Tag Archives: Promise

Chapter-a-Day

“Because You Were Foreigners”

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https://open.spotify.com/episode/197CLi9z4WqJ7VPm9awLgX?si=39wNyYaNSOedb18SahiMHQ

He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.
Deuteronomy 10:18-19 (NIV)

I dropped my car off to be serviced yesterday. I was given a ride home and had a very enjoyable conversation with the young man who was tasked with driving me. He was raised in a very different place and culture and was obviously getting used to the quirks of living in a community built by Dutch settlers. He asked if I was from Pella.

I laughed.

With the last name Vander Well, I told him that he had made a safe assumption. Then I informed him that when I moved into the community over 20 years ago, it was obvious that everyone who was from Pella knew that Vander Well is not a Pella Dutch name. My great-grandfather settled in northwest Iowa.

I am of the third generation of a Dutch immigrant in America. I live in a community settled and created by Dutch immigrants. As I’ve studied the history of the great Dutch migration in the 19th century and the history of our community, I’ve discovered a double-edged sword.

On one hand, there is a lot for which to be grateful. There is a legacy of faith, industriousness, frugality, and pride. These are the foundation of an amazing community and heritage we perpetually honor and celebrate. On the other edge of the sword is self-righteousness religiosity, legalism, judgement, and prejudice. I’ve heard many painful stories. Individuals outcast and ostracized. Divisions leading to hatred and resentment. Outsiders unwelcome.

Welcome to humanity.

Moses is leading a similarly human people, which is why in yesterday’s chapter he reminded them three times that God’s choosing them and giving them the Promised Land was not because they earned it or deserved it. Quite the opposite, they had perpetually proven themselves stubborn, whiny, ungrateful, disobedient, and faithless. Which is why today’s chapter is so powerful.

God tells Moses to chisel out two stone tablets to replace the ones he’d smashed. It’s God saying, “Come back up the mountain. I’ll make you a copy of the Ten Words. Oh, and bring a box, an ark, to provide a womb for my Words.”

Second chances. Their brokenness and failure does not negate God’s love, His covenant, or His gracious faithfulness. He is going with them. He will live among them, smack-dab in the middle of their camp. He will fulfill His plans for them, work His purposes through them, and deliver on His promises to give them possession of the land. All this despite them being stubborn, whiny, ungrateful, disobedient, and faithless.

This is the gospel before the Gospel.

The chapter then shifts. In light of God’s grace and mercy what does He ask of His people?

This is the heart of God and the heartbeat of His Great Story. This chapter is what Jesus channels and quotes repeatedly.

Circumcise your hearts. This isn’t about religious observation, but about transformation of spirit that leads to grateful love of God and the tangible love of others.

Love God. Love others. Jesus said those two commands summed up the whole of the Law of Moses.

Then God reminds His people – again – that if they are going to truly love others they need to love the ones He loves. The orphan. The widow. The outcast. The foreigner. The immigrant. The outsider.

Moses is building on zachor – moral memory – that flowed through yesterday’s chapter. God whispers: “Remember your chains. Remember your story – your history – being foreigners and slaves in the land of another people. Treat foreigners among you with the love, grace, and hospitality you wished Egypt had shown you. Be different. Follow my ways, not the ways of the world.”

As I meditated on these things in the quiet this morning, I was amazed at how much it resonated with our current culture and headlines. Borders, immigration, ICE raids, deportations, foreigners, and migrant workers fill never ending news cycles. Ancient Hebrews. 19th century Dutch settlers. 21st century foreigners and immigrants. What goes around comes around.

Welcome to humanity.

I don’t control national policy. I live far from my country’s borders. But, I can take to heart what God asks of me. The very thing He asked of His people through Moses. Love Him. Love others. Especially those who aren’t like me.

As we pulled into the driveway of our home, I thanked my young chauffeur sincerely. I wished him well. He was from a very different place, a very different people, and a very different heritage. He was a fine young man. I liked him a lot. He’s going to do really well here in our community. We’re fortunate he’s here, even if his name makes it obvious that he’s not from around here.

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

Stiff-Necked, Still Chosen

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Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.
Deuteronomy 9:6 (NIV)

Yesterday’s post faded to black with me and Wendy sitting at the breakfast table naming our blessings and whispering after-meal blessing of gratitude. If I’m not careful, this chapter-a-day journey too easily compartmentalizes each chapter. While I love the rhythm of letting one chapter speak in to my day, I try not to forget that there is a flow to the text. Yesterday’s chapter and today’s chapter are connected.

Yesterday’s chapter and my meditations fit hand-in-glove with the Christmas season. My soft heart loves Christmas. Every day brings cards and photos of family and friends we don’t see often enough. With each one are fond memories and good feelings. Wendy and I have been watching beloved Christmas movies (yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie) and feeling all the feels. Family gatherings are planned. I can feel the desire to be together, to name our blessings, and to feel the gratitude.

This is sentimental remembering. Warm feelings, meaningful memories, and full hearts that feed the positive emotional endorphins. That’s where I exited yesterday’s post.

Today’s chapter, however, channels a very different kind of remembering.

Moses stands at the Jordan River with this next generation of Hebrews gazing across at the Promised Land. They are about to cross over and take possession of it while Moses stays behind and takes his final earthly breath. They will take the land. They will be blessed. They will prosper. But, Moses tells them, there is a truth that needs to sink deep into their hearts before they set out. It is a truth so spiritually vital that Moses repeats it three times like Jesus asking Peter three times: “Do you love me?”

…do not say to yourself, “The Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.” (vs. 4)

 It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land… (vs. 5)

Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people. (vs. 6)

Moses then painfully and deliberately hits the rewind button:

Golden calf.
Stiff necks.
Tablets shattered like dropped china.
Tear-stained intercession that kept the nation from annihilation.

The message lands bare and unflattering:

You didn’t earn this.
You didn’t deserve this.
And you still don’t.

Which—oddly enough—is very good news.

This is what is known in Hebrew as zakhor—not memory as the emotional fog of sentimentality, but memory as moral restraint.

It is Cain remembering the stain of his own brother’s blood on his hands.

It is Abraham remembering the painful casting away of Hagar and his son Ishmael.

It is Israel remembering that he was a deceiver who stole his brother’s blessing.

It is Moses remembering his murder of an Egyptian overseer, fleeing for his life, and his years of living on the lam in Midian exile.

It is David remembering his adultery with Bathsheba, his murder of her husband, and the death of their first-born child.

It is Paul seeing the face of Stephen and all of the other believers he persecuted and had executed before he met Jesus on the road to Damascus.

It is me remembering my long list of moral failings. Failings that trace all the way back to being a five-year-old stealing all the envelopes of Christmas cash off of Grandma Golly’s Christmas tree and hiding them in my suitcase.

In the quiet this morning, sentimental twinkle-light memories get balanced with the sobriety of zakhor memories. Moral memory isn’t shame, it’s schooling. It’s not reproach, it’s reinforcement of reality.

All of this abundance of blessing that surrounds me each day? The blessing that is so abundant that I sometimes forget that’s it’s a blessing?

I didn’t earn this.
I didn’t deserve this.
And I still don’t.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Moses is channeling the Gospel of Jesus 1500 years before Bethlehem.

As I soak in a little moral remembering this morning, I find my heart humbled. Like the Hebrews standing on the border of the Promised Land, I find myself chosen, called, and blessed – not because of who I am and what I’ve done but despite it.

Sometimes the fog of sentimental remembering lulls me into thinking that blessing is an entitlement. Moral remembering cuts through the fog and grounds me in the reality of His grace.

As Bob Dylan sings,
“like every sparrow fallen,
like every grain of sand.”

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

Last Day of Camp

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https://open.spotify.com/episode/63RFbno9La0xToTzja9UT0?si=gjKIw3ypS6C-3SVgn-kpVg

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
“Never will I leave you;
    never will I forsake you.”
Hebrews 13:5 (NIV)

Summer camp is always a special place to be. Both as a camper, and later as a leader, and guest speaker, I have such fond memories of the laughter, adventure, friendships, and fun. For some, that fun never ends. There are entire summer camp communities where adults and families spend summers “at camp” where worship, studies, activities, and relationships become part of the rhythm of summer their entire lives.

Nevertheless, summer always ends. There is always that final day of camp. The camp fires become the embers of memory. The guitars are in their cases. The cabins have been emptied. The beds stripped. The close friendships forged in the intense togetherness (and maybe even a sparked romance) must come to an abrupt end. Cars arrive to take campers back to their disparate hometowns. Campers return to their daily routines. It is the death throes of summer, when in one moment the fun seems to end with gut punch. As you hug these people who have come to mean so much to you in such a short period of time, you know autumn’s descent is imminent. All of the real life activities and responsibilities that come with it await.

I have a very vivid memory of lying in the backseat of our family’s Mercury Marquis station wagon (yes, complete with wood paneling on the side) driving home from camp. Tears streamed down my cheeks. They dripped down on the car’s brown carpet littered with gum wrappers and spilled McDonald’s french fries. I didn’t want to go back. I wanted to live at camp forever.

Today’s final chapter of Hebrews reads like the last day of camp. No lofty theology now—no soaring angels, no mysterious Melchizedek, no blazing heavenly tabernacle. Here at the end, the gospel comes home, rolls its sleeves up, and gets practical. Earthy. Intimate.

The car is running. Your duffel bag of dirty clothes and life-long memories is already in “the way back” of the station wagon. Mom and Dad are waiting as you say your good-byes. The camp counselor who has become like a big brother or sister leans down to face you intimately. Lovingly taking your face gently in both hands, looking directly into your eyes, your counselor whispers, “Everything we’ve journeyed through together? Everything we learned? Everything we talked about in our cabin’s middle-of-the-night heart-to-hearts? Now live it.”

Today’s chapter is a heart-felt list of loving marching orders from a camp counselor to a tearful camper who doesn’t want to return to “real life.”

Love as everyday liturgy

“Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.”

The Greek implies continually, habitually—love not as an emotion but as a practice. Prisoners become kin. Marriage is honored, not as a cage, but as a covenant shelter. The chapter opens like it believes the mundane moments are sacred ground.

Life free from fear

“Be content… for God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’”

It’s God whispering,
“Even if the world shakes, I’m not going anywhere.”

Remember your leaders

The writer encourages the church to imitate the faith of leaders whose lives embody Jesus.

Not heroes on pedestals—humble guides whose walk matches their talk. Like the camp counselor who was just a college kid making less money than he could have behind a fast-food counter.

Jesus: yesterday, today, and forever

It’s the spine-tingling line. The center of gravity for the whole letter.

Everything changes—priesthoods, covenants, temple curtains, seasons in the heart. And summer, too. There’s always a last day of camp.

But Jesus?
Steady as the sun.
Always the same warm presence, the same mercy, the same fierce love.

The strange altar of grace

The author points to Christ as our once-for-all offering outside the camp.
Outside the religious system. Outside the institutions and walls of the church. Outside the boundaries of status and purity.

There’s an invitation and encouragement for unkempt daily life:
“Meet Him where it’s messy. Worship Him with your life, not rituals.”

The Benediction

“May the God of peace… equip you with everything good for doing His will.”

There is no demand from a tyrannical God. It’s not a shaming you into obedience. Equip you. Like handing you warm gloves for the road home and the inevitability of autumn’s cold winds and the impending winter you know follows right behind it.

Finally: “May He work in us what is pleasing to Him.”

Not me working for God.
God working inside me.

It’s divine intimacy—God and me, heart-to-heart, breath-to-breath.

In the quiet, as I meditate on these things, Holy Spirit takes my face lovingly into both hands and looks me in the eye. Returning to the words:

“Never will I leave you;
    never will I forsake you.”

The original Greek in which this was written has no English equivalent for the structure. It’s a triple negative. It’s like repeating the word “never” three times. One source I found paraphrased it like Jesus saying this:

“I will never ever ever let you go—nope, not happening, not now, not ever.”

And so, with that encouragement from Holy Spirit, my camp counselor, I slip into the back seat of life’s Mercury Marquis station wagon and head into the real life of this new day. Some days, I just don’t want to do it.

But I have my marching orders, and I’m never alone.

Happy Thanksgiving, my friend! I am so grateful for you and all my faithful subscribers, followers, and readers. Have a great time with loved ones this weekend. Next Monday, we’re headed back to the Exodus story. Meet me in Deuteronomy.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Ancient and Irrevocable

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“From the rocky peaks I see them,
    from the heights I view them.
I see a people who live apart
    and do not consider themselves one of the nations.
Who can count the dust of Jacob
    or number even a fourth of Israel?
Let me die the death of the righteous,
    and may my final end be like theirs!”
Numbers 23:9-10 (NIV)

The other day I was flipping through the channels and happened up on some kind of dating game in which the young men and women who were “in play” where identified on their name tags by their astrological signs. It took me all of a few seconds to realize that astrology played a role in determining the outcome of which young people would end up as couples. So funny to think how ancient belief systems still resonate in our modern world.

In ancient Mesopotamia, where our chapter-a-day trek finds the ancient Hebrews on the road through the wilderness, “seers” or “diviners” like Balaam were common. Every king had seers at his side to speak for the gods in “oracles.” It was believed that a seer could spiritually influence the gods and therefore the earthly outcome of battles and circumstances. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Balaam was a popular seer for hire, and he’s been hired at great cost to curse the Hebrews for Balak, the king of Moab.

Instead of cursing the Hebrews, God demands that Balaam offer a blessing, which Balaam subsequently does. Balak demands a prophetic mulligan, dropping his religious ball in a different location hoping for a better outcome. Again, Balaam offers a blessing rather than a curse.

A couple of thoughts on Balaam’s first two “oracles” or messages in today’s chapter:

First, “I see a people who live apart and do not consider themselves one of the nations” speaks back to what God has been telling the people through Moses from the very beginning. They are going to be different. They are game changers. The priestly guidebook of Leviticus spoke of being a people unlike any other people, showing the world who God is and how God and His people operate differently.

Next, Balaam says, “Who can count the dust of Jacob or number even a fourth of Israel?” As Balak and Balaam view the Hebrew camp, it is so vast they can’t see it all. This echoes God’s promise to the childless Abraham and Sarah:

“I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

These wandering tribes are the literal fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham.

Moving on, Balaam finishes his first oracle by saying something curious: “Let me die the death of the righteous, and may my final end be like theirs!” The wealthy and famous guru for hire wants the eternal blessing God has graciously bestowed on the Hebrew people, but he doesn’t want to live the life of daily obedience and fidelity God has required of His people in Leviticus. It reminds me of many people I observe today who want little or nothing to do with living for God but they certainly want to go to heaven when they die.

Finally, in Balaam’s second oracle, he states “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind.” God is in the midst of fulfilling His promise to Abraham. He’s authoring a Great Story and He isn’t changing His mind. Even a non-Jewish Gentile seer is left completely impotent in his own divination. He’s been hired to curse, but instead he is forced to bless.

In the quiet this morning, my heart and mind flits back to the astrological dating game and the reality that the ancient is very much present in our every day world. Thousands of years later, the Hebrew people and the nation of Israel find themselves in the same land, surrounded on all sides by enemies perpetually cursing them and hell bent on their annihilation. Over the past two years, the rise of global antisemitism has modern day seers spewing oracles and curses against the descendants of the very same people in the very same land. God continues to author the same Great Story. I just happen to be in a very different chapter.

I want to be a part of God’s irrevocable blessing and promise that even Balaam acknowledged in his oracle “cannot be changed.”

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

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Chapter-a-Day

God’s Response

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The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘After you enter the land I am giving you as a home…”
Numbers 15:1-2a (NIV)

As I look back over the past three-to-five years, I realize that I have experienced more reactionary, emotional outbursts from other human beings than perhaps in the rest of my half-century of cognitive memory on this earthly journey. I have been yelled at, angrily accused of things, told off, and been given angry lists of demands and expectations of others. I tend to think that a cocktail of brain-altering technology, a global pandemic, and political polarization have all contributed to the acute increase in these experiences.

As this happens, I have found myself relying on a lifetime of spiritual discipline in order to try to respond to these moments appropriately. In kind reactions tend to only escalate situations and perpetuate the problem. As a disciple of Jesus, I desire to respond with the fruit of God’s Spirit as I am called to do. That means responding with a demonstration of peace, patience, kindness, and gentleness.

There is something telling about the way individuals respond to their circumstances in light of the words, actions, and/or behavior of others. Is there reactive rage of defensiveness? Cries of vengeance? Or, is there a gracious response?

In yesterday’s chapter, God’s people rejected His promise and command to enter the Promised Land. They turned against Moses and Aaron. They attempted to go it on their own without God.

Today’s chapter begins with God giving Moses instructions for how things are to be established when His people enter the Promised Land. It will be in another 40 years. It will be the next generation, but God provides instructions. For an old man like Moses, this likely felt ridiculous. It’s a long ways away. For God, who exists outside of time, and with whom “a thousand years is like a day,” forty-years nothing. And, there is a message in the madness of these instructions being given on the heels of the Hebrews’ rebellion:

“I will fulfill my covenant, and my promise to Abraham.”
“I will fulfill my promise to my people.”
“Their doubt and decision is a delay, my decision and promise remain.”

It’s a messy thing about the free will with which God gifted His human creation. We don’t control others. Others may use their free will to do all sorts of destructive things. The only thing I control is whether I react in kind and escalate the descent to chaos, or whether I willfully respond the way Jesus taught me, by returning curses with blessings, turning the other cheek, and loving my enemies.

In today’s chapter, God’s faithful and forward looking response to His own people’s faithless and backwards looking decisions provides me an example to remember the next time I find myself under emotionally reactive attack.

Sadly, I have a feeling I’m not done experiencing these kinds of situations for the foreseeable future.

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

Success and Prosperity

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Success and Prosperity (CaD 1 Chr 14) – Wayfarer

So David’s fame spread throughout every land, and the Lord made all the nations fear him.
1 Chronicles 14:17 (NIV)

When I was a teenager, I spent two years being spiritually mentored. The first thing my mentor had me do was memorize Joshua 1:8, the words Moses gave to his successor, Joshua:

Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

It was the beginning of my fascination with the Great Story and a commitment to reading it, studying it, and applying its principles and lessons to my life. You might say it was the seed that took root and eventually led to these chapter-a-day posts.

Of course, there’s also that promise the verse gives of prosperity and success if one lives according to the Book. Which, I have meditated on long and hard over the years. The promise has been a source of both tension and wisdom.

Today’s chapter is fascinating both for its content and its placement in the Chronicler’s updated history of the Kingdom of ancient Israel. One of the things I’ve learned in my decades of studying the Great Story is that the Hebrews were very deliberate in the structure of their writing. Today’s chapter is a great example.

In the previous chapter, the Chronicler reveals the priority King David placed on his faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. He leads a procession bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem where a temple will eventually be built for it. However, the Ark is not yet brought into the city. The Ark is left at the house of a man named Obed-Edom for three months. The Chronicler is sure to mention that while the Ark was in Obed-Edom’s home he and his household were blessed.

In the next chapter, the Ark is brought into the city of Jerusalem and David makes it a major event.

So, what happens in the three-month interlude?

The Chronicler tells of God blessing David in every way.

A foreign King makes a treaty with David and builds a palace for him. This shows David’s growing prominence in the region, as well as the respect and fear neighboring Kingdoms have for the powerful David. (verses 1-2)

David is blessed with more wives and children. (verses 3-6)

David, who the Chronicler is sure to mention always inquires of God before engaging in battle, is given major military victories over the Kingdom’s biggest rival. Not only this but when David and his men capture the idols of the Philistines, he dutifully burns them in accordance with the law of Moses. A detail marking David’s obedience to God that Samuel failed to mention. (verses 8-16)

With his structured account of David’s commitment to God and David’s blessed life and reign, the Chronicler is making the same connection that Moses was making with Joshua in the verse that I memorized all those years ago. Make God your priority, live according to His Book, and you will be prosperous and successful. One might say that this is the pre-Christian version of a prosperity gospel. The Chronicler is lifting up David as the example for his people to follow.

In the quiet this morning, I feel the nagging tension that comes with the fact that I regularly observe people making God into a good luck charm and a shortcut to worldly wealth and prosperity. It’s easy to do with the simplistic equation that is given. In my wrestling with this tension over the past 40-plus years, I have made a few conclusions.

First, I believe the promise is genuine. Making God and God’s Word the center of my life has led to success and prosperity for me. But, those words are layered with all sorts of meaning that I don’t believe are intended. God’s ways are not our ways, the prophet Isaiah reminds me. His thoughts are not my thoughts. Prosperity and success in God’s Kingdom does not look like it does for the Kingdoms of this World and people who are focused on this life and worldly things. Exhibit A is God’s own Son who revealed that success at the Kingdom of God level is taking up one’s cross and laying down one’s life for their friend. Prosperity in God’s Kingdom is ultimately an eternal concept, not a temporal one.

Second, living according to God’s Word has benefitted me in so many ways. I have avoided a lot of foolish mistakes because I followed God’s wisdom. I have diminished stress and anxiety with the antidote of faith and hope. I have found joy and contentment in enjoying the blessings I’ve been given rather than the envy and stress of chasing after the blessings of others.

Finally, I have learned that God’s view of “success” and “prosperity” comes at the expense of trials, struggles, tribulations, obstacles, and suffering. The Chronicler is holding up a specific piece of David’s story and an example for his people to respect and follow. However, he does so at the cost of providing context that is essential for wisdom and understanding. Before David was king he was an outcast and branded as an outlaw. David spent years on the run, living as an exile in the desert. The anointing and promise given to little boy David that he would be king would not come to fruition for decades in which his everyday life was a constant struggle for survival.

So, in the quiet this morning I once again find myself back at a place of understanding. Yes, there is success and prosperity in surrendering to Jesus and living my life according to His Word. No, that doesn’t look like success and prosperity as the world defines it, though it may look that way at certain times for certain individuals like King David. It does not, however, change a couple of basic principles that the Great Story gives as necessary context. First, spiritual blessings and maturity in this life are rooted in struggle. Second, this world is not my home. True prosperity is found in eternity.

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.

Chapter-a-Day

Dense Fog Advisory

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Dense Fog Advisory (CaD Jos 14) – Wayfarer

Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day.
Joshua 14:12a (NIV)

There are stretches of my life journey that are like walking through dense fog. What lies ahead is uncertain. All I can see is the next step on the path before me. This is disconcerting. Am I headed in the right direction? Does the path ascend or descend? What obstacles lie on the path? How do I know there’s not a cliff or a dead end just a few steps ahead?

“Faith,” says the writer of Hebrews, “is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Faith is pressing on through a dense fog not knowing what lies ahead.

In today’s chapter, Caleb calls in a 45-year-old promise made by Moses. The first time that Moses sent spies into the Promised land, ten of the spies returned and reported that the people living in the land were too great. Only Joshua and Caleb returned to report, “With the Lord’s help, we can do this.” The result of Joshua and Caleb’s faith was a promise that they would live to enter the Promised Land and that Caleb’s family would inherit the land he had spied out.

The moment finally arrives. Caleb has been waiting for this moment for 45 years, and the day finally arrives. Joshua and the leaders of the twelve tribes fulfill Moses’ promise to Caleb and his family. I wonder how many times Caleb struggled to believe that this day would actually come. How many stretches of dense fog did Caleb traverse between Moses’ promise and its fulfillment over a generation later?

Along my life journey, I’ve discovered that the further I get on life’s road, the more road there is behind me, and this actually affords me a greater perspective for the foggy steps ahead. A backward glance reminds me of God’s faithfulness. I recall specific moments along my journey when God’s provision was evident. I’ve also experienced “Caleb moments” when I experienced promises fulfilled after long periods of time.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself in another foggy stretch of the journey. I have to confess that I was naive to think that the further I got in my Life journey the fewer of these I would encounter. No such luck. This life journey is a faith journey from beginning to end and, like a muscle, faith must be stretched and exercised in order to be strengthened.

And so I step into another foggy day. I glance back over my shoulder to be reminded of the many foggy days I’ve trekked through before, and God’s faithfulness through each of them. I remind myself of Caleb, who eventually had his moment when the promise was fulfilled. It doesn’t lift the fog, but it strengthens my faith to press on.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Slaves to Fear

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Slaves to Fear (CaD Heb 2) – Wayfarer

…and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
Hebrews 2:15 (NIV)

Over the weekend, I was informed by a client that one of their team members passed away from Covid. I had just spoken to her a few weeks ago while I was on-site doing some training sessions. In fact, she and I had a very pleasant conversation one morning as we waited for some of her colleagues to arrive for a meeting. The news came as a shock.

The pandemic has been a life-altering event for humanity. We have lived through a historic period of history. Some of the effects may very well reverberate through the rest of our lives or beyond.

For me, one of the fascinating aspects of the pandemic has been to witness fear and its effects on people’s thoughts and behaviors. It is completely natural for people to fear death, yet along my life journey, I’ve come to observe that it’s easy for most people around me to keep thoughts of death successfully at bay. This is especially true living in a developed, affluent society in which life expectancy is long and temporal distractions are virtually endless. Having officiated many funerals along my journey, I came to realize that for many people attending the funeral it might be one of the few times in life they contemplated their own mortality. It’s hard not to when there’s a dead body in the room.

I was struck this morning by the author of the letter to the Hebrews observing that people could be enslaved by their fear of death. I believe it resonated deeply with me simply because I’ve witnessed what that looks like in people during the pandemic.

For followers of Jesus, tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of an annual 40-day remembrance of Jesus’ journey to death that ends in the celebration of His resurrection. That is the defining moment as a follower of Jesus. Death was not a dead end to be feared, but the path to resurrection and eternal Life.

If I truly believe what I say I believe then my perception of, and attitude toward, death is forever altered. Jesus’ resurrection turns the one thing that I most fear, my own death, into an event filled with hope, promise, and expectation. I am no longer shackled by my fear of death. Without those chains, I have perceived my anxiety level to be far lower than many I have observed around me during the past couple of years. The contrast has been brought acutely into focus.

In the quiet this morning, I am grateful for the increasing signs of the pandemic becoming endemic. I am hopeful for life to return to some semblance of pre-pandemic normality. I’m grateful for clients who know that I not only do business with them, but that I care about them, walk with them, grieve with them, and will pray for them in times of death and grief. I’m grateful that through Jesus’ death and resurrection, I am free from slavery to the fear of death.

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

Chapter-a-Day

God of the Foreign

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God of the Foreign (CaD Matt 2) – Wayfarer

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
Matthew 2:1 (NIV)

It seems a bit out of place to be sitting here in mid-January reading a text that is normally read exclusively in the month of December for Christmas. Along my journey, however, I’ve learned that it is good for me to read things outside of the “normal” contexts. Doing so allows me to see things with fresh eyes and new perspectives. Jesus spoke of those who had eyes but didn’t really see. My desire in this chapter-a-day journey is always that the eyes of my heart will be fully open to see what God wishes to reveal to me in the quiet. I have found that this sometimes requires me to shift focus, as they say in filmmaking.

Shifting focus away from the entrenched visuals and contexts of a commercialized Christmas this morning, I pulled back to examine “These Three Kings” from where I sit amidst the harsh realities of a deep Iowa winter (current temp feels like -3 degrees F). A few things I noted in my observations:

Nowhere in the text does it say there were only three visitors. It only says that there were three gifts. Also, nowhere in the text does it say they were kings. It does make clear that they represented a group that paid attention to astronomy and practiced a form of astrology.

I then considered that Matthew’s audience was primarily Hebrews, and he was writing to convince them that Jesus was the Messiah they’d been waiting for. Hebrews were keenly aware of two great events in the history of their people. The first was their deliverance out of slavery in Egypt. The second was their captivity and seventy-year exile in Babylon (which was in Persia, directly east of Israel).

When the “Who’s Who” of Hebrew nobility were taken into exile, the prophet Jeremiah wrote a letter to them. He told them:

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

It would seem, therefore, that at least some of them (e.g. Daniel, Mordecai, and Esther) obeyed. They lived and interacted with the community and culture. They shared their stories with their captors. They even shared prophetic words about stars and the coming messiah who would be “king of the Jews.” They shared prophetic words and conversations which existed outside of the text of the Great Story but were recorded and remembered among the heathen hosts of the exile.

In the quiet this morning, I am struck by the fact that Matthew chooses to record that those who were looking for the Messiah, those who came to seek Him, were not Hebrew priests and scholars but those considered foreigners, aliens, and enemies. Matthew makes clear that the infant Jesus was intimately connected to the exiles of Babylon through these mysterious visitors. He was connected to the exile in Egypt by fleeing Herod the Great’s infamous slaughter of the innocents.

What does this mean for me? Here’s what I’m pondering in the quiet:

  • God, the Creator, is constantly at work in places I don’t expect, and in people I would never recognize.
  • Jesus’ arrival began the fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham back in Genesis: “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
  • I find it telling that the Hebrew scholars consulted by Herod showed no interest in pursuing the object of the Magi’s inquiry, but the despised “foreigners” went out of their way to seek Him.

I come full circle this morning, contrasting the icons of a commercialized Christmas and the text of the Great Story. Amid the bling and blather of tinsel and tales, I find there is one wearied Christmas phrase that rings true for me:

The wise still seek Him.

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