- 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…” - 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
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.
Category: Thoughts from my Quiet Time
The one Valentine you really need
My 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
Book Review: Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood
Walking With God in the Season of Motherhood
by Melissa Kruger
If anything reveals the deepest roots of selfishness or impatience in us, it’s being a mom. And yet, it’s so often during this season of mothering that we grab time with Jesus whenever we can. We’re rushed. Our schedule is not our own. We need to be in His Word and we need it to connect with our lives, but we’re often tired and overwhelmed. In her new Bible study, Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood, Melissa Kruger writes about how God has used motherhood to do a deep spiritual work in her life. She says, “Before having children, I considered myself to be fairly patient, self-controlled, and kind. I thought motherhood would only amplify these virtues as I poured out love on my children. In reality, motherhood has exposed just how much I need Jesus.” Melissa Kruger’s book gives moms a Bible study that is applicable and practical in their lives.
There are plenty of parenting books out there that focus on the how-to’s and why’s and should’s and must’s of parenting itself. There are plenty of Bible studies out there. This book is a way of combining the two, providing a study on the way God refines us through motherhood. Over eleven weeks, Melissa Kruger takes moms through understanding our purpose, ordering our home, entrusting our child to the Lord, while focusing on virtues such as wisdom, peace, joy, patience, kindness, self-control, etc. She keeps the lessons accessible. There are five days of lessons each week with the Scriptures written out right there in the workbook. The lessons are more encouraging than they are intense or deep Bible study and the fifth day is actually a devotional thought to wrap up the lessons of the week.
In the back, she includes a few helpful resources for moms and moms-groups. For those studying together, there are group discussion questions. She also offers Mom’s Verses to Memorize (one for each month) and character traits and verses you could learn together with your kids. Although it’s probably most powerful for women with young kids at home, it’s not just a study for Mothers of Preschoolers. Melissa tries to extend the lessons out for moms at a variety of stages.
One of the benefits of the book is the way it causes you to see the beauty in the season. When you’re knee-deep in laundry, haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a few years, live in your minivan and clean up bodily fluids all day long, it can be so hard to open your eyes to the glory of God at work around you. But God doesn’t meet with us before motherhood and then again when our kids are grown. He’s right there with us, using our kids and our homes to draw us close to Him and make us more like Jesus.
I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review and the opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Praying with a Penny Cup
The penny plinked into the cup and I walked away.
It was such a simple thing. The penny pressed into the palm of my hand and then a quick release, a letting go, and I was done.
Before my penny cup, I thought that I was just persevering in prayer like Jesus told His disciples to do in Luke 18.
There was the widow who came before the unfair judge day after day to demand justice, and finally he gave in because he was annoyed and tired of hearing her complain about it.
There was the neighbor awakened in the middle of the night by obnoxious and persistent knocking at his front door. He finally opened up the door and stood there in his pajamas listening to his neighbor’s plight—an unexpected guest, no bread in the house, could he share? Yes! Take it! Take anything as long as you stop that knocking, knocking, knocking so I can get some sleep already.
So, Jesus tells us, if an unrighteous judge and a sleep-deprived neighbor gave into requests just because of tenacity, wouldn’t God who loves us respond when we pray and pray and pray and don’t give up praying?
Don’t stop praying. Even when you’re weary and exhausted and hopeless and think it doesn’t do a bit of good, keep pushing and pushing on in prayer.
But my idea of persevering in prayer wasn’t really prayer any more. It was more like fretting in front of God’s throne and worrying about a problem before a divine audience.
All night long, I mentally paced in prayer: Lord, here’s my problem and here’s what I need You to do to fix it.
I plead and argued and orated and then when I’d run out of things to say, I started all over again.
Hour after hour ticked by on my bedside clock and still I continued.
God loves when we pray. We can bring anything and everything to Him in prayer and He never tires of hearing us and never turns us away.
But I never released my need to Him. I was talking at Him without ever letting go or pausing for even a second to listen or be still.
I was wallowing in anxiety and putting a holy ‘stamp of approval’ on it by calling it prayer.
John wrote:
Now this is the confidence we have before Him: Whenever we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked Him for (1 JOhn 5:14-15 HCSB).
I was praying as if He couldn’t hear me.
….as if my will mattered more than His will.
….as if only my solution to the problem was acceptable.
….as if He wasn’t sovereign or compassionate—wasn’t able or didn’t care to rescue me.
… as if He was against me instead of for me.
It was a prayer of unbelief.
Then, I read the idea in a discipleship magazine: a penny cup.
It’s not the cup that mattered or even the penny. Writing a prayer on a slip of paper and slipping it into a prayer box would do just as well.
What matters is a physical reminder to release my white-knuckled grip on my problem and give it over to the God who loves me so.
Every time I found a wayward penny on a dresser or on the floor, I picked it up and prayed with a quick whisper, “Lord, please take care of this need. I trust You to deliver me.” Then I released the prayer to Him as I dropped the coin into my penny cup.
I didn’t tell Him how to fix the problem. I didn’t wrestle with Him for hours every night over the need.
I prayed day in and day out (you’d be surprised how many pennies you find when they become part of your prayer life), but always I gave the problem to Him instead of holding onto it myself.
When the penny cup filled to the brim, I poured out the coins and started again. For years, I prayed about this one issue, giving it over to God one…..penny….. at….. a….. time.
For the first time, I really prayed. I didn’t fret and argue and run endless circles of desperate pleading around God.
I persisted in prayer by expressing my need while leaving the solution in His hands.
And God rescued me. Not in the way I expected. Not in the timing I expected. Not without hardship and hurting or obedience or faith in the hard places. But the deliverance was miraculous and beautiful and perfect in the way only God’s deliverance can be.
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
12 Bible Verses on God’s Love for Us
- 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
Photo by just2shutter; 123rf.com
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.
What a Letdown
My toddler and I have daily disagreements about what he needs.
I say he needs a nap. He thinks he needs unlimited playtime.
I say he needs healthy food, like the banana I sliced up on his highchair tray. He thinks he needs the cookie hidden at the top of the snack cabinet.
I say he needs a diaper change. He feels the need to scream at the top of his lungs, contort his body, writhe and wriggle to avoid being cleaned up.
After I win that battle and clean his little bottom, I say he needs a new diaper on. He runs away giggling because he thinks he needs to hang out in the nude.
I say he needs to come out of the bath when the water is cold and his fingers are wrinkling like prunes. He says he needs to stay in the bath. Period. Like, forever.
Momma says he needs to play with his books, his blocks, and his toy trucks. He thinks he needs to play with my smartphone.
I say he needs to color with the crayons on paper. He disagrees, believing he needs to color with the crayons on our books and then eat the crayon.
I tell him he needs to pet the cat gently or not at all. He thinks he needs to jump on the cat, pull the cat’s tail, sit on the cat and then stretch out with his whole body covering the cat and ignore the hissing and growling.
I know what he needs in order for him to be healthy, well-fed, well-rested, clean, and safe.
Yet, if I gave him what he thought that he needed, he’d be naked and starving, covered in his own feces, utterly exhausted and mauled to pieces by an irritated feline.
Perhaps part of growing up is learning what we really need.
Or perhaps we never truly learn.
After all, don’t I sometimes pray for what I need and discover through temporary disappointment and ultimate awe that God knew better? His “no,” though painful in the moment, becomes my salvation.
God loves us enough to give us what we really need rather than what we’ve mistakenly asked for.
Four men carried their paralyzed friend on a cot to see Jesus. They tried to shove through the mob that was packed into the house, but they failed.
So, they climbed onto the roof, hauled the stretcher up there, broke down the thatch, and lowered their friend into the middle of the room.
They pushed and pushed and pushed through every obstacle so their friend could have what he ‘needed.’
Mark writes:
And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5 ESV).
Forgiveness?
Is this what they wanted?
In his book, The One-Year Experiencing God’s Presence Devotional, Chris Tiegreen writes:
Clearly they came for one thing: healing. They wanted their friend to walk. He wanted to walk. A miracle was all they had on their minds. So a declaration of forgiveness, while a nice spiritual touch, might have been a letdown.
Let down.
Is that how we feel when we come looking for the miracle, and He heals our heart instead?
So often we come to God with the practical need and the specific requests, telling Him our problems and sometimes even telling Him how to fix them.
His desire, though, isn’t just for our best; it’s for our spiritual best. It’s to break down every obstacle to His presence and cut through every barrier to intimacy with Him.
We ask to walk.
He grants forgiveness first.
That man stood up off that mat and walked out of the house with his friends. His physical need was met. But more importantly, Jesus answered his true spiritual need first.
And, what do any of us really need?
A better job? A healed marriage? An end to conflict? A bigger house? A good doctor’s report?
Yes. Maybe.
But more than that…..we need mercy. We need grace. We need His Presence. We need hope. We need forgiveness.
When we seek Him, truly seek Him, searching for His face, listening for His voice, longing to know Him and to talk with Him, He gives us what we really need.
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33 ESV).
Lord, what I really need is 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, is available now! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.
Copyright © 2015 Heather King
Come Messy
My son slipped the yogurt out of the fridge while I was packing school lunches for my daughters.
He carried it delicately over to the living room coffee table. Then he shoved his hand down through the foil lid and started eating it.
With his fingers.
When I caught him with his snack, he popped his hands up to the top of his head, covering his light fuzz of hair in vanilla yogurt.
Bath time!
He eats with his hands. He plays with his food. He dumps out any drinking cups we leave lying around and then splashes in the mess.
He has a magnet for the cat food and would love to lay down in the litter box and act like it’s a day at the beach.
In the morning, he makes a mess of breakfast and makes a mess of playing.
Then he hears that first hint of sound from behind the closed door of our bedroom. It’s his clue—Dad is awake and getting ready for work!
My baby boy runs to the door and stands crying until we open it up so he can throw himself against Daddy’s legs. For the rest of the morning routine, Daddy has to brush his teeth one-handed and eat his breakfast with a toddler on his lap, and shift the toddler from hip to hip while he puts on his coat.
Daddy is here. My son will not let him go, not until we pry his hands and body away and Mom holds him tight as he cries and watches Daddy head out the door.
Usually, we’re in a mad scramble to wash my little one’s hands before he snags onto Dad’s pants leg in the morning and refuses to let go. After all, Dad hardly wants to head to work with vanilla yogurt and banana all over himself.
But I read through this verse again this week:
but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14 ESV).
We’ve heard it a million times and I’ve heard the sermon illustrations before.
Come to Jesus like a little child:
Come trusting.
Come simple.
Come excited.
Come small and insignificant.
Come unhindered.
And it’s true. All of it.
Jesus welcomes us just as we are. He invites us! He’s pleased to see us and pleased to spend time with us.
photo courtesy of Viktor Janacek, picjumbo
But there’s something more, I realize, as I wipe my son’s face and hands yet again this morning.
Come messy.
Too often we’re frantically scrubbing ourselves up before we let Jesus see us.
We think our prayers have to be ‘just right.’ We think our Bible time has to be ‘just so.’
We put off spending time with Him because we haven’t gotten it all together.
But the easiest way for Satan to defeat our prayer lives is to tell us prayer has to be hard and that we’re not good enough, so why bother even trying?
Maybe we think that’s in Scripture somewhere: “Come to Me when you have it all together and know how to pray for 30 minutes and haven’t lost your temper in a week and have had a 20-minute quiet time at 5 a.m.”
But that’s not what Jesus says at all.
He says to come as a child.
He also says:
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28 NASB).
In A Praying Life, Paul Miller writes:
“The criteria for coming to Jesus is weariness. Come overwhelmed with Life. Come with your wandering mind. Come messy.“
We don’t have to pretend in His presence. We don’t have to be something we aren’t. We don’t have to be perfect.
When we’re a mess and when we’ve messed up, just come. Come without guile. Be real and honest. No need to clean up and make ourselves sound “holy.”
Just. Come.
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 © 2015 Heather King
25 Bible Verses and a Prayer on Forgiveness
God’s forgiveness of us:
- Psalm 32:5 ESV
I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah - Psalm 51:1-2 ESV
Have mercy on me,O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin! - Psalm 103:11-12 ESV
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us. - Proverbs 28:13
Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. - Isaiah 1:18 HCSB
“Come, let us discuss this,”
says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they will be as white as snow;
Photo by Ruud Morijn; 123rf.com
though they are as red as crimson,
they will be like wool. - Isaiah 43:25
“I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” - Daniel 9:9 NIV
The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him - Micah 7:18 HCSB
Who is a God like You,
removing iniquity and passing over rebellion
for the remnant of His inheritance?
He does not hold on to His anger forever,
because He delights in faithful love. - Matthew 26:28 HCSB
For this is My blood that establishes the covenant;it is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins. - Acts 2:38 ESV
And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receivethe gift of the Holy Spirit. - Acts 3:19 HCSB
Therefore repent and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped out, that seasons of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord - Acts 10:43 HCSB
All the prophets testify about Him that through His name everyone who believes in Him will receive forgiveness of sins. - Ephesians 1:7 ESV
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace - Colossians 1:13-14 NIV
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. - Hebrews 10:17 ESV
then he adds,“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” - 1 John 1:7-9 HCSB
But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. - 1 John 2:2 HCSB
He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world.
Forgiving Others:
- Matthew 5:23-24 HCSB
So if you are offering your gift on the altar, and there you remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. - Matthew 6:14-15 NLT“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
- Matthew 18:21-22 NLT
Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”
“No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven! - Luke 6:37 HCSB
Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. - 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 NLT
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. - 2 Corinthians 2:5-8 ESV
Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure—not to put it too severely—to all of you. 6 For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, 7 so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.8 So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. - Ephesians 4:31-32 NLT
Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. 32 Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. - Colossians 3:13 NLT
Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.
If I Put a Spoon Under My Pillow, Will It Snow?
“This is it.”
My kids are desperate for snow. More specifically, they are desperate for a snow day.
Apparently, so are their teachers.
In early January, the tiniest picture of a snowflake appeared on my weather forecast. The details said wintry mix overnight, no accumulation, yada yada yada, blah blah blah.
My kindergartner arrived home from school that day with specific instructions from her teachers.
Place a spoon under your pillow.
Wear your pajamas inside out.
Flush an ice cube down the toilet.
Her older sister calls out, “And do a snow dance! You have to do the snow dance.”
It was simple math to them. Do this + this +this + this = guaranteed snow day.
It did not snow.
This week, snow was again in the forecast. My Facebook filled with chatter and pictures of weather maps all foretelling the great snowstorm of 2015.
It snow-dusted, just enough to turn the world a little white. Not enough to cover the grass even. Not enough to delay anything, much less close it down.
I don’t mind really. I enjoy snow well enough, but only when it’s outside and I’m inside with a book and a cup of cocoa.
But my kids mind. A lot. They are Virginia girls, desperate for at least a few sizable snowfalls a season.
Every single time there is a whisper of a snowflake or two falling in the night, our town is abuzz, the Wal-Mart shelves clear out of milk and bread, and my children brace themselves for a real and true snow day.
“This is it.” That’s what they think.
Maybe Joseph felt the same way.
All those years, he waited and waited, holding on perhaps to a distant memory of those visions from God of his family bowing down to him.
He waited in a pit while his brothers plotted his death, and then settled for selling him into slavery.
He waited as an Egyptian slave, working faithfully and with integrity for his master.
He waited when he was falsely accused and thrown into an Egyptian jail.
So many times, he might have thought, “This is it. This is my big moment of rescue and redemption!!”
But it wasn’t.
There was the night in the Egyptian prison when Pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker came to Joseph with dreams they couldn’t understand. Joseph interpreted the dreams, but then asked for help, saying to the cupbearer:
But when all goes well for you, remember that I was with you. Please show kindness to me by mentioning me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this prison. 15 For I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing that they should put me in the dungeon (Genesis 40:14-15 HCSB).”
This is it.
That’s what Joseph thought. “Here’s my chance!”
Then the cupbearer forgot about Joseph for another two years.
Waiting is hard enough. But getting your hopes up and then discovering disappointment, is even harder.
Joseph could have given up. Maybe he did.
Years later, though, that cupbearer finally did remember Joseph. And, perhaps when Joseph least expected it, God came through.
In God’s perfect timing. In God’s perfect way. God came through.
Had the cupbearer remembered Joseph years before like he had promised, Joseph might have made it out of prison. Maybe. Perhaps. We’re not really sure. Pharaoh could have just dismissed the cupbearer’s story as little more than a novelty.
But in this precise moment, the Pharaoh needed someone to interpret his dream, and Joseph was the one to do it.
Interpreting that cupbearer’s dream had seemed like a wasted opportunity, yet years later that is what God used to rescue Joseph from prison.
What we do today might not seem to matter, but God doesn’t waste our faithfulness.
His timing is precise and perfect, even when it doesn’t feel like it in the moment, even when disappointment presses in, and even when the waiting feels like it can collapse your heart.
We can’t place our hope in circumstances or people like a forgetful cupbearer.
We can’t always decipher God’s plans and predict when “this” really is it.
We can’t make it snow despite all of our snow dances and inside-out-pajamas.
We can, however, live God-glorifying lives day-in and day-out, being faithful even to the most mundane tasks that earn us no worldly recognition or honor.
Our hope, after all, isn’t in circumstances or people or ‘connections’ or our own abilities. They will take us on an endless emotional roller-coaster of misplaced expectations and inevitable disappointment.
Our hope, though, can be rock solid, unshakeable and steadfast when we place it in Him and Him alone.
“Rest in God alone, my soul, for my hope comes from Him” (Psalm 62:5 HCSB).
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 © 2015 Heather King
Why won’t anyone sit in the back of the minivan?
The middle seat in our minivan is prime vehicular real estate.
My daughters make mad dashes to the minivan in order to hop in that prize seat first. No one, after all, wants to sit in the back.
And, nothing gets these girls ready to rumble like one sister hogging middle seat privileges. They have some sort of tracking sense, a radar for what’s “fair” or “unfair.”
Their memory tangles up with rhetoric. I don’t think they really keep accurate records of seating assignments every time we drive in the minivan, but somehow they sound like they are testifying in a court of law:
“I have not gotten to ride in the middle seat for one whole week! You have had 6 turns more than me and now you cannot sit in the middle seat again until I have gotten to sit there 6 times.”
There are tears and the occasional meltdown. Sister pits herself against sister. They take sides and form alliances to gang up on the offending sibling and rain down minivan justice.
Let’s be honest. It’s a whole ugly mess sometimes.
And maybe the ugly comes out in us some days, too, as we fearfully try to scramble into the ‘best place’ or grab our own chance at God’s favor and blessing.
I’m not exactly sure how Abraham did it, but I want to learn from him how to stop fretting over my position and start rejoicing in my relationship with Christ.
He and his nephew Lot stood high enough to overlook the land. Their employees had been fighting. Abraham and Lot were both too wealthy to travel together any longer. They needed separate space and well-defined territory.
So, there they stood, preparing to divvy it all up: “This is mine. That is yours.”
Abraham let Lot choose first.
Maybe I’d be a mess of worries and desperation in that moment, wanting to protect my blessing, hope, and future. I’d probably be praying under my breath: “Please don’t choose the best spot. Please don’t choose the best spot.”
Or, at the most, I’d offer to flip a coin to make the whole process more fair.
But Abraham trusted.
Abraham knew that nothing Lot did in that moment could hinder, interrupt or destroy God’s perfect plan for his life.
He didn’t have to push or shove his way to the front of any line. He didn’t have to fight or rumble in order to stake out prime territory. He didn’t grab for the ‘biggest slice of the pie’ or scramble ahead of everyone to try to ‘get the best seat.’
Maybe we’re worried about that sometimes. We see the blessings of God as if there’s a limited supply. If He blesses her, then that leaves less blessing for me.
Or maybe this world seems like such a noisy place and social media has only turned up the volume. Sometimes it feels like we need to shout in order to be heard.
But I want to be Abraham.
I want to trust God enough not to fret or worry over territorial choices or the fear that someone will end up with a better plot of land or a greater blessing.
I want to be able to extend my hand and say, “You first…..”
I want to stop pushing and striving to get ahead and simply trust God to take me where He wants me to go.
Lot chose the best looking land, of course. He snatched up the prime real estate in a selfish effort to look out for himself.
He couldn’t see the corruption and enmity and culture of sin that ruled the land he was choosing: Sodom and Gomorrah.
Sometimes, the blessing we’re so sure we want is the worst possible future God could give us.
He sees. He knows. He loves us. Sometimes loving us means telling us “no” in the moment.
We can trust Him.
Instead, the Psalmist said,
He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me (Psalm 18:19 NIV).
When we trust Him, He delights in us indeed.
When we choose humility over pride, He sees and takes joy.
He will bring us to that spacious place, and it will be perfect, just right, hand-picked and God-designed for 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 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 © 2015 Heather King
Heather C. King - Room to Breathe 