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Chapter-a-Day

Life-Long Lessons

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Life-Long Lessons (CaD Jos 7) – Wayfarer

Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions.
Joshua 7:11 (NIV)

There is a legendary family story that happened when our daughter, Madison, was only about four or five years old. On my way out of the house to run an errand, I heard our older daughter, Taylor, screaming in the backyard. I walked around the back of the house to see Madison hitting Taylor repeatedly on the head with a whiffle ball bat.

I yelled at Madison to stop and immediately scooped her up in my arms in parental frustration. I decided to put her in the car seat and give her a talking to while I ran my errand. I forcefully and sternly told her that hitting someone on the head with a baseball bat was a naughty thing that you should never do. From the car seat, Maddy softly said:

“But, daddy, how do you know?”

I told her that she could hurt someone by hitting them on the head with a baseball bat.

“But, daddy, how do you know?”

My already angry voice rose to a new decibel level, and I told her that I know because it has happened. I told her that people have died by getting hit in the head with a baseball bat!

“But, daddy, how do you know?”

Now I was really frustrated. “BECAUSE IT WAS IN THE NEWS!” I shouted at her.

“Daddy?” Maddy asked.

“WHAT?!?!” I replied.

“Grandma said you can’t believe everything you hear in the news.“

Ironically, just as I finished typing this, our adult daughter Madison called me. That stubborn, willful little child bent on vigorously defending her act of assault and battery on her big sister grew into a lovely, well-behaved adult. But that was the point of my sometimes being a stern and disciplinary parent. A four-year-old doesn’t always understand the larger implications of their actions and, if I want them to learn some of the basic behavioral rules of life, I had to demonstrate the hard side of love.

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that what God is doing with the Hebrew tribes is showing them a different way. Ultimately, God reveals this eternal vision through Jesus and His followers. Everything and everyone is connected in love that can’t be explained or understood in human terms. Everything that flowed from the Creator flows back to the Creator and the only word we have for it is holy, and that human term doesn’t do it justice.

I’ve come to believe that the entire Great Story is like one lifetime. From humanity’s birth in Genesis to our death and resurrection in Revelation. As I read Joshua, I have to remember that humanity is in the toddler stage of history and God is trying to explain some basic rules of Life to His children. God is saying,

“Everything in this world that you think is yours actually belongs to me. I love you and will gladly share all good things with you. but first, you have to give up any claim on it. Oh, and realize that when you act disobediently out of pride and selfishness it negatively affects everyone in the family, including me. It’s all connected.”

In today’s chapter, God deals pretty harshly with a man from the tribe of Judah who disobeyed God’s command and took plunder for himself and then hid it in his tent. That was the way all the other human tribes operated. Conquest was about plunder, power, and pillaging. “I’m teaching my children a different way. It’s something you don’t quite comprehend at this age, but someday you will grow to understand.”

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about my own failures and shortcomings in terms of how they affect everything and everyone to whom I’m connected. I enjoy the vantage point of living in the adult era of human history, but I observe we’re still struggling to fully understand the way Jesus came to teach us we’re all connected, and how we treat one another is how we treat God. I’m still learning the lesson. The way I think, behave, and relate affects the whole. I’m still working on it, and I’ll continue to do so until the end, just as humanity does the same thing on a larger scale. The promise is that I will one day fully experience what God has been trying to reveal to us.

Until then, I press on one day at a time, endeavoring to follow the way Jesus shows me. One day, I’ll experience it fully.

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

Chapter-a-Day

“Get it Out, Little Dude”

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"Get it Out, Little Dude" (CaD Ps 6) – Wayfarer

I am weary with my moaning;
    every night I flood my bed with tears;
    I drench my couch with my weeping.
Psalm 6:6 (NRSVCE)

This past week I was in the dentist’s chair. Neither Wendy nor I had braces when we were young, and we both have some dental issues as a result, so we’re finally pulling the trigger on doing Invisalign and doing it together. So if my voice sounds a little strange on my podcast for the next year, know that it’s because all of my teeth are wrapped in plastic!

Anyway, my dentist and I got into an interesting conversation that started when he asked me how long I’ve been doing this chapter-a-day blog. I don’t think he expected to hear that it has been fourteen years! We then proceeded to talk about some short posts that he has been writing and posting on social media, which I’ve been reading and enjoying very much. He then shared with me that he found himself with these things he was feeling and thinking that he “had to get out.” I couldn’t help think of the prophet Jeremiah when used the metaphor of the message God was giving him being a “fire shut up in my bones” that just has to get out.

Today’s chapter, another song lyric by King David, is one of the examples I have used when I tell people that the psalms read like the blues. I’m sure that the ancient music didn’t sound anything like the blues, but I’m quite certain that Robert Johnson or Jonny Lang would identify with David’s spirit and could do something amazing with the same lyrics.

In both the cases of my dentist, and King David, the same theme has contrasting lessons to teach. Sometimes, there is stuff inside that I’ve just got to get out. With the former, there is something positive inside that needs to come out because others need to hear it, learn from it, be inspired, encouraged, or comforted by it. In the latter case, there is negative energy shut-up within that needs to be exorcised and expressed so that it can’t do spiritual, emotional, mental, and relational damage that always occurs when I suppress and hold in my shame, loneliness, fear, anxiety, anger, pain, frustration, grief, hurt, [insert your own negative emotion here].

Wendy and I are opposites when it comes to handling negative emotions. As an Enneagram Eight, Wendy tends to explode with volcanic eruptions of emotion that often run hot like lava. But she exorcises those emotions quickly and then quickly settles and becomes solid rock again. As an Enneagram Four, I tend to broodingly hold the negative emotions as they boil and churn deep in my heart until daily life begins to tremor and toxic fumes start seeping out in my words and actions. It sometimes takes Wendy, or one of my close companions, to consciously drill down with me in order to release the crap that needs to be released.

Along my life journey, I’ve both experienced in myself and observed in others the tragic consequences of suppressing and holding in the toxic shit that builds up as we walk through life and relationship. I love David’s lyrical laments because they remind me of two things. First, I need to get out the crap I’m feeling even though it might be negative, raw, and even toxic. Better to get it out than to let it wreak havoc in my life. Second, God is not surprised by nor worried about my emotional crap any more than I am worried when my two-year-old grandson goes into full-tilt tantrum mode for the silliest of reasons. I totally believe that God looks at me in full tantrum mode and says the same thing to me that I’d say to Milo: “Get it out, little dude. Then take a nap. You’ll feel better.”

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

Chapter-a-Day

Breaking a Stiff-Neck

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Breaking a Stiff-Neck (CaD Ex 33) – Wayfarer

For the Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, and I will decide what to do to you.’”
Exodus 33:5 (NRSVCE)

One of the ironies of this period of COVID-19 pandemic is that everyone has been stuck inside with nothing to do, but because the quarantine includes actors, crews, studios, and production companies there’s been nothing new to watch on television! So, Wendy and I have been extra excited to have new episodes of Yellowstone airing the past three weeks.

If you haven’t watched Yellowstone, it’s about the patriarch of the largest ranch in the United States that also happens to be some of the most valuable and sought after land in the world. Kevin Costner plays the widowed, wealthy, and powerfully connected rancher John Dutton who struggles to control his dysfunctional family and protect his ranch from a host of enemies who want to take him down and get their hands on his land. Wendy and I have both observed that it’s a lot like a modern-day Godfather, but rather than Italian mobsters in New York it’s cowboys in Montana.

One of the subtle, recurring themes in the show is that of wild horses that need to be broken. In the first season, we’re introduced to Jimmy, a drug-addicted, two-strike loser going nowhere. As a favor to Jimmy’s grandfather, Dutton takes Jimmy on as a ranch-hand. In an iconic moment, Jimmy is tied and duct-taped onto a wild horse that no one else could break. All-day long Jimmy is bucked, spun, and tossed on the back of the horse. By the end of the day, the horse is finally broken, and so is Jimmy.

Today’s chapter is a sequel to yesterday’s story of the Hebrew people abandoning Moses, and the God of Moses, by making an idol for themselves and reverting to their old ways. In response, God calls the people “stiff-necked” (other English translations and paraphrases use words like “stubborn’ or “willful”). One commentator I read stated that the imagery of the original Hebrew word was an ox, bull, or another animal that was unbroken and wouldn’t yield to being yoked. I couldn’t help but think of poor Jimmy duct-taped to that horse.

One of the things I’ve observed in certain human beings is an unbroken spirit. I recall Wendy sitting with a toddler who was determined to climb up our bookcase at the lake which, of course, would have been a dangerous thing to do. The little one had revealed a habit of willfully proceeding whenever an adult said “No.” Wendy sat there and repeatedly pulled the child’s hand and foot off of the bookcase over, and over, and over again as she gently and firmly repeated: “No.” I remember Wendy explaining to the child that she would sit there all day and repeat the process until the child understood. The child cried, wailed, and threw a tantrum in frustration as Wendy calmly continued to deny the toddler’s willful, stiff-necked desire.

Of course, adults can be simply grown-ups who are stuck in childish patterns of thought and behavior. One of the most fascinating things about the story of the early Jesus movement is the transformation in the strong-willed, stiff-necked followers such as Peter, Paul, and John. With each one there was a process involved in the spiritual transformation that included moments of their strong-wills being broken and their spirits humbled as they learned what Jesus meant when He said things like “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” and “Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.”

In the quiet this morning I am looking back on my nearly 40 years as a follower of Jesus. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs. Life has tossed me around a time or two. Some stretches of the journey felt like I was spinning in place. But I’ve come to realize that the spiritual journey is just me being poor Jimmy on that horse. I’ve found God to be a lot like Wendy at that bookcase repeatedly and gently telling a childish, stiff-necked Tommy “No.” The breaking of my will is a prerequisite for discovering God’s.

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

Chapter-a-Day, Wayfarer Podcast

Parental Covenant

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Parental Covenant (CaD Ex 19) – Wayfarer

Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.
Exodus 19:5 (NRSVCE)

Our daughter, Madison, just closed on her first house this past week. We’re so excited for her and her husband, Garrett. What an exciting waypoint in their journey.

As we were discussing home ownership, the subject of paperwork and bureaucracy came up. I told Madison, “Just wait until you close!” There is nothing like sitting there with a stack of paper that requires your signature and initials everywhere for everything. Even if you’re trying to be careful and understand what you’re signing it all becomes a fog. By the end of it my brain was fogged over and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome had permanently settled in my left hand. The closing agent just kept thrusting papers in front of me and I kept signing.

All the paperwork, of course, is part of a complex contract between buyers, sellers, real estate agents, government, and financial agents. It is an agreement between parties.

In ancient times, this type of contract was known as a covenant. It was the ancient form of a binding contract between parties. It’s already come up in the Great Story. God made a covenant with Noah after the flood. God made covenants with Abraham. In today’s chapter, God makes a covenant with the Hebrew people. The concept of a “covenant” between God and people was unlike any other religion of that day. But the Hebrews would have understood the concept because covenants were common in personal, familial, business, and international relationships. Two parties agree to binding terms and obligations. While the “Sinai Covenant” in today’s chapter is like other ancient covenants, scholars point out that it is unique and has no direct parallel in antiquity.

The covenant in today’s chapter is quite simple. God agrees to make the Hebrew people His “treasured” people, a priestly kingdom, and a “holy” nation. In return, the Hebrew people agree to be obedient and keep their obligations as will be set out in the commandments and laws given through Moses.

In the quiet this morning I find myself mulling over one of the commentaries I read about this text:

Typically, both parties to a contract, treaty or similar legal agreement could expect to benefit from their commitment. It is not at all clear that the Biblical text wants its readers to believe that Yahweh will receive some benefit from this relationship with the Israelites that he would not otherwise be able to obtain. The text speaks of great benefit awaiting the Israelites for their consistent obedience to their covenantal obligations. For Yahweh’s part, his actions do not appear to be based in self-interest but in a willingness to be gracious and to extend freely his blessing.

What is Yaweh getting out of the covenant? “His actions do not appear to be based in self-interest but in a willingness to be gracious and extend freely his blessing.”

I couldn’t help but think of these words from Paul’s letter to Jesus’ followers in Philippians:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
    he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.

God is establishing and foreshadowing the core theme of the Great Story. What was lost in Eden? Relationship. How does the prophesied story end at the end of the book of Revelation? Restoration and relationship. In my podcast Time (Part 1) I talked about the Great Story being like a human life-cycle from birth-to-death-to-rebirth.

What is a parent’s relationship like with a toddler? The parent dictates the rules and asks the child to obey. Rules and obligations. Parents graciously extend protection and provision. They expect obedience. While the child can’t cognitively understand just how graciously his or her parents are being, they simply understand that when they obey things are okay and when they disobey they get in trouble.

At Sinai, I believe that God and humanity are in the toddler stage of relationship.

I’m looking at it, of course, from 2000 years past Jesus’ death and resurrection. We’re much further in the life-cycle of the relationship between God and humanity. There are a couple of things I’ve learned in my parenting journey now that our daughters are grown and have established their own adult lives and families.

First, the desire and willingness to be gracious and extend blessing never ends no matter how old your children are. Second, the desire for relationship with them does not end, but only gets stronger. When they come home, reach out, call, or write it is the best blessing ever.

The bottom-line. God desires relationship with me. The Father graciously sent His Son to suffer on my behalf. The Son willingly did so. The Father and Son sent their Spirit to abide in me. Everything is about inviting me into this relationship, this circle of love, this divine dance.

I just have to choose in.

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

Remember When Wednesday

Come on, Grandma!

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On Remember When Wednesdays, I look back at a post from the past and publish it again for newer readers. Having posted about the topic of grief and loss this morning, I thought it apropos to share this memory which I published back in January of 2008 (and which still makes me laugh whenever I think of it)…

He said these things, and then announced, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. I’m going to wake him up.” John 11:11 (TM)

When my Grandma Golly died, the girls were only 3 or 4 years old. Our nephews, Sam and Sol, were the same ages. The entire family had been at the funeral home for the long hours of visitation. There had been a steady stream of visitors, friends and family throughout the evening to share in our grief.

Like most toddlers, the reason for the occasion was lost on the girls and their male cousins who took the opportunity to run around the funeral home playing together. Late that evening, all was quiet in the visitation room as most everyone but family and a few dear friends had departed.

My nephew Solomon, ripping around the room in a playful fury, stopped short right in front of the casket. He looked at the lifeless body of his great grandmother lying before him. He looked at his wrist (where there was no watch), and then shouted at the top of his lungs for all to hear…

“IT’S TIME FOR GRANDMA TO WAKE UP!”

…If you only have faith as a little child.

Chapter-a-Day

Humanity in the Toddler Stage

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At that time the Lord said to me, “Carve out two tablets of stone like the former ones, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood. I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you smashed, and you shall put them in the ark.”
Deuteronomy 10:1-2 (NRSV)

For many years now I’ve been mulling over a concept that the story of God’s relationship with humanity is the story of a parent (God) and child (humanity). When humanity began in Genesis and the early chapters of the story, it reminds me of infancy. There was something innocent and naive; there was very little knowledge or understanding of God. Humanity was undeveloped. Life was messy and base.

With the story of Moses and the giving of the law in the book of Deuteronomy, it feels to me that we’re in the toddler stages of the relationship. God has to do a lot for them. Rules are simple and direct and put in black and white terms. Good behavior is rewarded and bad behavior is swiftly punished. Humanity, meanwhile, is strong willed, stubborn, willful, and…well…childish.

I was reminded of this concept again in today’s chapter. Moses, in his unchecked emotional tantrum, threw the stone tablets God made for him on which the ten commandments were inscribed and smashed them in pieces. God’s response? Like a true parent God tells Moses, “Now you’ve done it. You smashed the tablets I made you. Well, you’re going to have to replace them, young man. I’m not making you another set. You’re going to have to learn to take care of the things I give you. Now, make yourself tablets to replace the ones I gave you and I’ll inscribe them for you.” The replicas would be a word picture, a constant reminder to Moses (and the rest of the family) of his tantrum and its consequences.

In our weekly gatherings of Jesus followers we’re doing a series of messages on how we tend to confuse our relationship with our earthly father and our relationship with our heavenly Father. The former quite regularly distorts the latter. I tend to believe that this is part of the DNA of creation and it requires generous doses of wisdom, discernment and grace to untangle the two. At the same time, it also helps me see events like those in today’s chapter with greater clarity.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 33

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Crying
Crying (Photo credit: Onion)

The Lord looks down from heaven
    and sees the whole human race.
From his throne he observes
    all who live on the earth.
He made their hearts,
    so he understands everything they do.
Psalm 33:13-15 (NLT)

The other night we were at our friends’ house. Wendy and I had brought the gift of books for their two young boys and enjoyed watching them unwrap their gifts. It was fascinating to watch as the older child spied to see what the younger child got (“Did he get a better book than me??!”), then attempted to grab little brother’s book right out his hands for inspection. We then watched as the younger one played the victim card with pitch perfect precision: screams of rage and crocodile tears turned on with an invisible switch on his brain. Back and forth the sibling rivalry and angst flowed. The adults watched with patient understanding and the parents did their best to navigate the bubbling cauldron of childish emotions.

God reminds us time and time again that our relationship with Him is that of parent and child. To God, we must all be like little children acting out. Even as adults, our emotional tirades and self-centered actions must seem to Father God as the acts of a toddler to us.

Today, I’m glad that my heavenly Father knows my heart, even when this grown up child is naughty.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Leviticus 15

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Person washing his hands
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God spoke to Moses and Aaron: “Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, When a man has a discharge from his genitals, the discharge is unclean. Whether it comes from a seepage or an obstruction he is unclean. He is unclean all the days his body has a seepage or an obstruction.” Leviticus 15:1 (MSG)

When my daughters were young, the word for “unclean” was “acky” (toddler-ese derivative of the word “yucky”). Kids need a clear understanding of what things are acceptable and which things are “acky” because they could maim you, burn you, give you intestinal problems (and let’s face it – the diapers are nasty enough without compounding the issue), spread a communicable disease (we’d like to abandon our “pink-stuff-of-the-month” subscription with the local pharmacy, thank you), or outright kill you (dad gets blamed for enough, he doesn’t need that hanging over his head, too). As a result, there is a period of development when “acky” was a hot topic of conversation.

As I read today’s chapter, I found myself returning to the metaphor of Leviticus being a heavenly Father’s rules for the nation of Israel who were just toddlers in their societal development. Wives have enough trouble with us men who were reared in an advanced civilization and the best educational system in human history. We still fart, belch, spit, scratch, pick and leave unhealthy residue of our bodily emissions on toilets with the seat up. Can you imagine how bad guys must have been living in a tent city in 2500 b.c. without showers, indoor plumbing, laundry facilities and disposable razors?

All of the description about what was “acky” in today’s chapter served layers of purposes. From a societal point-of-view, it helped protect the nation from communicable disease by prescribing ceremonial washing of things that could easily carry all sorts of nasty germs and viruses. From a spiritual point-of-view, it reminded the people that they served a holy (and clean) God.

Today, I’m reminded that [wait for it….] “cleanliness is next to godliness.”

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Jeremiah 13

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scream and shout
Image by mdanys via Flickr

Do I hear you saying,
   “What’s going on here? Why me?”
The answer’s simple: You’re guilty,
   hugely guilty.
Your guilt has your life endangered,
   your guilt has you writhing in pain. Jeremiah 13:22 (MSG)

I’m reminded this morning of being a child, sent to my room because my dad caught me swearing. It was summer. It wasn’t even 8:00 p.m. yet and the sun would be shining bright for another hour or more. Out of my upstairs bedroom window I could hear the sounds of the neighborhood kids continuing the game of kick-the-can from which I was pulled to serve my bedroom interment.

“It’s not fair,” my preadolescent brain wanted to argue. But my reasoning couldn’t make it very far. I said the “G.D.” word. There was no getting around it. Arguing that dad misunderstood what I said would be an exercise in futility. His hearing wasn’t that bad.

My brain continued to spin. I wanted to blame my brothers. They were the ones who taught me those words. They swore all the time (and never got caught). But, I knew that argument would go nowhere. Dad was judge, jury and executioner. He wouldn’t buy it. “It still doesn’t excuse you saying it,” I heard his voice saying in my brain.

I had to face the facts. I was stuck in my room, and it was my own “g.d.” fault.

Like children cloaked in adults bodies, I still find myself and others clinging to “why me?” sorrows while wallowing in the muck of our own making. We drive like demons on wintery roads and grieve the tickets and body shop bills. We ignore relational pains and then wonder why the relationship broke apart. We eat too much, sit in front of the television, and despair when our clothes don’t fit.

There are times when tragedy strikes without warning and wreaks havoc on life in unjust ways. However, like a child confined to his room and trying unsuccessfully to spin a plausible defense, I have to confess that much life pain is simply the consequences of my own making.

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