Tag Archives: Perseverance

Chapter-a-Day

Run

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Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
Hebrews 12:1 (NIV)

I was never much of a runner. I tried cross-country in high school but only made it half a season. Later, friends talked me into giving running another chance. I did… but the passion never ignited. I like variety when it comes to exercise—different movements, different forms of exertion that trip my trigger.

Still, those handful of forays into running, and the many friends who’ve kept at it with lifelong devotion, taught me a few things.

I was in high school when my hardcore cross-country friends trained for their first marathon. I don’t recall any of them making it to the finish line. What I do remember is how they compared notes afterward—each one describing the exact point on the course where they ‘hit the wall.’

It was the first time I’d heard the phrase. It’s that moment when physical exhaustion breaks the mind. The brain can’t will the body to push through the pain. The finish line—the very thing that motivated their months of training—suddenly seems meaningless. The wall isn’t only physical. It’s mental. Even spiritual.

The author of Hebrews is writing to an audience of believers in the middle of a grueling real-life marathon. Thus far they have been socially ostracized by friends, family, and community. They have been publicly insulted and persecuted. Their homes and possessions have been confiscated. They have watched fellow believers imprisoned, beaten, stoned, and executed. Then came exile. They fled everything familiar to find refuge.

They are at risk of hitting the wall. The author knows it. It is the primary purpose of his entire letter, and it crescendos in today’s chapter. As I meditated on the text in the quiet this morning, I found four key movements in this climactic passage.

Remember

Yesterday’s post/podcast was all about those individuals in the Great Story who already ran their earthly race—men and women who stumbled, suffered, persevered. Today the author tells us to remember them. To let their lives whisper courage into our weariness. They ran with faith and perseverance. Today’s chapter begins with the author telling us to remember this cloud of witnesses. The Greek word is martyrōn from which we get the word martyr.

They suffered as you are.
They kept the faith.
They finished their earthly race.
They are right here. Living examples. Cheering you on.

Race

The author then lays down the metaphor for this entire capstone chapter. The race set before us. This life is not a sprint. It’s a marathon, just like the ones our cloud of witnesses endured. They weren’t perfect—they were beautifully, stubbornly human. They had their weaknesses and flaws. What they did have, was faith.

Fix your eyes on Jesus. It isn’t merely gazing at Jesus—it’s deliberately refusing every distraction, like a transfixed lover choosing to gaze on one face in a crowded room.

Consider all Jesus endured for us. The garden, the sweating of blood, the tears, the trials, the scourging, the mocking, the crown of thorns, the bloodied walk to Calvary, the nails, the cross.

Don’t think for a second that you can’t do this.

Run.

Rigor

The author then moves into discussing the rigor required of anyone in this race. Suffering produced endurance and perseverance. There is progress in the pain. The discipline a parent instills in a child is not easy in the moment, but it’s good and necessary. In the same way, the discipline called upon to gut-it-out in life’s most difficult seasons is never easy. But it is also good and necessary.

It pushes me to shake off the weight of bitterness and hatred.
It forces me to dig deeper to tap into the spiritual resources I need.
It tests my faith and develops my endurance.
It develops levels of maturity within that I can’t get any other way.
It teaches me how to lean into hope.
It leads to depths of joy found only on the other side of suffering.

Reception

The author then describes the finish line with an interesting contrast. He begins by looking back at Mount Sinai in the book of Exodus when Moses climbed the mountain and God met him there to deliver the Law. Fire, thunder, smoke, fear, and trembling.

That was the beginning of the Law that the author has stated has been completed and is obsolete. Old things pass away. New things come.

He then points us to a new mountain. It’s an eternal and heavenly Mount Zion and the New Jerusalem John describes in Revelation 21. This mountain is an unimaginable finish-line reception. Angels and celebration—movement, music, and unspeakable joy.

There will be shaking and there will be fire, because “Our God is a consuming fire,” but it’s not like the former. Not a fire meant to burn me up, but to burn away everything that keeps me from being who I truly am.

Tom—pure gold, refined through the flame.
Tom—unshakable, when the shaking ends.
Tom—welcomed on Zion’s festival-drenched mountain.

And so, once again I set out into another day of the race. This race doesn’t belong to the swift, but to those who keep running.

Press on, my friend.
Press on.

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!
Chapter-a-Day

Seduced by the Unseen

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Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)

Unseen.

That’s the word that leapt off the page again and again this morning as I meditated on the well-known chapter. It’s known as faith’s Hall of Fame.

The author starts by saying that faith is assurance of what we do not see. The word faith in Greek (pistis) was a term from relationship and politics: loyalty, trustworthiness, fidelity. In Roman culture, it was the glue of friendships and alliances. When the author of Hebrews repeatedly pens the words “by faith,” he’s whispering: “They aligned their lives with God. They trusted His character enough to follow, to act.”

And with each example, the author points out that they are following and acting upon the “unseen.”

Creation that came into being from unseen nothingness.
Enoch, who walked so intimately with God he was no longer seen.
Noah, who built a boat in the desert in preparation for unseen storms.
Abraham, who followed God to a land promised but not yet seen.

The author is speaking at once on a grand eternal scale and a dusty, earthly one. He points out that this entire temporal life journey is leading to a City, a home, an eternal reality that we do not see. In this we are sharing the same journey with all of these well-known characters in the Great Story who have gone before us.

At the same time, it’s that assurance of the unseen that shapes the way I enter and traverse my 21,759th day walking through this world. Everyone mentioned in today’s chapter had their own mundane days to trek through. These people aren’t flawless, they’re faith-full. A drunk, a murderer, a vain self-centered jock, a liar, an adulterer. They are remembered for their trust, not their perfection. What God was looking for was faith amidst the rough edges of their very human flaws, not a polished religious finish meant to hide them. They each pressed on daily toward promises unseen.

I love that Rahab is chosen for mention. A woman, a Canaanite, and a sex worker. The author could have chosen Miriam, Deborah, or Hannah. He chooses Rahab and breaks every box of religiosity. Faith loves people with a past.

As I sat in the quiet and meditated on this, it struck me that all these ancient lovers of God are not far away. They’re not marble statues in a faith hall of fame. They’re close. A cloud of witnesses pressed up around me like warm bodies in a crowded room, whispering, “Keep going, Tom.
Don’t stop. We’ve walked this way too.”

So, in the quiet this morning, I realize that I am seduced by the unseen. God wired me for wonder. My spirit is tuned to that point-of-tension between what is and what’s still just beyond the veil. When today’s chapter speaks of the unseen — of walking toward a country you’ve never seen, of trusting a God that cannot be measured — it presses all my deepest buttons:

My longing for meaning.
My hunger to taste the divine in every bland task.
My desire to be drawn into something bigger, riskier, holier.

And so, on this Monday of a short work week leading to an annual day of gratitude, I’m lacing up my walking boots. I’m pressing on in the journey towards an earthly future and an eternal City that are both unseen. But I feel it in my spirit. It burns in my bones. It continues to seduce me to press on while an unseen cloud of witnesses whisper their encouragement.

Have a great week friends.

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

Earthly Woes, Eternal Realities

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The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.
Hebrews 10:1 (NIV)

Yesterday morning Wendy and I were in our closet putting away folded laundry that was stacked on our dresser.

“Doesn’t it feel like we just did this a few days ago?” Wendy asked.

“That’s because we did just do it a few days ago,” I laughed.

Laundry never ends. It is the liturgy of the ordinary. Things get dirty. They have to be made clean. Over and over and over again.

This is exactly the point the author of Hebrews is making in today’s chapter. The spiritual problem is the stain that sin had made on the human soul and the human condition since Eden. Through Moses, God prescribed a spiritual laundry system. The offerings and sacrifices that the Hebrews offered at the temple were prescribed to spiritually cleanse those making the sacrifices. But, like the laundry, it had to be done over and over and over again.

Until Jesus.

The author has already stated quite clearly in previous chapters, that the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross was a “once for all” sacrifice. God Himself doing for us what we, and the old sacrificial system, could never accomplish. He washed the stain away for good – clean forever.

Yet, there lies within this spiritual reality a mystery. There is an eternal spiritual reality that lies beyond our temporary earthly reality. The author touches on it in today’s chapter. He says that the resurrected Jesus has entered heaven’s eternal temple “and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool” (vs. 13).

Jesus said on the eve of His execution that the Prince of this World “stands condemned” (John 16:11). But, for the moment, the Prince of this World continues to carry out evil in this world. The readers of Hebrews knew this all too well. Even in today’s chapter the author recounts their suffering, their homes and possessions confiscated, publicly insulted, imprisoned, and exiled.

Why the delay? God’s desire for everyone to experience the eternally cleaned and forgiven Life that Jesus made possible. The author reminds his readers that the Day is coming when all will be made right, even though in the midst of their suffering it seems slow in coming. Peter explained to the same audience: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9 NIV)

There is a spiritual reality and an earthly reality. Spiritually I am graciously and mercifully forgiven forever, eternally cleansed from sin’s stain. Physically, I am a wayfaring stranger continuing to make my way through this world of woe. Thankfully, I have not physically or mentally suffered as the author’s original readers had. Nevertheless, I’m still subject to all of the woes of this sin-stained world that remains, for the moment, the domain of the Prince of this World.

Holding this eternal reality aloft for his readers, the author then encourages them in their present earthly reality:

Have confidence (vs. 19)
Draw near to God (vs. 22)
Hold unswervingly to hope (vs. 23)
Spur one another to love (vs. 24)
Buddy up and encourage one another (vs. 25)
Persevere (vs. 36)

The chapter ends with a reminder of the activating ingredient required to cling to eternal realities amidst our earthly woes: Faith.

In the quiet this morning, as my mind struggles with my own version of earthly woes, I imagine myself taping Ted Lasso’s “Believe” sign on the wall of my heart. Daily defeats don’t negate eternal victory.

As Jesus said, “Don’t be afraid. Just believe.”

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

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Chapter-a-Day

Finishing Well

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…so I sent messengers to them with this reply: “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?”
Nehemiah 6:3 (NIV)

It’s Friday morning. Where did the week go? I confess that when I woke at 5:00 this morning to continue writing and moving my book project forward, I felt a strong desire to roll over. I’m finishing up the sixth of eight chapters in the manuscript. I can see the finish line. Sometimes the hardest part of a project is getting through the long slog in the middle. I’m feeling it.

I love it when I read the morning’s chapter and it’s as if God tailored it for this exact moment in time. As I waded into Nehemiah’s wall building project, I found him at exactly the same place I am. The wall is nearing completion. The doors and gates have yet to be placed and set, but the 2.5 mile long wall that was 40 feet tall and eight feet thick has been repaired and restored.

Jerusalem’s enemies have not given up on thwarting the project but they have switched tactics. Threats of attack didn’t work, so now they turn to deception. First they try to lure Nehemiah to a “meeting” under a false pretense of working out their differences. Next, they send a false messenger with a made up story hoping to lure Nehemiah into doing something they use as bad press against him.

Once again, Nehemiah displays characteristics that have made him the right man for this job and are the foundations of this projects success.

Focus. Nehemiah refuses to get distracted from the task at hand. We live at a time when endless distraction sits in the palm of our hand and is never more than an arm’s reach away. Nehemiah’s response to his detractors provides a great example for me to follow. “I’m focused on a great project! Why should I allow myself to be distracted?” I find it interesting that they requested a meeting four times and four times he had to repeat himself. The temptations of distraction don’t go away. Dogged determination is required to stay focused.

Faith. Prayer has been ever present in Nehemiah’s story. Nehemiah was always talking to God, asking for God’s help, and affirming his trust in God’s strength and provision. In today’s chapter, Nehemiah’s popcorn prayer is a simple one I could bear to repeat like a mantra in my current long slog and in the midst of every challenging stretch of this earthly journey: “Now strengthen my hands.”

Finishing Well. By the end of today’s chapter, the wall is completed. Nehemiah’s focus and faith led to the wall being rebuilt in a miraculous 52 days. It’s one thing to start a wall; it’s another to complete it. Faithfulness isn’t measured by enthusiasm at the beginning but by integrity at the end.

I’m drawing inspiration and motivation from Nehemiah’s success in the quiet this morning. The finish line is still sitting out there on the horizon for my current project. Nevertheless, I’m glad I rolled out of bed this morning instead of rolling over. The slog continues. I need to stay focused.

“Now, Lord, strengthen my hands.”

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

Body, Mind, and Spirit

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“Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.”
1 Timothy 4:7 (NIV)

Part of my routine of late has been to get in a two-mile walk in the morning at least three to four times a week. It’s been interesting to find a community of walkers in our neighborhood who all walk around the same time. It’s been fun to wave, to greet, and to feel a sense of camaraderie with others as I try to keep my body healthy. The encouragement and feeling of community is something that’s good for me.

The truth is that I have typically been very disciplined in my spiritual exercise regimen over the years. This chapter-a-day blog will celebrate its 20 year anniversary next March. Spending time with God in the quiet, studying the Great Story, meditating on what it has for me each day is something that has become like breathing for me. I don’t even think about it. It just comes naturally.

Physical exercise, on the other hand, is something I have to consciously choose to do. Over the years I’ve had stops-and-starts. My weight has fluctuated. I go through a season of being disciplined and feeling the benefits of improved health, and then my discipline wanes.

As I have greeted my fellow walking community comrades in recent weeks, it strikes me that I’m probably not typical. I think more people are given to physical training more than they are to spiritual training.

In today’s chapter, Paul encourages his young protégé Timothy in this very subject. Paul urges Timothy to be disciplined in spiritual training that leads to godliness. The word for training he uses is the Greek word gymnaze from which we get the word gymnasium. Paul then references the physical training that the Greco-Roman Timothy knows quite well as everyone in that day was familiar with athletes training for the Olympic games in gymnasiums. Even in Paul and Timothy’s day, the Olympics were major event in the Roman Empire. Roman Emperors loved to leverage the spectacle and popularity of the Olympics to show off their prestige.

Paul leveraged the metaphor of athletes, training, games, and victory over and over again in his writings. It was one of his favorites, and the connection is very real. Training, whether physical, intellectual, or spiritual requires a conscious choice, regular discipline, and perseverance over time to realize the long-term benefits.

I’m reminded in the quiet this morning that God continually calls me to wholeness in body, mind, and spirit. Paul urges Timothy in spiritual training. He likewise urged the believers in Corinth their bodies were the Temple of the Holy Spirit and to take care of that Temple. He urged the believers in Rome to be transformed by training and renewing their minds.

Body, mind, and spirit. God reminds me that being a healthy follower of Jesus requires choice, discipline, training, and perseverance in all three areas.

It’s raining this morning, so no two-mile walk. Time to hit the gym.

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

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

“Good Luck Charm” Religion

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"Good Luck Charm" Religion (CaD Jer 8) – Wayfarer

“How can you say, ‘We are wise,
    for we have the law of the Lord,’
when actually the lying pen of the scribes
    has handled it falsely?”
Jeremiah 8:8 (NIV)

A few years ago, I was working with a group of leaders who were tasked with teaching the book of 1 Corinthians to a larger gathering of Jesus’ followers. Before we began, I made a copy of the text without any of the chapter or verse numbers listed. I changed the type face to a font that resembled actual handwriting and printed it and handed it out. I encouraged the team to put themselves in the sandals of a leader of the Jesus followers in ancient Corinth and to read the words as they were originally intended: as a personal letter from their friend Paul. It was a transformative exercise for us.

One of the things that I have to always remember on this chapter-a-day journey is that the chapter and verse designations were not part of the original writings for centuries. Manuscripts as early as the 4th century AD contain some evidence of text being divided into chapters, but it wasn’t until the 12th century that Steven Langton added the chapter divisions and it wasn’t until 1551 that a man named Robert Estienne added the verse definitions. In 1560, the first translation of the entire Great Story referred to as the Geneva Bible, employed chapters and verses throughout. They’ve been used ever since.

Chapters and verses are an essential method for study, referencing, and cross-referencing. That’s why they remain. However, in my forty-plus years of studying, I’ve found that they can also hinder my reading, understanding, and interpretation. Chapters and verses gain individual attention apart from the context of the whole in which they were intended when written. Individual verses get pulled out of context. In other cases, like today’s chapter, the entire chapter is merely a piece of a larger message. I can easily read and contemplate just today’s chapter alone without connecting it to the chapters before and after into which they fit.

In today’s chapter, I noticed that the Hebrew people of Jeremiah’s day were saying, “We are wise, for we have the law of the Lord.” Something clicked and I remembered something I read in yesterday’s chapter: “Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” Both chapters are really part of one message or series of messages to be read together as a unit.

Taken together, I realize that there’s a theme in Jerry’s message that I would never see if I confine myself to each individual chapter and don’t consider them together as a whole. The Hebrew people of Jeremiah’s day had misplaced their trust. They trusted in Solomon’s Temple, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. They trusted in the “Law of the Lord” which had recently been rediscovered and made known to them. They had not, however, placed their trust in the God who gave them the Law, nor the God who inspired the building of the temple. They were treating the temple and the Law the same way they treated the other gods who they had worshipped, sometimes within the temple they were worshipping. The temple and the Law were basically good luck charms like all the other stars, idols, and pagan images they worshipped along with them.

In the quiet this morning, I thought about people whom I’ve met and known along my life journey whom I’ve observed treating their religion and their local church building, much like the people Jerry is addressing in his message, as good luck charms. When trouble comes in life (and trouble always comes in life – God even says so) I have observed their shock and anger. I have heard them express rage at God for not warding off their troubles and making their lives free of difficulty, pain, or sorrow. But God never promised that.

In fact, when Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit of their own free will, God said specifically that the consequences would include pain and conflict, sweat and toil, along with death and grief on our earthly journeys. Going to church and dressing my life up in religious traditions does not save me from any of those earthly realities. However, a trusting relationship with God gives me what I need to endure troubles in such a way that qualities like faith and perseverance, peace and maturity, along with joy and hope hone me to become more like Jesus, who endured more undeserved trouble than I could ever imagine and did so on my behalf.

Once again, a Bob Dylan lyric came to mind as I pondered these things this morning:

Trouble in the city, trouble in the farm
You got your rabbit’s foot, you got your good-luck charm
But they can’t help you none when there’s trouble…

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

Chapter-a-Day

The Filling Station

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The Filling Station (CaD Dan 6) – Wayfarer

Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.
Daniel 6:10 (NIV)

Along my life journey as a disciple of Jesus and wayfaring stranger, I’ve learned that the path of the Spirit is one of developing spiritual disciplines that, in turn, birth spiritual rhythms as I press on toward my destination. My daily time in the quiet is like a “filling station” on my life journey. I mean “filling station” metaphorically in the old sense of the world before GPS and cell phones. In those days, stopping at a “filling station” was not only about filling up on energy and provision, but also an opportunity to look at the state map that hung on every filling station’s wall. Wayfarers would stand and stare at the map to check their location and their destination to make sure they were on track. You might ask for directions or advice about the road ahead. You would gauge how far you’d come, and how far you had to go to the next waypoint.

Today’s chapter is another one of the more famous stories within the Great Story. The book of Daniel is filled with them, reminding God’s people that the exile in Babylon was not about God abandoning them, but about God’s faithfulness in the worst of times. It was about learning to trust God in the hardest stretches of life’s road.

The new ruler of Babylon is conned into declaring that, for one month, anyone who prays to any man or deity other than the ruler of Babylon will be thrown into the lions’ den. They did this knowing that Daniel prayed to God multiple times daily, and they guessed that he would not obey the decree just as his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow to Nebuchadnezzar back in the day.

Daniel’s enemies were correct. I thought it fascinating that after hearing about the decree, Daniel went home to kneel and pray “as he had always done before.” He wasn’t hitting his knees just because of the decree, he was hitting his knees because it’s what he always did, every day, three times a day. He had developed a spiritual discipline that gave birth to the spiritual rhythms of trust, faith, and perseverance. We are not told what Daniel said when they came for him, but I imagine it was a form of the same thing his friends said when threatened with the fiery furnace: “My God will save me, but even if He does not, I will never pray to anyone or anything but the God of Heaven.

Daniel’s faith did not present itself miraculously at the moment he needed it. Each day along his life journey, Daniel disciplined himself to spiritually stop and visit the filling station. Each day, with each stop, Daniel’s faith grew, developed, stretched, and was exercised so that he was fully prepared to trust God when life’s road led in and through the lions’ den.

Filled up with that thought this morning, it’s time for me to pull out of the filling station and head back out on life’s road.

Today’s featured image created with Wonder AI.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Into the Wilderness

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Into the Wilderness (CaD 2 Ki 25) – Wayfarer

So Judah went into captivity, away from her land.
2 Kings 25:21b (NIV)

Many years ago, I found myself in circumstances I could never have imagined. I found myself in the middle of a divorce and living in a new community. My world had suddenly turned upside down and inside out. It was a scary, tenuous, anxious, humbling, and stressful season of life.

Along this life journey, almost everyone experiences a period of wilderness. Life as we know it experiences a tectonic shift. Things get turned upside down and inside out. Wilderness could be brought on by unforeseen tragedy, the death of a loved one, war, natural disaster, divorce, loss of a job, financial loss, conflict, illness, or any number of similar life-changing events.

The psychologist Carl Jung and the scholar Joseph Cambell did a lot of work in the 20th century studying and revealing the archetypes and patterns in the epic stories of humanity. Our greatest stories reflect the core of our human experience. They resonate with us because there is something in the story that connects deeply with our human experience. I would submit that the patterns and archetypes are found in our stories because they are found in our lives.

Wilderness is one of these common themes. Here are the first five steps of the hero’s wilderness journey as Jung and Campbell outline it:

  1. The hero’s journey starts in the Ordinary World. The hero—male or female—is “stuck,” but he or she senses some powerful, tectonic energy moving beneath the surface.
  2. The hero receives a “call.” This may be positive—an invitation to climb Annapurna—or negative … we’re arrested and thrown in jail. Or, like Odysseus, the hero commits a crime against heaven and is “made to” undergo an ordeal of expiation. But one way or another, you and I are ejected from Normal Life and flung, willy-nilly, into Something Totally New.
  3. The hero “crosses the threshold.” She moves from the Ordinary World to the Extraordinary World (also known as the Inverted World.) Like the children in The Chronicles of Narnia, we pass through a portal and enter a realm unlike any we have known.
  4. The hero encounters allies and enemies, undergoes challenges and heartbreaks, temptations and overthrows. The hero suffers. The hero loses her way. The hero has been caught up in an often hellish adventure (though with some good moments too), from which no escape seems possible. The stakes are clearly life and death.
  5. The hero perseveres. Reckoning that there’s no turning back, the hero pushes on, often blindly, almost always wracked by despair and self-doubt, seeking he or she knows not what. Escape? Redemption? A conclusion of some kind to this crazy, upside-down enterprise?

It may be lost on modern American readers, but today’s chapter is one of the most life-changing historical events in the history of the Hebrew people. The Babylonian siege of Jerusalem was a violent, horrific event. Jeremiah, who lived through it, poetically describes the carnage in the five short chapters of Lamentations. The entire nation, the King and the priests, are taken into captivity and exile in Babylon. Among the exiles were the prophet Ezekiel and a young man named Daniel. Their stories, respectively, are rooted in their experiences in the Babylonian wilderness, along with the story of Esther.

The wilderness, Jung and Campbell explain, always has a purpose in making the hero the hero. It is in the wilderness the hero faces the darkness, the villain, their own fear, and/or seemingly insurmountable odds. It is in the wilderness that the hero experiences an “all is lost” moment, and it is in the wilderness that the hero eventually experiences an important epiphany and is ultimately led back home, a different person with a “gift.” Judah’s return from wilderness and exile is told in the books of Nehemiah and Ezra.

In the quiet this morning, God’s Spirit has brought to mind people I know who are experiencing seasons of wilderness in their own life journeys. I look back on my own season of wilderness and I can see the things I had to face, the lessons God had for me in it, and what a positive difference it ultimately made in my life and my spiritual journey. If I could write a letter to my past self in the midst of that wilderness, I would tell my struggling self to trust the story God is authoring in my story, to persevere one step at a time, and to know that good things, redemptive things, lie ahead.

My seasons of wilderness have taught me that God is more interested in developing my character than in facilitating my comfort.

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

God and Tragedy

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God and Tragedy (CaD 1 Ki 14) – Wayfarer

In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem.
1 Kings 14:25 (NIV)

I have observed that every life journey is marked by a certain amount of both difficulty and tragedy. The amount is relative. The difficulties and tragedies can be the consequences of foolish choices and behaviors. In some cases, they may be directly related to system patterns inherited from previous generations. In other cases, a difficulty or tragedy simply originates in what insurance companies still call the random “act of God.”

Another observation I’ve made along my life journey is the way in which people respond to difficulties and tragedies in life. It is not uncommon for people to get mad at God, blame God, conclude that God does not exist, or conclude that if God does exist they want nothing to do with a God who would allow such things to happen. Yet others find that the difficulties and tragedies lead to greater faith and dependence on God in whom they find comfort, peace, and presence as they work through the natural stages of grief that accompany hard times.

In today’s chapter, the author of Kings gives a brief summation of King Rehoboam’s reign. He first states the Rehoboam led the Kingdom of Judah astray in the pagan worship of local deities and the detestable things they practiced in their religions. He then notes the most important event of Rehoboam’s reign after the division of Israel into two Kingdoms. The Egyptian King Shishak laid siege to Jerusalem and plundered the vast wealth of Solomon’s treasury in both the palace and the Temple. The event is corroborated in an inscription listing the successful campaigns of Shishak in a temple in Thebes. The plundering of Jerusalem was a terrible and tragic blow to the nation of Judah which was already struggling from the split with the northern tribes and the loss of lucrative trade routes. Politically, it was a terrible blow to Rehoboam’s power, wealth, and approval ratings.

What the author of Kings does not mention, is an important tidbit that the author of Chronicles made sure to mention. For the first three years of his reign, Rehoboam followed the ways of the God of Israel and was faithful to the ways of his grandfather David. It was during and after the political and military difficulties with Egypt and the plundering of Jerusalem that Rehoboam abandons his faith in God and leads his people in embracing pagan deities.

In the quiet this morning, I have to wonder whether Rehoboam was angry with God for allowing such a blow to his kingdom and his reign. When tragedy struck, did he simply choose to walk away from God because he blamed God for the tragedy? If so, he was certainly ignoring the rather major role he played in putting himself and his tribe in a weakened position that led to easy defeat. Having lived his entire life in luxury, privilege, and power, it would not surprise me that Rehoboam would have difficulty in humbly accepting his own part in the difficulties he experienced.

And of course, that leads me to consider my own reactions and responses to life’s difficulties and tragedies. My spiritual journey has taught me what I mentioned earlier, that every person will experience difficulties and tragedies in life. Nowhere in the Great Story does God promise a person a life free of it. In fact, God promises I’ll have difficulties and tragedies in this fallen world, and it is through them I develop the character qualities He desires and I progress toward spiritual maturity.

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