Stopping at the Krispy Kreme

August 1, 2014July 28, 20143 Comments

I didn’t even know exactly what to look for. We were driving back to the hotel after a morning at the beach on vacation and my husband said, “It looks like their sign is on.” KrispyKreme1

Sign? What sign? I leaned forward in the minivan passenger seat to see what this apparently well-known phenomenon looks like. The sign looked dim like normal to me, but he pointed to the circle underneath the words Krispy Kreme and I saw it: the red letters announcing newly baked treats.

He swung into the parking lot and three wet and sandy daughters piled out of the back of the minivan totally confused by our impromptu stop at the doughnut shop.

This was not part of the plan, not on the vacation agenda, not on the list of expected activities we reviewed that morning at breakfast.

They balked a little. They are tired, wet, sandy, and cold. Can they just go back to the hotel? Pleeeeeaaaaaase.

We assured them…you will like this. This will make you happy. Just trust us. We are your parents, full of the wisdom and insight that comes with age.

A few minutes later, they emerged wearing paper hats and carrying the box of hot doughnuts: fresh, deliciously soft and gooey, hot doughnuts.

Photo by Serge Bertasius; 123RF.com

We devoured them.

I’d heard all the hype and hadn’t believed it. How could hot doughnuts be that much better than the plain old ones I bought in a box from the grocery store?

But oh my, they just melted away in my mouth. Normally, one doughnut would be enough, but these evaporated when they hit your tongue.

I assured myself that calories don’t count when you’re on vacation.

But there it is in my soul, as I’m chomping down on hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts of all things, the realization that it wasn’t the ingredients that were different or the baking method that made them my new favorite treat. Those doughnuts in the boxes at the grocery store were baked the same way by the same company with the same recipe.

What made the difference was freshness. There was not one second of staleness as they moved from the oven right onto our tongues.

And I long for this now. I think how too often I let my time with God grow stale. I come a little too complacent to His Word, a little too rushed, a little too KrispyKreme2 distracted.

I’m too apt to treat my time with Him as what a good Christian girl does because that’s what good Christian girls do. We have our quiet times. We read the Bible through every year. We check the box and maintain righteousness and right standing.

As an elementary school girl, I used to feel flat-out guilty and sin-stained if I hadn’t read a whole chapter in the Bible before going to sleep at night. A few verses wouldn’t do. I was clearly selfish and in need of repenting for not hitting some magic holy quota.

I think of my hot, fresh doughnuts and I think of the fresh-baked bread the priests laid out in the Old Testament Tabernacle once a week.

God told them:

Put the bread of the Presence on this table to be before me at all times (Exodus 25:30 NIV).

They didn’t archive that bread and let it sit and grow moldy there before the Lord. They replaced it week after faithful week.

It needed to be fresh. It needed to be new.

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him (Psalm 34:8 NIV).

That’s what the Psalmist assures me, that when I taste, I will discover the Lord’s goodness.

So, if I’m biting into what’s stale and moldy, crusted over and hard, then I’m missing out; I’m missing Him.

Help me, Lord, to stop being satisfied with yesterday’s bread and start craving the freshness of Your presence.

May I come into Your presence expectant instead of coming into Your presence complacent.

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Learn When to Say, ‘No?’

Finding Room to Breathe: A 12-month pursuit of the presence of Christ
January: Be Still and Know
February: Pray Simply
March: Unplug
April: Enjoy Beauty
May: Create Beauty
June: Invest in Friendship
July: Retreat and Refresh
August: Learn When to Say, ‘No’

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.

How Many Seashells Did I Bring Home from Vacation?

July 30, 2014July 28, 2014Leave a comment

They busied themselves with buckets and shovels, patting sand into castle walls and adding shells and seaweed for decor.

I took this one moment, after my daughters had bounced in the waves and come out with their hair stringy and wet, and now here as they settled on a project. They exchanged ideas. What if we….? How about we….?

They assigned tasks. I’ll build here while you build there….

I left the three executive sand architects and walked there along the ocean, passing by families huddled under beach umbrellas. Even so, I felt the quiet of alone. Something about that ocean, that pounding out of the waves like the steadiness of a heartbeat, so dependable, so regular, so beyond our understanding.

I glanced out over that rolling water and then focused on the wet sand beneath my feet, on the seaweed and the shells carried to shore.

You can’t walk steady on a beach, not without effort. You walk and then pause for treasure. A curved shell, a whole shell, a tiny shell, a colorful shell. I palmed them as I strolled.

Treasure here. Treasure there.

Walk. Pause for shell. Walk. Pause for shell. Walk. Pause for shell.

It took discipline to force my eyes up. Stop looking at the ground. Stop scanning the sand for one more beach memento.

Don’t look so hard for treasure that you miss the grand display of God’s glory right there beside you.

I’m looking for tiny seashells and this ocean keeps hitting that shore with wave after wave. in this vast display of His power, this roaring declaration of praise:

Glory to God! Glory to God! He is great beyond words. He is powerful. He is faithful, steady and certain. He is beyond understanding.

The Psalmist wrote it:

Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,
mightier than the breakers of the sea—
the Lord on high is mighty (Psalm 93:4 NIV).

Maybe I’m a treasure-hunter every day. Head down. Eyes to the ground. I’m looking for the prize, the takeaway, the gift I can grip into my hands and the one that digs into the flesh of my palm.

Maybe that’s me.

Maybe I’m scanning and scanning for blessing and it’s an obsession really, perhaps even an addiction because I can dash off a glance at the ocean of glory beside me but it’s quick and I worry, “What am I missing?” So, I drop my head down again to look for results.

And maybe what I’m missing is seeing Him, seeing His glory, sensing the full weight of His presence and lingering there, not rushing away to do and do, or find and find, or receive and receive.

I had to slip away from the everyday life to discover this obsession of seeking God’s activity instead of His face, seeking His blessing instead of His presence, seeking His gifts instead of simply seeking Him.

Because there’s just something plain-out broken in a girl who would rather look for a tiny seashell covered in sand than looking across the ocean.

And here I am at home, and I’m feeling that pressure to pray for results, pray for answers, for help, deliverance, provision, direction, favor, blessing.

So, I discipline my needy heart.

Hush. Be still. Bring it to Jesus and trust Him.

And this:

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need (Mathew 6:33 NLT).

So we must seek God’s face and not just His hand. We seek His presence, not just His gifts. We seek who He is, not just what He can do.

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Retreat and Refresh?

12 Bible Verses for a Spiritual Retreat

July 28, 2014January 29, 201610 Comments

Psalm 23:1-6 NASB
The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
²He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
³He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
⁴Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
⁵You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
⁶Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Psalm 42:1-2 NIV
As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
Psalm 62:5 NIV
Yes, my soul, find rest in God;
my hope comes from him.
Psalm 80:18-19 ESV
Then we shall not turn back from you;
give us life, and we will call upon your name!
Restore us, O Lord God of hosts
Let your face shine, that we may be saved!
Psalm 116:7 NIV
Return to your rest, my soul,
for the Lord has been good to you.
Proverbs 11:25 NIV
A generous person will prosper;
whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.
Song of Solomon 2:10 NKJV
My beloved spoke, and said to me:
“Rise up, my love, my fair one,
And come away.
Isaiah 28:12-13 NIV
to whom he said,
    “This is the resting place, let the weary rest”;
and, “This is the place of repose”—
    but they would not listen.
¹³So then, the word of the Lord to them will become:
    Do this, do that,
    a rule for this, a rule for that;
    a little here, a little there—
so that as they go they will fall backward;
    they will be injured and snared and captured.
Jeremiah 31:25 NASB
For I satisfy the weary ones and refresh everyone who languishes.
Hosea 2:14-16 ESV
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
    and bring her into the wilderness,
    and speak tenderly to her.
¹⁵And there I will give her her vineyards
    and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
    as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
Matthew 11:28 NIV
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Mark 6:31 NIV
Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

The Top 10 Best Things About Hotels (Says the Mom Away From Home)

July 25, 2014July 14, 2014Leave a comment

10. When there’s a problem, someone else has to fix it! No breaking out the tools when something is wrong. One word to a hotel staff member and within five minutes the handyman shows up with his own tool box.

9. How excited your kids get about every little thing: There’s a tiny refrigerator!! And a microwave!!! And a TV!!!! And a couch with a pull psalm39-6 -out bed!!! There’s a closet!!! And a bathroom!!! Everything is more exciting in a hotel room. Add in some luxuries like a hotel swimming pool, electronic key cards, and elevators with buttons to push, and you have kid-paradise.

8. Styrofoam cups with lids: Our hotel has a little hospitality bar in the lobby with packets of tea, hot cocoa, creamer, sugar and more. One night after swimming in the pool, I grabbed some hot chocolate packets as a treat for the girls. The best part? The cups they supplied came with plastic lids. Hot cocoa at home ALWAYS involves huge messes and near-industrial-sized spill clean-up. Why didn’t I think of travel mugs with lids long ago?

7. The Indoor Pool: We don’t the fanciest hotel with the most expensive amenities available; we just need access to an indoor pool. Happiest kids ever.

6. Short-Order Cook Breakfasts: At home, I sometimes feel like I should snap my hair into a bun, tuck a pencil behind my ear, don an apron and take down breakfast orders in a tiny notebook. At the hotel, we had buffet-style breakfasts where everyone found something yummy—well, except for the child who prefers breakfast at home with her favorite cereal every . . . . single . . . . day.

5. Someone else washes all the towels and sheets.

4. Someone else vacuums the floor.

3. Someone else washes the dishes.

2. Someone else scrubs the toilets. Sensing a trend here? I sure did. We’ve tried stay-cations before, but do you know what I still have to do then? That’s right—laundry, dishes, cooking, and general clean up. For a few days in the hotel, I picked up mess but never once pulled out the bleach or loaded a dishwasher or washing machine. Of course, we carried home a trash bag full of laundry that I washed the night we got home, but I had a few days of respite.

1. Being together: Our house is pretty small, so it’s not like we spread out and never see each other when we’re home. Still, there’s something special about experiencing time together without my husband heading off to work, propping up our feet and watching a movie together, making plans for the day, and sharing in a nighttime snack.

School starts up for the year far too soon. So does ballet, play practice, activities at church and more.

When life gets packed so full, it’s so hard to appreciate every little thing—like escalators and the electronic keys in hotels and cocoa cups with spill-proof lids. We lose child-like wonder and excitement about the little things

Almost ten years ago, I held my first baby girl in a hospital room and now, after what seems like a blink of the eyes, I’m about to send her off to fourth grade.

How does it all happen so fast? How do we miss so much?

In her book, A Sudden Glory, Sharon Jaynes says:

“The travesty is that we allow the busyness of life to crowd out the Source of life. As the Psalmist wrote, ‘We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing’ (Psalm 39:6 NLT).”

All this month, I’m learning to Retreat and Refresh so I can pursue the presence of God. And I’m thinking of Moses, who prayed: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

We can pray the same.

Lord, help us to number our days. Help us to make each one count. Don’t let a single one slip by us unnoticed and unappreciated.

Don’t let us ever miss or skip time—One, two . . . twenty . . .fifty–and not be able to account for the days in between.

Don’t let us get so wrapped up in doing laundry and dishes that we forget to thank you for the clothes and food you’ve given us.

Help us not to get so focused on the minutiae of everyday worries and stressors that we forget to have joy.

Show us how to slow down each day, rest, pay attention—yes, notice Your grace, Your beauty, and the gifts You’ve placed in our lives.

To sit with our children a moment longer. Linger over a cup of tea. Breathe in the scent of a garden. Notice the beauty. Enjoy deep down the laughter of our children.

Amen.

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Retreat and Refresh?

Originally posted August 31, 2012

We are Staycation Failures

July 21, 2014July 15, 2014Leave a comment

A few years ago, my husband and I realized we had to take a few days off of work. Both of us. At the same time.

This probably doesn’t sound exciting, but to us this was revolutionary.

We didn’t go away. We didn’t take vacations. We didn’t take time off other than for dental appointments or to have a baby.

But since a vacation away wasn’t in the budget, we decided to try the wonderful trend of stay-cationing.

We know plenty of friends who staycation successfully. They have a fabulous time visiting all the places within an hour of home that no one local ever takes the time to visit.

We, however, had a whopping failure of a week. By Friday, we had both ended up working. We had answered the phone and ended up in ministry meetings. We still went to all the normal activities at church and in the community. We did all the normal chores with all the normal responsibilities and hadn’t even slept in because we had young kids and they don’t know how to do that.

We need to get away, really away. We need to retreat, to shake off the daily and reconnect with each other and with beauty and rest and with the eternal.

Oswald Chambers wrote:

“Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once, asking Him to re-establish your rest.”

It’s all of the daily life choices and battles that chip away at our faith. We’re distracted. We’re annoyed. We’re confused. We’re tired.

Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Over time, I feel it, the weariness, the burdens. They accumulate over days and months.

Daily quiet times help. I temporarily rest at His feet and toss the bundles I’m carrying to the side. But, I leap up from the table after time in the Word and it’s back to phone calls and emails, carpooling, activities, planning and laundry.

And the thing about daily life is that it is . . . daily.

Shocking revelation, I know. But it’s not just the motion that tires me over time; it’s the perpetual motion.

It’s rising every morning to empty the dishwasher and reload it . . . . again.
Making beds, packing lunches, toasting bread and pouring milk . . . again.
Tossing clothes into the washer and grabbing towels out of the dryer . . . again.
Cleaning dried-on toothpaste off the bathroom walls . . . again.

Eventually I need more than a temporary refresher. I need to retreat from it all to re-establish rest. In Mark 6:31, it says,

Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

This month, I’m pursuing the presence of God by learning to Retreat and Refresh, and it’s then I re-align my focus.

The thing about being bogged down in the daily is that our definition of crisis begins to distort.

In the past few months, I’ve lain awake for hours in the middle of the night over minor worries that have turned into a crisis of anxiety.

Patsy Clairmont wrote, “At times, trusting God in the minutiae of life is as difficult as trusting him for a walking-on-water miracle.”

I’m tossing and turning at night because I’ve gripped my hand around each of these issues so tight God can’t pry my fingers off with a crowbar. My knuckles are white.

So I am removing myself from this close-up perspective of my life where the tiniest anomaly blips onto my radar as if it’s the end of the world. I’m putting aside the to-do list that runs my life like a drill sergeant. For this week, I’ll stop staring at my life and lift my head up instead to see Jesus.

In Psalm 3, David wrote, “But you, O Lord, are a shield for me; My glory and the one who lifts up my head.”

Instead of going through life shoulders hunched, head down, eyes staring at circumstances, I’m asking that God lift up my head so I can see His face, see His eyes of love and grace, see the reminder in the palm of His hands that He’s going to do everything imaginable and more to take care of me.

In that same Psalm, David also wrote: “Salvation belongs to the Lord” (verse 8). This “salvation” means “deliverance from the immediate pressure” he was feeling.

One of the meanings of this Hebrew word for salvation is “room to breathe.”

Sometimes the daily grind is suffocating and busyness knocks the wind out of me. I need deliverance from the immediate pressures that monopolize my attention and salvation from the stresses that take my breath away.

I’m leaving so I can find room to breathe.

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Retreat and Refresh?

How to Take a Spiritual Retreat When You Can’t Get Away

July 16, 2014July 16, 20145 Comments

I’ve always needed to retreat spiritually, to run away for an afternoon or spend a weekend away in quiet.

I’m an introvert and a workaholic. I’ll fill up every available space in my day with to-do list items and then crash from the emotional overload from the noise.

I must get away in order to be healthy: spiritually, emotionally, physically. My sanity and spiritual well-being pretty much depend on my escaping periodically to drink deep of quiet and solitude.

That was true before I had kids.

Now I have four little people who don’t fully understand the sacredness of “Mommy Time Out” at the kitchen table with my tea and my Bible.

When I sit down, alarms go off all over my house that only children can hear. It’s a secret alert system that lets them know, “Mom is about to sit down. Quick, find something to ask her for!!”

Just when I need to retreat the most in life is when it’s hardest to get away.

My husband sweetly holds down the fort so I can go for a walk. But I sneak in the door sheepishly and guiltily after an hour because he has paced the house with the fussy baby and played referee in a sibling squabble. After just one hour without mom, my house has turned into a wrestling arena.

When I was in college, I read a book that still sits dog-eared, highlighted, underlined, and Post-it note-covered on my shelf called Quiet Places: A Woman’s Guide to Personal Retreat by Jane Rubeitta.

This month, I’m learning to Retreat and Refresh in order to pursue the presence of God, so I’ve pulled my worn copy of her book down off its treasured place on my bookshelf and am reading it through slow again. songofsolomon2, photo from PicJumbo.com

But this time I’m reading her book as a mom with 4 kids, not a single college girl who could “retreat” simply by trekking from the campus parking lot to my first class of the day.

How exactly do you take a retreat when you can barely slip away for 60 minutes after dinner?

Let’s be honest. There’s no easy answer here. I’m not going to pretend and push a heavy burden of “you must get away even when it’s hard” down on your shoulders.

Some of you are single moms or homeschooling moms and I feel so whiny complaining about how hard it is for me when I think of what it costs you to retreat for a few short minutes.

Yet, time away with God is what we crave, what our souls need so that we don’t suffocate and die from spiritual dehydration.

The truth is some of these ideas will work for you and some won’t. Some you can fit in when school is in session if you don’t home-school. Some of them require effort and help from a spouse or a friend.

Here are some ways to take a spiritual retreat without breaking the bank or staying away overnight:

Spend some time in your garden.
Take a walk alone.
Exercise without watching TV.
Take an afternoon field trip: Visit the library, a museum, botanical garden, the beach, or a bookstore for an afternoon, but go by yourself. Sit and read. Walk a little. Journal some, read some, rest a lot.
Slow down with some fast food: Meet up with God for a date, just the two of you. Treat yourself to an ice cream sundae or a cup of coffee. Sit in the corner booth by yourself with your Bible. The only words you say to another human that day might be, “I’ll have one scoop of chocolate, please.”
Take a bubble bath—just be sure to lock the bathroom door so little ones can’t continue to pester you long after they are supposed to be in bed
Early morning cuppa: I’m not one to wake early before my kids. I’m a young mom and sometimes snagging a few more minutes of sleep in the morning is the most spiritual, holy thing I can do. But every so often, an early rise for a quiet time on your back deck before the little ones emerge from their beds is worth it.
Mommy time out: When you simply cannot get away, a Mommy Time Out is worth a try. Set the timer in the kitchen and announce that mommy is unavailable for 15 minutes unless there’s an emergency. This takes training! Everything seems like an emergency to a four-year-old. Keep on trying, redirecting and training until your children understand the sacredness of the Mommy Time Out and then treat them to a game of Candy Land or a special snack when they’ve given you the time you need.

How do you “retreat and refresh?” Do you have any ideas for how to take a spiritual retreat without going away overnight?

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Retreat and Refresh?

Would you like some pizza with that doctrine?

July 14, 2014July 14, 2014Leave a comment

She’s a four-year-old chowing down on pizza and breadsticks and prodding us with deep theological questions in between bites.

Where does God live? She drops it casually into family chatter just like “What are we doing tomorrow?” or “Can I have some more lemonade, please?”

Then she returns to the task at hand: Munch, munch, munch.

I nudge my husband’s elbow. Pass. Your turn.

So, he walks her through theology and doctrine right there as she slurps through her straw. God is omnipresent, everywhere and always there.

I mean what country does He live in? Munch, munch, munch.

He doesn’t live in a country, but there is one special place where he is present and that is Heaven.

And His angels?

Yes, and the angels.

I think He has 61 angels.

He has lots of angels. Lots and lots.

Like 61?

Well…..

But she’s distracted now and that moment when you feel like your child’s faith is that moldable clay in your parental hands has passed. She heard it—God is everywhere. He is always with you.

Christian parenting 101 pop quiz over.

She may think He has only 61 angels, but one lesson at a time.

I’ve been spending all year pursuing God’s presence right here in this minivan life, so her question lingers, bouncing around in my head and heart.

Where does God live?

Right here. Always with me. Here in this place and that. Here in the stress and the rush. Here in the quiet corner I’ve sneaked into to hide away from the noise.

I can nod my head right along with the lesson I know so well, and yet still I choose to pursue more.

It might even seem like a fruitless endeavor. Why pursue God’s presence when His presence is here, always here? He will never leave you nor forsake you. He will not abandon you.

I know how it goes.

I’ve felt the difference, though, between knowing God is with you while you fill that dishwasher up with bowls from breakfast and when you’re passing back the snacks in the minivan while zipping from school to ballet class and then to church.

And that moment when you don’t want to move because God’s presence is so heavy in this place, you feel the Holy Spirit’s fingers leaving deep impressions on your spirit, and you simply not walk away from this very second the same as you were just the second before.

Israel saw the difference. God was with them as they pounded out those bricks in Egypt. Four-hundred years of slavery and He never abandoned them. He was there all the time.

Yet, they headed out of that bondage and into the desert, stopping at that holy mountain where God’s presence came down in power.

On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.

God came down to that mountain.

And Moses went up.

Chris Tiegreen says it this way:

This is a graphic picture of the distinction between God’s general Presence and His manifest Presence…..there are times when He is more present, when He manifests Himself uniquely, when He becomes more obvious that nature’s designs or a whispering voice. Sometimes God shows up.

All this month, I’m pursuing God’s presence by Retreating and Refreshing. Because sometimes we have to escape the everyday rhythms of life in order to breathe in and out the presence of God.

After all, Moses had to go up on that mountain.

I need to go, as well.

So, we pray:

God, come down to us, we pray. Bring the full weight of Your glory here so we can see you.

And then sometimes we need to shake off the daily grind, walk away from the ordinary, and go up on that mountain ourselves.

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Retreat and Refresh?

It Would Be Easier if We Didn’t Have to Love Our Enemy

July 2, 2014July 1, 2014Leave a comment

My daughter was about 3-1/2 years old when she made this enemy.

After a week of summer dance camp, she declared that she absolutely did not want to take ballet in the fall.

Did she enjoy dance?

Yes.

Did she have fun at the camp?

Absolutely.

Did she want to try the dance classes?

No.

End of story. No explanation. I plied her with Mom-questions. She stuck to her decision without explanation.

In October, we sat together on one of the benches in the dance studio waiting room watching the tiny dancers file out after class. We picked up my oldest daughter and headed out the door. 1corinthians13, photo by Cora Miller

That’s when my girl said it: “I didn’t see Madelyn in the class.”

Madelyn? Who are you talking about?

Then she exploded with the report that Madelyn always wanted to sit on the triangle at dance camp even when other kids wanted to sit on the triangle and she wouldn’t let anyone else sit there no matter what.

She sucked in one big breath, harumphed, and tossed her arms criss-cross around her chest while stomping her feet for effect..

Well, babe, Madelyn was in dance camp, but she isn’t in the regular dance class.

“Oh.” Long pause while 3-1/2 year old process new information.

“Well, I want to take ballet then.”

All this time, territorial conflict with another preschool child had dominated her life choices.

Territorialism, jealousy, just plain old being annoyed with another person….it doesn’t get much easier handling all that mess as a grown-up.

We’ve all been there, forced into relationships with folks that drive us insane maybe with their negativity or pettiness or meanness, maybe insecurity, pride, constant bragging, insistence on arguing with everything you say, trying to compete with everything you do.

But I tell my girls this:

You don’t have to be best friends with mean kids, but you have to be kind and loving to everyone.

1 John 4:20 says it this way:

“If anyone says, ‘I love God’ yet hates his brother, is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother whom He has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

I quote it at my kids, but taking it to heart? Practicing what I preach? That’s a little harder.

Sometimes I want to edit the command, soften it a little, make it fit a little more comfortably instead of stepping on my toes.

Maybe: “For anyone who does not love his brother….when his brother is a pretty nice person….cannot love God, but when his brother is annoying, a jerk, mean, or immature, then it’s fine not to love that guy.”

Of course, that’s not Jesus.

God is love, and Jesus showed that best by loving the unlovely, by loving the enemy.

So, I could pit myself against the ‘unlovable’ or I could choose Jesus and the discipline of kindness and sacrificial love.

It starts with prayer, but the temptation is there, too, to pray that God change them when what I need to pray is that God shows me His love for them.

Because maybe, just maybe, the person who needs changing is me.

Paul wrote this to the Thessalonian church:

constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father (1 Thessalonians 1:3 NASB).

Love itself is part of the labor.

As Beth Moore says,

Sometimes loving comes easy. Other times it nearly kills us (Children of the Day).

This is at work and it’s at church. It’s with the annoying mom in the PTA and the gal who drives us crazy on the sidelines at soccer.

It’s in our own homes, too.

Sometimes love is hard. It’s labor and toil and discipline to believe the best, to serve and feel like you’ve given all and then given some more. It’s looking past imperfections and choosing to focus on the good and lovely and of good report (Philippians 4:8).

Love means choosing to give grace and forgive. It means not keeping score and a list of wrongs.

Love

….is

….patient (1 Corinthians 13).

I think of a favorite promise:

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns (Philippians 1:6 NLT).

God’s not finished with me yet and He won’t give up on me. I cling to that.

Yet, here’s the challenge, too: He hasn’t finished with others either. He hasn’t given up on them.

So, maybe I need to give them the space and the grace to let God continue that work because, after all, He’s given that space and grace to me.

In June, I took time for friendship and learned that God uses others to bring me into His presence, sometimes in unexpected ways and sometimes through unexpected people.

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Invest in Friendship’?

VBS for grownups: Even though you’re different

June 24, 2014June 23, 2014Leave a comment

Vacation Bible School. That’s just for kids, right? Silly songs. Silly skits. Silly costumes. Kids stuff. Sure.

But is there any message in Scripture that God delivers just for people 12 and under? We older and ‘wiser’ ones sometimes make faith so complicated when the simple beauty of truth is what we really need.

This week, I’ll be singing songs and doing those silly skits from Group Publishing’s Weird Animals VBS at my own church.

Here on the blog, I’ll be sharing with you those same stories, the same lessons, the same truth, but for grown-ups.

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Many years ago, I sat across from a ministry leader at a McDonald’s, having a deep life conversation while snacking on chicken nuggets. We had met that day because I wanted to talk to him about going deeper in ministry, feeling like I wanted to be ready for whatever God had planned for me to do. I wanted to be useful, effective, a vessel fit for God’s purposes, and I was looking for some guidance.

So, he leaned back for a minute and gave me his words of wisdom as my spiritual adviser.

“Heather, if you ever want to be effective in ministry, you’re going to need to be more like her.”

I sat stunned for a minute and thought about the implications. The girl he named was a perfectly good Christian, but she was my opposite in every way.

Not just some ways, mind you, but pretty much in any way it’s humanly possible to be different from someone else–that’s how different we were.

Extrovert versus introvert. Feeler versus thinker. Spontaneous versus super-organized-planner-with-three-calendars.

So, what exactly did it mean for this man to tell me I had to be like “her” in order to be effective in ministry? Did it mean that God couldn’t use me with the spiritual gifts I had?

Had God made a mistake when designing spiritual gifts, accidentally giving some people gifts like teaching and administration rather than gifting us all with mercy or serving?

Were introverts all God-mishaps who needed just to get it together and become extroverts in order to be used by God?

I wanted so much to be used by God, though, that I decided to become more like “her.”

And I made myself sick with the effort.

That’s what so often happens when we are pushed and yanked and smashed into positions we shouldn’t be in to become people we’re not called to be and forced to do what God didn’t design us or ask us to do. All that effort to be someone else can make us sick and stressed. It steals our ministry joy and stunts our growth and effectiveness.

Forced sameness crushes us and destroys the beauty of God’s design.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10 NIV).

We are His handiwork, His masterpiece, His poem, and we are designed for His own purpose and plan.

Made just right.

Even when others don’t see that and they try to shove us into uniform boxes of acceptability and usefulness.

Even when we’re embarrassed by the differences and wish we could just fit into the same mold everyone else seems so comfortable in.

Even when we think He can’t possibly use us, because He only uses people like “her.”

Even though you’re different….Jesus loves you.

The Samaritan woman at the well needed this. She needed a Savior who saw beauty in unexpected places.

This Messiah, this Jewish teacher, sitting at the well in the heat of the day shouldn’t have been talking to a woman, much less a Samaritan woman.

More than that, she was a sinful woman who likely drew her water from the well at noon so she could avoid the jeers and stares of the town gossips.

Not only did Jesus break all the societal rules and talk with her, not only did Jesus love her, not only did He extend salvation to her, but He used her to share the Gospel with others.

That’s what she did. She dropped her water jar right there and ran to town saying, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him (John 4:29-30 NIV).

She didn’t just find Jesus herself. She brought others to Him, a crowd of others, all of them needing a Savior.

Surely Jesus knew sitting down by that well that the best person to minister to that Samaritan town wasn’t a Jew, not a Pharisee, Sadducee or Rabbi.

He needed a Samaritan, one who had been drenched in grace until her parched soul just couldn’t stand to keep the Living Water all to herself. She had to spill out her joy so others could come see Jesus for themselves.

The disciples didn’t understand. She was….so different. So unexpected. So unlikely.

But God loves to use the weak, the small, the foolish, the most unexpected and unlikely of all because it’s never about us anyway. It’s always about Him.

Keep Praying, Keep Hoping, Keep Looking

June 20, 2014June 25, 20142 Comments

Lunches packed for the last time. Desks cleared, backpacks cleaned out and stowed away. Field day over. Class parties celebrated. Awards ceremony concluded and certificates photographed. End-of-the-year pictures taken of each daughter and compared to the photos from the first day of the school year.

And now we collapse. We did it. Somehow it feels like a joint accomplishment, not just theirs. Sure, my kids worked hard. So did I. And somehow, by God’s grace, we made it here to summer vacation.

It’s only taken 15 months of prayer. I started praying for this school year last March, praying for this teacher, this classroom, these friends, this school, these character issues, and these lessons.

And here as the school year ends, I give thanks:

Thank You, Lord, for answering my pleas for my children. Thank You for helping them learn, being with them in all of the struggles that have sent this loving (and worried) mama to her knees. Thank You for helping them with difficult concepts and friendship drama, bullies and mistakes on tests, report cards and forgetfulness. Thank You for these teachers You chose specially for my kids.

And I began again, just that quickly, one sentence to another, thank God for this year and then praying for next year: for classroom placements and teacher assignments, for the responsibilities of a new grade and for the friendships they’d make.

So it continues.

“Pray without ceasing….” that’s what Paul wrote (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

He meant that living prayer, that breathing in and breathing out of living life alongside God, taking in crises and handing them right on over to the Lord, receiving blessing and offering up spontaneous praise.

It means no more arbitrary separations between the sacred and the secular, between the holy parts of my life where God is welcome and invited and the dusty living rooms of our hearts where we try to hide away the clutter in corners.

Having kids, though, reminds me of this, too:

Prayer is perpetual; it’s insistent and consistent.

And sometimes I’m not. I’m driven to the throne by need and I’m pouring out pleas of desperation until the need eases a bit. Or perhaps I just grow weary or fall back into the coziness of complacency and apathy.

I’m not praying so fervently any more. It’s more like unemotional have-to prayers, perhaps performed out of duty, perhaps totally forgotten and not prayed at all.

We pray for that intervention, that salvation, that redemption, that rescue…for us or for another….and then slowly we cease the praying. We need the reminder to keep on keeping on, to not give up asking God for that healing and to refuse to stop praying for a loved one’s salvation.

With kids, you can’t really forget, not for long. Time just pushes you right through from prayer need to prayer need. I’m not even done praying over one school year before I’m on my knees for the next.

I read the Psalms and here is the reminder anew:

“But I keep praying to you, Lord, hoping this time you will show me favor. In your unfailing love, O God, answer my prayer with your sure salvation” (Psalm 69:13 NLT).

“But I will keep on hoping for your help; I will praise you more and more” (Psalm 71:14 NLT).

“We keep looking to the Lord our God for his mercy, just as servants keep their eyes on their master, as a slave girl watches her mistress for the slightest signal” (Psalm 123:2 NLT).

Keep praying….keep hoping….keep looking.

Keep at it and when He answers, press on in more prayer.

With this fresh resolve, I flip through the pages of the neglected prayer journal. What did I pray then….and what do I still need to pray now?

What have you neglected in prayer? What have you given up on and long since stopped asking God for? Who used to be on your prayer list but somehow slipped off?

It’s discipline to begin again. And when we cease praying, which feels like the inevitable failing of us forgetful ones, we return again and resolve again to be insistent and consistent in seeking God and hoping in His deliverance.

What have you stopped praying about that you need to pray for again? What prayers are you already praying for your children’s next school year?

Originally posted June 7, 2013

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

"He's solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul" Psalm 62:1-2 (MSG).

Category: ‘Presence’

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Would you like some pizza with that doctrine?

It Would Be Easier if We Didn’t Have to Love Our Enemy

Love

….is

….patient (1 Corinthians 13).

Keep Praying, Keep Hoping, Keep Looking

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

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Love

….is

….patient (1 Corinthians 13).

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today: