The Great Human Struggle Right There in the Middle of the Kitchen

September 22, 20142 Comments

He freezes in the kitchen with one hand hanging mid-air.

Picture courtesy of Steve Janacek, PicJumbo

He was headed into “The Forbidden Territory”—AKA the laundry room—just as fast as he could crawl when he heard me say, “No.”

And this tiny baby boy engaged in the great human struggle right there in the middle of my kitchen floor.

Do I do what I want to do? Even if I know it’s wrong? Even if mom says, ‘no?’

Or do I obey and turn to enjoy something else, something approved and acceptable?

He tilts his head up so he can see me, still sticking his hand right out into the air, paralyzed as he decides where to slap that hand down on the linoleum floor. Place the hand here to move forward to the “No Zone of the laundry room.” Place the hand there to turn and obey.

His muscles actually twitch under the strain of the decision. He grunts and growls. He looks at me with the brightest blue eyes all filled to the brim with tears.

Because he wants what he wants.

And yet, still crying, still upset, still disappointed, slowly he lowers that hand down and shifts his body.

He turns.

He crawls full speed ahead to my legs and throws himself at me.

Sometimes obedience is hard. So I reward him with cheers and kisses on his cheeks and an elaborate hug.

He’s not even old enough for me to lay it all out for him all psychological and explanatory. How sometimes Mom says ‘no’ because she loves you and she doesn’t want you to end up in the laundry room with a mouthful of cat poop because you found the litter box.

How sometimes the things we think we want the very most are the very worst for us.

So, it’s my Mom-job to tell him “no,” not to be mean or arbitrary, but for protection and because I have something better in mind than cat litter (promise!).

Does God give whisper this to us also?

Dearest One, I love you. I know that your heart is hurting because I’ve said, “no,” but please trust me and trust my heart for you. I’m not out to harm you or withhold blessings or good things from you. I’m here to protect you. Wait for the moment when I say, “Yes” and it’s perfect. It’s worth waiting for. Love, Abba

The Psalmist said it:

For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
Psalm 84:11 ESV

He is our light. He is our protection. And He doesn’t withhold good things for us.

But we have to let Him define what is ‘good.’

Paul pursued what seemed like a noble Gospel-sharing goal—to preach in Asia–and yet, the Holy Spirit stopped him with a clear, ‘no.’

Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. ⁷When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. (Acts 16:6-7 NIV).

It’s a ‘no’ that doesn’t seem to make a bit of sense. Surely Paul’s itinerary seemed ‘good.’

Yet, even when it seems hopeless and crazy, utterly insane, or like all the doors are closed and everything is over and you should just give up already and go home, if God tells you ‘no’ and asks you to wait….then wait. If He asks you to turn, then turn.

Linda Evans Shepherd in The Stress Cure writes:

Living in God’s will means always saying yes to God (p. 138).

You want me to stop? Yes, Lord.
You want me to wait? Yes, Lord.
You want me to change direction? Yes, Lord.

That’s what He did for Paul. He redirected Paul’s steps to Macedonia and to a Gospel mission to Europe:

During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” ¹⁰After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them (Acts 16:9-10).

Maybe I would have pushed and shoved right out of God’s presence and His will and right on into Asia.

Yet, Paul turned. He accepted the ‘no’ and said ‘yes’ to God’s mission and agenda instead of his own seemingly noble one.

Do I want what I want? Even if I know it’s wrong? Even if God says no?

Or do I want to be where God is, satisfied and content in His presence and trusting in His love?

May we always choose the “yes” of His presence.

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, ‘Yes?’

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.

When the One Thing You Really Needed to Get Done….Doesn’t Get Done

September 15, 20142 Comments

I had one thing written on my agenda for that day.

One. Thing.

Every other day was packed with wall-to-wall to-do list items.

But not that day. I had just one thing I needed to do and I needed to be efficient and productive so that I could spend all the other days doing all the other things.

My list read:

Writing.

But by 2:00, what I just wrote on this screen so far….that was the extent of my progress.

Amazing, huh?

So, what exactly did I do all day?

A million things, just not that one thing.

I had four sick children with coughs and runny noses.

I cleaned up tissues.

I discovered piles of them next to beds and overflowing from bathroom trashcans. I found a plastic bag full of them on the counter. I saw miniature mountains of them here and there where we had chased my baby with a Kleenex.

It felt like the full extent of my productivity was wrapped up in this: Tissue Clean-Up.

And yet, I had wiped noses. Made cups of tea. Cuddled a crying baby who couldn’t figure out why his nose feels like a faucet he can’t turn off.

I wrote cards and notes responding to prayer requests and answered messages.

I scribbled nonsensical slivers of ideas down here and there all morning so I wouldn’t forget what I wanted to write about later.

I washed dishes and washed clothes and somehow cleaned a house that still looks messier than when I began.

What have I done?

A million things. Nothing. Certainly not that one thing I intended to do.

Somehow when you’ve spent all day doing and doing and yet haven’t crossed that one thing off that to-do list, you feel like a failure.

The dam of condemnation cracks and shatters and spews it all out.

How can you have spent all day doing absolutely nothing? What in the world are you doing with yourself? Are you lazy? Are you inept? How is your house not spotless and your work not done?

And yet, what good is an agenda, really, if it’s my agenda and not God’s?

We can make these perfect plans and miss out on God completely. We can push right through the disruptions and the distractions to accomplish our goal and end up lost and far from Him.

C.S. Lewis wrote:

“the great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant (or unexpected) things as interruptions in one’s own life, or real life. The truth is, of course, that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life.”

God’s involvement in my agenda isn’t always painful or unpleasant, but it’s usually unexpected. Like Proverbs 19:21 says:

“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”

I am a ‘many plans’ kind of girl and I’ll shove my way right on through the obstacles to make those plans happen.

And yet, here I am this month, Learning When to Say ‘Yes,’ and I’ve found that saying yes to God starts with being flexible.

It starts with offering Him my to-do list and it includes yielding willingly, gently and without complaint to the twists of the day and the altering of the path.

I stink at this.

But, Moses the shepherd out there in the desert got it right. He had a plan to lead “the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God” (Exodus 3:1).

That’s when God lit a fire within a bush and captured Moses’s attention.

Moses had to decide. Stick with his own plan? Or follow the unexpected.

He chose to bend.

He said, “I will turn aside and see this great sight” (Exodus 3:4).

In The Power of God’s Names, Tony Evans writes:

God didn’t reveal Himself to Moses until Moses turned aside from His ordinary routine.

And that Samaritan that Jesus described in Luke 10…he was traveling the road for a reason. Others had traveled before him: a priest, a Levite. They saw a dying man on the side of the road and pressed right on past because he wasn’t on the itinerary.

But the Good Samaritan turned aside. He stepped off the road. He took the time.

He walked right out of his own agenda and right on into God’s.

May we always be flexible enough to turn aside and to exchange our agendas and plans for His perfect ones (even if they are unexpected).

What is God’s plan for you today? Have you asked Him?

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, ‘Yes?’

Sometimes Love is a Missed School Bus and a Cup of Tea

September 12, 2014Leave a comment

I woke her up at 8:05 a.m.

She had a rough night. We all did. With four kids sick with the Great Cold of 2014, I had spent most of my night slathering on Vicks, refilling water bottles, rocking a baby and fetching more tissues.

This daughter shone her flashlight on my face at 5 a.m. to announce tearfully that she hadn’t slept all night and now she’ll never get any sleep and she’ll fall asleep at school and she’ll never make it to ballet…..and the world was just absolutely going to blow up because of all of it.

I’m not the most compassionate nurse of a mom anyway. Seeing as how that was about the bazillionth time a child had woken me up in that one night, I had to muster some grace for the night shift.

Walk the child back to bed.

Vicks—rub, rub, rub.

Hand tissues.

Hand plastic bag for placing used tissues inside instead of dumping them on the floor next to your bed (please and thank you).

Refill water bottle.

Speak truth. The world is not about to end. Stop crying. If you cry, you will feel worse. You have not been awake all night; I have and I can assure you that you were asleep for some of it.

Place hand on child’s head, smooth back hair, reassure self that she does not have a fever, and pray for her to sleep. Dear God, please let her sleep.

Make it back to the bed in time to fall asleep before the next child wakes up an hour later.

So, this morning, I wake her up late. “Twenty minutes until you need to be outside waiting for the bus.”

Breakfast, here.

Clothes, here.

Tissues, here.

Lunchbox in backpack. Book in backpack. Zip it up!

Brush your teeth and I’ll brush your hair while you do that. Saves time.

But I look at this child in the mirror. She’s still crying and she’s a mess of red-faced blotchy miserableness.

She’s sick and she’s tired.

I could push her out that door to meet the bus.

I’m a workaholic. I’ve said it to her already that morning, “No fever. No throwing up. This is just a cold. You’ll feel better in an hour.”

But something in me stops the stampede of my pushy, workaholic, drill sergeant self all over the tender heart of this beloved girl.

I hear it, this strong voice telling me to just stop right there and: Love her.

I had just read it the day before in Pathway to Purpose:

“It is a cure for an affliction may of us have, which my friend calls destination disease. That great phrase describes being more concerned about getting to our destination than in finding delight on the journey. Learning to love causes us to linger in the company of others and find enjoyment and companionship along the way” (Katie Brazelton).

Learning to love isn’t just a begrudging necessity of this Christian life, a small blip in the journey on to bigger and better purposes and plans.

Loving others is Christ’s command.

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. (John 15:12 NIV).

Loving others is what we’re here to do. It is the great purpose. It is the great design.

Am I too busy pushing my agenda in this moment to show the truth of God’s love and grace?

Katie Brazelton writes this in Pathway to Purpose also:

“Love, then, is spending ourselves, investing ourselves, in the daily and eternal well-being of others” (pp. 64-65).

I could push that daughter out the door to the school bus and she’d make it okay.

But that wouldn’t be loving her. Not this time and not in this way. This child is not a hookie-playing, school-skipping, excuse-making kid. She’s a good kid and a diligent student who is sick, got too little sleep and feels rotten.

I love her and I want her to know that I love her.

That’s the point.

So, I send two kids out to the bus instead of three.

I write a note to her teacher. I make her a cup of tea.

An hour later, she is feeling a bit better. She still has a cold, but she says she’s ready to go to school.

I drive her in, and she says it to me twice on the way, “Thanks for taking care of me, mom.”

This month, I’m Learning When To Say “Yes” as part of my year-long pursuit of the presence of Christ.

And I pause here today because saying “yes” isn’t one choice or one destination. It’s a lifestyle of listening in the moment.

I say “Yes” to the Spirit’s voice.

“Yes” to His direction even in the smallest of things, the every day, and the ordinary.

And today I say “yes” to loving others, starting with this precious girl.

How can you love others today?

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, ‘Yes?’

It’s 3:00 AM, Give or Take An Hour

September 10, 2014September 10, 20142 Comments

It’s 3:00 a.m., give or take an hour. I didn’t look at the clock when I heard my baby’s cry in the night.

When I slip into the room, I hear him sniffling through his stuffy nose. He’s been up several times already tonight. After this, he’ll probably continue to wake every hour or so until morning.

His cry is weary and sad, like he’s asking me to fix what I’m unable to heal. Like he doesn’t understand why he feels so rotten. Like he’s apologizing for waking me up yet again.

He scrambles to sit up. Then he tucks himself into my chest and his head drops down ever-so-slowly onto my shoulders.

I feel his breathing ease into that slow rhythm of rest. His body radiates warmth and I gently stroke my hand across his forehead and feel the slight fever.

He has this fine, blond dusting of hair on his head. I comb it down with my fingers, slow….gentle….the lightest touch.

He’s asleep.

With four sick kids, I’ve been up about 4 times already that night. I know my future, no crystal ball needed. I’ll likely be up every hour from now until sunshine and the rush of the day begins.

So, the practical side of me knows I need to ease that baby boy back into the crib and slip out of the room again.

Get as much sleep as you can, ’cause, girl, you’re going to need it.

The practical side of me is so smart.

But this baby boy snuggles into me and makes this busy, rushing, speedster of a momma pause, rest, breathe in and out and really listen to the rhythm of breath and the rhythm of life.

Usually, he’s on-the-go (like me). I try to cuddle him, and he pushes away to pester the cat or crawl after his older sisters or grab at the TV remote, cell phone, or Kindle or whatever catches his attention, which is pretty much anything and pretty much all the time.

I almost never get to hug him.

When he starts walking, what then?

When he’s off to school….off to driving…off to life? What then?

Better to sit right here in the black of 3:00 a.m. (give or take an hour) and hold my son just a few moments longer.

I think of what I’d been reading that day in Pathway to Purpose by Katie Brazelton. How she said,

“I now know that the most important stuff that happens in life is often challenging, rarely exhilarating, and frequently frightening.”

and this:

“It is not God’s plan for you to spend today chasing after your future one thing when your many things are right in front of you.”

Surely in this moment, this is the most important thing.

We sure can get caught up in searching from some grand revelation of God’s great plan for our lives. We want to know His will for us, His purposes for us, how He’s going to use us, not just today but long into the future.

Yet, here in the night, sleep-deprived, zombie-brained momma that I am, I feel that God sees me cuddling a sick child.

I think how too often we miss this truth:

God’s great purpose for us is to serve Him humbly, sacrificially and obediently in the here and now of life.

We don’t have to search beyond that.

I think of Lydia:

On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. ¹⁴One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us. (Acts 16:13-15 NIV).

Lydia was the first European Christian convert recorded in Scripture, a woman who accepts Christ, shares it with her family, and offers Paul a place to stay while he shares the gospel.

But it began because she said “yes” to God in the ordinary.

“Yes,” to showing up to work.

“Yes” to listening to a missionary.

“Yes” to responding to the gospel.

“Yes” to sharing it with her family.

“Yes” to opening her home as a missions base and church.

Maybe this month, as I’m learning when to say ‘Yes,’ it’s less about joining programs, committees, and ministries, and more about starting with simple obedience and faithful service day after day.

Looking for purpose? Looking for God’s plan?

Look to today.

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, ‘Yes?’

Would You Like Some Peas With Your Worcestershire Sauce (And Other Quirky Eating Habits)

September 5, 2014Leave a comment

Peas were my dad’s favorite vegetable. This is funny to me because when he ate them, he drowned them in Worcestershire sauce.

So, I wonder.

Photo by Wacharaphong Sakoolwongveroj; 123rf.com

Did he really like peas?

Or did he like Worcestershire sauce?

We have our own familial mealtime quirks.

I eat a little of everything, some of this and some of that until it’s all gone.

My husband eats every last bite of vegetable first. Because he hates vegetables. And if you eat them first, you can cover over the taste with other, more palatable foods. Like meat.

When I set the table for dinner, I routinely place a bottle of steak sauce next to my oldest daughter’s place. She pours it on any food containing cheese.

I like cheese.

She doesn’t.

So, we compromise. I cook dinners with cheese. She creates a steak sauce puddle on her plate and eats without complaining.

My middle daughter is what scientific experts would call “a picky eater.” She refuses to eat most foods, especially potatoes. When I get all brave and try out a new recipe, I’m sure to hear from the complaints department, namely her.

“I don’t like this.”

“How do you know if you’ve never tasted it before?”

“I have tasted it” (she licks a speck of sauce off of her fork) “and I don’t like it.”

Alrighty then.

Then there is my baby girl. I serve up a new recipe and say, “Taste this, babe, you’re going to like it.”

So, she tastes and most of the time, she swings her ponytail around and grins at me: “You’re right! This is the best day ever. This is too much deliciousness.”

Sigh. I’m so thankful for her.

And I learn from her.

The Psalmist said,

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

I think of my girl, willing to taste, and when she discovers goodness, she devours it and maybe even asks for more.

Because what good is goodness if we’re satisfied with just a taste?

How often are we unwilling to even take the taste-test challenge? Too busy, too frantic, too frazzled, too scheduled, too independent, too hardhearted, too hardheaded…maybe it’s one of those or maybe it’s all of them, but we don’t even try.

Or maybe we taste, but after we experience God’s sweet goodness, we walk away? We think, “That’s great and that’s enough. It sure was good. Maybe I’ll order that some day.”

Sometimes we’re too easily satisfied by things that don’t satisfy.

In Psalm 119, David tells us:

My soul faints with longing for your salvation,
but I have put my hope in your word (Psalm 119:81 NIV).

This is the holy hunger.

The more you eat of God’s Word, the hungrier you are for God’s Word.

When we come absolutely famished and starving into His Presence, He fills us up with Good. All the junk we’ve been tossing down our throats in order to satisfy our souls now tastes like cardboard.

In my year of Pursuing the Presence of Christ, I learned how to say, ‘no’ last month. This month, I’m Learning When To Say, “Yes.”

I’ve found that after saying, ‘no,’ I’ve gained a more discerning palate.

People keep asking me now that the school year has started, “What are you going to do with yourself?”

I wonder if they think I’m lounging around my house watching soap operas…..but after a week, I still haven’t found a spare moment for lounging.

Last year was frantic. I held on tight to the reins of our home and our schedule. I survived.

Somehow I practiced the spiritual disciplines in the midst of that. I read the Bible through in a year, finished my Bible studies, and read my devotionals in the minivan, outside the ballet studio and in between play rehearsals and church activities.

Now, in this first week of quiet after all that noise, I found I’m starving for the Word of God, hungry for more than checking off my Bible reading plan, turning the pages of the devotional, or filling in blanks in the Bible study.

What is my first “yes” this month? It’s not a program or an activity or a project.

It’s feeding my undernourished Spirit with my first chance to sit quiet and unrushed at His feet in far too long.

I have tasted the goodness of God. Now I intend to clean my plate and maybe even lick off all the crumbs and drips of sauce when I’m done and ask for seconds.

I’m the sheep who has traveled through the wilderness and finally been placed in those green pastures.

Are you weary? Rushed? Downtrodden? Hopeless? Worn? Discouraged? Apathetic?

Come hungry to the Word of God. Taste….feast…..and find the goodness of the Lord.

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, ‘Yes?’

A Heart At Rest

September 11, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

Too often it’s the insignificant things.

Like the dishes I had to leave unwashed as I unexpectedly rushed out the door…or the items on the to-do list, there because they need to be done, but truly tomorrow might do just as well as today.

It’s the project that sits unfinished, the playroom with evidence of an abandoned toy sorting marathon on display, and the increasingly evident need for a vacuuming.

Too often this is what overwhelms me, the ultimately unimportant and insignificant trifles and I’m tempted for just one selfish moment to say, ‘no.’

‘No, I can’t. No, I’m too busy. Not today, not tomorrow, not later or in an hour. No I can’t give this; it’s mine and I need it. No, you’ll just have to ask someone else.’

While others are needing the hands and feet of Christ right now in this place where they find themselves ….and while God has told this perpetual Martha to abandon the mess in the kitchen and just sit down restfully at His feet or perhaps head out the door to serve another….still I glance incessantly over my shoulder at the kitchen, thinking of what I need to do.

How can my priorities be so awry?

I know it when I’m there… with a friend, on the phone, lingering at church, sharing the cup of tea, holding a crying daughter, baking cookies for another daughter to share with her class, surprising yet another girl in the lunchroom at school and sitting in a noisy cafeteria while she nibbles on her sandwich.

I know this is what matters. This is what is important.

People are always more important than productivity.

The dishes will be done. I’ll stand on the kitchen mat soon enough with my hands soaking into the suds, rinsing cereal bowls and cups. This, too, will be service and love for others, for my family.

Yet, right now what matters is being with God and loving others as He does, not fretting over the remnants of breakfast in my sink.

God challenges my perspective, shifting my viewpoint that is ever so stubbornly focused on my own needs.

He did this for Peter, too, as Jesus explained that He would die and be raised again.

Peter argued with the Savior: No way, Lord. That’ll never happen to you!

“Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s” (Matthew 16:23 NLT).

That’s my problem, isn’t it? My blindness to God’s perspective and the way that selfishness tunnels my vision until all I can see are my needs, my rights, my worries, my struggles, my life with my priorities.

I’m seeing things from a human point of view and never lifting my head high enough to see from God’s eyes.

This, then, is the deeply penetrating truth that challenges me: If I’m being obedient to God and loving others as He has told me to, then I needn’t worry about the peripheral, the secondary and the insignificant.

He will give me the time. He will help me. He will take care of what I need.

I can trust Him with it all, with every bit of my worry, my cares, my needs, my agenda. When I’m serving God in obedience, my stressed out, frazzled, distracted soul can rest in His presence.

That’s what it says in 1 John:

“Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence” (1 John 3:18-19).

Put love-based-on-truth into action and there I find that heart of rest simply because I’m where God is, doing what He’s called me to do, being obedient to His direction and timing.

In What Happens When Women Say Yes to God, Lysa TerKeurst writes:

I must confess I have moments where my heart is at rest in His presence, but they are broken up by pitfalls and pity parties. Sometimes I just simply want to be selfish. But when I choose selfishness, I may be happy for the moment, but I’m miserable in the long run (p. 98).

Yes, I have moments when serving comes easy and I feel the peace in obedience. But I have those other moments when selfishness tempts me to hide away and to hoard my time or resources.

Ironically, it’s only when I’m pouring out to others that God can fill me up with His presence.

It’s only when I cease striving for myself so that I can serve someone else that God meets all my needs, for provision, for rest, for peace, for wisdom, and for time.

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.

Turning Aside and Saying Yes to God

August 21, 2013January 23, 201417 Comments

I wasn’t ‘supposed’ to be there or so I thought.

Shopping off schedule, not on my normal day, shifting things around to accommodate other schedule shifts, cramming activity into the overstuffed container of life. And now here I was, shopping at a Wal-Mart in the middle of the afternoon instead of during my normal morning jaunt through the store with a shopping cart and a coupon book before the crowd arrived after lunch.

I pushed my way through the sale items at the front of the store with my focus on my mission—shop, gather the items on my list without distraction, save money, and leave.

But then I saw her, a friend at the pharmacy counter. Stopping for a quick ‘hello,’ the kind of cheerful greeting we small-town folks exchange in the Wal-Mart all the time, I pushed my cart to the side of the aisle hoping not to be in the way of other annoyed shoppers on mission.

This friend, though, didn’t need just a cheerful chat, but a sharing-the-heart kind of talk, a prayer right there in the middle of Band-Aids and Tylenol.

God sent her to the Wal-Mart at just that moment and then He rocked my world all crazy, turning my schedule upside down and sent me right on into that Wal-Mart at the exact same time she would be there.

I like to hold this white-knuckled control over my calendar and my agenda, fitting everything in just right and not being willing to bend, to flex, to rearrange and adjust, not without whining and complaining at least.

Yet, here is what happens when I release, open my palms and offer up the plans, saying ‘yes’ to God even in the daily.

A few days later, God over-turned my normal routine again with special school events and unexpected trips to the post office. There I was driving down the Main Street of town when I ‘shouldn’t’ have been and I was thinking of the to-do list items to cross off, the errands to run, the destination and the mission all over again.

But He opened my eyes to see ‘her,’ a woman I knew limping along the sidewalk painfully slowly.

I didn’t even debate over my plans. Instead, I zoomed into the nearest driveway and she climbed into the mini-van (after I shoved aside the napkins, papers, and other Mom mess) so I could drive her to work.

A little blessing for her.

A huge blessing for me, this reminder of God’s divine agenda, the appointments He sets for us and the way I can miss them so easily in my stubborn addiction to having my own way.

C.S. Lewis wrote:

“the great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant (or unexpected) things as interruptions in one’s own life, or real life. The truth is, of course, that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life.”

God’s involvement in my agenda isn’t always painful or unpleasant, but it does have this way of being unexpected. Like Proverbs 19:21 says:

“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”

Yes, I’m a ‘many plans’ kind of person who learns slowly to yield to this God with a perfect purpose.

God interrupts, intervenes, and now I must choose—whine and complain, reject and insist on my way, or submit and adjust and trust His plans, like Moses in the wilderness outside Mount Horeb as he tended his father-in-law’s sheep.

Moses wasn’t meandering along, aimless and purposeless. He had a plan to lead “the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God” (Exodus 3:1).

But God lit a fire within a bush and captured Moses’s attention.

What if Moses hadn’t stopped? What if he waited until later, choosing to finish his own plan and then return to check out the curiosity? Or if he’d ignored the interruption, adamantly determined to do things his way, in his own timing, and in his own strength?

Oh, how Moses would have missed out on God’s glory and God’s purposes for his life and his people!

Instead, Moses yielded. He said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight” (Exodus 3:4).

This turning aside is what God teaches me in this walk of obedience, the willingness to be interrupted, the trusting Him with my agenda and not worrying and fretting over the unexpected and the out-of-control.

Turning aside when I see God at work, I join Him there and give Him praise.

Magic Tricks, The Family Calendar and Radical Obedience

August 14, 2013January 23, 20144 Comments

He made rabbits appear out of nowhere. He seemed to read minds. He pulled colorful bouncy balls out from behind children’s ears.

The magician at our local library amazed my kids, particularly my middle daughter who checked out four books on magic that day and altered her future career plans.

“I want to be a magician who tells jokes,” she declared.

Today, I am feeling a little like a magician without the recognition and the jokes. No fabulously mysterious cape, no collapsible magic wand hiding a bouquet of flowers, no long flowing sleeves to stash cards and colorful scarves, and no top hat from which bunnies appear. My Mom-attire is much less impressive.

And yet, every year at about this time, I perform a seemingly magical feat that defies all explanation, a trick that doesn’t necessarily astonish audiences, but probably should.

I set the family calendar for the new school year.

Astonished? Amazed? Flabbergasted? Speechless?

Maybe you should be.

Even those of you without kids or with grown children can easily find your calendar as overstuffed as ours.

Of course, there are things outside of my control, like the school schedule and when ballet classes are offered. So, I wait for official announcements and postings, hoping God performs the necessary miracle to make it all fit just right.

Then I sit down and scan the mess.

There are non-negotiable activities that instantly earn a place on the weekly agenda.

There are the things I believe God has asked me to do this year, which I choose to obey.

There are the “Oh please, mommy . . . .” activities like gymnastics, soccer, swimming lessons, 4H, Girl Scouts, fencing (yes, fencing), art and sewing classes. This we carefully narrow down.

Then there are the 50 other possibilities that are wonderful and good: The Bible studies, prayer meetings, committees, volunteering, and classes.

When we think we’ve made it all fit, unexpected birthday parties and get-togethers, after school activities, and events squeeze into the corners of Saturdays and evenings.

Of course, it’s all good. And maybe, just maybe, if I don’t let my kids take swim lessons every time they are offered my daughter won’t make it to the 2024 Olympics. That would obviously be the world’s loss.

But today, as I was reading in 1 Corinthians, I was reminded of the one thing that sometimes gets nudged out of our lives by the incessant activity we magically jam, cram, and squeeze into our calendars until they burst.

Paul wrote:

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3 ESV).

Even if we invest our time in everything good and noble, we might be mis-managing our calendars.

Ultimately, speaking God’s language, knowing God’s Word, giving away to the poor, and sacrificing our very lives are all worthy, but even they are utterly meaningless if we don’t do them in love.

So then, what about committee meetings and weekly groups and gymnastics lessons?

Yes, meaningless without love.

Thus, I’ve been praying this year about leaving room for God’s love in our family calendar.

We’ll do what is necessary, what God has asked us to do, and we’ll love our children by allowing them to (within reason) develop gifts and talents God has given them.

And then I’ll refuse to feel guilty for declining to do every other good thing that comes my way.

Sometimes radical obedience is missions trips, quitting jobs, massive moves, full-time callings, speaking up, reaching out.

Sometimes what’s radical is obeying the smallest promptings of His Word, and this is how I determine to obey God, asking for His direction and choosing not to commit or promise or enroll until He confirms His will for our year.

May my agenda be His agenda. My plan, his plan. My schedule, His schedule.

I’m instantly challenged—an activity I planned on for the fall may not happen. I think of ten things I could do to replace that on my schedule.

I pray instead.

And I hear this prompting, “Embrace rest.”

That’s a radical call for a doer like me and it takes radical obedience to let it go and enjoy the breathing room over the suffocating schedule.

After all, in the end, Paul tells us that “the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13) and love doesn’t require magic, but it does require time.

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Category: Saying ‘yes’

The Great Human Struggle Right There in the Middle of the Kitchen

When the One Thing You Really Needed to Get Done….Doesn’t Get Done

Sometimes Love is a Missed School Bus and a Cup of Tea

It’s 3:00 AM, Give or Take An Hour

Would You Like Some Peas With Your Worcestershire Sauce (And Other Quirky Eating Habits)

A Heart At Rest

Turning Aside and Saying Yes to God

Magic Tricks, The Family Calendar and Radical Obedience

My devotional for today:

Like this:

My devotional for today:

Like this:

My devotional for today:

Like this:

My devotional for today:

Like this:

My devotional for today:

Like this:

My devotional for today:

Like this:

My devotional for today:

Like this:

My devotional for today:

Like this: