Year: 2011

Happy Mother’s Day!

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 I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.
2 Timothy 1:5 ESV

Her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praises her.
Proverbs 31:2

A few Mother’s Day goodies for you, my friends, for encouragement and laughter and renewal!  Thanks for walking with me through this daily life of ours!

“Motherhood is a journey out of selfishness”  Priscilla Shirer

Some links for you:

Other blog posts you might like:

Stick with this one to the second verse. The last half is funnier than the start!

Run to the Throne

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“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people”
Ephesians 6:18

With it being Mother’s Day weekend, I’ve been thinking about one of my favorite “mom” songs, Sacred by Caedmon’s Call.  That song says, “Teach me to run to you like they run to me for every little thing.”  Yes, that’s true in my house.  I button buttons and zip zippers, diffuse arguments and mediate disputes, kiss bumps and supply Band-Aids for nearly invisible scratches, refill juice cups and find lost toys, help with homework and hard-to-sound-out words.  Even at this moment I am twisting open an Oreo cookie because my baby girl only likes the filling inside.  I answer to “Mom” all day, every day.  And, while at times I would like to sit still for more than 5 minutes at a time, I love that they turn to me for help.  I suppose that at some point these little people in my care will feel too grown up to bring all their problems to me.  Or maybe they’ll come to me, but their problems will be so big that my supply of Band-Aids and apple juice won’t fix them anymore.

Truly God must love when we turn to Him for help with all of the hopeful innocence that I see in my daughters’ eyes.  We could struggle to solve our troubles in our own strength or we could offer them up to Him—both the life crises and the daily concerns—-giving them over to a God both big enough to handle them and compassionate enough to care about them.  When we pray out our requests, when we turn to Him instead of relying on ourselves, we confess belief.  We say, “God I believe that You are Lord over all things, that no situation is too much for Your strength and might or too small for Your boundless compassion.  I believe that You have saved me and will continue to save me.  I believe that You are Love.”

Years ago in a Bible Study group, one of the ladies said  we should “run to the throne before we run to the phone.”  What a challenge to us!  Before we call on our friends and our own mommas with a problem, we should bring it to the God who can actually solve the problem we’re facing.

Another lady in that same group leaned over to me one week and said, “you’ll pray about anything, won’t you?”  I took it as a compliment really because I surely do.  If it crosses my mind, if it happens in my life, if I see it while I’m driving down the road or walking through Wal-Mart, I will pray about it.

And God tells us to do this.  Philippians 4:6-7 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” and Ephesians 6:18 says, “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.“

We are to pray “in everything,” and “on all occasions.”  I’ll drop to my knees over a health concern or a family in crisis and I’ll bow my head with my daughter when she loses a toy.  It’s all just too much for me anyway.

That’s what some of the great prayer warriors in the Bible did.  Men like Daniel and Nehemiah who took every circumstance they faced to God in prayer.  King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream no one could interpret, Daniel and his friends plead “for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery” (Daniel 2:18).  When the decree was signed saying no one could pray to any god by the king, Daniel “went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem.  Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to God, just as he had done before” (Daniel 6:10).

Nehemiah prayed when he heard about the horrible state of the walls surrounding Jerusalem. When the king asked him what he wanted, Nehemiah “prayed to the God of heaven” before giving an answer.  Enemies threatened the work of Nehemiah and his crew, “but we prayed to our God” (Nehemiah 4:9) and when the enemies tried to frighten the Israelite construction team into quitting, Nehemiah prayed to God, “now strengthen my hands” (Nehemiah 6:9).

They went to God with every annoyance, every difficult, every burden, every sadness, every disaster, every enemy, every worry.

Truthfully though, there are moments when I’m overwhelmed by the weight of the requests I’m carrying to the throne.  I’ve been duped by impossible-appearing circumstances into thinking that it’s fruitless for me to pray any longer.  That there is no hope.  That the marriage is truly dead.  That the housing situation will not be solved.  That the cancer statistics are too certain.  That the job market is too sparse.  That I’ve prayed for so long with no answer, nothing could possibly change now.

I listened to a friend share this week about a request that we have carried to the throne together for so long and she admitted with all the honesty a person can muster, “I’m just tired of praying about it.”  I knew exactly what she meant.  Fighting and fighting to have faith for so long, to pray and pray with no evident answer, no release, no deliverance, it makes a body tired.

But we are to “always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.”  And God, who is so gracious and compassionate, knows the exact moment when we need to see a glimmer of His light in the dark places.  We need the smallest reminder that He is active and alive where we only see death.

He did that for me this week.  For days stretching into months I have prayed and prayed for women with problems no earthly “Mom” could handle.  No one but God could be big enough.  I’ve been running to the throne so often with these requests, I’ve worn a path from me to God’s feet.  And then on Sunday I came home and told my husband I had personally seen with my eyes five ways that God had moved in these situations.  Not full answers to prayer, perhaps.  Not the complete deliverance yet.  But, just enough for me to say, “I saw God.  I saw Him!  He is here in this situation.  He’s heard the prayers I’ve cried out.  He sees these women and all the hurts that are burying them.  He has not abandoned them.”

I was excited.  That’s what seeing God does really.  It renews our passion and reminds us to persevere.  Now that I have seen Him, I’m praying even harder for each of these situations and many others because I’ve been reminded that He hears me and that He’s at work on our behalf.

What A Friend We Have In Jesus

What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
Oh, what peace we often forfeit, Oh, what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer!

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Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King

Following the Leader

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 ” Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go”
Joshua 1:9

The first time I saw my husband, he was on stage, performing in a college production of Jane Austen’s Emma.  A week later, I walked into a Christian ministry group on our college campus and saw him for the second time, leading worship at the front of the room with his guitar.  One more week after that, I was at the front of the room myself, playing the piano for that very same worship team.  That was over 13 years ago and for all those years, this same man has been my worship leader.  He still is every single Sunday morning at our church.

When you follow one person for all those years and know them so well, it becomes easy to trust their leadership, to anticipate what they are going to do, and to follow their cues.  Some people have commented before that they think it’s so cute how I watch my husband intently while he’s leading the music, eyes full of doting adoration.  Now, surely some of that is from love, but there’s something else, too.  I’m watching his hands to see what chords he’s playing on the guitar and watching to see when he steps close to the microphone to sing.  I’m following the leader.

A few months ago, for one brief day, I had to follow a different leader in a worship program and it stretched me a bit.  Without even practicing together, I had to sit down at the piano and follow the speed of her hand directing me and the sound of her voice leading me.  It took effort and concentration on my part to accompany someone new.

That experience made me wonder how Israel must have felt after following Moses all over the wilderness for 40 years and then waking up one morning to find Joshua in charge.  It must have been more than a minor adjustment to follow the new guy.

And then I wondered how Joshua himself must have felt about receiving the baton from Moses.  What did he think about being the follow-up act to the guy who marched the people out of Egypt, parted the Red Sea, and brought the Ten Commandments down after a mountain meeting with God?  If God asked me to do that job, I honestly might have passed on the offer.

After all, Moses had almost passed on God’s offer of ministry to him.   Years before at the burning bush, when God called Moses to lead the Hebrew nation out of Egypt, Moses actually said, “Pardon your servant, Lord.  Please send someone else” (Exodus 4:13).  He felt ill-equipped for a job so big.  He said he had “never been eloquent” and was “slow of speech and tongue” (Exodus 4:13).

Ultimately, Moses was a powerful leader for the wayward nation and saw God more intimately than almost any other human ever has.  But that weakness of his, that tendency to wonder if God could come through against overwhelming odds caused problems for him later on.

When the Israelites arrived at Canaan about two years after taking that first step out of Egypt, God told him to “send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites” (Numbers 13:1).  Moses’s instructions to these 12 spies, though, were a little more hesitant than God’s.  He said, “Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many.  What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? (Numbers 13:17-19).  Does it seem like Moses is wondering just how possible the conquest of Canaan would be?  Sure enough, ten of the twelve spies came back announcing that there was no way they could take over that land, no matter what God had promised.

All the spies except Joshua and Caleb.

You see, Joshua believed that if God said it, then it would happen.  He placed his confidence in God’s ability and not in his own. The first time we read about Joshua in Scripture is in Exodus 17:9-10: “Moses said to Joshua, ‘Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.’ So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered.”

Notice that Joshua just obeyed.  He didn’t argue about the task, tell Moses why he was incapable of performing it or explain why someone else would be better equipped for the job.  And any of those responses would have made sense.  As far as we can tell, Joshua had no military or leadership training.  One day, Moses just walked up to him and said, “make an army and defeat the enemy”—all in one day’s time.  Talk about impossible expectations!  Yet, Moses told him what to do and Joshua did it.

Maybe that’s why after the Israelites spent another 38 years of running circles in the wilderness, God chose Joshua to lead the people into the Promised Land.  Because this time God told Joshua what to do and Joshua did it—without arguing over insufficiency or asking God to send somebody else.

God gave Joshua one consistent message when he called him to be the new leader for the nation.  Three times in Joshua 1, God says, “Be strong and courageous” and ultimately tells Joshua,  ” Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9).

And Joshua believed God and obeyed Him—no matter how ill-equipped he felt for the task.  Instead of focusing on his own weaknesses and insufficiency, he focused instead on God’s powerful ability and faithfulness to His promises. He believed that God equips those He calls.

Priscilla Shirer in One in a Million writes:

Is there something in your life right now that God has called you to do, but you just don’t have the courage to engage in?  What do your excuses reveal about yourself and how you feel about God?  For each of Moses’s excuses, God had a response.  It took time, but He assured Moses that human inability could never override God’s divine ability to work through him and to accomplish His purposes.  How much different, though, to be a person like Joshua who doesn’t need coddling and explanations?  Look what God can do through someone who receives His instructions not just personally . . . but fearlessly.

If God has given you a child to care for, He will equip you in your ministry to that child.  If God has asked you to teach, He will equip you as a teacher.  If God has asked you to be a caregiver, He will equip you with strength and compassion.  If God has asked you to be a witness for Christ to an unbelieving family, He will equip you with a testimony of grace and give you courage to be a light in a dark place.  If He has given you a vision for a ministry far beyond your ability to produce, He will equip you with the skills and ministry partners you need in every situation.

We simply need to trust in a God whose word is always true.  If He said it, we can believe it.  No, we’re not capable enough to be used or sufficient enough for the circumstances we face.  But He is.  Therefore, we don’t need to be afraid or discouraged because “the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

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Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King

His Sufficiency

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“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
2 Corinthians 2:9

I love sharing in this devotional ministry with you, hearing what God is teaching you and how it connects up with the verses and thoughts on my heart.  Journeying together with you these past few months has been a blessing to me.  But, To be honest, there are still some days I struggle with knowing what God has called me to do right here and now in my life.  Insecurities can do that to us, trap us in a pit of questions and uncertainty and prevent us from moving forward in obedience.

You see a great deal of the time I feel ill-equipped to sit across the computer from you and share from my quiet time moments.  I’m no bestselling author, conference speaker, or Greek scholar.  This is just simple me being real with you, a girl totally in love with God’s Word and how alive it is, how relevant for our lives, how powerful to change our hearts and minds.  These are the confessions of my heart, but maybe you’ve felt some of these insecurities in your life, too.

Have you ever felt a little insufficient?  A little overwhelmed by the task God’s given you and a little underwhelmed by your ability to perform it?  A little intimidated by the confident ministry of those around you?

Today, I’m thinking about insufficiency, mostly because that’s how I feel at this moment.  I’m sitting at my kitchen table after a hectic morning of running errands, forgetting something at the store, heading back to another store, returning all the library books and then finding one more book hidden in the car after I got home, and finally running late to pick up my daughter from school.

My youngest girl dug into the Easter candy that mysteriously moved from the inaccessible high counter where I had put it onto the very accessible  floor. (Do “Not Me” and “I Don’t Know” live at your house, too?)  There are candy wrappers dotted across the carpet.  Fortunately, she doesn’t actually like to eat the candy; she just enjoys unwrapping it, so next to the candy wrappers is the chocolate all lined up in a perfectly straight row.  (That chocolate is still good, right?  Because I totally just ate some.)

The laundry is spinning in the washer and dryer and the clean clothes are piling up on the sofa all fresh and warm and in desperate need of folding and putting away.

Meanwhile, I have not yet exercised this morning, but I am excusing myself because I’ve been coughing up my lungs themselves for the last few days.

So, sick, stressed, tired, forgetful, surrounded by mess, and feeling bad for not exercising, I have waved the white flag and retreated to the kitchen table for some time with God.  And I need it because I’m so insufficient for all this.

Fortunately for me, my favorite Gospel event is all about insufficiency!  Jesus had been teaching a crowd of people all day and healing the sick among them.  By the time evening came, the disciples were worried.  They told Jesus, “’This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.’  Jesus replied, ‘They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.’”  Matthew 14:13-14 (NIV).  The disciples certainly didn’t have enough food for a crowd of over 5000 people, but Andrew did find one little boy with a small lunch: “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” John 6:9 (NIV).

“How far will they go” indeed?!  This boy’s lunch was utterly insufficient.  It probably embarrassed Andrew to even mention it.  Yet, this little boy with a lunchbox willingly and in great faith gave 100% of what he had to Jesus.  Even though it was insufficient, he trusted that Jesus could use his offering.

Certainly, this boy could have worked in his own strength to catch some more fish or bake some more bread.  He could have collected small change from everyone in the crowd and trekked into town to order take-out.  Still, despite his best efforts and hard work, he would never have provided enough in his own strength.  Likewise, I can’t be enough in my own strength either. If I’m relying on my talent, skills, hard work, and ingenuity, I’ll just fail.  I can only give my all to Jesus and trust that He will multiply my offering.

Besides, it was the insufficiency of the boy’s gift that allowed Jesus to be glorified.  If that boy had somehow gathered enough food for the crowd, the story would have been about his ingenuity and generosity instead of Jesus’ compassion and miraculous power.

Even if every attendee had packed a little snack and the disciples had pooled the resources to form a buffet line, Christ would then be a master organizer or administrator—not a God of compassion who sees our need and provides for us in abundance through His great power. 

Our insufficient offerings give Jesus the opportunity to be glorified.

God never expects us to be sufficient in our strength and abilities.  If we are strong enough, together enough, talented enough, smart enough, or equipped enough in our own strength, there’s no room for God to show off in our lives and receive the glory He deserves.   The gifts we bring just become less about Him and more about us.  

And let me assure you that God is powerful in our weakness.  Sure, my day has been crazy and I don’t feel up to the task of managing it all, but after some time with God’s Word and some moments spent sharing with you, I can look around with new eyes and see Him at work.  My beautiful girls have just bounced through the kitchen after playing outside on a bright and sunny day.  They were chased in by an “enormous, gigantic, ugly black spider” and now they are cuddling together all stretched out and relaxing, little blond curls and wisps of hair falling out of ponytail holders and hair clips.  My baby girl fell asleep peacefully for a nap, tired from all of her effort spent unwrapping chocolate and the house is quiet for these few moments.  A candle is burning.  The last load of laundry is spinning away.   One of the caterpillars we’ve been studying just emerged from her chrysalis and is waving her new wings back and forth, testing them out, feeling the weight of them. 

God is always sufficient in our insufficiency.

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Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King

A Puzzle of Peace

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You will keep him in perfect peace, him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you”
Isaiah 26:3

Five days a week at noon I journey to the school and wait in the line of minivans to pick up my daughters from their classes.  By that time each day, my baby girl is tired and ready for lunch and a nap, so the lull of the car bounces her to sleep almost daily.  I have the joy of watching.  Have you ever watched a baby fall asleep?  Her breathing slows down ever so slightly.  My little one folds her blanket over and snuggles it against her cheeks.  Then the eyelids start to linger ever so slightly with each blink—closing for longer, and longer, and longer each time until finally  . . . sleep.

It’s peace demonstrated for me on an almost daily basis.  The quiet rest, the feeling of safety, the calm, the trust.  Doesn’t that sound heavenly?

Somehow over time, though, most of us lose that miraculous peace, the absolute trust that you are loved and cared for so you can rest and leave the driving to someone else.  It’s not present in my heart all of the time.  I may let God do the driving, but I’m usually the passenger holding a map and questioning the navigational choices of my Divine Driver.

Do You really want us to turn there, God?
Do You know where You are going, God?
Do You have a destination in mind for me, a plan, a hope and a future?
Do You know any shortcuts that can get us there faster?

This often-elusive fruit of the spirit—peace—-is not a fairy tale or a figment of our Christian imaginations.  It’s there available to us.  Yet, sometimes I reject the peace that God offers me by failing to discipline my emotions and thoughts.  I pray for peace for myself and others, the “peace of God, which transcends all understanding” (Philippians 4:7) and think that God’s peace is going to enter my heart miraculously and with little effort on my part.  It’s a prayer that we sometimes use as a magical spell instead of allowing God to change our hearts so that peace becomes possible.

The bottom line is some of our behaviors need to change, some of our thought patterns need to be stirred up a little bit and some of our emotions bossed around. 

Right before Paul talks about this incomprehensible peace that God offers, he tells the Philippian church “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Phil 4:5). Peace starts with a thankful heart.  In all of our anxieties, “in every situation,” begin by giving thanks.  The worries that infect and plague us cannot coexist with the antibiotic of gratitude.

Paul also tells the church that God’s peace will “guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  Peace requires the active discipline of standing guard over our hearts and minds and refusing admittance to whatever thoughts aren’t peace-full.  Paul wrote out a clear test for determining whether a thought should gain entry: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (Phil. 4:8).

It’s not that my thoughts are blatantly sinful or wrong, but I do have an internal dialogue of whining that certainly isn’t “lovely or admirable.”  And I have a tendency to dwell not on “whatever is true,” but instead on “whatever might be true.”  It’s when I allow myself to get caught up in “what if’s” that I trade in peace for worry and trust for anxiety.  “What if this happens?  What if that happens?  What would we do in this situation and in that situation?”  I sometimes live in hypotheticals that may never ever become a reality instead of focusing on what is true—-God is faithful; God promises to walk with me through everything; God loves me.  Dwelling on the truths of God’s promises instead of the questionable reality of our circumstances is our responsibility.  This discipline of taking “captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” is what prepares our hearts to receive His perfect peace.

Paul gives us one final piece of this peace puzzle.  He says, “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you (Philippians 4:9).  Peace occurs when we follow God’s instructions.   We can’t choose to disobey God’s commands, live how we want to live, do what we want to do, and then wonder why our circumstances are difficult.  There are consequences to every choice and it’s by choosing righteousness—-doing what God would have us do—–that we enjoy the peace of God’s blessing.  Isaiah wrote, “The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever” (Isaiah 32:17).

Have you been longing for peace lately?  Maybe you’re in circumstances that have you fretful and anxious.  Maybe you are in the middle of tough decisions and you aren’t sure what to do.  Maybe you have taken a step out in faith and you are waiting in hopeful anticipation of what God is going to do.  Maybe you worry over whether you’re good enough at being a parent; are you making the right decisions, handling things the best way for your child?

I pray peace over you, a supernatural rest for your heart and mind.  Our God is faithful and trustworthy and you can relax knowing that He is the one doing the driving.  But, don’t neglect your responsibility to make yourself a vessel prepared to receive the peace He gives.  Are there some bad habits that you need to break, some misassumptions you need to relinquish?  Do you need to be more disciplined about your thought life and more in control of your emotions?  Do you need to cease the “what if’s” and put an end to planning out hypotheticals?  Do you need to change some of your behaviors and pursue righteousness instead?

It’s not necessarily going to be easy and it certainly won’t be a one-time event.  No, it’s a moment-by-moment choice to trust God or not, to rest in Him or take over from Him, to do it God’s way or to demand our own way, but in the yielding of our hearts, minds and choices there is God-given peace.

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Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King

My eyes were opened

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Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him
Luke 24:31

This morning, I was rushing around getting everyone ready to go.  We felt late, very late, so I was moving particularly fast.  I stood at my bathroom sink, grabbed up my toothbrush, pushed on the water and looked down for the toothpaste.  No toothpaste.  I scanned the area around the sink.  No toothpaste.  I yanked open the drawer.  Nope, not there either.  I was about to interrogate my children about the identity of the toothpaste thief when I saw it . . .on the counter.  I had been looking directly at it and yet for some reason my eyes didn’t see the tube that was clearly marked “toothpaste” and my brain didn’t register its presence.

Sometimes I can be looking directly at God and still not recognize Him at work in my life.

The Psalmist wrote, “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.”  And so I’m praying today—open my eyes, Lord.  Don’t let me miss out on Your presence, Your activity, Your grace, or Your voice made clear to me through Scripture.

Are you looking for God today?  Here’s where I have seen Him.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 
Jeremiah 29:13


My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek.
Psalm 27:8


One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. 
Psalm 27:4

Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always
1 Chronicles 16:11

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Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King

The Giving of Courage

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 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing,
but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Hebrews 20:24-25 

My sweet baby girl is my cheerleader.  I finish putting the clothes in the dryer and she claps her hands excitedly for me.  I change her diaper; she shouts yay!  yay!  and applauds with enthusiasm.   I drop the last of her toys into the basket and she does a happy dance and showers me with praise.  When I slide the last puzzle piece into place with her, she cheers and shouts.  If you spent the tiniest bit of time in my home, you’d think I won an Olympic medal every hour all day long because my “crowd goes wild” just that often.  My little crowd of one tiny, joyful cheerleader.

Has someone been a cheerleader for you before? 

You sit tired in the pew at church after the rush of Sunday morning preparation, but you made it and all your children sit next to you with clean clothes on.  Small victories.  Then a comforting hand reaches across your shoulder and a friend tells you, “Great job.  You’re such a great mom.”

You push your cart through the grocery store and try to efficiently and frugally shop all while monitoring the arms and legs of your various  kids and periodically reminding them to use “inside voices,” when an unknown woman whispers to you, “Your children are so well-behaved.”

You pour yourself out into the ministry you know God has called you to and yet there are those moments and days when you wonder if it really matters, if it does any good, if anybody is blessed by it, if it’s worth the time and effort you spend on it.  Then, you sort through the bills after collecting your mail and find buried in there a card from a friend, a note of appreciation and thanks, a prayer, a verse.

You’ve been struggling.  Life is hard.  You don’t know what decisions to make.  You’re hurting and overwhelmed.  Then an email arrives and a friend says, “I’m praying for you.”

God uses others to bring us these messages of hope and encouragement at just the right moments in our lives, filling needs we can’t even always identify. It’s one of the reasons He designed us to travel together—He knows our hearts sometimes need this cheerleading from others.  When we stray from the group, when we go off on our own and try to live faith solo, we are easy prey for attack.  The Israelites learned this on their journey out of Egypt: “Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt.  When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God” (Deuteronomy 25:17-18, NIV).

If your heart is weary and in need of some encouragement today, look to your right and your left for your group; be sure that you are connected and not lagging behind.  Perhaps the first step needs to come from you in a search for the Christian community that will walk alongside you and encourage you along the journey to the Promised Land.

But you can also ask God for the refreshing your heart needs.  He knows exactly what will fill your spirit, giving you strength to overcome fatigue, guidance when you need direction, laughter when your heart lacks joy.  As the Israelites journeyed in the wilderness, God led them to an oasis: “They came to Elim where there were twelve springs of water and seventy date palms, and they camped there beside the waters” (Exodus 15:27).    Priscilla Shirer writes: “‘Twelve springs of water’ to match the twelve tribes of Israel.  What a great illustration of God’s overwhelming care and specific concern for His people.  He knows exactly what it takes to refresh you.”

He is the shepherd who knows His sheep.  “He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,  he refreshes my soul” (Psalm 23:2-3).  Sometimes we sheep feel the hunger and thirst; we know we are empty and in need of filling, but we depend on a Shepherd to guide us to the perfect place for refreshing and provision.

And when He has led us beside the waters so perfect and the green pastures so filling, we have a testimony to share with others, a story to help them along the way as well.  Like the Psalmist, we declare:

“Return to your rest, my soul,
for the LORD has been good to you.
For you, LORD, have delivered me from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling,
that I may walk before the LORD in the land of the living” (Psalm 116:7-8).

We who have received encouragement, in turn encourage others through our testimony.  This encouraging truly is the giving of courage, placing it into the heart of another.  Isn’t that what this cheerleading does? It renews our strength so that we persevere and press on.  God asks us to do this for one another, to stand on the sidelines of a race and cheer, shout, and applaud for the runners: “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:11, NIV).

How can you be a cheerleader for someone else today?

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Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King

He Rested

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“And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done”
(Genesis 2:3 ,NIV).

For months, one week in April glared off my calendar menacingly.  My husband and I focused all of our attention and energy on getting to that week and getting through that week—appointments, birthday parties, wedding, special church services, meetings, and holiday activities piled on top of our normal schedule.  I had the individual events in my calendar circled in different colors multiple times so that I wouldn’t overlook any one of them.   When people asked us about May, our eyes glazed over uncomprehendingly.  May?  What’s May?  As far as we were concerned, finishing April was the goal.

I’m sure you have weeks on your calendar that look like that, too, an overload of busyness, and you hold your breath in anticipation of it, stress when you think about it, and dream about making it through.

But then our week was done.  The last event finished.  We survived.  We drove home.  We rested.

It sounds so easy, really, to say “rest,” and yet for me rest takes great effort.

I’m physically incapable of napping.  Instead of sleeping, I lie awake thinking about all the things I should be doing instead of sleeping.  By the time I finally give up and throw back the covers in defeat, I’m frantic about the wasted time and move faster through my to-do list to make up for it.

I feel guilty for leisure, embarrassed by free time, and apologetic for fun.

Accepting help or taking a break feels like failure and an admission of weakness.

There’s something else at work here beyond just an addiction to adrenaline.  Oh, how I hate for it to be true, and yet digging down deeply enough reveals its ugly presence—-pride.  Truly, it feels good to be needed.  It feels important to be so busy.

When I run around in a breathless pace, doing, doing, doing all the time, I act as if the world depends on me to function, as if me sitting down for 15 minutes would create cosmic meltdown.

And that’s why God, from the very first week of creation, instituted a Sabbath rest.  It wasn’t for His benefit, as if the Almighty God who created a sun, moon, and planet with the power of His words grew weary and needed to sleep.  No, the Sabbath was not for God.  Instead, Jesus “said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man” (Mark 2:27).

He created a day of rest for you and me.  It’s a reminder that the universe can exist without our involvement and labor.  It’s a re-ordering of our perspective, so that we remember it is God who is essential and not us.  So often, we forget that our jobs, our families, our ministries, our relationships, our everything depend not on our ability, but on God’s power.  We stress about meetings because we think everything relies on how well we present ourselves.  We plot out conversations because we think the outcome depends on the words we choose.  We think.  We plan.  We do.  We fix.  We busy ourselves.  We worry.  We analyze.  We lose sleep.

God knows the pride that burrows itself into our hearts; the tentacles it wraps around us as we seek fulfillment in accomplishments, in tasks completed, in people depending on us.  I’ve written it before and yet need the reminder of my own words:

I’ve seen many women engage in Busyness Battles with each other.   We ask each other what seems like such a simple question, such as “What have you been up to lately?” or “Have you been busy?”  Then, like a Wild West shootout, we breathlessly list our every activity in an effort to “out-busy” the other woman.  The prize?  The personal pride that we are more stressed than the woman we are talking to.  Don’t be embarrassed to concede defeat and say, “Well, I’ve been focusing on de-stressing. On Sunday, I watched a movie with my family and then read some of my book.” You may have lost the shoot-out, but who wants the title of “Most Stressed Woman” anyway?

I read this week that Craig Groeschel, in his book Weird, recommends a to-don’t list.  It’s a tool for those like me who find inactivity takes effort, to help me choose sitting on the deck while my daughters color with sidewalk chalk over doing laundry or choose pushing my baby girl in her swing and listening to her giggles turn to belly laughs over planning church programs.   This isn’t about rules, regulations and law.  It isn’t about Pharisaical hypocrisy and legalism.  It’s about rest and rest is about a humble stepping aside and the placing and continual re-placing of God in control of our lives.

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Now it’s your turn:

Lysa TerKeurst asked this in her blog last week.  I’d love to hear your answers:  What would you put on a to-don’t list?

For further thoughts, check out:

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Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King

Tomato Plant Prayers

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Last week, my daughters and I spent a picture-perfect day outside planting in the garden.  As I pushed the dirt around each  of our tomato plants, I whispered a little prayer for God to bless it and let it grow strong and healthy to produce much fruit and to be protected from weather and pests (those nasty huge green worms that appear every year) and also to be protected from my ineptitude (I’m no expert gardener).

My daughter giggled at me.  “Why are you praying over a tomato plant, mom?”

I stopped to think.  Why was I praying over a tomato plant?  Earlier that very day, I had prayed for the names listed in my prayer journal.  For job decisions.  For financial help.  For needed housing.  For strength while caregiving.  For a broken marriage.  For children growing up with instability.  For a small girl with cancer.

Now, here I was just hours later, asking the God of the Universe to care about my tiny garden.  Did it seem presumptuous of me, selfish perhaps to think that the small things that mattered to me, mattered to God, as well?

Yet, I looked up into my daughter’s face and said, “God cares about us.  He cares about every little thing, so it’s okay for us to pray about all that is on our mind and heart, not just the big stuff.”

I believe that.  Sometimes we see God as too wrapped up in world affairs, global weather patterns, and hospital rooms to have time for the daily thoughts and concerns we face each day.  Somehow we think we’d just be wasting his time, taking His attention from those who really need His intervention if we prayed about “silly” little things.

Satan has great success defeating the prayer lives of Christians by making prayer seem so complicated.  He tells us prayer is hard and it has to be done a certain way and for a certain length of time.  He tells us we don’t pray as well as other Christians we know.  He tells us we are lacking and we fall short.  He tells us God doesn’t care about our concerns and needs because they are too insignificant for God’s notice.  So, with all of that pressure and the feeling that we simply can’t measure up, we sometimes don’t pray at all.

And yet, Scripture tells us to “pray continually” (1 Thes. 5:17).  It’s not that we need to quit our jobs and devote ourselves to on-our-knees intercession all day, every day.  It’s that our every thought and emotion can be turned over to God in prayer, living in continual conversation with a listening and caring God.

I am reminded that the Psalmist told me to “cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken” (Psalm 55:22) and Peter told us to “cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).  Cast all my anxiety—-not just the big life-altering problems, but everything that puzzles my heart and occupies my thoughts.

Honestly, there have been few more stressful seasons for me than potty training my children.  Nothing made me feel quite so much a failure as those months of accidents and pleading and systems that didn’t work and children who refused.  God has endured many a potty-training prayer from this crazy mom and as silly as it sounds now in retrospect, those days were anxious for me; diapers and potty chairs were constantly on my mind.  I scoured the Internet for advice, talked to every mom I knew (who all had miraculously potty trained their children by 18 months with no effort, making me feel even worse), and spent an hour or more of my every day sitting on the bathroom floor singing Old MacDonald while trying to convince my child to keep sitting and trying while singing just one more verse of the song.  Old MacDonald’s farm for us was expansive, holding animals that didn’t even make noise (making the song difficult) and housing exotic breeds more often found in zoos than in an average barn.  But, if Old MacDonald needed an elephant in order for my child to use the potty, he got an elephant.

In a world where we are constantly reminded of need and hurt, when wars and revolutions are started everyday, when tornadoes and tsunamis wipe out homes and countries, when our email boxes fill up with prayer requests for the homeless and the sick, it may seem so foolish to lay at God’s feet the little things like tomato plants and potty training.

And yet, Isaiah 63:9 says, “In all their distress, He too was distressed, and the angel of His presence saved them.  In His love and mercy He redeemed them; He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.”  Isaiah here is writing about how God carried Israel in the past.  During all those days in the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan He delivered them from Pharaoh’s mighty army, He carried them across the Red Sea on dry ground, He gave them the Ten Commandments, but He also made sure they had food and water to drink and led them to an oasis to refresh them when they were weary.  He cared about every event and every need—big or small—that mattered to them.

About a week after I had knelt in the dirt to pray over my tomato plant, my daughter and I sat next to each other talking about a birthday party she was going to the next day.  I looked up the directions on the computer and realized that this family lived exactly in the middle of the hardest hit area of tornado damage from the storms a week before.  My daughter announced, “Well, my friend says that she could hear the storm and it went right by her, but they were okay.  I guess God knew she was having  a birthday party and didn’t want it to be ruined by her house being broken.”

Sweet innocent faith!  I had told her that God cares about every little thing, and she believed it.  If He cares about tomato plants, why not a birthday party?  If He cares about my daughters potty training, why not the worries on your mind?  Your decisions, your financial needs, your relationship problems, your job choices, your shopping list, your schedule for the day, whether your kids behave in the store (I have prayed that prayer many times).  Isn’t it one of those miraculous aspects of God’s nature that He cares about the big and small, the world events and the personal concerns, the global crises and the daily struggles?

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Now it’s your turn:

How have you learned to pray through your every day life?  Have you ever had a prayer breakthrough, something you learned that really changed your prayer life?  Please post a comment to share with others!!

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Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King

Life or Death

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“Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here, He has risen”
Luke 24:5

A few months ago, my husband came home, arms full of roses—deep red, fragrance so rich.  They were the most beautiful flowers I’d ever been given.

This bouquet from my husband greeted me throughout the day for two weeks, perfect in their vase.  I’d stop my chores and my rushing to literally stop and smell the roses.  But, of course then came wilting and fading and falling petals.  As a girl, I had collected up rose petals over time and filled a glass cup with them, like homemade potpourri with scents of summer and memories dear.  So, I once again gathered up the petals to keep them as a reminder of my gift.

Last week, I peeked into my jar of keepsake roses to enjoy them just for a moment and instead of dried and faded flowers still filled with aroma, I found instead mold grown over.  Into the trash they went.

Sometimes there are things we hold onto so dearly that are truly dead.  We try and try to revive and preserve; we linger over things past.  Have you held onto the habits and comforts of the past when Christ has called you to lay them down and move on?  He has asked you to sacrifice and instead you clutch it to your chest, not willing to give it up.  So, you cling to the old and fail to receive the new.  “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! ” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NIV).

At the tomb on the morning of Christ’s resurrection, women brought spices for anointing.  Instead of the expected, they faced the unexpected—the stone rolled away, the body gone, two angels in clothes gleaming like lightning, asking a question: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here, He has risen” (Luke 24:5)

Why do you look for the living among the dead?

Surely there are times we do this, too.  We look for our Living Savior among the graves.  Sometimes our faith is more cemetery than empty tomb.

Chris Tiegreen wrote:

We read the Bible as a historical document rather than as a living Word. We follow Jesus as our example rather than listening to Him as our living Lord.  We take our cues from our denominational traditions rather than from the Spirit of life.  In other words, we turn our faith toward dead things rather than toward the Living One.

Has this been you?  Has faith been dulled and the joy of your salvation replaced by compulsory duty and passionless motions—doing Christianity rather than living with Christ?

Or, are you instead staring at a tomb of a different sort, but still there is death?  A relationship broken.  A marriage over.  A child turned prodigal.  A ministry struggling.  A passion now cold.  A vision gone dark.  A hope proved impossible.  A lack of direction and not knowing where to go.  A season of waiting, waiting, waiting, always waiting.

There is some mourning to be done, some grieving over what is lost and dead in our lives.  Some letting go and laying down.  And there may be tears; that’s expected.   Yet, “weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5).

With morning, comes resurrection and abundant new life, and we rejoice for He is “making everything new” (Revelation 21:5, NIV).  This Savior whose sacrifice we remember on Good Friday by eating the bread, drinking the cup—this Savior declared victory over death and the grave.  Power over His tomb.  Power over the places we mourn and grieve.

“Where, O death, is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God!  He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55-57, NIV).

and

“Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5:14, NIV).

What would this rising look like for us?  What can He resurrect in us this year?  Over what can He give us victory?

I pray this new life for you. 

That His Word will be living and active, changing your heart, altering your perspective.
For renewed passion, vision, excitement, and ministry impact.
For restoration of relationships.
For the return of hope.
For weeping to end and joy to fill you.
For your eyes to be opened wide to God’s presence, His character, His goodness.
~Amen~

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Now it’s your turn:

Is there something you are praying that God will resurrect in your life this year?  Is there something dead that needs to be laid down?  How can I pray for you?

What verse or thought has been on your mind as you prepare for Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday?

Please post a comment to share!!

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Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King