2013: A Prayer for Children

January 19, 2013January 29, 20145 Comments

Sure, sometimes I get frustrated by towels heaped on the floor and shoes strewn across the kitchen and living room. I sigh over coats stripped off and dropped on the linoleum. I whine over piles of paper and toys dragged from one room to another and then abandoned. I make speeches about obedience, right away, the first time I say it.

But there are days when your mom heart is shocked into tears and all the petty annoyances fade and the selfish bits of your heart are tamed back into unselfishness.

It’s when you hear of a school shooting and so many little ones dead. It’s waking up on a normal, totally average morning and slowly going about your normal, totally average routine, and then reading the news: three young children—babies really—and their grandmother dying in a house fire just 5 minutes from my home.

Suddenly average doesn’t seem so average anymore. Every moment seems specially blessed.

I was thinking and praying all week about the verse to share this morning. In my scripture memory project through Beth Moore’s SSMT, I needed to choose verse #2 of my 24 verses for the year.

I read through all of the beautiful verses other women had chosen. I went through my prayer journal for the week and thought first this one and then that one.

And I prayed. Of course, I prayed.

But when it came down to what was on my heart and mind, the verse that Beth Moore herself chose reflected what I was praying. How could I not? So soon after national tragedy and so soon after a tragedy in my very own community, my heart is heavy for my children.

We aren’t promised their safety or their salvation or their health. Yet, we are given this great joy, this weighty responsibility, this amazing calling to love them, train them, guide them, and more than all that, to pray for them.

Parents of adult children can pray this, too. Grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles, spiritual mentors, teachers and counselors can all lift up the little ones in our sphere of influence and in our hearts with this prayer of blessing:

All your children shall be taught by the Lord,
and great shall be the peace of your children.
Isaiah 54:13 ESV

Yes, teach these children Your own wisdom and the joy of Your presence, Lord. Help them to know You personally and be real, present and active in their lives. In the very moments of their need, reveal Yourself to them and be their ever-present help in times of trouble. Bring peace into their lives, into their hearts and minds, into their relationships. We place them in Your hands and trust them to Your care. Please help us to know when to speak and when to listen, what to say and how to love. We are imperfect and weak; forgive us when we mess all this up, give us grace for a new day, and guide our steps, actions and words. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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.

When Numbers Lie

January 16, 2013January 30, 20142 Comments

Numbers. Too often, it all comes down to numbers.

I have no intrinsic attraction to math and statistics don’t send my heart aflutter. It’s just that I’m so frequently bound by whether it all adds up on paper.

Like when your husband rattles off all the expenses over the next few months: Car repairs from where a deer collided with the bumper, swim lessons, glasses, household repairs….

It’s no fun to scratch it all into your notebook paper and plan the budget that stretches and stretches until you just finally have to admit you just don’t know and you understand that the numbers need to add up, but they just don’t and that’s all there is to say about that.

And the trust and the confidence and the peace you had just yesterday disappears in that moment when column A is greater than column B.

Oh, it’s not just budgets truly. It’s squinting your eyes up tight and running the figures in your head to decide whether this ministry is effective in a cost-benefit ratio kind of way.

Is all that effort worth this result?

It’s glancing at another and evaluating her worth based on her Facebook fans, Twitter followers, blog subscribers, and the number of women in her Sunday School class. We calculate the math of comparison. She is > me.

It’s listening to the report from the doctor and letting the statistical probabilities define your faith and constrict your expectation of a Mighty God.

It’s math. It’s just math. They are numbers we use to try to structure our world, form our decisions and guide our lives, and we say, ‘The numbers don’t lie.’

But sometimes they do.

Or at least perhaps they just miss an important part of the equation. We too often leave out the God-factor.

God: Providing in ways we don’t expect at the time of our need.
God: Determining value not based on numbers and what we accomplish for Him, but simply because of obedience to His calling.
God: Doing more than all we could ask or imagine; yes, even doing the impossible.
God: Using the least of these and the smallest of all to perform His great work.
God: Multiplying loaves and fish—whatever is not enough—into more than enough to feed a crowd of thousands.

In 1 Chronicles 21, King David decided to take a census of all the fighting men of Israel. He wanted to do the math.

The counting wasn’t the sin. Census-taking wasn’t a sin. Running the numbers wasn’t a sin. At other times in Scripture, God himself calls for the occasional counting up of all the people.

When it’s God-initiated, sometimes math is what we need, if only to show off His glory. He asks us to take poll our resources so we can see what little we have and how it’s never enough on its own, but always enough with Him.

Or perhaps He asks us to do the math and realize how much we’ve been blessed and how much more we can give to others.

But God didn’t tell David to take a census in 1 Chronicles 21. David knew it. The commander of David’s army knew it.

Instead, Scripture says, “Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel” (1 Chronicles 21:1 NIV).

Isn’t that so true with us? It’s Satan accusing us of ineffectiveness, using the numbers as proof against us. It’s the Accuser keeping a tally of the times we fall and again we fall and again we fall. It’s the Prince of Lies telling us God can’t provide, the numbers don’t add up; this time it’s hopeless.

In The Daily Message, Eugene Peterson writes, “David substituted statistics for trust.”

Oh, how often this is me, scribbling figures on a pad of paper or the back of an envelope: If this plus this equals that then this…. Then I scratch it all out and start again.

Evaluating, comparing, adding up, subtracting….I do it all day after day, always trying to substitute statistics for trust.

But in one of those verses that I return to over and over again, God says:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right paths. Proverbs 3: 5,6 (HCSB)

Don’t rely on my own understanding.

Trust in God instead.

We may not know how God will provide, or why He calls us to do what seems so insignificant, or how He expects us to give out of our need, or whether we’ll beat the statistical odds. But that’s the God factor, the unknown value that we can’t ever fit onto paper, but that is always more than enough.

Resting is Just a Part of Moving

January 14, 2013January 30, 20142 Comments

It’s Monday and I already feel behind for the week.

The laundry is spinning, shushing it’s way through washing machine cycles and dryer loads.

The dishwasher is halfway empty. I’ve been grabbing clean plates and cups all morning as I walk by. Grab and stash in the cabinet, go about my business and return for more on the next pass.

My daughter’s arts and crafts-filled Sunday afternoon has left a Monday morning mess. Scraps of paper and felt dot the living room and dining room carpet. Popsicle sticks are scattered here and there on desks and tables in the playroom. There’s a pile of papers topped by markers and scissors, and glue sticks overflow onto the floor.

And the glitter. Oh, the glitter. Apparently, it fell. Not in one easy-to-clean location, mind you. It seems to have popped up in the air and thrown its contents across every surface in the playroom, which is now aglow.

I’ve been fielding phone calls and catching up on e-mail messages and social media all morning.

And I feel the crunch of time, the deadlines and the to-do list, and part of me feels frustrated and maybe a little breathless.

Deep down I want to blame the rest.

Why am I behind? I reason it out.

Because I didn’t do any laundry yesterday. Because I made origami cars instead of vacuuming. Because I read my book instead of writing. Because I take a break from social media (no Facebook browsing, no Twitter tweeting, no Pinterest pinning) one day a week.

I unplugged from busyness and plugged in to family and soul and beauty and joy and God…and rest.

Of course, I’ve thought it before. I probably will fight the lie for a long time: If I just didn’t take that break once a week, I wouldn’t be so busy.

This resting is counterintuitive. It isn’t what makes sense to me in my self-focused, rational way of looking at life.

And yet, it’s necessary. This walking away, this stepping back, this slowing down, this breathing in and out, this ceasing activity, this stopping the rush, this halting of busyness….it’s worship.

It’s obedience.

It’s humility.

It’s trusting God to take care of my little world and the whole wide world without me, and realizing just this: the world spins on and moves along even when I take a break. This is the shocking revelation that I need. It’s God, not me, that keeps it all going.

Without the rest, we wouldn’t really get very far anyway. Oh sure, it seems to make sense. Do laundry on Sunday so the basket isn’t so full on Monday. Write on Sunday so Monday morning there’s less pressure to rush to the computer and type away.

And yet, how far would we really make it before we crashed? How long could we go before our pride exploded and we forgot that God is really the one in control, so we ended up on our face in a forced and painful humbling?

The truth is that moving forward doesn’t require perpetual movement. It demands moving when God says, “Move” and resting when God says, “Stop.”

After all, how far would Elijah have managed to run without the food, drink and rest the angel brought him before his journey? (1 Kings 19). How long could the disciples have ministered, traveling on foot and mobbed by crowds, without time away with Jesus?

How could Israel have made it to the Promised Land without seasons of rest by the mountain of the Lord, beside clean water, and with peace from their enemies?

Even when they were pursued by the Egyptians, facing opposition and recapturing, still God didn’t tell the Israelites to grab their handmade weapons and armor and strive against the enemy.

Instead, “Moses told the people, ‘Don’t be afraid. Just stand still and watch the Lord rescue you today. The Egyptians you see today will never be seen again. The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm.'” (Exodus 14:13-14, NLT).

Stand still. Just watch. Stay calm. Let the Lord fight for you.

Just rest in Him.

But they couldn’t stand there forever, looking at the Red Sea and never crossing over. They had trusted God in the waiting. Now they could trust Him in the moving:

^“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the people to get moving!” (Exodus 14:15 NLT).

So it is for us. We trust Him in the waiting and in the resting. We trust Him in the moving and the battle …. and the laundry, the dishes, the to-do lists, the emails, the phone calls, the meetings, the appointments, and the deadlines.

Weekend Walk, 1/12/2013: Take My Picture

January 12, 2013January 29, 20143 Comments

“Take my picture, Mommy! Take my picture!”

In the middle of Sunday morning chaos, pulling on stockings, buttoning dresses, clipping on bows and tying on ribbons, my three-year-old twirled in her dress and posed for a Kodak moment.

And I clicked the camera.

I don’t ever remember being this way, so eager to say, “Cheese.” I’ve always been the one declining photos, offering to hold the camera, tossing into the trash any pictures of me I don’t like.

But when I’m out and about with my daughters (or even just running around the house frantically trying to get four females ready for Sunday morning church service)… they want to stop and take pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Not of the scenery. Of them.

It takes us three times as long to walk down the Main Street of our town and probably twice as much time on location on our family “field trips.” But I don’t mind.

I love that they feel beautiful enough to want to pose.

There was a day I stepped into the bathroom to put away a stray toothbrush, and I caught one of my girls watching herself in the mirror. She smoothed her hair and glanced up at her reflection, pleased with what she saw.

How beautiful is the girl who feels beautiful in her own skin.

This rare gift, how do you teach it? How do you help them keep it for life?

Somehow, most of us grow out of it. We glance in the mirror and critique the image or sigh in frustration. We step on the scale and slander ourselves with our thoughts. We pose for that picture and know we won’t be happy with it later, not with the smile or the hair or the wrinkles or the chin or ….

Even my husband, in the early days of falling in love, would sit across me from the table and I could feel him watching. I didn’t know where to look. I was uncomfortable in his gaze. What imperfections would he see in me if he looked too closely or watched too long?

Later today, I’ll take my seat at a piano and offer up the music for a wedding ceremony. There will be a moment at that wedding when the soloist will sing, “How Beautiful the radiant bride who waits for her Groom with His light in her eyes” (How Beautiful, Twila Paris).

The beauty of the bride isn’t so much the hairdresser and the hair spray, the makeup, the gown.

It’s that she walks down that aisle feeling loved. In a moment, she knows she is wanted, precious, and she radiates the joy.

And it’s beautiful how she loves him. So we, thinking of another, run out of time to be so self-analyzing, so self-criticizing, so self-condemning—so “self.”

It’s a verse for meditating on all week, with a reminder of how beauty is looking to God–our Groom–thinking of Him and less of me. Beauty is caring for others. Beauty isn’t feeling shame, but feeling redeemed, feeling precious, feeling loved.

“Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame” (Psalm 34:5).

Sorry!

January 9, 2013January 29, 2014Leave a comment

It just seems so cruel.

I’m playing the board game Sorry! with my kids, not grown ups, not enemies, not rivals. These are little tiny people with big sensitive feelings. But when I draw that one magic card from the stack, I have to stomp all over their progress and send their man back to the start zone.

Don’t pass Go. Don’t collect $200.

Or something like that.

And while I might be able to rig Candy Land, there’s not really much I can do about the game Sorry!, not without destroying the essence of the game by hiding all the Sorry! cards themselves.

Over time, my kids have grown a little hardier, but when we first started playing I had to apologize profusely for sending them back to “Start” just as they thought they were winning. There was crying and there were hurt feelings.

Now at least they understand it’s all part of the game.

While all of us want to race straight from “Start” to “Home,” the truth is Sorry! is all about patiently waiting for the right card before you can step out onto the game board. It’s about being sent back a few times and jumping ahead at opportune moments, sliding a little forward when things go your way and taking four steps back every once in a while.

It’s a little bit, or maybe a lot, like life. It certainly reminds me of Abraham’s life.

When God called Abram (later Abraham) to leave his home and head out to an unknown land of promise, Abram packed his bags in faith, bid a fond farewell to family and friends and set out on his journey.

I guess I’ve always imagined him rushing through the wilderness, riding as fast as his camels could carry him in the desert heat, stopping only for sleep and meals only when fruit snacks and peanut butter crackers no longer sufficed.

I could see his wife, Sarai, pulling her camel alongside his and assuring him softly that, “It’s all right to stop for a bathroom break. We don’t have to make it to the Promised Land in one day.”

I know I would be in a hurry to reach my destination! Given a promise or a hope, I’m eager to leave and rush breathlessly down the road.

I’d be pressing into God every day: Is this the land, God? Is this your promise? Or is it beyond this and, if so, what are you waiting for? Let’s get moving!

Yet, Genesis 12:9 says, “Abram continued traveling south by stages toward the Negev” (NLT).

He took the journey in stages. Travel a bit and then rest for a while in one place. Get to know the people. Linger along the desert road. Tend to the sheep. Wait on God to direct His next step.

Yes, Abram enjoyed the journey.

Even when he arrived at the land of promise, it must have been such a disappointment. Scripture says, “At that time a severe famine struck the land of Canaan, forcing Abram to go down to Egypt, where he lived as a foreigner” (Genesis 12:10 NLT).

The Promised Land wasn’t flowing with milk and honey at the time. It was dried up and destitute. He had to retreat to Egypt, taking a long detour where he lived as a foreigner, an outsider, one man worshiping One God among a nation of many gods.

Then he trekked back over land he’d already covered, but even then he didn’t hurry. He knew the way. He’d been there before. And yet still he traveled slow:

“From the Negev, they continued traveling by stages toward Bethel, and they pitched their tents between Bethel and Ai, where they had camped before. This was the same place where Abram had built the altar, and there he worshiped the Lord again” (Gen. 13:3-4).

Maybe that’s what kept him going all along, knowing he would see Bethel again, where he had worshiped the Lord before and where he hoped to meet God anew. Perhaps by then, Abram needed that reassurance that God was still with him and that though the journey was long and complicated, confusing even, there was a plan and a purpose, a hope and a future.

Surely we all need that reassurance at times, because our traveling isn’t much more straightforward than Abram’s was.

Sometimes we have to go back and sometimes we have to take the long way round. Sometimes we get knocked aside by others. Sometimes it seems like we’re absolutely standing still, just turning over card after card waiting for our chance to move.

But we remember to take it in stages, knowing that, unlike arbitrary cards on a board game, God has a plan. We can trust that “the Lord will continually guide you” (Isaiah 58:11 NASB), even when we’re not moving forward, we are always moving on with Him.

It’s not the End of the World as We Know It

January 7, 2013January 29, 20145 Comments

She grumped into the mini-van after school, plodding along, keeping her hands folded across her chest as much as possible. She was non-verbal, totally unresponsive to my cheerful queries about her day and her friends and her teacher. Slumping down as low as she could go in her seatbelt, her chin touched her chest, her eyes glared down at the floor.

I got the message. Bad day.

Slowly she explained with little bits of dialogue here and there, mostly in a whine, sometimes in anger.

“The cafeteria lady put baked fruit on my tray even when I told her I didn’t want it.”

Oh and her older sister tattled on her because she stood on the school’s grass at the end of the day instead of staying on the sidewalk.

What a day.

I found myself telling this Chicken Little of mine that the sky hadn’t fallen because of a tiny scoop of unwanted baked fruit and the world hadn’t ended because her sister ratted her out for straying onto the grass.

So, was it worth freaking out, crying, yelling, and ruining her Friday afternoon over this, just this?

Of course, it all did seem like a disaster to a six-year-old.

Just like an embarrassing mistake seemed like the end of the world to me yesterday. I was scatter-brained and forgetful and I was frustrated and angry with myself.

My husband said, “It’s okay. It’s not the end of the world.”

Maybe that’s where my daughter gets it from, from me and how I fret so quickly over things I could just shake off my back if I chose.

Sometimes we’re fretting about the foolish things and the minor details. We worry over a mistake that’s done and over with and in the past already. We stress over hypotheticals and what if’s that never even happen. We toss and turn over situations that God’s already provided an answer for.

And it all seems foolish in hindsight.

But even when we’re not, even when it’s more than a six-year-old’s idea of “the end of the world,” even when it’s truly a crisis and we feel trapped and hopeless….even then we can breathe in and breathe out God’s grace.

Even then, we are not consumed.

That’s what Jeremiah wrote to the Jewish people when their city was destroyed by captors, and they had endured starvation and invasion and seen their best and brightest young people carried off into captivity in Babylon. Even then, he wrote:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Paul wrote it, too:

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
2 Corinthians 4:8

No stumbling block or obstacle is the hopeless end of the world it may seem. Whether it’s a true crisis or an annoyance of the moment, still God is with us and because of His love, grace, and faithfulness, we can breathe in and breathe out.

We can rest in Him.

We can let it go.

At Women of Faith last summer, Patsy Clairmont reminded us that Moses wasn’t drawn to the burning bush because it was on fire. Fires happened all the time in the heat of the desert sun.

Instead, he stepped away from his flock of sheep out of curiosity because “though the bush was on fire it did not burn up” (Exodus 3:2).

That’s our testimony also! God allows us to walk through the fire without being burned and it is that constant faith in His care that shows others His glory. It makes them turn aside out of curiosity and ask, “What does she have that helps her walk through these flames unscorched?”

How is it that we can move on after a hurt or show grace for a mistake? How is it that we can look at the budget on paper and not be in despair? How can we hear that news, accept that decision, face that tomorrow, wait what seems like forever without being thrown into crippling anxiety and overwhelming panic?

How can we stand in the middle of the fire and not be consumed?

It’s Jesus. It’s God with us. It’s His grace and His promise to care for us in all things whether big or small. It’s choosing joy and choosing to trust in Him that saves us from the flames.

Feeling Unloved

January 4, 2013January 30, 20141 Comment

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

“I feel so unloved.”

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

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

But she felt unloved.

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

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

Her favorite dinner was simmering on the stove.

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

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

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

But still she felt unloved.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Psalm 106 follows their long journey through forgetfulness and betrayal…

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

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

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

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

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

But always God was faithful:

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

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

They forgot. He remembered.

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

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

Even when our feelings tell us otherwise.

Even when we’ve believed the lies.

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

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

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

That’s the truth.

“Always Expect the Unexpected,” Christmas and December

December 28, 2012January 30, 2014Leave a comment

Originally posted on December 14, 2011

My schedule is a delicate balance.

There’s a shopping day. A scrub the bathrooms and the floors day. Laundry days (one doesn’t cut it!). Make bread day. Ballet day. Volunteer day. Eat lunch with the kids at school day. Writing day. Bible Study prep day. Prayer meeting day. Homework day and library day.

It’s an intricate design that took effort and some trial and error to develop, but by October it all settled into a perfect rhythm.

Then December arrived and stomped all over my perfectly balanced schedule like a giant through a flower bed.

Suddenly, my calendar has arrows swapping events in my week, items written in ink now crossed out and rewritten on different days and at different times.

Oh yeah, can you fit in a class party? And a holiday concert? Could you make gifts for teachers and stop by the Christmas get-together? Mom, what are we doing for my birthday? Can we have an extra cantata practice?

Onto the calendar it goes. I’ve begun color-coding the items. Red is for the really super important things that I absolutely cannot forget, but am certain I’m going to miss. I add dark circles around those also. And some stars and exclamation marks. You can’t go wrong with stars.

Now my calendar has become illegible. So, I switch to the daily agenda plus master to-do list that spans the next two weeks.

Add in the meal plan for family dinners up through Christmas and the shopping list that I had to restart the day after I just went to the grocery store and the planning is complete.

How euphoric it would be to keep the schedule in balance at all times! For the expected activities to happen on the assigned days.

No doing laundry on shopping day. No extra trip to the store when it is supposed to be writing day. No third trip to the school on a day I’ve scheduled for cleaning house.

It would all be so expected. So perfectly planned. So in control.

That’s the problem, though, isn’t it? I have a certain capacity for juggling and as long as I’m tossing around the same few balls, I’m a fairly competent performer.

But when God tosses an unexpected ball into my rhythm and routine, I’m liable to drop them all on the ground.

To a certain extent, I need to practice the “no” and guard the schedule. Keep it simple. Don’t try to do too much. Don’t over-commit.

At other times, though, the schedule just is what it is. The lesson isn’t about eliminating activity. It’s about allowing God to shuffle our expectations and disrupt our plans so that we remember how much we need Him.

It’s His reminder that we can’t always package up our days with decorated wrapping paper and a shiny bow, oh so neat and perfect. Life is messy at times. Chaotic in some moments. Fairly unexpected so many days.

The one constant is Him and even He has a way of surprising us. I think somehow it’s appropriate that December is the month when my calendar is left in tatters and all my perfect plans are shattered. It’s a reminder that God has a way of shaking us up, mystifying us, and going far beyond our imagination.

Like the fact that the Savior of us all, the long-awaited Messiah, entered this world as a baby.

In Nativity scenes, we usually see the pristine image of well-groomed stable animals, fresh hay, perfect baby wrapped in bright white cloth. Mary is already back to her pre-pregnancy weight and looking like she didn’t just labor and give birth.

But God chose to come to this earth the messy way. It was childbirth. It was pain. It was blood. It wasn’t even in the sterile white setting of a hospital, but all smelly and oppressive like the barn it was.

A newborn, a little Child came to save the world.

The Light of the World entered in darkness, while nocturnal shepherds were keeping the night-watch over their sheep.

The King of kings arrived in a stable.

The Eternal God, the Word who in the beginning was “with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning”—lay in a manger with baby dimples and the red skin of a newborn (John 1:1).

Have you settled into a routine and rut with God? Have you figured Him all out? Have you gotten comfortable with what you can do and with what you believe He can do? Have you scheduled Him and assigned Him portions of your life?

Don’t be too sure!

Just when we figure everything out and fit everything in, God often will interrupt and amaze, befudddle and change your direction.

As Paul writes: “God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. Glory to God in the church! Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus! Glory down all the generations! Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes” (Ephesians 3:20-21, MSG)

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. To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Christmas Devotions: A Birthday Encounter and the Magi

December 21, 2012January 30, 2014Leave a comment

Originally posted on December 21, 2011

Today is my oldest daughter’s eighth birthday. Here’s the post I wrote last year when she turned seven about growth and how encounters with God change us.

“Having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route” (Matthew 2:12).

Seven.

My oldest daughter turns seven today. She asked me to stop calling her “Baby girl” this week. She seemed to think that seven year olds are too big for a nickname as embarrassingly babyish as that.

Birthdays never seem to be what my “Big girl” expects. We take a birthday trip. We do presents. She shares in time with friends and family. We sing to her. She picks out her favorite cake (spice with cream cheese icing) and her favorite dinner (tacos or chicken and dumplings). We celebrate her that day and she’s sheepish and sweet and content.

But at night as she climbs back into bed, she wonders why she hasn’t grown six inches. Why, if she’s now seven years old, is she still wearing some 6X clothing?

Somehow my girl thinks an annual encounter with a birthday candle should provide immediate change, as if it’s a fairy dust *poof* over her head.

I can’t say how these things happen. I remember so clearly the night nurse bringing my newborn into my hospital room at 3 a.m. seven years ago to the day. She was screaming inconsolably. Didn’t want to cuddle. Didn’t want food. Just needed to scream in protest for a bit. I looked up at the nurse with the fear of a brand new mom and asked, “What should I do?” She shook her head at me and said, “I don’t know!” Then she walked out leaving me with Victoria, still screaming at the top of her lungs.

She was strong from the beginning. Sure of herself, demanding of others. Determined. Sensitive and full of big emotions that just didn’t fit all bottled up and contained in a little body.

I remember her crawling, walking, talking, reading, dancing, and her first day of preschool and kindergarten and first grade. Her love of horses, princesses, tea parties, arts and crafts, sparkles, and dancing and the mystery she is to me.

And yet, I can’t say when she grew up.

When, after all, does change happen for any of us?

Surely we have that immediate moment of course redirection when we first choose to worship Jesus. Paul describes it this way: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:The old has gone, the new is here” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

One encounter with Jesus was enough to change the Magi’s travel plans also.

They had come from the east to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?” (Matthew 2:1).

Their Messiah pursuit wasn’t popular. It disturbed King Herod and “all Jerusalem with him” (Matthew 2:3).

Undeterred, the wise men followed the star and found Christ. They were overjoyed, bowed down and worshiped him, presenting the gifts they had carefully toted along on their journey.

Then, “having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route” (Matthew 2:12).

It was a practical decision for them. To trick King Herod, they slipped quietly out of the country.

It’s spiritual for us. We meet Jesus and from then on, we simply can’t travel back the same way we came. We have to follow “another route.”

Nor is this a one-time course correction for us. Just like my birthday girl who doesn’t magically grow six inches at each birthday, so we change gradually. There’s the initial moment of commitment to Christ and we are a new creation.

Then there are seasons of growth spurts as God performs focused work on our character. Intense encounters with God cause us to drastically change course.

At other times, the change is slow and daily as we shed layers and layers of flesh. It’s so gradual we can’t always see it until someone sees the change in us.

They see how we react differently now. How our words are seasoned with grace. How people have become our primary heart motivation. How our hearts are broken for the lost. They see that the faith we profess now impacts our motivation and activity.

It’s the change God is working in our hearts, just as Paul said: “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

But the ever-increasing transformation in us requires us to drop the veil from our faces and “contemplate the Lord’s glory.“ Like the Magi saw Jesus after their relentless, focused, studious search for Him, we have to seek God in order to see God.

That’s our task, to “look for God like the watchmen looks for the morning” (Psalm 130:6). We search. We find Him. We adjust our course to follow Him.

That’s how change happens. That’s how we grow.

Christmas Devotions: Easy Bake Faith, Anna and Simeon

December 19, 2012January 30, 2014Leave a comment

Originally posted on December 23, 2011

Last year, my oldest girl was asked one question repeatedly by friends and family alike.

What do you want for your birthday?

I grimaced every time I heard her consistent answer.

An Easy Bake Oven.

It was the one true desire of her little girl heart, an oven all her own to create delicious treats, host tea parties and open restaurants.

This mystified me. I am a baking mom. We often huddle around the kitchen table taking turns pouring ingredients from a recipe into a bowl, mixing and stirring, filling trays and pans and then licking spoons. We’re the four musketeers of cooking, a team of kitchen queens.

Why, I asked my girl, did she need a mini oven of her own? Why did we need to spend $6 on a mix that produced two sugar cookies of doubtful quality when we could bake dozens of scrumptious cookies for less money in our own regular oven?

My logic was impeccable, unanswerable, indisputable.

But the commercial conspiracy defeated me. In the end, a friend bought her the Easy Bake. It made my daughter’s day and proudly assumed its place on our kitchen counter.

I know what you’re thinking.

How long before the precious Easy Bake Oven joined the rank of unused toys shoved in the closet?

Never.

She still loves her oven and is inspired to create with it as often as I give into the whining request to use it. It still confuses me as she happily mixes and bakes in her own personal oven. Fortunately, she also eats the cookies since I consider them inedible.

Then she declares that it is in fact the best thing she’s ever eaten.

I try not to be offended.

So why does this Easy Bake Oven bring her so much joy?

It’s the independence of it. The feeling that she made this cookie herself. The power of self-determination and personal creation.

It’s the speed of it. After the light bulb is heated up, it’s only a matter of minutes before her own personal cookie emerges fully cooked.

And who can blame her for loving this? Aren’t we so often entranced by advertisements for the perfect “toy” that will bring us independence and speed?

In just two easy steps you can have fantastic creations just like this! You can look like this! You can make your own!

Anna and Simeon, though, knew that God mostly desires dependence and patience.

Simeon was “righteous and devout” (Luke 2:25) and he spent his life waiting for “the consolation of Israel”—the Messiah, and “the Holy Spirit was on him” (Luke 2:25).

Pause there for a moment. The Holy Spirit didn’t live in each and every Christian on the earth at that time—because Christians didn’t exist yet. Jesus was still being rocked to sleep at night by a doting mother.

Yet, Simeon walked so closely with God that the Holy Spirit found a unique dwelling place in him and revealed that Simeon wouldn’t die without seeing the Messiah’s face. Then, “moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts” (Luke 2:26).

While we might wish for that uniquely intimate relationship with the Lord, we might balk at the requirement to surrender all of our independence.

Simeon did just that. He moved into the temple and, as a result, was in exactly the right place at the right time when Mary and Joseph carried Jesus to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord.

Anna, a prophetess, had moved into the temple also. She had been a young widow after only seven years of marriage, but instead of remarrying and settling into the busy life of a wife and mom, she instead “never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying” (Luke 2:37).

Anna surrendered everything in order to devote herself to her relationship with God. And He blessed her willful dependence on Him.

She was there that day also when Jesus entered the temple for the first time. Simeon lifted baby Jesus into his own arms, praised and prophesied. Anna walked over to them just at that moment and “gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).

Just like Anna and Simeon, we can devote ourselves to seeing God, but we can’t pursue our own independent, quick-solution agendas in order to achieve spiritual growth, answers to prayer, fulfilled promises, or the revelation of His will.

We can’t have Easy Bake faith.

Instead, we must abandon our own course and commit ourselves to a patient and passionate pursuit of Him.

That’s what Anna and Simeon did. They didn’t run after every false Messiah that the world touted and promoted. They fasted, prayed, and worshiped in the night and in the day for decades. They made their relationship with God their highest priority and their only true desire,

And thus they saw God.

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Tag: bible study for women

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Christmas Devotions: A Birthday Encounter and the Magi

Christmas Devotions: Easy Bake Faith, Anna and Simeon

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Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right paths. Proverbs 3: 5,6 (HCSB)

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