Tag Archives: Use

Memorized Lines

December 26, 2016 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Isaiah 41:10 (NIV)

When I became a follower of Jesus as a teenager, I soon found myself being spiritually mentored by a gentleman who was my boss in an after school job. Every Tuesday morning at 6:00 a.m. we would meet in his office. Very quickly he began to instill in me the discipline of memorizing verses and passages from God’s Message. The verse I’ve pasted at the to of this post was among the first that I committed to memory.

This morning as I woke and began to think about starting my day meditating on today’s chapter, I immediately associated Isaiah 41 with the verse I had memorized some 35 years ago. My soul smiled as I looked forward to journeying through the entire chapter once again.

As an amateur actor, I am used to memorizing words. I have memorized lines for many parts in many shows. In just the past few months, I had to refresh myself in memorizing that same lines for the same part I played 10 years ago. It’s amazing how few of them I actually remembered. I’m not sure having memorized them ten years ago was much of a help.

I find it fascinating that words from God’s Message memorized 35 years ago come so quickly to mind, while words memorized for a part 10 years ago were completely lost to me. I think there are reasons for this on a number of different levels, but I believe one of the key differences lies in fact that the lines of Eliot Herzog in The Christmas Post were committed to my brain for a finite period of time. I had to get through the handful of performances and then the lines had little value to me. Isaiah 41:10, however, was committed to both my mind and my heart. It became spiritually useful and beneficial to me whenever I traversed a particularly rough stretch of life’s journey.

This morning I am thinking of words that live inside my spirit, and words that I have buried in my mind. I am thankful for my old mentor and the discipline he instilled in me during those spiritually formative years. I am grateful for these words of Isaiah that have bubbled up to the surface once again as 2016 wanes and 2017 is about to begin. I am, once again, reminded not to be afraid of what the future holds, as I know Who holds me in the palm of His hand.

Chapter-a-Day

God and His Resources

June 24, 2015 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

At the same time he hoped that money would be given him by Paul, and for that reason he used to send for him very often and converse with him. After two years had passed, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus; and since he wanted to grant the Jews a favor, Felix left Paul in prison. Acts 24: 26-27 (NRSV)

Over two years Paul was imprisoned by Governor Felix. Over two years he lived under house arrest. No crowds got to hear Paul speak. Paul did not get to journey from town to town speaking to and encouraging fellow believers. For over two years Paul basically had an audience of one Roman Governor and his wife who would occasionally send for him to have a conversation.

I’ve learned along life’s road that God’s ways are not always our ways. We tend to look at Paul’s imprisonment and think what a waste to have Paul languishing under house arrest when there were so many other things he could have been doing with his time and talents. I wonder if Paul thought that too, or if he was content knowing that he was right where he was supposed to be and doing what he was supposed to do.

Sometimes we have to trust that God knows what He is doing with the use of His resources.

Chapter-a-Day

Oak and Vine

March 3, 2015 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

In January of 2012 we had an unusually warm week and the dead vine in our backyard had enough life in it to sprout a single bloom.

The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, how is the wood of a vine different from that of a branch from any of the trees in the forest?”
Ezekiel 15:1-2 (NIV)

I have written on occasion about the majestic old oak tree that stood sentinel outside our house in Pella. During our decade living there, Old Man Oak would occasionally drop a branch on the driveway. The branches were heavy and the solid wood would have been useful for any number of projects had I been a wood worker inclined to make something useful from the fallen limb.

In the backyard of the same house was a climbing vine that would perennially climb a trellis set between our and our neighbor’s yard. It was gorgeous in the summer when it wove its way up the framework of the arbor and blossomed in fiery orange blooms. In the autumn, however, the vines died and became ugly brown sinews that had to be painstakingly cut and pulled from the trellis. The remnants of the vine were dead, ugly, tangled, and absolutely useless for anything other than nature’s own recycling system.

That is exactly the word picture Ezekiel makes about the people of Jerusalem in today’s chapter. God’s people had once been a fruitful vine but had grown spiritually lifeless, tangled up in idolatry, and useless. As such, the result was to be thrown on the burn pile – a prophetic word picture of the coming Babylonian siege of Jerusalem and its destruction.

I’m reminded this morning of Jesus’ own take on the same metaphor:

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” John 15:5-8 (NIV)

Today, I’m find myself a little introspective. Ezekiel’s prophecy and Jesus’ metaphor begs the question: “What good am I? Am I fruitful? Am I useful? Is there Life in the limbs of my existence, my labor, and my relationships?”