find it to be an honest view of God’s grace and mercy.

The most beautiful and gracious thing that Jesus offers is forgiveness. God through the prophet Isaiah said, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.”

Thank God that I am not defined in His eyes by the mistakes I’ve made, many many failures, or the seasons of my moral lapses. When God “remembers them no more” all that is left of the story is the person God has been growing, cultivating, pruning, and transforming me to be “in the course of time.”

I am so blessed. Life is so good.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Growing Things Change

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Growing Things Change (CaD Acts 6) – Wayfarer

In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.

Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called)—Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia—who began to argue with Stephen.
Acts 6:1,9 (NIV)

I saw a funny meme the other day of a father holding his three-month-old baby. The baby had doubled in weight in the three months since birth. At this rate of growth, the father calculated, the kid would weigh trillions of pounds by the time it was ten years old.

Healthy things grow…
Growing things change…
Change challenges me…
Challenge leads me to trust God…
Trusting God leads to obedience…
Obedience leads to health…
Healthy things grow…

A friend shared this with me many years ago, and I know that I have referenced it at least once before (After blogging for 17 years, I’m bound to repeat a few things!). I have always loved this little mantra because I have experienced it to be true in my life, and I have observed it to be true in both others and in healthy and growing human systems.

The early Jesus Movement was an organic, growing human system. In the first six chapters of Acts, Luke references the growing number of believers five times. At the beginning of the book, Luke records the number of believers right after Jesus’ ascension as about 120. In chapter 4, Luke numbers the believers at 5,000. He’s mentioned rapid growth twice since mentioning the 5,000.

Growing things change…

Having been a leader in a number of different systems and organizations along my life journey, I can only imagine the changes required by the Apostles to accommodate the rapid pace of growth. It was not only a change in numbers, but in geography too. Many of the first believers on the day of Pentecost in the second chapter were from all over the known world. In today’s chapter, Stephen is sharing Jesus’ teaching with a synagogue outside the Temple. The cozy little group of early believers sharing all things in common wouldn’t have been cozy for long.

Change challenges me…

Luke records the first challenges faced by the growing Movement in today’s chapter. There is a challenge from within in the form of anger between ethnic factions within the Movement. There were also challenges from without in the form of false accusations made against them to the Temple rulers who had already persecuted the Apostles.

Challenge leads me to trust God…

Luke also records in today’s chapter that the Apostles appointed more men to help with the daily duties the Movement had established for caring for the daily needs of its members. The needs of the system are expanding, and with it the system has to distribute responsibilities to more members of the system. This, in itself, requires trust not only in the members taking on the responsibilities but also in God to provide for and enable a rapidly growing organism.

In the quiet this morning, my meditation on the changes in the early Jesus Movement has me thinking about change in general. Life never stops changing. I’m facing some life changes right now, in fact. This means there will always be challenges. How I handle the change is, I believe, a barometer of my spiritual health. I can follow the path of trust and obedience to greater levels of spiritual health and growth, or I can follow the path of anger, resentment, complaint, and depression which becomes an unhealthy cycle for me and everyone around me.

Lord, help me trust and obey that I might spiritually grow with every challenge.

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

Chapter-a-Day

The Thread

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The Thread (CaD Job 26) – Wayfarer

“And these are but the outer fringe of his works;
how faint the whisper we hear of him!
Who then can understand the thunder of his power?”
Job 26:14 (NIV)

I am surprised that I’ve never seen anyone try to stage the book of Job. 

Job and his three friends remain sitting on the ash heap where people burn their garbage. What a setting.

Job, emaciated, almost naked, and covered head-to-foot with festering sores, continues to scrape at his scabs with pieces of broken pottery. His friends, healthy, hardy, and dressed in their fine robes sit silently around him. What a visual. 

For twenty-two chapters, Job and his friends have gone back and forth in contemplation of his tragic circumstances and intense suffering. With Bill’s brief words in yesterday’s chapter, the friends appear to have nothing further to say. In today’s chapter, Job replies specifically to Bill. The Hebrew pronouns Job uses are singular rather than plural. 

It appears that Job is at the end of his patience with his friends as the conversation wanes. Job’s reply drips with bitter sarcasm:

“How you have helped the powerless!

    How you have saved the arm that is feeble!

What advice you have offered to one without wisdom!

    And what great insight you have displayed!

Who has helped you utter these words?

    And whose spirit spoke from your mouth?”

Job then proceeds to poetically contemplate God’s immense power that lies beyond human understanding. It feels as if he is talking more to himself than to his three friends. If I were directing this as a scene on stage, I would block it in such a way that it became clear Job is delivering his words to himself, to the audience like a soliloquy in Shakespeare. Why? Because he alone is privy to the depth of this insight. He sees God revealed in creation: the vastness of space, the rage of a thunderstorm, and the untamed seas. Job then recognizes that all of this is but “the outer fringe” of God’s power. He foreshadows the words of Paul who describes God as the One who can do “exceeding, abundantly, beyond all that we could ask or imagine.”

What is fascinating about Job’s beautiful description of God’s power that lies beyond imagination is that back in chapter 11 his friend Z accused Job of being unable to fathom the mysteries of God. In ten verses, Job has proved Z wrong. It is fitting that we don’t hear from Z again. In his painful cries out to God, Job may not even recognize that his suffering is giving him depths of clarity and insight to the divine that his friends will never fathom. There are spiritual insights learned amidst suffering that cannot be learned by any other means. This is why suffering is a requisite for spiritual maturity. This is why I believe Job’s is speaking to himself; He is speaking to me.

Throughout Job’s story, if I am willing to see it, I am witness to his spiritual maturation. His friends, confident in their status, education, and false sense of security, remain unchanged.

When I was a young man, I thought I had things figured out. Then life happened. Moral failure, financial failure, and divorce were among the many things that sobered me up to just how little I actually knew. Job’s suffering was perpetrated by the evil one. My suffering has largely been perpetrated by my own poor choices. Nevertheless, along my spiritual journey, suffering through the consequences of my own actions, I have humbly realized that all that I know is but the “outer fringe.” God is exceeding, abundantly beyond all that I can imagine. I am the bleeding woman simply trying to reach out with my finger to make contact with that single piece of thread dangling off the hem at the bottom of Jesus’ robe. I feel Job reaching for it, as well.

And, just that touch changes everything.

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

Chapter-a-Day

The Growth Gradient

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The Growth Gradient (CaD Job 14) – Wayfarer

“If only you would hide me in the grave
    and conceal me till your anger has passed!”
Job 14:13 (NIV)

Our neighbor has a willow tree that sits the edge of our properties. I can see it from our patio door. A few summers ago he got out his trimmer and literally cut off every branch so that just the bare trunk was left. Then he walked away. It looked so strange, and I wondered why he didn’t cut the whole tree down as I thought he was doing. Lo and behold, the tree quickly sprouted new branches full of limb and life. It was fascinating to watch.

In today’s chapter, Job continues his discourse of despair. He feels hopeless in his pain and suffering. He can’t envision any end to his suffering other than death itself, which for Job has a depressing finality of its own. Job even uses the metaphor of my neighbor’s willow tree:

“At least there is hope for a tree:
    If it is cut down, it will sprout again,
    and its new shoots will not fail.
Its roots may grow old in the ground
    and its stump die in the soil,
yet at the scent of water it will bud
    and put forth shoots like a plant.”

One of the things that I’m observing about Job as I read his thoughts anew, is the fact that he is a binary thinker. God is the unjust perpetrator of his suffering, period, end of sentence. Things are black and white to Job and he sees no gradient in between. Along my life journey, I’ve observed that human beings like things simplified into binaries. Red or blue, right or left, for or against, black or white. I believe reducing complex issues into simple binaries is one of the reasons our culture is currently so polarized.

As I contemplated Job’s use of the tree metaphor in the quiet this morning, I remembered that Jesus riffed off the same metaphor:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”

In Job’s mind, he is a flower that quickly fades and is no more. In his hopelessness he dismisses the notion that he is like the tree. He wishes he was like the tree. “If only,” he says. Jesus’ words hearken back to Job. In his black-and-white thinking, Job is blinded to the spiritual gradient of growth that lies between. “You are the tree, Job. You just can’t see it.”

I have observed in my spiritual journey that suffering is, just as Jesus described, part of a spiritual pruning process that can lead to an abundant flourishing of wisdom and spiritual fruit. I have also observed that I, like Job, often respond to suffering with a “Can’t we just get this over with?” mentality. A third observation I’ve made is that, unlike the modern educational system, in God’s spiritual education system I don’t get to move up to the next grade until I’ve learned the lessons of the grade I’m in. I’ve known individuals who appear to have been in spiritual kindergarten their entire lives.

In the quiet this morning, my mind goes back to Job. His simple binary perspective blinds him from seeing that his struggle with his suffering is part of the process of spiritual maturity. The gentleman who designed the landscaping around our house told Wendy and me not to go overboard with watering our young shrubs, and not to be worried if they don’t look very healthy for a season. “They need to struggle,” he told us. “It’s the only way they will put down deep roots that are essential for life.”

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

Chapter-a-Day

“Wait for It”

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"Wait for It" (CaD Mal 4) – Wayfarer

But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.
Malachi 4:2 (NIV)

My vocational career has been spent surveying customers for various clients around the world. One of the fascinating trends I’ve seen over the years is how customer expectations have changed since the advent of the internet age and the proliferation of cell phones. In the wake of Big Tech, time-related dimensions of service have become bigger drivers of customer satisfaction. In general, we are more impatient. We want faster answers. We don’t like to wait.

Wendy and I often muse how much we appreciate having information at our fingertips. We’ve kind of become Jeopardy! geeks and sometimes the answers prompt more questions about things we didn’t know. The other night, Wendy didn’t have her phone next to her as we were watching, so she simply lifted her Apple watch to mouth and asked Siri a question. Her watch immediately and audibly provided her with the trivial answer.

“Did you see what I just did?” she marveled at me.

Instant answers. Immediate gratification. Endless distraction.

Welcome to the 21st century.

For a disciple of Jesus, this trend represents a tremendous challenge. The spiritual journey as a follower of Jesus is fraught with waiting. Spiritual growth is an organic process that requires time for roots to dig deep in the Spirit, for growth to take place, and for fruit to emerge. Faith is “the assurance of what we hope for” which, by its very nature, means it’s out there and I have yet to fully take hold of it but believe with hope that I will. Paul put it this way in his letter to the followers of Jesus in Phillipi:

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Press on. Persevere. Reach. Strain. Those are the elements of the Spirit journey. It becomes an even greater challenge in an age when the expectation and normal human experience is immediate information and satisfaction right from your wristwatch.

One of the most fascinating things about the prophetic works of Malachi is its placement in the great story. Malachi was the last of the ancient prophets. His book was placed at the end of the prophets. Malachi was prophesying around 430 B.C. The next book in the Great Story is Matthew‘s biography of Jesus four hundred years later.

Today’s brief chapter is a set-up to the wait that is coming.

Revere my name. Remember the Law of Moses. Watch for Elijah.

A big Day is coming.

Wait for it.

In the quiet this morning, I spent some time looking back at my own spiritual journey. There have been so many time when I had to wait for promises to be fulfilled, prayers to be answered, and waypoints on the journey to be reached. The waiting, in turn, required praying, keeping the faith, hoping, pressing on, and developing patience. And, that’s the point. God’s goal for me is spiritual maturity, and that never happens in an instant.

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

Chapter-a-Day

The Futility of Flight

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The Futility of Flight (CaD Jer 42) – Wayfarer

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you are determined to go to Egypt and you do go to settle there, then the sword you fear will overtake you there, and the famine you dread will follow you into Egypt, and there you will die.
Jeremiah 42:15b-16 (NIV)

Wendy and I were once cast in a production that was eery little story about a young couple being stuck in a myriad of ways. We did not play the couple, but were rather part of a dream-like menagerie that revealed the couple’s true relational issues.

In the course of the story, Wendy’s character confronts the young woman, who keeps trying to run away in fear. No matter where she runs, however, the young woman runs right into Wendy.

That show came to mind as I read today’s chapter, in which the small contingent of former soldiers who took vengeance out on the rogue Ishmael and his gang of assassins in yesterday’s chapter, now ask Jeremiah to pray for them as they plan to flee with their families to Egypt in fear of Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon’s wrath.

God’s answer through Jeremiah was not what the contingent wanted to hear.

Jeremiah tells the group that they must do the hard thing. Stay, stand firm, and face the consequences with the Babylonian overlord. Yes, the same King of Babylon who just destroyed Jerusalem, killed countless numbers of their fellow citizen, and took most of the other residents captive. “Trust Me,” God says. “Have faith that the King of Babylon will do the right thing, and I will make sure that every little thing is gonna be alright.”

What I really found fascinating was the next part of God’s word through Jeremiah. He tells the contingent that if they flee to Egypt (and it sounds like God knows they’re going to do it anyway) then all the things that they are running from are the very things they will run into in the land of the pyramids. Their flight would be futile.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking back to the stretches of my journey in which a ran from different things. There have been times when I ran out of fear of a conflict or confrontation. There have been times when I ran away from facing up to my own mistakes or poor choices. Other times I have run away from doing the hard thing and instead sought out an easy alternative. As a follower of Jesus, however, I have found that God’s economy works just like the device in that production. No matter where I run or how far I run, God is there asking me to face the very thing I fear. As David put it in Psalm 139:

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

Time and time again in the Great Story God reveals that His purpose is a relationship with me in which I grow into intimacy and spiritual maturity. That growth curve requires growing pains, struggle, trials, and even suffering. This is the exact opposite of culture and the human condition that continue convincing me that things on this life journey should be easy, comfortable, pleasurable, free of pain, full of fun, and always lucrative. The more I’ve learned to trust God in my trials, the more I’ve come to acknowledge the futility of my fleeing whatever it is that I don’t want to face. When I trust God to stand and face whatever it is I’m afraid of the less time and energy I waste fleeing from whatever it is that I’m only going to run into again and again and again.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Humiliating Defeat

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Humiliating Defeat (CaD 2 Ki 14) – Wayfarer

Jehoash king of Israel replied to Amaziah king of Judah: “You have indeed defeated Edom and now you are arrogant. Glory in your victory, but stay at home! Why ask for trouble and cause your own downfall and that of Judah also?”
2 Kings 14:9-10 (NIV)

There are certain things that one simply experiences and knows from growing up and living in Iowa. For example, there’s the sport of wrestling. For whatever reason, the sport of wrestling is a thing in our state. Our major universities have long histories of success in the sport, and they’ve produced some of the most dominant wrestlers in history.

When I was growing up, wrestling was part of the required P.E. curriculum in the Middle School years. When you’re the youngest of four children, that means that older siblings came home and taught what they’d learned. I had never really wrestled in any official capacity, but I knew a few things from what my siblings taught me. I remember being paired up with partners in P.E. class and whoever my partner was, I had a pretty easy time of it.

Then we were allowed to challenge others in the class while the entire class looked on. I chose to challenge one of my classmates who was about my size. I figured I would at least be able to hold my own. What I didn’t know is that the guy I chose was already an accomplished wrestler and would go on to be a formidable wrestler in high school. It took less than five seconds for him to pin me. It was total humiliation.

It’s funny the things that I remember, and that still come to mind, over forty years later. There have been moments along my life journey when I experienced humiliating defeats and crashes of different kinds. Moments of shame are hard for me to forget. They have definitely served a purpose, however.

In today’s chapter, King Amaziah of Judah finds himself flying high after defeating the army of Edom. Feeling good about his victory, he challenges the Kingdom of Israel to a battle. Jehoash, King of Israel, tells Amaziah to reconsider and gives him the opportunity to withdraw the challenge, but Amaziah will have none of it. It does not go well for him. It ended up a humiliating defeat and Amaziah’s own people eventually turned on him and killed him.

In yesterday’s post, I wrote about the seasons of life. In the ebb-and-flow of the journey, I have experienced seasons of victory in which I felt on top of the world. It’s easy for me to think I’m going to stay there or fly even higher. Eventually, life always hands me a loss.

I also wrote yesterday that I’ve learned to embrace every season for what it is. Seasons of loss, defeat, shame, or humiliation are good soil for growing faith, humility, perseverance, and proven character. The “mountain-top” soil isn’t suited to grow those things.

In the quiet this morning, I’m praying a word of gratitude for the defeats, losses, and humiliating moments along my life journey. They’ve taught me a lot, including when to be content with life’s victories and appreciate how transient they can be. I’m also saying a prayer for my classmate who humiliated me on the wrestling mat (Yes, Wendy, I still remember his name!). I hope he’s in a good place on his own life journey.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Childish Notions

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Childish Notions (CaD Jud 11) – Wayfarer

And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”
Judges 11:30-31 (NIV)

As a boy, I remember that my prayers were often contract negotiations. In my childhood, prayer was something that happened on three occasions outside of church. There was the prayer before meals which consisted of dad saying the Lord’s prayer or his other stock pre-meal prayer followed by all four kids chanting the simple pre-meal prayer in Dutch that grandma and grandpa Vander Well taught us. Then there was the bedtime prayer, which was the stock “Now I lay me down to sleep” version. The third occasion for prayer was when I desperately wanted something to happen and I had no control over it.

Examples of these things that I desperately wanted typically involved girls. For the record, I never experienced the “girls a dumb” phase of boyhood. I had my first crush in Kindergarten and things only grew more intense from there. There were also the four Super Bowls in my childhood that involved the Minnesota Vikings. Those were, perhaps, the most desperate contract negotiations with God of all time. History will tell you how that worked out for me. I’m sure I made God all sorts of promises and vows on those Super Bowl Sundays. Sports, in particular, were the catalyst for contractual prayers: “God, if you see to it that my team wins, then I will….”

Today’s chapter is one of the most difficult and disturbing in all of the Great Story. It involves a man named Jephthah who utters a contractual prayer as a vow to God. If God grants him victory then he’ll sacrifice the first thing that walks out of his home as a burnt offering to God. He is victorious, and the first thing that walks out of his home is his only child, a young daughter.

I am fond of remembering that these stories come out of the toddler stage of human civilization when humanity’s knowledge and understanding of life, self, and God was about as developed as your average three-to-five-year-old is today. There are a couple of other contextual observations I must ponder as I mull over this tragic story. One is that the author of Judges reminds me twice that during this period of time “everyone did as they saw fit” (17:6; 21:25). Jephthah’s vow was incongruent with God’s law, yet this was also a time when the Hebrew people regularly worshipped the gods of neighboring peoples and participated in their rituals, including deities like Chemosh and Milkom. It is well documented that these religions would at times practice child sacrifices and the practice was viewed as a very serious act of religious devotion. In Jephthah’s day, his actions were, sadly, understood and accepted. His actions stand as an example of why God so desperately wanted His people to forsake these other religions.

Paul wrote in his epic love chapter: “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.” As I look back at my childhood and my childish notions about God and life, I am both amused and ashamed to have thought and believed such things. At the same time, they stand as a benchmark and a reminder of my spiritual progress over fifty-some years. The real tragedy would be to look back and find that my spiritual understanding had never progressed beyond contractual negotiation for trivial gain.

In the quiet this morning, that’s how I find myself viewing and mourning Jephthah’s tragic story. After over 40 years of reading and studying the Great Story, I am mindful that it contains stories that are examples to follow and stories that are warnings and examples to avoid. Today’s chapter is the latter.

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

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Evolution of Conversation

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Evolution of Conversation (CaD Jos 10) – Wayfarer

There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!
Joshua 10:14 (NIV)

Communication between parent and child changes so much over time. Wendy and I are loving watching our kids parent a four-year-old, and hearing the silly things that our grandson comes up with. The last I heard, Milo’s recommended name for the little sister in mommy’s tummy was “Harry Houdini.” Hey, the kid has a point. She does still have yet to escape the womb.

Conversations with my daughters changed and evolved over time. From the simple discussions with a toddler to the incessant “why” phase and then the years of instruction to navigating the life changes of adolescence. Then come the years of parental exile when it becomes obvious I’m not high on the conversational priority list. As they leave the nest, there begins a phase of requesting help and answering questions about the functional “how-tos” of life on your own which leads also to more adult conversation in which more complex topics are addressed, including the hard conversations required to address unresolved issues from the past.

I have always talked about the fact that humanity’s relationship with God across time reflects the development of the relationship between a parent and child from birth to adulthood.

In today’s chapter, we’re still in the toddler stages of humanity’s relationship with God. Joshua and the army continue their conquest of the land of Canaan. First, their new allies, the Gibeonites, are attacked by a coalition of neighboring forces and cry out to Joshua for help. After defeating this coalition of forces, the army continues a campaign to subdue the region.

In one fascinating aside, Joshua cries out to God to stop the sun and moon. Interpretations of this event vary. Literalists believe that God miraculously stopped time. Others argue that the sun and moon in the sky together were a bad omen for their opponents and Joshua wanted to extend the fear. What struck me, however, was the author’s observation that this was a first, that God would listen to a human being.

This being a momentous event, that of God listening to a human being, struck me because, in my post-Jesus reality, I am encouraged to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). Jesus encouraged His followers to literally “ask, seek, and knock” in prayer, explaining that a good father wouldn’t give a stone to his child if asked for bread (Matt. 5:7-11). Prayer is such a continuous part of my inner dialogue and my daily life, that it is hard for me to fathom a reality in which I didn’t think God would listen, and respond.

Humanity’s relationship with God has changed drastically between the days of Joshua and today. The very act of prayer has developed and evolved over time. I also can’t forget that with a Creator God, everything that He makes is layered with meaning. This development and evolution of communication also took place within my spiritual life cycle. From the moment I was “born again” in spirit to the place I am on my spiritual journey 40 years later, my relationship and conversations with God have grown, developed, and matured.

God’s relationship with humanity. My relationship with my parents. My children’s relationship with me. My relationship with God. My relationship with others. There is a natural growth and development of communication that takes place over time. In each relationship, I have a responsibility for the communication on my end. If I fail in that responsibility, the relationship suffers and may even die.

Thus saith the Mandalorian: “This is the way.”

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

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Exile and Return

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Exile and Return (CaD Gen 35) – Wayfarer

Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.”
Genesis 35:1 (NIV)

One of the things I’ve discovered along my spiritual journey is that the return is often as important as the destination. In some cases, they turn out to be one and the same.

In today’s chapter, God calls Jacob to return to Bethel which is the place where God first revealed Himself to Jacob. Jacob has been on a journey of exile for over twenty years, and now he has returned to his home and family. At Bethel, God renews the promises made to Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham. God makes Jacob’s name change to Israel official.

The timing of this is important. Isaac is about to die. Having the birthright and the blessing of the firstborn, God is leading Jacob through a rite of passage. He’s returned from exile to lead the family, and head the family business. Things are about to change in a big way.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself looking back. My spiritual journey has led me on paths of exile and return. I found it to be the path of both wisdom and maturity. In exile, I face trials and struggles that grow me up as I learn essential lessons in faith, patience, perseverance, joy, and hope. The return is the place where those lessons bear fruit. The landscape looks different upon my return. Time may have changed things, but most importantly I have changed. I see old things with new eyes. In exile, I have been refined, honed, broken down, and rebuilt for a purpose. The return is where that purpose eventually comes into focus.

I also found myself meditating on God’s name change for this patriarch-to-be. In exile, Jacob (meaning the deceiver) is transformed into Israel (he wrestled with God). When Jacob left Bethel, everything he had and came from his (and his mother’s) own deceptive cunning and initiative. In exile, he struggled with his Uncle, himself, and with God. He discovers in exile that his blessings come from God and not his, and his family’s, penchant for deception. Jacob left Bethel and went into exile. It was Israel who returned to Bethel ready for the next stage of the journey.

I have found that there are certain spiritual truths that do not change. Among those truths is the necessity of both exile and return.

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