Tag Archives: Results

Chapter-a-Day

Seed and Heart-Soil

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Seed and Heart-Soil (CaD Acts 14) – Wayfarer

[Paul and Barnabas] returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said.
Acts 14:21b-22 (NIV)

Living in Iowa, one tends to earn a great appreciation for farmers. Even the Iowa Hawkeye football team wears a sticker on their helmets with the letters ANF (“America Needs Farmers”). I was raised in the city of Des Moines, but I still have learned a lot about farming simply by living here and knowing many people who did grow up on a farm, including Wendy.

I have a friend in the seed business. His job is to help his company’s seed produce as much of a yield as possible. As I asked him about his job, I found out that it had a lot to do with helping their farmer customers make sure the soil has the right chemical balance for the seed to thrive.

In today’s chapter, Paul and Barnabas conclude their first missionary journey, in which they visited towns on the island of Cyprus and Greek towns on the mainland north of there. By the end of the chapter, they return to home base in Antioch to report that many people believed in Jesus and they were able to establish gatherings of Jesus followers in towns throughout the region. That said, their experiences were mixed.

On Cyprus, they were invited to speak with the Roman Governor, who became a believer.

In Pisidian Antioch the reaction was mixed. The Jews there largely rejected Jesus’ Message, but many of the Gentiles in the town believed.

In the town of Iconium, many believed but this created great division within both the Jewish and Gentiles communities. Those who rejected Jesus’ Message plotted to have Paul and Barnabas stoned to death.

In Lystra, the large Greek community were wowed by a miracle, but they missed the connection to Jesus’ Message. The crowd declared Paul and Barnabas the incarnation of Zeus and Hermes and tried to offer sacrifices to them. The plotters from Iconium arrive in Lystra and the crowds end up turning on Paul and Barnabas, stoning Paul until they thought he was dead.

In Derbe, everything seems to have gone well and many people believed Jesus’ Message.

As I meditated on the diverse general responses Paul and Barnabas received to Jesus’ Message, I couldn’t help but think of Jesus’ parable of the Sower. The seed is tossed, but it falls on different kinds of soil. The success of the seed to end up taking root, growing, and producing a yield was dependent on the condition of the soil on which it landed.

I had a friend and fellow blogger who just last week asked me about these chapter-a-day posts, and how I manage my expectations with regard to the number of visits, clicks, and likes I receive. The truth is that the only way I’ve been able to keep doing these posts is by constantly reminding myself to surrender any expectations I might have. Like Paul and Barnabas, and like Jesus’ parable, I am the sower. The yield is dependent on the heart-soil of each one who reads or listens.

The same is true as I attempt to live, act, and relate to others in the fruit of God’s Spirit and share Jesus’ love with others. Some may sense something in me that attracts them. Others may be repelled. I can’t control the heart-soil of those around me, I can only control the quality of the seed I’m sowing in how I live and love.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Just Like Yesterday

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“What troubles you now,
    that you have all gone up on the roofs….”
Isaiah 22:1 (NIV)

I have a very clear memory of an episode of Happy Days, the iconic sitcom about American life in the 1950’s. Ron Howard’s character, Richie, along with his friends go all-in campaigning for Adlai Stevenson. Richie even falls for a girl in the campaign office. At the end of the episode Richie comes home heartbroken when his new girlfriend says she can’t see him anymore because he’ll only remind her of Stevenson’s defeat. He returns home and his parents inform him that Eisenhower was declared the winner. It was one of my first lessons in the roller coaster of American politics.

I grew up in the angst of the Watergate scandal. I remember in high school and college the heated anger toward Reagan from the left and assurances that he would lead to America’s demise. I remember the same predictions on the right, and conservatives threatening to leave the country if Bill Clinton won. The same things are now being said on the left these days.

As a student of history I have learned that the political pendulum is constantly swinging back and forth. One of the amazing things about the way the American Founding Fathers designed our system was the opportunity we have every four years to go a different direction, and how often we do exactly that.

Isaiah’s prophetic word this morning was for a generation of people in Jerusalem who were experiencing political upheaval much greater and more dire than anything we are experiencing this morning. The siege of Jerusalem would end in mass death, starvation leading to cannibalism, and the enslavement and captivity of an entire generation of people (read Lamentations for Jeremiah’s poetic take on those terrible events).

As I wake in my hotel this morning my day is starting pretty much the way it did yesterday, the way it did when I started this job in the Clinton years, the way it did after 9-11, the way it did during the eight years of the Bush administration, and the way it did for eight years under President Obama.

America, in its relatively short history, has proven to be incredibly flexible and resilient. I don’t see that changing. Richie Cunningham may have suffered the defeat of Stevenson, but the election of JFK was just around the corner as America left the stodgy Eisenhower to embrace a new political generation. Happy Days ended long before it could tell that story, just as Isaiah’s prophecy would end long before he would witness the restoration of Jerusalem whose destruction he prophesied. No matter how you feel about the election results this morning, you can be assured that the story will continue.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to work. Just like yesterday.

Chapter-a-Day

Process, Not Results

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Wendy Vander Well, Doug DeWolf (Dean De Haas) and Jana De Zwarte (Marian De Haas).
Wendy enjoying the rehearsal process with Doug and Jana.

“You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen….”
Ezekiel 2:7a (NIV)

Wendy and I have often conversed about our love of process as it relates to the theatre. As actors, we love the process of character development and scene exploration during the rehearsal period perhaps more than we enjoy performing in front of an audience. Don’t get me wrong. Performances are wonderful and intoxicating, but they are often a very momentary high. In the rehearsal process you grow, you make new connections, you explore new challenges, and delve to new depths in ways that stick with you long after the final curtain falls on a production.

I found it interesting this morning that God tells Ezekiel to speak the words given to him without regard to the results. Ezekiel was not to worry about whether people listened or not. He was not to concern himself with huge Billy Graham style calls for salvation. The only thing Ezekiel was to concern himself with was being faithful in the process of listening and speaking. The results were not his responsibility, nor were they an indicator of success or failure.

These things were rattling around in my head and heart this morning as I prepared to walk up to my office and write this post. I’ll admit that there are days that I question why I write these posts each day. It’s Monday. I didn’t sleep particularly well last night. My morning feels fubar-ed before it ever began. Arrrghhhh. Who cares? I confess that there are days when I feel quite profound and the response is the internet’s equivalent of crickets chirping. Other days I feel like I just puke something on the page in order to hit “Publish” and be done with it and someone, somewhere replies that it was just what they needed to read that day. Go figure. Whether you’re a prophet, a preacher, a poet, a playwright, a blogger, a writer, a songsmith, an actor, a filmmaker, a dancer, et cetera, or et cetera the truth remains: It’s about the process. The results will take care of themselves.

Happy Monday. Grind it out.