Tag Archives: Messy

Chapter-a-Day

The Blessing

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“This is the blessing that Moses the man of God pronounced on the Israelites before his death….”
Deuteronomy 33:1 (NIV)

This past Sunday I delivered the morning message among our local gathering of Jesus’ followers. At the beginning of the message I showed a photograph of our family gathered on New Year’s weekend, just a few weeks ago. The entire crew was gathered at the table for a meal in all the glorious mess of three generations.

The table, the dining room floor, indeed the entire house – they get messy when the whole family gathers. And, I’m not just referring to food crumbs. That was the metaphor that carried through my message. Jesus invites the whole family to the table. It gets messy, and yet He asks us to stay.

In family (both nuclear and spiritual), every individual part contributes to the love of the whole.

Today’s chapter is Moses’ final act. His role as leader-judge-prophet-priest will end with him. His is not a box on the org chart to be filled. A succession plan was never a consideration. There’s no favored son groomed for elevation. Moses does not pout or demand a severance of legacy. He foreshadows and embodies the sentiment Paul would later express when he wrote, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

Moses’ final act is to bless the twelve Hebrew tribes one-by-one. As I meditated on the blessings. A couple of things stood out.

First, in Jewish tradition, blessings are less about forecasting the future and more about naming reality—calling forth what is already true beneath the surface. Moses is not predicting outcomes; he is bestowing identity.

Just as I look around the table from toddler grandchildren to adult daughters and sons. Each is unique. No two are the same. They each, in their own unique identity, bring themselves to the table and with each of them comes a part of the blessing of family.

And, this leads to the next observation.

No tribe is cursed. Even the complicated ones—and, honestly they each have their own “troubles”—are not shamed. Silence, yes. Erasure, no. Where earlier stories carried fracture, Moses now offers healing through words.

And, to me, most importantly: Israel is blessed together. No tribe receives fullness apart from the others. The blessing is communal—interdependent, embodied, shared.

In the quiet this morning, I find the chapter inviting me to do something wildly countercultural:

Receive blessing without scrambling to deserve it.

Moses blesses warriors and poets, priests and homebodies, the strong and the sheltered. Not because they nailed it—but because God chose them.

It’s easy for me to slip into “blessing is a performance review” mode. Others times, my Enneagram Type Four shame whispers to my soul that God’s blessing has been passed out and I was skipped altogether.

Moses says “no” to both lies.

I am blessed before I arrive.
I am carried even when I wander.
I am named even in the silence.

That’s the beauty, and the shalom, that I find in the Great Story. Moses exits stage left. The Story goes on, even to this.very.day.

The God who went before them…
is the God who goes before me.
Jesus invited me to the table, and asked me to stay.

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

Putting “Religion into Practice”

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Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
1 Timothy 5:8 (NIV)

My Grandpa Spec had a tragic childhood. His real name was Claude but everyone called him Spec. The day of his father’s 34th birthday, Spec was ten. His father was diagnosed with Tuberculosis on that day. It was a death sentence at the time. It also meant months of financial and emotional hardship for the family. So, Spec’s father went home and committed suicide.

Spec was farmed out to his maternal grandparents in Illinois. They were hard people, but they were also people of faith. Spec’s life wasn’t enjoyable, but he was kept on a very straight and narrow path.

After the suicide Spec’s mom kept his little brother and sister with her. My grandma described her as a “gold digger.” She decided her best bet in life was to find a rich man and marry him. She jobs on the Mississippi riverboats and drug the kids with her. She had a series of marriages. Spec’s little brother became an alcoholic. It was a dysfunctional family system to say the least.

Later in life, Spec found himself with a good job in management. His brother came looking for a job. Spec gave it to him, but told him that the day he showed up to work drunk he would be fired immediately. The inevitable happened. Spec fired his brother. His brother went back to the family and bad mouthed Spec up-and-down, driving the wedge of separation between Spec and his family even deeper.

My grandma told me that when Spec’s brother died, they decided to travel to the funeral despite the tragedy and conflict that had divided them. After the funeral, the Funeral Director handed Spec the bill for his brother’s funeral and informed him that the family said he would pay it. My grandmother shared that he quietly chose to pay it, but spoke about the pain that my grandfather carried as a result of his family.

I never knew this until I was an adult. I watched Grandpa Spec care for his elderly mother with love, kindness, grace, and generosity. I had no idea the story behind their lives or their relationship until both he and his mother were dead.

Just a few months ago I was going through a tub of things my mother left behind when she transitioned to her heavenly home. Among the belongings was an old tin box with documents that had belonged to Grandpa Spec. Among them was the bill for his brother’s funeral.

In today’s chapter, Paul provides young Timothy with a host of instruction regarding how to handle the administration of benevolence within the local gathering of Jesus’ followers. The Jesus Movement was big on tangibly loving the most needy individuals in society at that time. The Roman Empire had no system of welfare. It was a brutal world for the poor and needy. Widows, orphans, the handicapped and lepers were among those with little means or hope for any kind of decent life. Jesus’ followers took them in, provided for them, and helped them survive.

Paul’s instructions are interesting to read from Timothy’s perspective. If you’re responsible for the messy decisions regarding who gets financial assistance and who does not, how do you decide? Reading between the lines of Paul’s letter you can see that a system had been emerging. Paul is sharing the things he’s learned and implemented in an effort to help Timothy with those messy and difficult decisions.

One of the things I observed amidst Paul’s instructions is that he placed on believers the responsibility for providing for one’s own family. He considered it “putting your religion into practice.” Paul goes on to state that any believer who fails to provide for their relatives and the members of their own household has “denied the faith.”

In the quiet this morning, this brought me back to Granda Spec, his brother’s funeral bill, and the gracious kindness with which he cared and provided for his mother in her old age. The gold digger mother who sent him off to live with her mean religious mother while she kept the other children. I’m sure in retrospect Spec realized that the decision probably saved his life, but no child is left unscarred when a parent’s actions communicate to a child “I don’t want you.”

No one who knew my Grandpa Spec would call him a particularly spiritual man. His faith, however, was genuine. It was proved genuine in the way he put his religion into practice; When he continually did the right thing by his family even when it cost him his money and his pride.

I’m reminded this morning that it’s not what I say I believe, but what my actions prove that I believe.

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!
Chapter-a-Day

Genealogical Lessons

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Genealogical Lessons (CaD 1 Chr 2) – Wayfarer

These were the sons of Israel:
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad and Asher.

The sons of Judah:
1 Chronicles 2:1-3a (NIV)

I have been the closest thing my family has to a genealogist. I’m not great at it because I don’t have the time and energy it takes to do it well, but I’ve learned a lot digging into my family history on both my mother’s and father’s sides of the family.

Our daughter Taylor works for a software company that does really cool things recording family stories for subsequent generations so she recently found herself repping their service at a giant conference on genealogy. Upon her return, we had a lot of fun digging into the tools she discovered and swapping tidbits we gleaned on family history. It had always been rumored that we were related to George Washington in some way, and I was excited to be able to firmly establish that I am George Washinton’s first cousin, ten generations removed. Taylor said she was more stoked by learning she was an 11th cousin of Grace Kelly. I guess we get excited about different things. I acknowledged to her that Cousin Grace is much easier on the eyes than Cousin George.

Genealogy has also provided me with some interesting situations. A while back I received a random message from a stranger online. The person was looking for information on an individual and based on their online search they thought I might possibly be related. It turns out they were correct. This individual was a child of the family member. It was one of those family secrets that no one knew about. Now, decades later, this individual was in the precarious position of wanting to know more about this biological parent they never knew, but not being sure if they wanted the truth to be known and open the proverbial can of worms. The situation led to me learning a lot more about some of my family than I ever knew before.

Family is messy. It always has been. It always will be. Genealogy taught me to embrace this truth along with graciously embracing my messy family and its members with love.

Today’s chapter continues the Chronicler’s genealogy. I realize most people skip over these lists, but there are little tidbits in any genealogy that have lessons for me if I’m willing to observe. When reading these genealogies I always look for things that interrupt the order and flow. Why did the author choose to suddenly provide details about this one person when every other person in the family was simply named? Why is a woman named when this is clearly a patriarchal genealogy with 99.9% male family members listed? Why did things switch to a person I can’t connect to anyone just previously mentioned?

There’s actually a handful of these anomalies in the Chronicler’s genealogy in today’s chapter. He had hundreds of years more history to draw from and far more sources at his disposal. He had to make choices about what to include, what to leave out, and how to present it.

What struck me immediately in today’s chapter was the listing of the 12 sons of Jacob (aka Israel). As a patriarchal society that always favored the firstborn son, the natural thing to do would be to start with the firstborn (Reuben) and his descendants and then proceed in order.

The Chronicler cuts directly to the fourth-born, Judah. Judah was the forefather of David. The Chronicler is writing as a Jewish subject of the Persian empire. His generation has returned from exile. They have rebuilt their city and their temple from rubble. He is looking back at his people, his history, and his faith. He is trying to make sense of it all. And who is the most pivotal and celebrated historical figure in the minds of the Chronicler and his contemporaries?

King David. The giant-slayer. The man after God’s own heart. The general. The conqueror who established a great, united kingdom. The psalmist. The priestly king who envisioned the Temple. The man through whom the prophets declared a Messiah would someday come.

The Chronicler is establishing his priorities. The history he is going to revisit to try and make sense of where he and his people now fit into God’s Great Story is going to center on David, the key historical figure in that Story.

In the quiet this morning, this has me thinking about key figures in my family and my family’s story. I can quickly name key figures for good, and key figures for ill. What lasting consequences did these figures have on the family? How do those consequences connect to my story? I also can’t help but think about my life and my story as I consider Milo, Sylvie, and MJ. I sit in the quiet and envision their children and their children’s children. How can I channel God’s love in such a way that it positively impacts their stories?

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

Chapter-a-Day

Game of Thrones

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Game of Thrones (CaD 2 Sam 2) – Wayfarer

Then the men of Judah came to Hebron, and there they anointed David king over the tribe of Judah. 2 Samuel 2:4 (NIV)

Life gets messy. When individuals and complex systems of individuals are all navigating their disparate paths and personal agendas, the results are inevitably going to include conflict. Tracing David’s path from being anointed king as a young man and his ascension to the throne of Israel is a meandering path through some very messy personal and political terrain.

King Saul is dead, but that doesn’t mean that David’s path to the throne is now less messy. Just the opposite. Things are going to get even messier. David’s family belongs to the tribe of Judah, and with the death of Saul the men of Judah move quickly to anoint David as their king. There are 12 tribes in Israel, however, and Judah’s brash act of independence reveals a schism between Judah and the other tribes that foreshadows centuries of bloody civil unrest to come when the nation splits in two during the reign of David’s grandson.

David is now King of Judah and its vast southern territory. The remnants of Saul’s political machine are not, however, eager to lose power or cede control of the nation to Judah’s famous outlaw. David was, after all, the young man Saul had designated as #1 on his most wanted list. Saul’s general, Abner, has is own political agenda. Abner sets up Saul’s son, Ish-Bosheth as King of Israel and, no doubt, his puppet. Let the game of thrones begin.

Today I am again reminded of how messy life can get even in the politics and power struggles of my relatively small circles of life and influence. We all find ourselves embroiled in the game of thrones for our own little systemic kingdoms. Even as time and events lead towards divine ends, this life journey is fraught with difficulties, dangers, toils, and snares both personal and corporate. History should teach us that this has always been the case east of Eden, but I find we humans are constantly surprised by the reality of it.

In midst of the mess I’ve found it helpful to spiritually focus on the basics:

  1. Love God.
  2. Love others.
  3. Seek God’s kingdom first

… and then to press on one step, one day, at a time in the right direction.

A Note to Readers
I’m taking a blogging sabbatical and will be re-publishing my chapter-a-day thoughts on David’s continued story in 2 Samuel while I’m take a little time off in order to focus on a few other priorities. Thanks for reading.
Today’s post was originally published in April 2014.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Both/And Family

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Both/And Family (CaD Gen 42) – Wayfarer

Now Joseph was the governor of the land, the person who sold grain to all its people. So when Joseph’s brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground.
Genesis 42:6 (NIV)

There was a period of time in my twenties and early thirties when I did a deep dive into my family history. I investigated both my father’s and mother’s family lines. I talked to my parents, grandparents, great aunts, and great uncles. I asked many questions about relatives I knew nothing about. I heard many fascinating stories, and I learned a great deal. I was led to the conclusion that family is messy. My family, like almost every family, always put our good foot forward for public perception. In both my paternal and maternal families going back several generations, I found plenty of skeletons hidden in the closets.

Divorce
Broken relationships and members refusing to speak to one another
Deceit
Suicide (more than one)
Depression
Alcoholics (more than one)
Illegitimate children
Children sold into servitude
Secret marriages
Sexual harassment
Attempted sexual assault
Public scandal
Lawsuits
Court hearings
Prison sentences…

I also found multiple examples of…

Deep love
Intense devotion
Genuine faith
Sacrificial generosity
Honorable character
Faithfulness to duty
Unquenchable hope
Inner strength

One of the lessons my family history adventure taught me is that family is not either/or “good” or “bad,” but rather it is both/and good things and bad things. Yes, I am a product of a loving family. Yes, my family has failings and dysfunctions like every other family system. I endeavor to do my best to be a healthy cog in my family system. I’d like to think I’ve succeeded in some ways. I must confess I’ve tragically failed in others.

I thought about these things as I read today’s chapter. The dramatic story of Joseph is drawing to its climax. Everything begins to “work together” for Joseph. Israel and his sons are starving in Caanan because of the severe famine that was predicted by Joseph in interpreting Pharaoh’s dream. The same brothers who almost killed Joseph and sold him into slavery because Joseph told them of a dream in which they bowed down to him, now arrive in Egypt to buy food and they bow down to him. The dream is fulfilled just as Joseph described thirteen years earlier.

I thought it fascinating that Israel would not allow Benjamin to travel with the brothers. With Joseph presumed dead, Benjamin was the only son that Israel had left who was born of Rachel, his first love. It would seem that when Israel thought Joseph was dead, he replaced his “favorite” with the only other son of Rachel in the tribe. Joseph, longing to see Benjamin, uses his brother’s ignorance of his true identity to force them to bring Benjamin back to Egypt. Israel balks. Having lost Joseph, he fears that the same will happen to Benjamin.

In the quiet this morning, I found myself thinking about the very human family drama of Israel and his many sons, including the lost son Joseph. Yes, it’s a tragic story fraught with flawed characters, tragic choices, and dreadful circumstances. And, it’s also a beautiful story of redemption, salvation, and God weaving these flawed human beings into a larger story, the Great Story, of God’s redemption of all things.

This gives me hope for my own family story which, when I really dug in to look at it objectively, I found to have its own flawed characters, tragic choices, and dreadful circumstances. Along my journey, I’ve discovered that God has redemptive purposes for me/us as well. On this eve of Thanksgiving, I am grateful for that.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Chip off the Ol’ Block

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Chip Off the Ol' Block (CaD Gen 29) – Wayfarer

When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn’t I? Why have you deceived me?”
Genesis 29:25 (NIV)

Lately, I’ve been posting old family photos on social media in a series I’ve dubbed “From the Shoebox.” I have received a number of comments telling me how much I look like my father. It’s become more and more common the older I get, and I’m fine with being a chip off the ol’ block.

In yesterday’s post, I began the discussion of the way that very different family systems can create chaos when they are merged in marriage. I want to take that conversation another step deeper today because of the events in today’s chapter.

Jacob is sent to live in exile because he, and his mother, conspired to deceive Jacob’s father into giving Jacob “the blessing” as heir apparent to the family and its fortunes instead of Jacob’s twin brother to whom it rightfully belonged. Believing that Esau would kill Jacob out of vengeance, he is sent to live with his mother’s family, and it’s important to remember that it is mother’s family with whom he is living.

Jacob (whose name means “deceiver”) was a mama’s boy from the beginning. She was the parent who had the greatest influence on him. It was his mother who prompted the conspiracy to steal Esau’s blessing and ensure that Jacob would run the family and inherit the family fortunes.

Upon arriving at his uncle Laban’s settlement, there are two important things that happen. The first is subtle. The second is blatant. Uncle Laban initially greets Jacob by saying “You are my flesh and blood.” Ancient cultures of that area would use greetings such as this as a way of saying “you are being brought into the family” and will be treated as a family member. But then, a few verses later, Laban strikes a contractual deal with Jacob to work for seven years as the bride price for his daughter, Rachel. The gracious “you’re family” switches to “you’re a contract worker.” It’s a bait-and-switch that Jacob, in his infatuation with Rachel, does not question.

Seven years later, the wedding night arrives. The family feasts, but instead of sending Rachel into Jacob’s tent as agreed, he sends her older sister, Leah. We’re not told how it was that Jacob did not notice, but he wakes up to a big surprise. Laban tells Jacob that it’s “custom” to marry off the older sister first and he offers Rachel in exchange for another seven years of labor.

Rebekah sends Jacob into his father’s tent and pretended to be Esau.

Rebekah’s brother, Laban, sends Leah into Jacob’s tent pretending to be Rachel.

The “deceiver” is deceived.

What comes around, goes around.

Guess where your mother learned it, Jacob?

Welcome to the family.

Sometimes being “a chip off the ol’ block” has less to do with looks and more to do with how we think, behave, act, and react within a family system. We spend years unconsciously playing a role within one family system and learning how to relate and interact within the family system. Suddenly we find ourselves living in another family system. We don’t wipe the slate clean and get a do-over. We bring all the mess of one system and merge it with a completely different one.

Merging flesh is quite easy. It’s quite another thing to merge souls, habits, traditions, and systemic thinking that I’m often unaware I’m even thinking. I’ve learned that successfully making that work requires two individuals willing to be introspective, honest, gracious, forgiving, patient, and persevering.

Thank you, Wendy.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Me and Messy Family

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Me and Messy Family (CaD Gen 28) – Wayfarer

Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac; so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.
Genesis 28:8-9 (NIV)
Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”
Genesis 28:20-22 (NIV)

I’ve written a couple of posts recently in which I touched on the fact that the Bible really doesn’t specify any type of ritual or tradition around marriage. In fact, the closest it gets is right in the second chapter of the Great Story. A man leaves his father and mother, is united with his wife and two become one.

As I’ve meditated on this over the years, I’ve come to observe that the focus is almost always on the two becoming one. But rarely do we think about or discuss the pre-requisite of leaving the parents, which happens for both spouses even though only the male is specified in the text.

In today’s chapter, we find the twin brothers, Esau and Jacob, on divergent paths. Esau is already married to two Hittite women who have brought chaos and conflict within the family system. Having been cheated out of his birthright and blessing by his twin brother and mother, Esau is understandably bitter. Realizing how much his parents hate his wives, Esau decides to double-down and marry two more Hittite women and bring even more disruption into the family system.

Jacob, on the other hand, goes into exile with his mother’s family in order to find a wife from within the tribe. While on his way, Isaac meets God in a dream, receives the blessing God gave his grandfather and father, and chooses in. He makes a vow to follow and worship God and embraces Abraham’s covenant.

Welcome to the mess.

There was a specific stage of my own life journey when I thought long and hard about what it meant to be my own person, establish my own house, and separate from the family system of my childhood. I made a couple of key discoveries during this stage of my life:

It’s hard not to play the role one has developed as part of a family system. I leave home. I do my own thing. I follow my own path. Then I go to my parents for the holidays and I find myself thinking, acting, and behaving within the family system as I always have since I was a kid. This isn’t necessarily unhealthy, but neither is it necessarily healthy. I discovered that it was important for me to see it and work through it myself.

Parents are part of the entire equation. Both Isaac and Rebekah played a role in the conflict between the brothers. Parents can help or hinder their children’s “leaving” and the establishment of their own lives, homes, and family systems. The past decade has been crucial for both Taylor and Madison as they are in their own stages of establishing their lives. It’s not always easy to let go. It’s hard to watch them stake their own claims and feel the separation that naturally happens when one becomes independent of the system I established and controlled for so long. I am constantly having to have talks with God, myself, and Wendy about how best to bless our children by repeatedly choosing to let them go.

While Isaac, Rebekah, Esau, and Esau’s four foreign wives live in the messy consequences of Isaac and Rebekah’s own meddling, I have a feeling that twenty years of exile from that family system will be good for Isaac. He needs time and distance to establish his own relationship with the God of his forefathers, to become a husband, to become a father, and to make his own way.

In the quiet this morning, I can’t help but think about this life journey. Once I was a child learning what it meant to leave home, to be one with another, to be a father, to establish my own family system. Now I’m a parent learning to let go of daughters who are one with another and establishing their own family systems. It’s all part of the journey with its mess, mistakes, chaos, crazy, blessing, joy, laughter, and beauty.

I just want to do each stage well, and I’ve learned that I give myself some grace because I’m always a work in progress. I want to progress. I want to bring more sanity than insanity to the lives of our children and grandchildren. I want to make relational choices that will allow for more health than dysfunction. I desire that I can be more gracious and less demanding. I pray that I can increasingly trust God with the lives of my adult children so as to avoid meddling in their lives out of my personal fears and mistrust.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Gift, not Reward

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Gift, not Reward (CaD Ps 127) – Wayfarer

Unless the Lord builds the house,
    the builders labor in vain.
Psalm 127:1 (NIV)

Family is messy. It just is.

When I was a young man, I embarked on a fact-finding mission to better understand my families of origin. What I discovered was that underneath the veneer of stories that I’d been told (the good, polite, and acceptable ones) there was a whole lot of mess.

The Great Story is full of wisdom that reads like simple binary formulas. A+B=C.

Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.

The fear of the Lord adds length to life, but the years of the wicked are cut short.

I like simple formulas, and I’ve observed that most other human beings do too. That’s why name-it-and-claim-it televangelists get people to send them millions (“Give and you will receive!“). It’s how we get suckered into all sorts of things (“Just five minutes a day with the Ab Monster and you’ll have a six-pack like this dude!“). I’ve also observed and experienced that it’s how many institutional churches approach life. “Do this and you’ll experience God’s blessings; Don’t do that or you’ll suffer God’s punishment.” It’s no wonder the world is rejecting the church and screaming “It doesn’t work!”

Along my spiritual journey, I’ve come to the realization that the spiritual path, the path of wisdom, and following Jesus is not a simple math equation as it may appear on the surface and/or how it’s often presented. It’s more like actuarial science based on general rules, complex principles, earthly probabilities, percentages, and exceptions. Simple formulas are fubar’d when imperfect human beings enter the equation with our emotions, pride, passions, appetites, desires, fears, and free will.

Train up a child in the way they should go, and when they are old they will not depart from it.

It seems so simple that I want to name it and claim it. It appears so simple that when I witness someone’s child making poor choices it must be that his parents missed an ingredient in the good Christian, Focus-on-the-Family formula, or her behavior must reveal the proof I need that mom and dad are blowing it in the parental department. The simple train-up-a-child formula sounded so easy when my daughters were babes who were completely dependent on my absolute provision and authority. Then an adult child strikes out on her own path, making her own choices, and finding her own way. It looks nothing like the paternal expectations I anticipated as part of that simple formula when my head and heart were intoxicated with absolute authority over her life. It’s easy for me to feel cheated by what appeared to be simple math.

In my own life journey and experiences with messy family, Lady Wisdom has taught me a few things:

  • The path Jesus prescribed for His followers was never about moral perfection, an easy-life, and earthly abundance; It’s about selflessness, sacrifice, and love-in-action.
  • The only things I really control are my own thoughts, words, actions, and choices. The notion I control anything else is an illusion.
  • My family members are on their own spiritual journeys, just like me. If I want them to have grace and understanding with my shit, I have to have grace with theirs. If I want them to have patience and understanding as I navigate this stretch of life in my 50s, which I’ve never experienced before, then I have to let them navigate their 20s and 30s, which they’ve never experienced, with that same patience and understanding.
  • If I believe God is faithful and can be trusted, and I believe He is, then I can entrust others to God while I choose to let go of my personal expectations of them.

Today’s chapter, Psalm 127, is a song that the liner notes ascribe to Solomon, the son of King David. It is another one of the songs that ancient Hebrew pilgrims sang on their trek to Jerusalem. It is both a celebration of family and a reminder that all of life’s blessings and securities are gifts from God, not the In the quiet this morning, I’m making a little mental inventory of the family stories embedded in the Great Story:

  • Lot was incestuous with his daughters.
  • Abraham slept with his concubine at his wife’s insistence and the consequences are still being felt today.
  • Jacob (and his mother) deceived his father and stole his brother’s birthright.
  • Joseph was beaten and sold into slavery by his own brothers.
  • David committed adultery and refused to deal with the incestuous rape his own son committed against his half-sister.
  • David’s son, Solomon, was the offspring of his scandalous, adulterous, conspiratorial marriage to Bathsheba and murder of her husband.

And its Solomon who the wrote the lyrics of today’s Psalm. For me, reading the lyrics of today’s chapter knowing the unvarnished truth of Solomon’s family story strips away the notion of simple spiritual formulas with it comes to family.

Family is messy. It just is.

There are many spiritual principles that influence the outcomes I generally experience on this life journey, both positively and negatively. But it’s not always a simple equation. I can build a home and family, but it still won’t cure the mess. Solomon knew that as well as anyone. He reminds me this morning that life’s blessings and securities are gifts, not rewards.

Chapter-a-Day

Organism and Organization

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“While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul….”
Acts 13:2 (NIV)

For anyone who is interested in how organizations and human systems grow and function, the book of Acts provides some fascinating insights. The Jewish tribe from which the Jesus movement sprung was a rigidly structured religious system based on  tribes, families, and descent (thus all the endless lists of genealogies). Only descendants of Aaron could be priests and offer sacrifices. Only members of the Levite clan could work in the Temple. If you were a woman or you weren’t genetically connected to the Jewish tribe, then you were always held a lower class position. This was the centuries old system that the first believers were raised in. It’s all they knew.

Within weeks of Jesus’ ascension the “new” system turned everything these believers had once known on its head. Thousands upon thousands of people became believers. And it wasn’t just people from the Jewish tribe, but people from every walk of life. Holy Spirit power poured out on everybody regardless of gender, tribe, class, age, nationality, socio-economic position, or education. Not only was the movement organically growing exponentially, but everyone had a role to play. Everyone had a spiritual gift with which to contribute to the good of the whole. Read between the lines of Acts and you can feel the heady mess that Jesus’ followers had on their hands.

In today’s chapter there’s a little hint of this reality. Barnabas had been among the first believers, but certainly wasn’t one of Jesus’ original twelve. We find Barnabas in the town of Antioch where he seems to have some position of leadership along with guys named Simeon (Wait a minute. Who!?) and Lucius (What?!) and a dude named Manaen (Who is that?!) whose claim to local fame was having been the foster brother of Herod Antipas when he was a kid. Notice that Saul (Yes, that Saul, the one we know as the Apostle Paul) is named last on the list.

Welcome to the Jesus movement, the early church, where groups of believers sprung up everywhere out of nowhere and people you never heard of are suddenly leading local groups of Jesus’ followers.

This group in Antioch is worshipping and a person with the gift of prophecy gives Holy Spirit direction that Barnabas and Saul need to go on a journey to take the good news about Jesus to other towns. Notice that this sending didn’t come from the central authority, The Twelve, in Jerusalem. There was no committee formed, no delegation sent from Antioch to petition approval from the leadership in Jerusalem. Holy Spirit spoke direct to some dudes we’ve never heard of telling Barnabas and Saul to go. The dudes we’ve never heard of laid hands on Barnabas and Saul because they had the authority of Holy Spirit. It is an organic, living, breathing, growing, multiplying system.

And, it was messy.

It fascinates me to look at this organism of the early Jesus movement and then look at the denominations that make up most of the Christian churches in the world. When I look at denominations from Roman Catholic to Greek Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed, and Assemblies of God with their hierarchical org charts, their strict rules about who can do what, their educational systems, and their religious hoops it reminds me more of the old Jewish system from which Jesus freed the early believers.

In the book of Acts we witness the early church struggling to create systems to keep up with all that Holy Spirit was doing. An organization evolved and structures were clearly put into place. We as humans need structure and organization in order for things to work well. At the same time, what differentiated the early Jesus movement was that Holy Spirit was given free reign to work in and through everyone just as God designed the body of Christ to work. Along my journey I’ve observed that we always seem to put Holy Spirit back into the well ordered boxes of our human systems and organizational structures. When the Body of Christ is no longer allowed to be the organism it was designed to me and it is forced into rigid human organizational structures, it’s like putting a leash on Holy Spirit. Explosive, dunamis (the Greek word from which we get “dynamite”) power Jesus unleashed at Pentecost is reduced to a safe, child-proof sparkler.

There is a need for structure and organization, but I believe that we need to unleash Holy Spirit and rediscover the organic, living, breathing, growing, multiplying organism the Body of Christ was created to be.

Chapter-a-Day

The Mess of Relationships

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Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches.
1 Corinthians 7:17 (NIV)

My friend Matthew is a marriage and family therapist here in our small Iowa town. This is a great little community founded in 1847 by a Dutch pastor and his devout group of Jesus’ followers. After 170 years our community retains a strong culture of Christian values, and I would daresay that a majority of our town’s citizens would claim to be believers. Nevertheless, I’ve noticed over the years that my friend Matthew never ceases to be booked solid with clients. My quiet observation is that even among those who sincerely seek to follow Jesus, relationships are a never-ending challenge.

Today’s chapter reads like a modified bullet list from Dear Abby as Paul advises those who are married, those who are single wishing to be married, those who are widowed, those who are separated from their spouses, and those who are married to unbelievers. He weaves in and out of stating what he knows from Jewish laws and tradition, and what he believes in his own opinion as the first century believers struggle to determine what it means to live as a follower of Jesus in a rapidly developing faith tradition. Based on what he has already established earlier in his letter, Paul is addressing a fledgling group of Jesus’ followers from diverse cultural traditions living in what is primarily a pagan Greek town in the first century Roman Empire. Most of what the Corinthian believers knew of Jesus’ words and teaching was transmitted orally by the Apostles. It is likely that none of the Gospels had even been written when Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthians.

I’m an amateur student of history, I’ve come to accept that every generation of believers in every culture have struggled with all of these relational and marital issues. Courtship, sex before marriage, marriage, sex within marriage, infidelity, separation, divorce, widowhood, sex outside of marriage and remarriage have always been challenging issues. They have always spurred intense debate and emotional turmoil for individuals, families, churches, communities, and nations. I believe they always will this side of eternity.

As I read through today’s chapter and couldn’t help thinking of real people I know in very real and very unique life situations. It spurs questions of “Yeah, but what about….” God’s Message through Paul provides a general  guide for believers, but it certainly isn’t  exhaustive and it doesn’t come close to addressing countless specific situations. Being a divorced and remarried follower of Jesus, I have grappled with my very own relational struggles and failures. I have received (both solicited and unsolicited) diverse opinions from other sincere believers ranging from grace and forgiveness to judgment and condemnation. [sigh] Life gets messy on this earthly journey.

This morning I find myself grappling with my own past. I have continuously journeyed through and studied the Bible for almost 40 years. I have sought to increasingly live as a sincere believer of Jesus, though I regularly fall short. The failure of my first marriage and all the personal shortcomings that led to it are right up there at the top of my failure list.  Yet, there are a few things Holy Spirit continually whispers to my soul when my shame rolls in like the tide:

  • First, nowhere in God’s Message does the failure of a marriage exclude a person from God’s grace, mercy and forgiveness.
  • Second, God has a long track record of redeeming and using broken people with personal failings for His good purposes.

The good news for my friend Matthew and his colleagues is that they will have job security as long as imperfect human beings date, get married, and seek to successfully live together in this fallen world.