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Chapter-a-Day

A Season to Wait, A Moment to Move

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Then the Lord said to me, “You have made your way around this hill country long enough; now turn north.”
Deuteronomy 2:2-3 (NIV)

My company does a lot of customer research. It’s the core of what Intelligentics does. Just this week I’m working on four different customer research projects for clients. Over 30-plus years, it’s been fascinating to have observed how customer expectations have changed. Because of technology and stark generational differences the consumer landscape is changing at a brisk clip. Businesses are wise to invest in listening to their customers.

What has been growing as a key driver of customer expectation and satisfaction are time-related dimensions of service. We have become used to having a world of information at our fingertips. From a consumer perspective, we can do almost anything instantly on the phone in our hand at any time wherever we happen to be. The result? We are an increasingly impatient people. I see it every day in the data our customer research produces.

The impact of these changes is not just on business. It’s impacting life and relationships. It’s having a spiritual impact, as well.

Ever since I surrendered and committed my life to Jesus as a teenager, I have trekked this earthly journey as a faith journey. I am ever seeking the purpose God has for me and the Story He is authoring in it. In doing so, I have learned three important spiritual truths:

Timing is everything.
Waiting is hard.
God’s timing is perfect.

In today’s chapter, Moses continues sharing memories as mentorship to a new generation of Hebrew tribes preparing to enter the Promised Land. On the surface, the text feels a bit stale and boring. When I step back, however, and look at the Story that is being unpacked, it’s rich with these spiritual truths.

He tells of their 38 years of wandering.
Then God says, “It’s time. Turn north. Move.”
There command to move comes with instructions:
Don’t provoke Edom, Moab, or Ammon (they are family, even if estranged). God’s promise comes with boundaries.

Then comes the pivotal pivot:
It’s time to cross the Arnon Gorge—and now, now, God says, “Rise up. I have given Sihon king of Heshbon into your hands.” The battle begins, the land opens, and Israel steps into a season of forward motion after almost four decades of waiting.

Today’s chapter is about restraint, timing, and finally stepping into what God has purposed, planned, and prepared.

Which brings me back to our current world. I tap a screen and groceries appear. Click early enough in the day and the package will be on my porch before dinner. It’s no wonder we expect instant gratification. Technology has so successfully met this desire in so many areas of our lives that its increasingly driving expectation in every aspect of our lives.

How is this going to affect my faith journey? Spiritual formation and spiritual maturity take time. There are no short-cuts. There’s no pharmaceutical for instant wisdom. There is a discipline of Spirit that one learns as you ask, seek, and knock through seasons of waiting and wilderness wanderings. There is a form of obedience that requires restraint rather than action. There is an attentiveness required to be able to respond when the moment finally arrives.

“Turn north. Time to move.”

In the quiet this morning, I find myself reflecting on the many different seasons of waiting I have endured along this faith journey. Memory is a mentor. I’m also meditating on God’s call on me to move into a new season of life right now and all the feelings that stirs in my spirit after so many years of waiting. Finally, I find myself praying for my children and grandchildren, these next generations. I pray God’s grace to embrace the waiting in a world that is increasingly unwilling to do so.

And so, as the new day dawns, I ask for grace to wait well…
and courage to turn north when He whispers, “Now.”

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

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Chapter-a-Day

Preparations

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[God said to Moses:] “Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one. You and Aaron are to count according to their divisions all the men in Israel who are twenty years old or more and able to serve in the army.”
Numbers 1:2-3 (NIV)

Just last week in our chapter-a-day trek through Philippians I mentioned The Exodus Paradigm. Briefly stated, the story of God leading His people out of slavery, through the wilderness, and into the Promised Land is a paradigm that repeats itself over and over again in the Great Story. As a disciple of Jesus, I see this paradigm in my own story. Once a slave to sin, Jesus freed me, but I still must wander through the wilderness of this earthly journey until one day I “cross Jordan” and enter the eternal Promised Land.

As I took a look at all of my chapter-a-day series by book, I couldn’t help but notice that the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy are missing from recent years, so I thought it’s a good time to explore the original Exodus Paradigm. Starting this morning, we journey back in time and enter the story as Moses and the Hebrew tribes have been camped below Mount Sinai. In Exodus God heard the cries of the Hebrew people from their slavery in Egypt and delivered them. In Leviticus God gave Moses The Law and instructions for setting up a radical new way of doing life together, differently than any of the other people groups around them.

Now, God is going to lead His people through the wilderness to a land He has promised them.

I’m not much of an outdoorsman. I have certainly camped, hunted, and done my share of fishing in my youth, but it’s not something that I ever got into in a serious way. I have done enough, however, to know that any kind of serious journey into the wilderness requires careful planning and preparation. You don’t just throw on a backpack and go. Especially when wandering through wilderness with dangerous wildlife, you have to be prepared for unexpected encounters with very dangerous wildlife. I suddenly have images from the scene in The Revenant when a grizzly bear attacks Leo Dicaprio running through my head.

The opening chapters of Numbers are God’s preparations for the wilderness journey His people are about to take. In fact, the title “Numbers” traditionally comes from the census, or numbering, of the people that happens multiple times in the story. In today’s first chapter, God has Moses take a census of the total number of fighting men available from each tribe.

The world of the ancient Hebrews was especially brutal and violent. Large empires like Egypt were beginning to emerge and swallow up entire regions and people groups in order to grow their empire. The Hebrews have just experienced the Egyptians chasing after them and God delivering them. There’s no promise that the Egyptians won’t recoup and come after them again. Plus, there’s no telling what violent warring people groups or communities that they will encounter. A giant, wandering nation like they are will be seen as an immediate threat, and they can fully expect to be attacked.

They have to be prepared.

In the quiet this morning, this brings me back to the metaphorical wilderness journey that is the spiritual journey through this earthly life. We just trekked through Paul’s “Prison Letters” and were reminded of the many trials and challenges he endured. I’m thankful that my life journey has not included such ordeals, but that’s not to say I don’t have my own share of challenges and trials. You do, too. We are wandering through a fallen world filled with evil, sin, and tragedy. Jesus guaranteed His followers that we would face many kinds of troubles. He said that the world would hate us the way it hated Him. I can bank on that.

Which leads me to ask: How prepared am I?

As I meditated on this question this morning it struck me how often people are surprised and unprepared when life throws them a wicked curveball. Yet, God tells me again and again to expect challenges, trials, tragedies, and tribulation along this earthly wilderness journey. They will happen. When they do happen, I’m told to rejoice, to praise, and to consider it all joy in the midst of them.

Last week in our trek through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians he told the believers to “put on the full armor of God” in preparation for the spiritual dangers awaiting us on this journey. It’s no different than what God was asking the Hebrew tribes to physically do in today’s chapter.

Paul tells me that what I need to be spiritually prepared for the dangers awaiting me on my own wilderness journey are the following:

Righteousness that guards my heart like a breastplate
Truth as a belt around my waist
Preparedness of peace as my hiking boots
Salvation as a helmet protecting my precious head
Faith as a shield
The Word of God as a sword

How well I navigate this earthly journey has a lot to do with how spiritually prepared I am each day. Which is what my mornings in the quiet and this chapter-a-day trek has always been about.

Lace ‘em up, friend. A new day and a new work week lies ahead.

Are you ready?

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

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Chapter-a-Day

The Exodus Paradigm

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…rather, [Jesus] made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
Philippians 2:7 (NIV)

Like millions of people around the world, Wendy and I have thoroughly enjoyed watching The Chosen, a retelling of Jesus’ story by Angel Studios. We have told countless people who are interested in watching the series to make sure you gut through the first three or four episodes. We are not the only ones who found the opening episodes of the series a bit slow. The action and the story don’t seem to really get rolling until you’re a few episodes in.

About a year ago before season four was about to drop, Wendy and I went back to binge the first three seasons in preparation. Guess what? Suddenly, the first three or four episodes came entirely to life for us. They were amazing in ways we couldn’t see until we knew more of the story. There was so many meaningful story seeds planted in those first few episodes that wouldn’t germinate and take root until later episodes and seasons. We could only see them once more of the story had bloomed.

That’s how it goes with good stories, and the Great Story.

One of the things that I’ve experienced on this chapter-a-day journey, and through my perpetual meditations on the Great Story, is that I have come to realize that entire sections of the Story that I once dismissed or largely ignored are essential to understanding the entirety of the Story itself, as well as the story God is authoring in me.

For example, the Exodus story was once simply a Charlton Heston epic movie I got to stay up past my bedtime to watch as a kid every Easter. Even after becoming a disciple of Jesus and reading my way through the entire Great Story, I didn’t see the paradigm. By the way, I credit The Bible Project for helping me really see it.

And, now that I see it, I realize that it’s everywhere.

The Exodus paradigm is simple:

The setting is slavery.
There is a road out of slavery.
There is a road through the wilderness.
There is a road into a Promised Land.

In today’s chapter, Paul shares one of the most famous passages about who Jesus was on a cosmic spiritual level. As I read the passage for the millionth time in the quiet this morning, I found the Exodus story hiding in plain sight. Let me unpack it.

Paul writes,

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.

There’s the setting for Jesus’ own Exodus. He chose to empty Himself of the advantages equality with God and become a human, by very nature a servant. The Greek word also translates as “slave” in English.

And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

The road out for Jesus was being obedient in suffering and dying sacrificially for humanity. The road through the wilderness was not only through the suffering, but it was also through a wilderness we don’t talk much about except perhaps on a day called Holy Saturday between Good Friday and Easter. The road through the wilderness was through the grave. Jesus descended into hell and proclaimed “freedom” to those spirits who were imprisoned there (1 Peter 3:19).

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

The ascension was Jesus road into the Promise Land, to His eternal Kingdom where a throne awaited at the right hand of the Father Almighty.

So, in the quiet this morning, I am reminded that all good stories are a reflection of the Great Story. This means that my story is as well. Once enslaved in my sin, Jesus offered me a road out if I would surrender my life to Him. For almost 45 years He has led me through the wilderness that is my earthly journey. Like the Hebrew tribes, I’ve had to learn to trust God for my daily bread, resist the temptation to return to my chains, and have faith to follow Jesus into surprising and even scary places. Ultimately, He has promised that at the end of this wilderness I will cross through the Jordan River and into the Promised Land where He waits to welcome me to my new home.

The road out.
The road through.
The road in.

Time to lace ‘em up and hit the road through another Monday and into the wilderness of another work week.

Here we go!

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

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Chapter-a-Day

The Choice and the Outcome

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Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
Matthew 28:18 (NIV)

Today’s brief and final chapter marks the end of Jesus’ physical ministry on Earth. Matthew shares that Jesus rose from the dead. He and the disciples then returned to Galilee “to the mountain” where He “told them to go.” There, on top of the mountain, He told them that “all authority in heaven and on earth” had been “given” to Him.

Just this past Sunday I gave the message among my local gathering of Jesus’ followers and talked about when Jesus was tempted by the enemy in the wilderness. It was just before the beginning of Jesus’ physical ministry on earth. Luke writes:

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

What a fascinating contrast on which to meditate in the quiet this morning. The beginning and end take place on mountains and the issue at hand is kingdom authority. Right before the beginning of His earthly ministry, Jesus was offered all the authority of the kingdoms of the world on earth. All He had to do was bow down to the enemy.

Jesus, however, chose to love His Father and love others rather than bowing and taking a shortcut to worldly power and riches. Jesus’ love for His Father and others led Him to choose to surrender His will to the will of His Father, take up a cross, and sacrifice Himself for sins of others. Having done so, He now stands on a different mountain and proclaims that all authority in heaven and earth has been given to Him.

Satan offered Jesus a shortcut to the limited authority he’s been granted over just the kingdoms of the earth. Jesus chose the path of sacrificial love and was given all authority of both heaven and earth (which includes authority over Satan). Jesus chose the path of eternal authority, and got both. It was the living embodiment of what He taught: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

I know the choice Jesus made. I know the outcome.

I can’t help but to consider that Jesus told me that I have the same choice that He was given. I can focus on the earthly or the eternal. I can bow to the temporary authority of the kingdoms of this world and chase after their power, riches, fame, and splendor. Or, I can follow Jesus in choosing an eternal path having faith that in the end I will not only find something much greater, but “all these things” will be included (though I have a sneaking suspicion that they will pale in comparison).

Do I bow to the temporary authority of the kingdoms of the world, or to the eternal authority of heaven and earth?

I believe it is a choice that I make a thousand times every day.

Tomorrow this chapter-a-day trek moves to 2 Corinthians

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

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!
Chapter-a-Day

Golf Dream

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Golf Dream (CaD Dan 7) – Wayfarer

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and visions passed through his mind as he was lying in bed. He wrote down the substance of his dream.
Daniel 7:1 (NIV)

The other day I had an unusual experience. All night long I had strange and vivid dreams. Most of them were the typical mish-mash of things both silly, non-sensical, and strange. I woke up, however, remembering one vivid dream about me and an old friend going golfing. This is funny because I’m not a golfer, though I remember playing a few holes with him once. That was over thirty years ago.

I remember from my dream that we were standing in line in the clubhouse waiting for our tee time. It was a busy course. There were others in our group, but I didn’t know them. The tee box for the first hole was literally right outside the clubhouse door in a sort of vestibule with the exterior walls of the clubhouse on either side of the tee box extending and creating a kind of alleyway. The fairway went about ten yards in front of the tee and then did a severe ninety-degree dog leg around the corner of the clubhouse.

What was funny about this is that if I try to hit a golf ball straight, it would probably shank at just that 90-degree angle (which is why I’m not a golfer) but I could never in a million years do that on purpose, and in my dream, I knew this. I was perplexed about how to proceed and considered using my putter off the tee to get the ball past the clubhouse wall and effectively lay up for my second shot. I can remember thinking in my dream what a terrible golfer I must be to have to use my putter off the tee.

For some reason, this dream stuck with me that day and it came to mind as I was getting ready for bed. I hadn’t talked to my friend in a long time, so I texted him out of the blue that evening. I didn’t expect him to reply immediately:

Okay, that was wild. Was there anything spiritual about it, or was it just a coincidence? Here’s where my thoughts on the prophetic provide me with guidance. I won’t dismiss it outright, and I won’t obsess about it. I do believe that everything is connected. I will hold on loosely and enjoy the wonder that my spirit, and/or Holy Spirit, seemed to somehow connect that a dear friend was celebrating a big waypoint on life’s road that day (and that I should have been with him at Pebble Beach that day!!! 😂😂😂).

Today’s chapter represents a huge shift in the book of Daniel. So far, it’s been a string of really incredible stories. From here on out, it becomes largely a record of prophetic dreams and visions. The dream in today’s chapter describes four strange beasts that are metaphors for the successive empires that will rule the Near East in the coming centuries: Neo-Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek, and Roman. Daniel’s dream ends with a vision of “the son of man” (a title Jesus used of Himself) who will establish a kingdom of “all nations and peoples” with dominion that will be eternal.

It is not unusual for the prophetic to be “layered” with meaning. While it certainly points to the coming of the Messiah, the second half of today’s chapter is also regularly connected by scholars to the visions of the end times in the book of Revelation.

As I contemplated the prophetic and the dreams in today’s chapter, my thoughts led me to consider that God was particularly active in delivering miracles, dreams, and visions during this period of the Babylonian exile. That’s one of the themes across the Great Story. There are seasons and periods of time in which the miraculous and the prophetic are plentiful. Then there are seasons and periods of time in which they are rare. I find it fascinating that the seasons of plenty tend to coincide with periods of struggle. The time of Moses came in enslavement and wilderness wanderings. This period of the stories of Daniel and Esther happens during captivity and exile. Jesus’ arrival on the scene and the subsequent Jesus Movement happen as Daniel’s dream predicts, amidst Roman occupation and then persecution.

So I have found it to be in my own spiritual journey. It is in times of struggle, tragedy, wilderness, and exile that the work of God’s Spirit becomes more active and acute. Perhaps it’s because I’m spiritually more needy, focused, and open during these seasons. Perhaps it’s because God knows that I need more encouragement and a reminder of His provision and presence as I traverse the dark valleys on life’s road. Perhaps it’s a combination of both. Either way, there’s wisdom in embracing the reality that I will experience both types of seasons in my story, just as both types of seasons are present across the Great Story.

And, happy birthday to my friend, Matt. I hope Pebble Beach was a blast. It’s probably good I wasn’t there. Me putting off the tee would have only been an embarrassment.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Into the Wilderness

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Into the Wilderness (CaD 2 Ki 25) – Wayfarer

So Judah went into captivity, away from her land.
2 Kings 25:21b (NIV)

Many years ago, I found myself in circumstances I could never have imagined. I found myself in the middle of a divorce and living in a new community. My world had suddenly turned upside down and inside out. It was a scary, tenuous, anxious, humbling, and stressful season of life.

Along this life journey, almost everyone experiences a period of wilderness. Life as we know it experiences a tectonic shift. Things get turned upside down and inside out. Wilderness could be brought on by unforeseen tragedy, the death of a loved one, war, natural disaster, divorce, loss of a job, financial loss, conflict, illness, or any number of similar life-changing events.

The psychologist Carl Jung and the scholar Joseph Cambell did a lot of work in the 20th century studying and revealing the archetypes and patterns in the epic stories of humanity. Our greatest stories reflect the core of our human experience. They resonate with us because there is something in the story that connects deeply with our human experience. I would submit that the patterns and archetypes are found in our stories because they are found in our lives.

Wilderness is one of these common themes. Here are the first five steps of the hero’s wilderness journey as Jung and Campbell outline it:

  1. The hero’s journey starts in the Ordinary World. The hero—male or female—is “stuck,” but he or she senses some powerful, tectonic energy moving beneath the surface.
  2. The hero receives a “call.” This may be positive—an invitation to climb Annapurna—or negative … we’re arrested and thrown in jail. Or, like Odysseus, the hero commits a crime against heaven and is “made to” undergo an ordeal of expiation. But one way or another, you and I are ejected from Normal Life and flung, willy-nilly, into Something Totally New.
  3. The hero “crosses the threshold.” She moves from the Ordinary World to the Extraordinary World (also known as the Inverted World.) Like the children in The Chronicles of Narnia, we pass through a portal and enter a realm unlike any we have known.
  4. The hero encounters allies and enemies, undergoes challenges and heartbreaks, temptations and overthrows. The hero suffers. The hero loses her way. The hero has been caught up in an often hellish adventure (though with some good moments too), from which no escape seems possible. The stakes are clearly life and death.
  5. The hero perseveres. Reckoning that there’s no turning back, the hero pushes on, often blindly, almost always wracked by despair and self-doubt, seeking he or she knows not what. Escape? Redemption? A conclusion of some kind to this crazy, upside-down enterprise?

It may be lost on modern American readers, but today’s chapter is one of the most life-changing historical events in the history of the Hebrew people. The Babylonian siege of Jerusalem was a violent, horrific event. Jeremiah, who lived through it, poetically describes the carnage in the five short chapters of Lamentations. The entire nation, the King and the priests, are taken into captivity and exile in Babylon. Among the exiles were the prophet Ezekiel and a young man named Daniel. Their stories, respectively, are rooted in their experiences in the Babylonian wilderness, along with the story of Esther.

The wilderness, Jung and Campbell explain, always has a purpose in making the hero the hero. It is in the wilderness the hero faces the darkness, the villain, their own fear, and/or seemingly insurmountable odds. It is in the wilderness that the hero experiences an “all is lost” moment, and it is in the wilderness that the hero eventually experiences an important epiphany and is ultimately led back home, a different person with a “gift.” Judah’s return from wilderness and exile is told in the books of Nehemiah and Ezra.

In the quiet this morning, God’s Spirit has brought to mind people I know who are experiencing seasons of wilderness in their own life journeys. I look back on my own season of wilderness and I can see the things I had to face, the lessons God had for me in it, and what a positive difference it ultimately made in my life and my spiritual journey. If I could write a letter to my past self in the midst of that wilderness, I would tell my struggling self to trust the story God is authoring in my story, to persevere one step at a time, and to know that good things, redemptive things, lie ahead.

My seasons of wilderness have taught me that God is more interested in developing my character than in facilitating my comfort.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Lost and Found

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[King Josiah] stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord—to follow the Lord and keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.
2 Kings 23:3 (NIV)

One of the common themes of all great stories is when the hero loses his or her way. We see it in Luke Skywalker in Star Wars Episode VIII as he has chosen self-exile. Ron Weasley similarly chooses out in the Deathly Hallows. Edmund loses his way and follows the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In The Hobbit, it is Bilbo who loses his way in the Misty Mountains where he happens to find a plain-looking golden ring in the darkness. Despite his insistence that he would never fall away, Peter denies that he knows Jesus three times.

Along my spiritual journey, I have come to embrace that losing one’s way is a common theme for a lot of us. As I look back on my own life journey, I can humbly point back to a period of time I call “the dark years,” in which I lost my way and made many regrettable choices.

In the Great Story told between Genesis and Revelation the theme of losing one’s way is recurring. From the Hebrew tribes “wandering in the wilderness” for 40 years to the exile of Israel and Judah in Assyria and Babylon to Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son, the tale of losing one’s way is a familiar one.

In today’s chapter, King Josiah reads the recently discovered Books of Moses to his people. We have no idea how long it had been since the story of Moses delivering the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and God establishing a covenant with them had been read. It says in today’s chapter that the annual Passover Feast prescribed by God had not been celebrated “neither in the days of the judges who led Israel nor in the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.” That’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 years.

Today’s chapter is essentially about coming home, the Prodigal’s return, and the hero finding his or her way back to the path. Luke shows up to deliver the rebel forces in stunning form. Ron returns just in time to save Harry. Edmund is redeemed and restored by Aslan. Bilbo finds his way back to Thorin and Company with the ring that will help him facilitate the overthrow of Smaug. Jesus restores Peter on the shore of Galilee with three affirmations of his calling. Josiah leads the nation in renewing their covenant with the God who delivered and established them.

In the quiet this morning, I’m reminded that losing one’s way is a very common story. Jesus told stories about lost coins and lost sheep as well as a lost child. The stories are ultimately not about being lost, but about being found. The Shepherd risks the entire flock to search for the lost sheep until it’s found. The Prodigal’s father waits patiently and expectantly on the porch to catch sight of his child’s return. The found book helps Josiah and God’s people to find their way back to God.

I once was lost, but now I’m found.

For the spiritual pilgrim, there’s both encouragement and hope in the revelation that God expectantly desires that I find my way back to Him.

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

Chapter-a-Day

The Song and the Story

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The Song and the Story (CaD Ps 136) – Wayfarer

to him who led his people through the wilderness;
His love endures forever.
Psalm 136:16 (NIV)

Psalm 136 is one of the most fascinating of all the songs in the anthology of ancient Hebrew song lyrics we all the book of Psalms. The ancient Hebrew songwriter crafted it in such a way that the the meaning and metaphor of the lyrics are as much in the structure as they are in the words. First, there’s the organization of the the theme:

  • Six verses about creation
  • Six verses about the Hebrews deliverance from slavery
  • One verse about the Hebrews being led through the wilderness
  • Six verses about the Hebrews conquest of Canaan
  • Four verses that echo/summarize the previous themes
  • A final call to praise God

There is no other psalm in the anthology of ancient Hebrew song lyrics that utilizes the call and response device as this song does. Twenty-six times the refrain “His love endures forever” is used. That number is important because for the ancient Hebrews, the letters of their alphabet also did double-duty as numerals. Every letter was used as a number. When you add up the numerical values of the letters of the Hebrew name for God: YHWH (Note: the Hebrew alphabet doesn’t have vowels) the total is, you guessed it, 26.

As I thought about the structure of the song, I couldn’t help but think that it parallels every life story, my life story.

I have a creation story. There’s the time in which I was born, the family in which I was raised, the community of my childhood, and the events that set me on my path in life.

Like the Hebrew exodus from slavery, I have climactic events that shape and define my life journey. My decision to follow Christ and subsequent call to proclaim His message, my being cast in a film and meeting the mentor who would play an instrumental part in my life, my early marriage, the births of Taylor and Madison, the divorce that would end my first marriage after seventeen years, and the unexpected arrival of Wendy in my life.

Like the Hebrew wilderness experience, I have my own stretch of life’s road in which I wandered in the wilderness of my own choosing. I chose the path of the prodigal. I ran. I squandered. I was unfaithful to those I loved most. I had my own pig-slop “Aha!” moment. I had to find my way back.

Like the Hebrew conquest, I have my own slate of victories in life. I have accomplishments, awards, and successes.

And, through it all, God’s faithful, enduring love is woven through every major success and every tragic failure. His love is woven through my best moments and my worst. In his letter to the followers of Jesus in Corinth, Paul wrote that at the end of the Great Story that contains all stories, including mine, there are three things that remain: faith, hope, and love. he adds, “The greatest of these is love.”

In the quiet this morning, as I look back at my own story, I am realizing just how much God’s love shows up like the repeated refrain of Psalm 136. I am also reminded that like the 26 love refrains the song writer metaphorically employed to point me to God, Yahweh, I am pointed to a God who is love incarnate, which is the destination and goal of my entire story and life journey through this world. If I’m not growing into love in increasing measure as Jesus defined it, then I am (perhaps even with the best of intentions) headed in the wrong direction.

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Exilic Reflections

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Exilic Reflections (CaD Ps 107) – Wayfarer

Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he delivered them from their distress.
Psalm 107:6 (NIV)

As I’ve been mulling over the spiritual milestones I’ve shared about recently, I have been looking back at my life journey of 20,000+ days and my spiritual journey of 40 years. There have been some amazing moments, some stretches of prosperity on multiple levels, and then there have been some seasons of soul-stretching adversity. As I recount the peaks and valleys and where they’ve brought me, it occurs to me that the latter has been more critical in my spiritual growth. And, very often the former follows. The valleys of life prune me spiritually, and when I eventually reach the high places they are particularly fruitful.

“Exile” is one of the grand themes of the Great Story. Some scholars have gone so far as to say that it is the primary theme that occurs over and over again, beginning with Adam and Eve being exiled from the Garden and their intimate relationship with the Creator. The Hebrews living in bondage and exile in Egypt, then later being exiled and scattered by the Babylonian and Assyrian empires. The crux of the Great Story is Jesus leaving heaven to be exiled here as one of us to make a way for us to escape our own earthly exile and be at home in eternity. And, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Exile is a theme in the stories of Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Ruth, Esther, Daniel, Nehemiah, Mary, Joseph, John the Baptist, Jesus, John, and Paul.

All good stories are a reflection of the Great Story, and I typically find the theme of exile in every major human epic.

Today’s chapter, Psalm 107, kicks off the fifth and final “Book” of Hebrew Song lyrics we know as the Psalms. Psalm 107 is another liturgical song, most likely written to be sung during one of the Hebrew religious festivals. Most scholars agree that it was penned during the period of time when the Hebrews returned from Babylonian exile, rebuilt Jerusalem and God’s temple there. Having come through years of captivity and exile, they have ascended Mount Zion to worship, reflect on their experiences, and give thanks.

The song lyrics introduce different exilic experiences: wandering in the desert, living in darkness, struggling through captivity and forced labor, bitter consequences of foolish choices, sickness and disease, and being lost and rudderless on the stormy seas. In each of the stanzas the description of exilic struggle leads to the phrase: “Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble.” This is followed by God’s salvation, deliverance, redemption, and restoration. Each stanza ends calling the listener to gratitude and praise.

In the quiet this morning, I’m seeing the pattern. Out of darkness into the light. Up from the valley to the mountaintop. Return from exilic adversity to the blessing of finding myself safe at home. This is the Great Story. It’s life’s story. It’s my story, too.

As I meditate on the lyrics of Psalm 107 and look back on my journey, I’m reminded that there is purpose in the painful stretches. Perseverance has always paid off. I have always been able to cry out to the Lord in my troubles. There have always been better stretches ahead.

Note: A new message has been posted to my Messages Page.

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Called to the Quiet

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Called to the Quiet (CaD Ex 24) – Wayfarer

Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.
Exodus 24:18 (NRSVCE)

A few weeks ago I made an impromptu road trip. It was a particularly stressful time, and I told a few friends that the road trip was my way of doing what Jesus did on occasion when He went up a mountain alone to pray. I chose to sequester myself in the car.

As I read today’s chapter I found a number of elements that foreshadowed Jesus’ story. Jesus, like Moses, spent a period of forty days and nights in the wilderness. In today’s chapter, Moses is the mediator between God and the people. Moses offers the blood sacrifice, the blood covers the people, and Moses then ascends to God. Jesus was the blood sacrifice which atones for sin before He rose and ascended. When Jesus went up on a mountain with Peter, James, and John and was transfigured in glory, Moses appeared there at Jesus’ side. The events of today’s chapter are an example of how the ancient Hebrew stories are linked to Jesus. It’s all part of the Great Story.

What my mind and heart came back to in the text, however, was the time that Moses spent with God on the mountain. Forty is also a theme beyond the link to Jesus time in the wilderness:

  • The rain in Noah’s flood lasted forty days and nights.
  • Joshua and Caleb spent forty days spying out the Promised Land.
  • Goliath taunted Israel’s army for 40 days before David stepped up with his sling.
  • God told Ezekiel to lay on his side for 40 days as part of a prophetic word picture.
  • Jonah prophesied to Nineveh that they had 40 days to repent.
  • The seasons of Advent (celebrating the birth of Christ) and Lent (celebrating the death and resurrection of Christ) are both 40 days.

I am reminded in the quiet this morning that this world is moving faster, and faster, and faster as the memory and processing speed of our technology and devices continues to advance more rapidly. According to Google, their quantum computer (known as “Sycamore”) recently completed a computation in 200 seconds which would take the next fastest supercomputer 10,000 years to complete. The speed of life and technology continues to increase and with it my expectations for results.

The irony is that God’s Kingdom runs opposite the world. Things of the Spirit require time, contemplation, meditation, experience, struggle, worship, and prayer. The 15-16 hours I spent alone in the car, along with a night alone in a hotel, were spent doing exactly those things. It was exactly what my soul needed to find some clarity, to get centered, and to experience a measure of peace amidst my acutely stressful circumstances.

Over the nearly 40 years (there’s another “40” for you, lol) I have been a follower of Jesus, I’ve experienced that my time of quiet with God each morning has an effect on the peace with which I handle the stress of each day. If I go a stretch without getting in my time of quiet with God, even Wendy notices an increase in my stress level and pessimistic attitude toward life and relationships.

And so, I try to carve out a little alone time with God each morning, and occasionally along the journey, I’ve needed more than that. I can feel the call to climb the mountain, take a road trip, or spend a week unplugged at the lake. I have a feeling that the faster this world gets, the more necessary the times of quiet will be spiritually required.

Hope you find a few minutes of quiet today, as well, my friend.

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