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Chapter-a-Day

Order>Chaos>Reorder

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Order>Chaos>Reorder (CaD Gen 6) – Wayfarer

The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
Genesis 6:5 (NIV)

Yesterday was a long day, but a very good day. I spent eight hours in the car with a member of my company’s Board of Directors. We drove to Minneapolis for our first in-person Board gathering since January of 2020. It also afforded me and the Board our first face-to-face meeting with a new member of our team. My colleague and I then drove back. It was a festive occasion in which I, as leader of our company, tried to make sure that the joy of being physically together and the opportunity to eat, drink, and share life in one-another’s presence took precedence over the less important, though seemingly more urgent, aspects of business.

“There is a time for every purpose under heaven,” the Sage of Ecclesiastes said. The purpose for this day was to bask for a moment in togetherness and enjoy the ever-living heck out of it.

It was only natural that our free, open, and meandering conversations led to discussions of the current landscape of life on earth. Observations and contemplation flowed around current events, corporate issues, COVID issues, supply chain issues, political issues, and tech issues. I’m personally grateful to have arrived home late last night to report to Wendy that the spirit of love, contemplation, and gratitude brought me home with a full soul despite the weariness of body.

Yesterday’s conversations, however, came to mind as I read this morning’s chapter. The landscape of life, my team members and I discussed, is full of chaos that has us all shaking our heads with both wonder and perplexity.

Yet this is why I love my chapter-a-day journey and my daily contemplation of the Great Story and the flow of eternity. It provides much needed perspective for the acute anxieties of the current moment.

Today’s chapter is the beginning of the four chapters which contain the story of Noah. We’re just five chapters in from the very beginning and just two chapters from the order and goodness of the Garden. How quickly everything has descended into chaos.

This is the first of a recurring cycle of life outside the Garden, “east of Eden,” and the inaugural appearance of a theme that perpetually reoccurs throughout the Great Story, and also my life journey:

Order —-> Chaos —–> Reorder

A marriage typically starts with a well-ordered wedding and honeymoon phase which then leads to the chaos of two very different individuals who are motivated in different ways learning how to reorder their world together. Families start as a relatively stable nuclear family system and can quickly become chaotically disordered by conflict, financial stress, infidelity, a rebellious child, a tragic loss. Sometimes the system is able to find reorder and remain intact. Other times the system splits and finds reorder in the creation of new systems. Businesses launch with an orderly business plan and bright hope for success only to flow into the chaos of competing interests, personality conflicts, and the disruptions of the marketplace that force restructure, reorganization, and renewed vision. Times of relative peace and stability fall into the chaos of societal change, international conflict, and the disruptions of war, drought, famine, disaster, pandemic, or revolution, only to eventually find their way to the next season of relative peace and order.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself encouraged by the simple pleasure of being face-to-face with my beloved colleagues in the same conference room and around the same lunch table. I’m also encouraged by the reminder of this grand macro-level theme of the Great Story. Order, chaos, reorder, is the natural flow of life on earth between the fall of humanity in Genesis chapter three and the new creation of the last two chapters of Revelation. I find that digesting the reality of this theme into my conscience helps me remember, in times of chaos, that the flow of life from order to chaos is a part of life’s reality on this earth, but reorder is a part of that flow as well and it will eventually follow even if it doesn’t look perfectly the way I desire.

On a more micro level, long days on the road for business are always a bit chaotic. I’m grateful to re-enter the reorder of a normal day in the office.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Order, Disorder, Reorder

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Order, Disorder, Reorder (CaD Jud 17) – Wayfarer

In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.
Judges 17:6 (NIV)

For Wendy and me, there is a certain order to our lives that has developed over the years. Even though we work out of our home offices and have tremendous flexibility, our days and weeks have a certain cadence and rhythm to them that has grown out of the ordering of our spiritual, marital, familial, communal, social, vocational, and cultural needs.

Over the past several years, I have observed my world becoming increasingly disordered. There is no question that the pandemic affected the ordering of our personal lives in ways we’re still trying to understand and grapple with. On top of that, a daily perusal of the news has shown me increased political disorder, social disorder, cultural disorder, and economic disorder. I observe the manifestations of both mental disorders and spiritual disorders.

Christian mystics have long seen and understood that there is a pattern running throughout human history that goes like this:

This is the basic theme of the entire Great Story. From the order of creation and the Garden of Eden in the first two chapters of Genesis came the disorder brought by the Fall of Adam and Eve. From that point on the Great Story is about redemption and restoration of order in the final two chapters of Revelation.

At the beginning of this chapter-a-day trek through Judges I revealed the pattern of the book like this:

It’s simply a riff of the order>disorder>reorder theme and a microcosm of the Great Story itself.

In today’s chapter, the author of Judges shifts from the stories of the major Judges of the settlement period of Hebrew history to an epilogue with stories that represent the disorder of the times. The story of Micah serves two main purposes.

First, the author of Judges makes clear that power was decentralized among the Hebrew tribes. There was no king. Each tribe ran itself under the authority of clan and tribal leaders. This meant that every day people like Micah and his mother were free and independent to do whatever they wanted.

Second, the result of people doing as they pleased led to them mixing their faith in the God of Moses and ordering of life and community per the Law of Moses with local idols and religions. Micah and his mother’s interaction is a disordered hodge-podge of local religious practices and the forming of their own household shrine and cult, with Micah’s son acting as a priest of their personal household religion. Along comes a Levite, who was supposed to serve in God’s tabernacle and lead the Hebrew tribes in keeping the Law of Moses and the rules for life prescribed within it (order). Instead, this Levite agrees to serve as the priest of Micah’s household religion (disorder).

In the quiet this morning, this brings me back to the disorder I observe and feel all around me, and all around the world. It is so easy for me to lose myself in the disorder of the day. My Type Four temperament can quickly sink into a morass of pessimism and despair. Fear and anxiety can readily begin to infiltrate my spirit. But, as a follower of Jesus, I have a different perspective.

First, I can embrace the truth that Jesus predicted and told His followers to expect all kinds of disorder in this life. As a follower of Jesus, I’m instructed to counterintuitively rejoice in it, glory in it, and find joy within the disorder. The mystics who have recognized the pattern throughout history have also understood that it is the pain and discomfort of disorder that ushers in and moves us to reorder. I may feel the pain of the moment, but the disorder will also (if I let it) develop within me the spiritual qualities of perseverance, endurance, patience, and maturity.

Next, I recognize that the author of Judges was looking back and recording this period of disorder from the reordered future in which King David had united the Hebrew tribes as a nation, established Jerusalem as the center of Hebrew worship, and brought the Hebrew people back to their faith in Yahweh. The disorder of Judges was written from the perspective of the reordered world.

And so, I look at the disorder around me in the context of this cycle. Reorder is coming. Not only can I trust this because history reveals that disorder always leads to reorder, but also because the resurrected Jesus promised His return and the ultimate reordering of all things. I, as a follower of Jesus, believe this to be true, even in the midst of disorderly times, and this changes my perspective on the disorder itself.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace,” Jesus said. “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

And with that hope, I enter another day and another week in a disordered world.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Order>Chaos>Reorder

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Order>Chaos>Reorder (CaD Gen 6) – Wayfarer

The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
Genesis 6:5 (NIV)

Yesterday was a long day, but a very good day. I spent eight hours in the car with a member of my company’s Board of Directors. We drove to Minneapolis for our first in-person Board gathering since January of 2020. It also afforded me and the Board our first face-to-face meeting with a new member of our team. My colleague and I then drove back. It was a festive occasion in which I, as leader of our company, tried to make sure that the joy of being physically together and the opportunity to eat, drink, and share life in one-another’s presence took precedence over the less important, though seemingly more urgent, aspects of business.

“There is a time for every purpose under heaven,” the Sage of Ecclesiastes said. The purpose for this day was to bask for a moment in togetherness and enjoy the ever-living heck out of it.

It was only natural that our free, open, and meandering conversations led to discussions of the current landscape of life on earth. Observations and contemplation flowed around current events, corporate issues, COVID issues, supply chain issues, political issues, and tech issues. I’m personally grateful to have arrived home late last night to report to Wendy that the spirit of love, contemplation, and gratitude brought me home with a full soul despite the weariness of body.

Yesterday’s conversations, however, came to mind as I read this morning’s chapter. The landscape of life, my team members and I discussed, is full of chaos that has us all shaking our heads with both wonder and perplexity.

Yet this is why I love my chapter-a-day journey and my daily contemplation of the Great Story and the flow of eternity. It provides much needed perspective for the acute anxieties of the current moment.

Today’s chapter is the beginning of the four chapters which contain the story of Noah. We’re just five chapters in from the very beginning and just two chapters from the order and goodness of the Garden. How quickly everything has descended into chaos.

This is the first of a recurring cycle of life outside the Garden, “east of Eden,” and the inaugural appearance of a theme that perpetually reoccurs throughout the Great Story, and also my life journey:

Order —-> Chaos —–> Reorder

A marriage typically starts with a well-ordered wedding and honeymoon phase which then leads to the chaos of two very different individuals who are motivated in different ways learning how to reorder their world together. Families start as a relatively stable nuclear family system and can quickly become chaotically disordered by conflict, financial stress, infidelity, a rebellious child, a tragic loss. Sometimes the system is able to find reorder and remain intact. Other times the system splits and finds reorder in the creation of new systems. Businesses launch with an orderly business plan and bright hope for success only to flow into the chaos of competing interests, personality conflicts, and the disruptions of the marketplace that force restructure, reorganization, and renewed vision. Times of relative peace and stability fall into the chaos of societal change, international conflict, and the disruptions of war, drought, famine, disaster, pandemic, or revolution, only to eventually find their way to the next season of relative peace and order.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself encouraged by the simple pleasure of being face-to-face with my beloved colleagues in the same conference room and around the same lunch table. I’m also encouraged by the reminder of this grand macro-level theme of the Great Story. Order, chaos, reorder, is the natural flow of life on earth between the fall of humanity in Genesis chapter three and the new creation of the last two chapters of Revelation. I find that digesting the reality of this theme into my conscience helps me remember, in times of chaos, that the flow of life from order to chaos is a part of life’s reality on this earth, but reorder is a part of that flow as well and it will eventually follow even if it doesn’t look perfectly the way I desire.

On a more micro level, long days on the road for business are always a bit chaotic. I’m grateful to re-enter the reorder of a normal day in the office.

NOTE
A new message from this past Sunday, on Ecclesiastes 3, is now available on the Messages page.

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

Chapter-a-Day

The Disorder Blues

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The Disorder Blues (CaD Ps 25) – Wayfarer

Turn to me and be gracious to me,
    for I am lonely and afflicted.
Psalm 25:16 (NIV)

One of the grand, overarching themes of the Great Story is present and revealed in multiple layers of metaphor:

Creation –> Fall –> Redemption
and
Order –> Disorder –> Reorder
and
Life –> Crucifixion/Death –> Resurrection
and
“Old” Life –> Death –> “New” Life

This is a pattern that God has woven into creation. It is present in a number of ways, and it is necessary to spiritual progress and maturity. Consider the words of James, the brother of Jesus, to the believers of Jesus scattered and living in exile from Roman persecution:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

We all love when life feel in order; When things happen pretty much as expected and things are “normal.” Yet every one of us will experience major periods of “disorder” along life’s road whether it be death, sickness, tragedy, loss, conflict, and any number of other life disruptors. The whole world is going through a period of “disorder” from Covid-19. “Disorder” is the path to “reorder” and in “reordering” we will have made gains in faith, perseverance, maturity, understanding, and wholeness.

Late last week I read that every one of the psalms can be categorized as either “order,” “disorder,” and “reorder.” I’m not sure I’ll ever read another psalm without asking myself which category of the grand theme it falls into.

Today’s psalm, yet another lyric penned by David, is another song written as a Hebrew acrostic. Each verse of the lyrics begins with the subsequent letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It definitely falls into the “disorder” category. David is “lonely and afflicted” and more than once he confesses his guilt and begs God’s forgiveness. David is surrounded by enemies and fears that he will be put to shame. His song is a cry to God for deliverance from the circumstantial disorder he’s feeling, and plea for God for reorder. It might as well be titled The Disorder Blues.

Along my spiritual journey, I’ve experienced that understanding the theme of order, disorder, reorder doesn’t lessen the sting of life’s disorder when it occurs. It has, however, helped me put the disorder into perspective. It reminds me that disorder is a natural part of life’s journey and that I don’t spiritually progress without it. It also gives me a much-needed perspective. Knowing that reorder follows the disorder, I can let go of my “Why is this happening to me?” angst and lean into a “God, I know this all part of growing me up” faith instead.

Like most of the world, I am tired of the disorder of the past six months, and the prospect of it continuing. And yet, humanity has been through the disorder of plagues many times in history, and never in human history have we had the level of technology, communication, and global scientific cooperation we enjoy today. It doesn’t take away the circumstantial sting, but it reminds me that reorder is out there on the horizon.

Until then, I’m pressin’ on.

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