Category: Valentine’s Day

12 Bible Verses about God’s Love

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verses-about-Gods-love

  • Psalm 86:15 (NIV)
    But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God,
    slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.
  • Psalm 103:8 NIV
    The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
    slow to anger, abounding in love.
  • Psalm 136:1 NIV
    Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
    His love endures forever.
  • Isaiah 30:18
    Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!
  • Jeremiah 31:3 NIV
     The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying:
    “I have loved you with an everlasting love;
    I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”
  • Zephaniah 3:17
    The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves.
    He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
    but will rejoice over you with singing.
  • John 3:16 NIV
     For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
  • Romans 5:8 NIV
    But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
  • Romans 8:37-39 NASB
    But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
  • Ephesians 2:4-5 NIV
    But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
  • 1 John 4:9-11 NIV
    This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
  • 1 John 4:16 (NLT)
    We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

14 Bible Verses on Loving Others

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  • Matthew 5:43-44 NIVverseslovingothers
     “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”
  • Mark 12:29-31 NLT
    Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
  • John 13:34 NIV
    A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
  • John 15:12-13  NLT
    This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
  • Romans 13:8 NLT
    Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.
  • 1 Corinthians 13:1 NIV
    If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
  • 1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV
    And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
  • Ephesians 4:2 NLT
    Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.
  • Ephesians 4:31-32
    “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.  Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
  • 1 John 3:18
    Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
  • 1 Peter 1:22 NLT
    1john4

    Picture by Just2Shutter, 123rf.com

     You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.

  • 1 John 4:7-8 NIV
    Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
  • 1 John 4:11 NIV
    Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
  • 1 John 4:19-21 NIV
     We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

The one Valentine you really need

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psalm 45My fourth grade daughter tells me the news while we chatted about Valentine’s Day in the school cafeteria.  Some of the kids in her class are dating.

I leaned across the table to make sure I heard correctly.  I’d come for a casual lunch at the school, just some ‘us’ time for me and my girl.

I didn’t expect to have a panic attack with my bottle of water.

“Dating?” I ask, hoping I misheard.

“Yeah…..seems like lots of them are dating each other.  One boy gave his girlfriend a necklace already.  Another couple kissed.  On the lips.  The girls who are dating are excited to see what they get on Valentine’s Day this year.”

So it begins.  Boys and girls already coupling up.  Girls wait expectantly for the special Valentine from their fourth grade suitor, for whom dating probably means little more at this point than playground silliness, passed notes, and an occasional gift ( I hope).

No more box of 20+ Valentine’s that you sign, tear along the perforated line, and then hand out to all the classmates saying things like “U Rock” and “U R Sweet.”  These girls are looking to feel special.  They want chocolate or a flower and a hand-picked card.

I don’t even launch into my normal ‘save yourself, guard your heart, focus on God….” lecture with my daughter.  She’s heard it before.

But I want to tell her something more.

I want to tell her that without childhood flirtations and the first ‘real’ Valentines,’ long before anyone has kissed her on the lips or asked for that first date, she’s already being passionately pursued by a God who is crazy about her.

There’s something about pursuit, something about being chosen and treated special, that fills deep cavernous holes in a woman’s heart.

In her book Captivating, Stasi Eldredge says:

“We desire to possess a beauty that is worth pursuing, worth fighting for, a beauty that is core to who we truly are. We want beauty that can be seen; beauty that can be felt; beauty that affects others; a beauty all our own to unveil.”

These fourth graders are just stepping into that world of pursuit and wooing and sorting through what it means to be worth noticing, worth waiting for, worth sacrificing for, worth fighting for….just worthy.

And my girls need to know they are all that already.

We all need to know that.

So that when the world beats us down with reminders of standards we can’t meet and the girl next door makes us feel ugly and clumsy with her model-like beauty and when we’re run-down from dishes and laundry and carpools and mess . .  .we still feel that message deep down.

Let the king be enthralled by your beauty;
    honor him, for he is your lord (Psalm 45:11)

You are captivating.

Covered in your toddler’s breakfast and frantic from putting your kids on the school bus? 

You are loved.  

Exhausted from the day and crashing on the sofa by 9 hoping that no one asks you for one more thing?

Deeply and truly loved.

Not only that, God pursues you.  That is always part of our Great Romance.

Stasi Eldredge reminds us that:

“The story of your life is also the story of the long and passionate pursuit of your heart by the One who knows you best and loves you most”

God doesn’t have to romance or woo us.  He could remain distant and unmoved, disappointed and disciplinary.

Yet, He bends low and tenderly calls. He watches as we trample after worldly enticements and search for worth in achievement, in status, in relationships, in looks, in Valentines and chocolate, and then He calls us back to Him time after time…..to the place where we are loved not because of what we do but because of what HE has done.

Like Hosea relentlessly chasing after his wife, the wayward Gomer, so God says:

“Therefore I am now going to allure her;
    I will lead her into the wilderness
    and speak tenderly to her.

God Himself laid aside the glories of heaven to walk among us, to live for us, to die for us, and to make a way for us to spend eternity with Him.

That’s love.  That’s pursuit in the most wildly passionate and extravagant way, more than any bouquet of flowers or Hallmark card.

 

 

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer 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.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

14 Bible Verses on Loving Others

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  • Matthew 5:43-44 NIV
     “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”verseslovingothers
  • Mark 12:29-31 NLT
    Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
  • John 13:34 NIV
    A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
  • John 15:12-13  NLT
    This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
  • Romans 13:8 NLT
    Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.
  • 1 Corinthians 13:1 NIV
    If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
  • 1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV
    And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
  • Ephesians 4:2 NLT
    Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.
  • Ephesians 4:31-32
    “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.  Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
  • 1 John 3:18
    Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
  • 1 Peter 1:22 NLT1john4
     You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.
  • 1 John 4:7-8 NIV
    Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
  • 1 John 4:11 NIV
    Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
  • 1 John 4:19-21 NIV
     We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

Our Family Valentine’s Tradition….

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It started on February 1st at dinner.

A construction paper heart sitting next to each plate on the dinner table.

Just a simple thing.  After all, I’m no Martha Stewart of crafts, but snipping red, pink and white construction paper into hearts  I can do.valentine

Fourteen days of hearts x 4 people = 56 hand-cut paper hearts.  Then, project complete, I laid the first heart out on the table and waited.

“What’s this?” my daughters asked and then turning it over they found the note: Fourteen things I love about you…

And there it was, the first of fourteen days’ worth of things I love about my husband and three daughters.

My middle girl figured it out first.  “You mean we will get 14 hearts with 14 things you love about us?”

Yes, baby girl.  One for each day of February until Valentine’s Day.

Soon, they were trading hearts, swapping them around the table to read what I wrote about others.  Sometimes what I said made them giggle:

How you love to laugh and tell jokes….

The way you collect fun and unique objects like your rock collection….

The way you an talk in accents and mimic characters’ voices and make funny voices of your own….

And others made them grin a little sheepishly, a little precious, a little sweet, a little blessed to know someone sees beauty in them.

You are such a good friend, kind and compassionate….023

You are so good at teaching others.  It is one of the amazing ways God has gifted you….

You are great at encouraging others and telling them that they are doing a great job….

Within a few days, I was swatting hands away from the kitchen counter before dinner.  They hovered around the kitchen, not to sneak a bite of food, but to sneak a peak at those love notes.

This joy, this privilege, this responsibility of loving these daughters of mine means I have a job, not to spoil them like unsatisfiable princesses, dooming their marriages by giving them unreasonable expectations of romance and fulfillment from their husbands.

Not that.

But this.  Telling them—you’re precious and totally loved.  I see Jesus in you and He made you beautiful and valuable.

So, don’t let your head be turned by any scruffy teenage boy who looks in your eyes for more than 2 seconds.  You’re not some cheap thrill, there for his amusement and enjoyment, available for use and abuse so he can get what he wants without giving you some basics like respect, compassion, service, self-sacrifice, commitment, honor, and the like.

You don’t need to throw away your own identity and bury your amazing self in order to get the slightest second of attention from some guy who can’t even be bothered to hold the door open for you, or call me “Yes, ma’am,” or listen to what you have to say, or put God first in his life, or make you a priority.

My girls may be so far away from middle school drama and the high school years of emotional pitfalls and relationship crises.

These lessons, though, start here and now.  Eight, six, three years old—you are a treasure.  Thirteen, eleven, eight—-you are worth God’s very best.  Sixteen, fourteen, eleven—-you deserve to be treated like a lady.

This is what you are: “God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved” (Colossians 3:12).

This is what we are.

So all that fulfillment we seek in habits and praise from people, from attention and temporary happiness, from worldly success and stuff—just stuff, it’s all nothing more than a pimply faced teenaged boy who doesn’t care about us at all.  It’s all just unsatisfying time-wasting and inevitable emotional vomit.

All of it.

But we’ve been given these love-notes from God:

The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
Zephaniah 3:16

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God…
1 John 3:1

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— Ephesians 2:4-5

Knowing how we are loved, knowing the price He paid and the extent of His sacrifice, reading these love notes and knowing He prizes us and treasures us,  surely then we can cease the worrying and striving and searching for fulfillment.  Surely we can trust Him.
After all, see how He loves us.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer 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.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

Reflections from a mom who is elbow-deep in glitter

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I’m not a crafty person.  I’m not a craft project blogger or an Etsy addict. Oh, I admire the creativity of others (okay, perhaps ENVY their artsyness), but I’ve accepted my limits and stopped trying to feel comfortable in the aisles of Michael’s and Joann Fabrics.

Yet today I sit at my table with glitter, craft foam, stamps, stencils, markers, colored paper and scissors to complete one item on my day’s theatherckingo-do list: Make personal Valentine’s for my three girls.

Years ago, a man from our church told me that you can do many great things for daughters, but there are only two necessary things: Let them know they are beautiful and let them know they are loved.

At least for today, this thought has inspired me to turn my limited crafting skill into the most basic of all art projects: a handmade card.  It’s not because I think the final outcome will be displayable or frameable.  I could buy a better-looking card for a few dollars off the Wal-Mart rack.

It’s because I know that my daughters feel special when I make things for them and I want them to know they are loved.

As I sit making a mess out of glue and paper, I think about a biography I’ve been reading of E.B.White, the American essayist and author of Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web and The Trumpet of the Swan.

In the summer following college, White grabbed a friend and a car and drove completely across the United States—before highways existed to make this kind of national crisscrossing an all-American past-time.  They stopped in small towns and performed odd jobs or sold bits of White’s writing to local newspapers so they could buy food and gas.  They slept outside or in the car or wherever they could.  Arriving on the West Coast, White then hopped on a ship bound for Alaska.

Elbow deep now in glitter, I marvel that a human being would take off across the country without a plan, without connections, without a return date.

We’re so often like that, looking for purpose in life.  We want a grand vision, a neon sign.  We want impact.  We want to know the one reason we exist on this earth.

Yet, as much as we overlook the beauties of the everyday, I wonder if they are truly the key to God’s greatest plan for us.

Instead of always ignoring today for the sake of the grand design of tomorrow, we give God glory in our jobs and our homes and relationships and churches. 

We do what He has called us to do here, now, in this moment–no need for a cross-country adventure.  We do it faithfully.  We work at it with all our heart.

God had a great plan for Joseph’s life, yet it was worked out in days, months and years of serving as a slave in Potiphar’s house and then, as a prisoner himself, overseeing others locked in Egyptian jail cells.

Joseph’s ministry all that time involved washing dishes, working fields, carrying messages, figuring accounts, and managing property.  It was his integrity and faithful hard work in the everyday tasks that allowed God to use him more and more.

Genesis 39 says:

“The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man. . . . His master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands.  colossians3So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him, and he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had” (Genesis 39:2-4).

Had Joseph balked at the menial tasks of slavery or begrudgingly gave second-best efforts as he served in Potiphar’s house, he might have remained a slave or a prisoner his entire life.

Egypt may not have survived the famine without Joseph.

Joseph’s father, Jacob, and his ten brothers and their families—the entire nation of Israel—may also have starved as the famine reached their land.

At least two nations depended on Joseph’s daily faithfulness to the tasks at hand.

Paul wrote:

“And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).

and

“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”
(1 Corinthians 10:31)

This is how we bring glory to God.  It’s in the making of a Valentine’s card and the packing of a lunch.  It’s in the shuffling of the wet laundry from washer to dryer.  It’s in the standing at the stove to prepare a meal.

It’s you at your desk.  It’s you in the classroom.  It’s you teaching Sunday School.  It’s you on your knees.  This is what brings Him glory.

Originally posted February 13, 2012

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer 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.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

When I Fell in Love….

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I can’t say exactly when I fell in love with this man.

He was on stage the first time I saw him, portraying Mr. Elton in a production of Jane Austen’s Emma (my favorite), and I was an audience member.   I laughed loud and long when he delivered the first line of the play while pretending to read from a book:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

I heard my laugh hit the silence of the auditorium.  Apparently, I was the only one who got the joke (as a character from Emma read the first line from Pride and Prejudice).  And so I slumped into my chair wishing someone—anyone—shared my sense of humor.

I actually met him a week later after a college worship service.  Someone in the crowd pointed to the guy up front strumming the guitar.  “See that guy,” he said, “You just saw him on stage last week.”

Unbeknownst to me, this young guy who led worship and the drama ministry and acted in productions based on my favorite literature had just prayed a daring prayer two weeks before.

He told God he wasn’t looking for a relationship any more.  He was content to be single until God hit him over the head with a 2 x 4 and told him “Thou shalt marry this girl.”

I met him two weeks later.

And a week after that, I was the new pianist on his praise team (and he’s still my worship leader even now).

I fell in love with the way he used his gifts and talents for God’s glory.

There was his calmness, too.  I loved my dad, but life with him wasn’t calm; it was loud much of the time and sometimes downright volatile.  This man, though, measured his words with wisdom and careful thoughtfulness.

And the first time he dropped the word “obsequious” into a sentence effortlessly, I think I experienced whiplash. (I’m a sucker for SAT words).

Add to that his quick and witty humor that kept me giggling endlessly in the corner of the praise team section, and I realized that he was smarter than me and that was okay.

We’ve never been an opposites-attract kind of couple.  We’re probably two of the most alike people who God matched together.

Except for the fact that he only cares about doing what’s right and not whether it pleases anyone else while I’m a people-pleaser.

And the fact that he can rest and take time (perhaps . . . dare I say it . . .procrastinate) and I’m neurotically pushed to do and do and do relentlessly, first, fastest, and rest when you die.

I can’t say when it happened, but at some point I fell in love.112339-20130114

I can’t speak for him and say exactly why he fell in love with me.

Nor can I say exactly why God loves any of us either, surely not my awkward, nervous, uptight, worrying self.

Amazingly, though, this isn’t a “fall in love” kind of love at all.  God doesn’t grow to love any of us over time or awaken one morning and realize how much He cares.

He loves us.

It really is the beginning and the end of our story.

Like the first time I saw my daughters, I loved them in an instant.  I didn’t slowly grow to appreciate their character or develop feelings for them over time.

In Jeremiah, God declares:

“before I formed you in the womb I knew you”  and David similarly prayed, “you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139:13).

God loved you before you squinted your eyes at the first burst of light, screamed out and got cleaned off, bundled up and handed to your mom.

He loves you when you feel loved and when you feel overlooked, when you received a blessing and when you endured a trial.  This love of his doesn’t wax or wane, change or alter or depend on us and what we do or say or feel or think.

We’ve never been good enough, pure enough, beautiful enough, or wise enough to earn it.

But even though we’re unworthy, even when we’ve strayed, even when we’ve felt that seemingly incurable distance from Him or poured out in painful honesty what’s troubling us…

Still He loves.

He says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3).

And what can we do with this everlasting and unfailing love, so amazing and confusing because it’s far more than we deserve?

“We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

Originally published September 24, 2012

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer 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.  Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in the Fall of 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

Feeling Unloved

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She was sobbing next to me and finally put all those unmanageable, messy feelings into four words.

“I feel so unloved.”

One fight with her sisters, one afternoon of correction and quiet discipline….and this totally loved daughter of mine told me she didn’t feel loved at all.

She sat with her tissue, snuggled against my side, my one arm hugging her shoulder, my other arm smoothing her wild hair that had been mussed by all the emotion.

But she felt unloved.

I had packed her lunch for the day, putting in her favorite snack and slipping a tiny paper with a joke on it into her bag of pretzels so she would smile and laugh and think of me.

She was wearing the outfit I had bought her and a ribbon in her hair that I (yes, the mom recovering from an allergy to crafts) had made for her with my own two clumsy hands.

Her favorite dinner was simmering on the stove.

Before bed the night before we had studied her Bible verses for the week and read together from books I ordered used online because they were out-of-print.  But they were her favorite, so I had happily spent an afternoon performing Google searches to find them.

I had combed out her long blond hair after her bath and sprayed it down to ease out the tangles and reminded her to brush her teeth.

And I had told her I loved her often, hugged her and kissed the top of her head throughout the day, then tucked her into bed under the blanket I had made for her myself.

But still she felt unloved.

I just finished reading an article about prison ministries and how many of the inmates come from homes where no one bothered to make sure they weren’t starving or had warm clothes to wear in the winter or a place to sleep.

No one really cared about them at all, but my daughter didn’t know the horrors of need and desperation.

So I told my crying girl how loved she is and how even when her emotions push their faulty lies into her heart and mind, she can shut them down with truth.

Doesn’t my Mom care for me?  Doesn’t she tell me she loves me?  Doesn’t she take care of my needs and even those extra things that I want?

We’re just as forgetful as my daughter is at times, feeling unloved because of a circumstance, a correction, a trial or sadness.  And we sit among our piles of blessings, of salvation and daily grace, and think, “God, don’t You love me?”

We meditate on the lies and feed them with our feelings, just like the Israelites did in the Old Testament.

Psalm 106 follows their long journey through forgetfulness and betrayal…

…they gave no thought to your miracles;
they did not remember your many kindnesses (verse 7).

But they soon forgot what he had done
and did not wait for his plan to unfold (verse 13).

They forgot the God who saved them,
who had done great things in Egypt,
miracles in the land of Ham
and awesome deeds by the Red Sea (verse 21-22).

They didn’t just forget minor provisions of lunch box meals and some new outfits for school.

They forgot miraculous deliverance out of slavery in Egypt, the parting of an entire body of water so they could cross on dry land, daily provision of manna from heaven and the protection from war-loving enemies on every side.

But always God was faithful:

Yet he saved them for his name’s sake,
to make his mighty power known…

Yet he took note of their distress
when he heard their cry;
 for their sake he remembered his covenant
and out of his great love he relented (Psalm 106:8, 4-45).

They forgot.  He remembered.

“Yet, He….” it says in each verse. In my NKJV Bible, it says, “Nevertheless…”

That’s what God is...never at any moment less than good and powerful, mighty and merciful to us.  He is never less than His character or His faithfulness to His promises.

Even when our feelings tell us otherwise.

Even when we’ve believed the lies.

Beth Moore writes, “To live some semblance of victory, I’ve had to learn to be intentional and determined about where I would “set” my mind.  We can’t just depend on a good mood to get us through” (Esther).

That’s what I quietly tell my girl–how she’s always loved, even when she doesn’t feel like it, and how to conquer the lies by remembering the truth.

And that’s what I remind myself on the bad days and in the hard times, when I’m annoyed, frustrated, tired, or overwhelmed…that God loves me and cares for me.  Even when I mess up, never-the-less He is faithful.

That’s the truth.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer 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.  Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in the Fall of 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

 

Passionate Pursuit

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The other night, I poured myself a cup of hot tea, kicked off my shoes, picked up my knitting and settled deep into the sofa to relax with a movie.  Something about fall reminds me of the scenes in Anne of Green Gables as she strolls along the tree-shaded pathways and the leaves reflect the changing seasons.

So, I put in the DVD of the Anne of Green Gables sequel and watched one of my favorite stories play out on my television once again.

As I sipped my tea, I realized that what seems so romantically endearing and compelling about her love story with the straight-talking Gilbert Blythe is his willingness to pursue her.  He may have fallen in love with her in grade school when she broke her slate over his head after he called her “Carrots,” yet he waited for her.

And waited.

And waited.

He cheered her on and encouraged her success, asked her to marry him, was rejected, waited some more, got sick and nearly died, and asked again.

Maybe that’s the great romance we’ve all dreamt of or longed for as school girls or teens or even grown women.

And even while part of me wants to scream at Anne through the television to drop all of her “high-faluting’ mumbo jumbo” and just realize already that love is right there in front of her, part of me is entranced.

It’s true in all my favorite stories, every book I own with its cover falling off and the pages worn from me turning down the corners for want of a bookmark: Anne of Green Gables, Pride and Prejudice, Emma . . .

In each story, the theme is the same.  The girl remains comfortably clueless that a man is in love with her, but he is captivated by her beauty and strength of character, her wit, her capacity to change and grow . . . and he pursues her relentlessly until she finally discovers she loves him in return.

In her book Captivating, Stasi Eldredge says:

“We desire to possess a beauty that is worth pursuing, worth fighting for, a beauty that is core to who we truly are. We want beauty that can be seen; beauty that can be felt; beauty that affects others; a beauty all our own to unveil.”

Perhaps many of us do long for a beauty that captivates—-a beauty worth pursuing. Like Anne or Elizabeth or Emma, we want to know that we are worth noticing, worth waiting for, worth sacrificing for, worth fighting for . . . just worthy.

So that when the world beats us down with reminders of standards we can’t meet and the girl next door makes us feel ugly and clumsy with her model-like beauty and when we’re run-down from dishes and laundry and carpools and mess . .  .we still feel that message deep down that we are captivating and we are loved.

Yet, no matter how lovely we may be, with the God-beauty of our character inside where it counts or with sparkling, head-turning physical beauty, we aren’t always pursued.  We don’t, after all, live in a historical romance novel or in Jane Austen’s world of matchmaking and marriages.

It just doesn’t always turn out that way.

And yet pursuit is always part of our Great Romance.

Psalm 45:11 says,

Let the king be enthralled by your beauty;
    honor him, for he is your lord.

God doesn’t have to romance or woo us.  He could remain distant and unmoved.  Surely the beauty He sees in us isn’t really so worthy of His attention and He could toss out a marriage proposal and conclude with, “take it or leave it.”

Yet, He bends low and tenderly calls, He watches as we trample after worldly enticements and then calls us back time after time.

Like Hosea relentlessly chasing after his wife, the wayward Gomer, so God says:

“Therefore I am now going to allure her;
    I will lead her into the wilderness
    and speak tenderly to her.

And more than any of that, God Himself laid aside the glories of heaven to walk among us, to live for us, to die for us, and to make a way for us to spend eternity with Him.

That’s love.  That’s pursuit in the most wildly passionate and extravagant way, more than any bouquet of flowers or poetic marriage proposal.

Stasi Eldredge reminds us that:

“The story of your life is also the story of the long and passionate pursuit of your heart by the One who knows you best and loves you most”

Remember today that, while you may not be perfect or totally worthy, still God loves you and is enthralled with the beauty He created in you.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer 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.  Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in the Fall of 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King