Dear Son, Let Me Explain How Shape Sorters Work

March 4, 2015March 4, 2015Leave a comment

Dear Son,

Let me explain how shape sorters work.

The circle shape only fits in the circle hole.

You can’t cram it or squeeze it into the square. You can’t bang repeatedly, slamming that circle down until it finally fits into the triangle.

The circle block really and truly does only fit through the circle hole.

Sad, perhaps, but nonetheless true.

I know you think we’re foolish about this, that maybe we parents just don’t know all there is to know about shape sorters.

Maybe that’s why when we tried to point out to you the circle hole, you scowled and screamed.

Or when we set an example for you, modeling how easily that circle slid into the circle hole, you threw the block.

Or when we tried to gently move your hand to the correct space, you pulled your hand back, cried and cried and insisted on continuing your attack on the square hole with the circle.

Baby boy, here’s the lesson now and, oh, how much frustration and anger, disappointment and failure it will save you later if you learn this right here: Mom and Dad really know best most of the time.

Even more than that, it’s wise to seek advice and counsel. When you’re learning something new, ask the experts.

Sure you can stamp your feet in stubborn pride and insist on your own way.

But fifteen minutes and a full-blown tantrum later, you’ll still be holding a circle block in your hand that doesn’t fit through the square hole.

When you don’t know what to do or how to do it, stop plowing on ahead in bull-headed determination to do it your own way.

Ask God.

Ask Him.

James 1:5 says:

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you (NIV).

Did you see the promise in the verse? God isn’t stingy about wisdom.

He’s generous.

You ask Him what to do and He will respond with abundance.

And, He’s not up there criticizing your request or complaining about coming to your rescue….again…..won’t this guy every learn? Sigh. Tsk….tsk….tsk…..what a disappointment.

No, God gives generously to all “without finding fault.”

Sometimes we forget to ask. We think this is a no-brainer, an easy decision and one we can surely handle on our own.

Or maybe we don’t ask because we know what He’ll say. We know the advice we’ll receive isn’t really what we want to hear.

So, we avoid asking.

We avoid wisdom.

Because then we’d have to listen and then it would come straight down to what it’s really all about anyway: Obedience. Submission. Faith.

Surrender.

Giving in and giving up and giving it all over to the only One who truly knows what’s best.

David knew better.

Max Lucado writes:

The first time he faced the Philistines in the wilderness, David ‘inquired of the Lord’ (23:2). When he felt small against his enemy, ‘David inquired of the Lord” (23:4) When attacked by the Amalekites, ‘David inquired of the Lord” (30:8). Puzzled about what to do after the death of Saul, ‘David inquired of the Lord’ (2 Samuel 2:1). When crowned as king and pursued by the Philistines, ‘David inquired of the Lord” (5:19). David defeated them, yet they mounted another attack, so ‘David inquired of the Lord” (5:23). David kept God’s number on speed dial. (Facing Your Giants)

It was David’s go-to method. Ask God. Then listen. And obey.

But there’s a moment in David’s life when he didn’t pause to call 1-800-ASK-LORD.

He was so overwhelmed by Saul’s relentless attempts to murder him, that he:

“said in his heart, ‘Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will despair of seeking me any longer within the borders of Israel, and I shall escape out of his hand.”

He asked himself. He decided in his own heart what was best. He looked around, considered the circumstances and thought, ‘there is nothing better for me than this….”

Maybe God really had a much better plan. Maybe God could have protected and preserved David without the mess that awaited him in the land of the Philistines.

Never for a moment think you’re wise enough or strong enough to decide what’s best for your life without first asking God.

Never for a moment think that your plan and your way and your desire for your own life is better than God’s plan and His ways and His purpose for you.

Never for a moment yank your hand back from God’s guidance.

He sees the big picture. He knows: Here is the circle…..here is where it goes. Trust me.

Love,

Mom

“The One who laid earth’s foundations and settled its dimensions knows where the lines are drawn. He gives all the light we need for trust and for obedience” (Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor)

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.

Recycling Crayons for Operation Christmas Child (and a lesson in restoration)

February 27, 2015February 26, 201512 Comments

^“Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved!”
(Psalm 80:3, ESV).

Broken crayons drive me crazy.

So do crayons with the paper torn off.

And, while we’re on the subject, Play-Doh with all the colors mixed together.

Every year my daughter and I choose a project to make for Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. We like to work all year long on crafting something with our own hands and praying over the kids from all over the world who will receive our little gifts. Then, we use our items as part of our church-wide packing party to fill as many shoeboxes as possible!

This year instead of making bracelets or knitting, we decided to use a resource we have in abundance.

Broken crayons!

And, oh, it makes this momma’s heart so happy to recycle all those crayon nubs and paperless crayons into something colorful and beautiful and whole!

Here’s what we’re up to this year:

We collected the Crayola remnants and peeled off any remaining wrappers.

We filled silicone baking trays shaped in hearts and stars with the jumble of brokenness and melted the crayons in a 275° oven.

After the wax cooled completely, we popped out beautiful new rainbow crayons.

We made something fun, colorful, and unique out of the old, broken, and worn out and, as we did, I rejoiced in the way God restores us and transforms us, melts down brokenness, and makes us whole in Him.

God’s plan for restoring us in life is so often like melting down broken wax and transforming it into a uniquely colorful treasure with a beauty all its own.

We pray for restoration, hope for it, long for it with desperate hearts. We need the fixing, mending, healing power of God in our relationships, in our worship, in our churches, in our sick and hurting bodies, in our grief, in our finances, and more.

Like David, we long for God to “restore my soul” (Psalm 23:3) and “restore to me the joy of my salvation” (Psalm 51:12).

But so often we think that means full-circle restoration. We want what we once had, what Satan took from us, or what we’ve lost along our journey.

That’s what Israel prayed for when they were beseiged, starved, and taken captive:

“Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old” (Lamentations 5:21 ESV).

Give us back the good old days!

And it seemed like that’s exactly what God did. When Nehemiah returned to rebuild the ruins of the Jerusalem walls, he began at the Valley Gate (Nehemiah 2:13). Then, 52 days later, they celebrated with a march through those rebuilt gates, starting once again with what many scholars believe was the Valley Gate.

In Nehemiah: A Heart That Can Break, Kelly Minter writes:

“If God began Nehemiah’s journey at the broken Valley Gate and completed it at a restored one, we have reason to hope He will work with the same restorative power in our lives” (p. 151).

They had, after all, come full circle.

And yet, this wasn’t exactly the same as what they had lost; these were rebuilt walls, walls with a testimony. They showed God’s faithfulness to His people, bringing them back from captivity and helping them rebuild their land.

The rebuilt walls in our lives are also a testimony of God’s faithful loving-kindness and mercy.

We want the same as the good old days. Many times, however, He gives us more than we had before or even something better.

As Peter tells us:

“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10, ESV).

He doesn’t just give us back the pieced-together remnants of our past; He restores us in a way that makes us stronger, and He does it Himself, crafting us into wholeness with His own patient hand.

For any local friends, we’ll be working on our crayon project all the way through the summer. If you have your own broken, dull, paperless crayons that you don’t want to use any more, we’d love to have them! No need to peel the paper off or anything; we’ll take care of all of that. Thanks so much for helping us with our project!

Are You Talking to Me?

February 25, 20151 Comment

I thought the note was for some other mom.

Years ago, my daughter toted a note home from preschool. Now that they had all learned their phone numbers, they were working on their address. Could we please practice at home?

I reviewed our address with my four-year-old until she could rattle it off like a pro.

At the end of the month, we received a new note. They’ll be studying spring, plants, and working on their spring program and, by the way, some kids still didn’t know their address….could we please practice with them at home?

I asked my daughter to say her address.

She said it.

I nodded my head approvingly.

This note must be for some other mom.

In April, notes came home every few weeks…about spring break and final plans for the year and what they were learning now and preparations for Easter parties and the spring program and oh, one more thing, could the children who still didn’t know their addresses please make sure they learned them?

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Some parents! You know?

But then in May, I sat at the tiny table with my body squeezed into a preschooler-sized blue plastic chair and had a conference with my daughter’s teacher. She hands me the assessment sheet with checkmarks everywhere. Your child can do all of this….but she can’t say her address.

I’m sorry. What?

Apparently, that note had been for me all along. I called my daughter over to the table and she recited her address flawlessly in just over a second and then ran off to play.

I guess all along they’d been asking my daughter if she could say her address and she just told them, ‘no.’

So, the notes home could have had my name written all over them. They were meant for me! And I had moseyed along on my oblivious way thinking surely my child had gotten her little box checked off.

Sometimes, we need notes and faith and life to be monogrammed with our initials before we realize it’s for us.

We can look at the Bible, we can see what God did and what He’s doing and we can think He’s wonderfully compassionate, powerful and yet full of mercy, for the world and for everyone else in the world.

But then it gets personal.

The disciples tagged along after Jesus as He healed the crowds. Lepers and the lame, the demon-possessed and those wrecked with pain came to Him for rescue and He performed the miracles.

My Bible marks the book of Matthew with newspaper headlines: Jesus Heals The Sick. Jesus Heals Many. Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand.

Jesus changed lives for lots of people.

But then it got personal for the 12 rag-tag followers.

When Jesus went off to pray, He sent them on ahead to cross the lake on their own. In the middle of the night, he came out to them, walking on the water.

Peter jumped out of the boat and took steps out onto the sea….and then sank when he saw the wind and felt afraid.

But as soon as Jesus lifted Peter up and they slipped into the boat, the wind ceased. The storm calmed. The sea rested.

Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” (Matthew 14:33).

Then…they worshiped.

Max Lucado writes:

They had never, as a group, done that before. Never…….You won’t find them worshiping when he heals the leper. Forgives the adulteress. Preaches to the masses. They were willing to follow. Willing to leave family Willing to cast out demons. Willing to be in the army. But only after the incident on the sea did they worship him. Why? Simple. This time they were the ones who were saved.” (In the Eye of the Storm)

Faith has to be personal and intimate.

Sometimes, I confess it, I slip into the humdrum and the mundane and the complacency of religion.

But then God rescues me from the storm. He comes close and draws near. He whispers my name.

This is for you.

Not just everyone else. Not just other moms, other wives, other women.

Not just for the whole world. Not just for the crowd.

This, dear one, is for you.

And the worship that I’d been offering by rote and by habit transforms into heartfelt praise and all-out abandon.

Because, after all, I am the one who is saved.

Praying What You Really Don’t Want to Pray

February 20, 2015January 4, 20161 Comment

Afraid.

Sometimes I’m afraid to pray those ‘dangerous’ prayers even when I know deep-down that’s what I should pray for.

But it’s like giving God permission to interrupt my life, letting Him move on into my heart and mind with cleaning supplies and uncover all the dirt I’ve hidden away.

So, I sat there holding the prayer card, debating whether to write the truth down.

I’ve been making these prayer cards for my family, friends and others I pray for. I have a card for my husband, for each of my children, one for the unsaved, one for church and another for Bible study, and a card for me.

The cards are growing over time. I scribble down my requests for my kids and then the next day I find the perfect verse to pray, so I jot it down on the back of this 3 x 5 white index card with a Sharpie marker.

I’m not writing the little requests that change day-to-day: a fever, a bruise, a big math test.

These are the prayers about character and life, big decisions,using their gifts for God’s glory, spiritual growth and their future.

For each child, I know what I need to pray. One needs to grow in forgiveness. Another in self-discipline and overcoming fear. Another in being teachable and accepting grace.

But I pause, my hand hovering over the card.

Do I write down’forgiveness?’ What if God allows my daughter to be hurt because of my prayer? What if He allows pain so deep that she has to fight through bitterness to choose to forgive?

What about “teachable?” Do I dare write that down? What if God humbles my daughter through excruciating failure, brokenness, and the lessons of humility?

We Christians have joked about it so often, “Don’t pray for patience!!!” That’s what we remind each other and then we laugh in agreement because, truth is, God has taught us all some of those painful lessons in patience.

And we didn’t like them.

So, we’re afraid to pray.

Yes, I am afraid to pray, too.

I know why. It’s a trust thing. I’m not believing the best about God.

The truth is that God won’t bruise or break if a gentle lesson, a sweet whisper could change our hearts.

He never answers our prayers for patience with trials just because He’s mean like that. Or He likes to hurt us. Or He can’t come up with another way to teach us.

If I pray for my daughters to grow in these areas, I can trust Him to teach them in the best way, the perfect lessons at the perfect timing, and if their hearts are yielded and moldable clay, He’ll use the gentlest touch to fix the imperfections He finds.

And the truth is that if it’s breaking we need, He’ll allow the brokenness so that He can reshape us and form us into something beautiful: into the image of His Son.

But even then, I can trust His hand. I can trust His love for us and the grace He pours out and the way He never gives up.

As I read in Genesis, I think how Jacob must have been so afraid. I recognize it now as I look at him: one fear-filled human looking into the heart of another fear-filled human.

Jacob lost his son Joseph. So, when his remaining sons trekked off to Egypt for food during an intense famine, he had one demand: They had to leave his youngest son, Benjamin, behind. He couldn’t lose another son. Not ever again.

It seemed to work at first. The boys brought home grain from Egypt and the youngest son stayed home.

But the food ran out again and Joseph had made it clear—-no younger brother in Egypt, no more food.

Jacob either needed to trust God or his whole family would starve.

And God let Jacob reach the very end of all his resources so that Jacob would finally let go of control and send all his sons back to Egypt, Benjamin included (Genesis 43).

This was God at work.

Jacob was terrified, but God was in this. He was working for the reconciliation of Jacob’s family and the preservation of the entire nation of Israel.

But as long as Jacob held on tight to control, not wanting the possibility of pain, he missed out on God’s best.

We can trust God with our hearts, with our lives, with our children, with our marriages. We can trust Him with all of it.

So, I write down those prayer requests on the prayer cards and I entrust my children to His care. I tell Him that I’m afraid. I tell Him the truth about what’s in my heart.

But I trust Him and I let go.

Want to learn how to pray with prayer cards? I first read about them in Paul Miller’s book, A Praying Life.

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.

How to know what really matters

February 18, 2015April 12, 2018Leave a comment

Some days, you must choose grace.

Not just choose to give grace, but choose to receive it, take it in, soak it up past the superficial skin and let it seep down deep into your soul, into the places of self-condemnation. Let it erase the records of wrongs, mistakes and imperfections.

Like when you shop at at the grocery story and you forgot your coupons. And they don’t have the chicken you need, which messes up your meal plan for the week.

So you skip out on exercise because you had to trek to a second grocery story to find said elusive chicken.

And during the rush to put away the groceries, all you can see is the dirt in the corners of the kitchen floor, the apple juice splatters, the toothpaste splotches in the bathroom sink, and the laundry piled in the basket.

At the end of the day, what’s on your mind is mess and failure, what you didn’t accomplish….how your kids didn’t practice the piano, your toddler threw a tantrum every hour, and you didn’t finish the project you’re working on.

I collapsed onto the sofa after having that day and read to my daughters quickly. When we finished the chapter, my daughter reached over and turned down the corner the page to hold our place.

And I felt the full rush of failure.

I’m a page-turner-downer from way back. Despite a lovely, inspirational, unique and extensive collection of bookmarks, I fall back on a long-established bad habit. I just dog-ear my page and snap the book shut.

Unfortunately, it’s a bad habit I’ve unwittingly passed along to these daughters of mine. In fact, it’s so extreme they’ve even coined a term for it, transforming the word “chapter” into a verb.

“Mom, don’t close the book until we ‘chapter it!” they say and I dutifully slip the corner of the page down.

Watching my daughter turn down that page without hesitation, I heard that voice in my head: I’m passing along my bad habits to my children, handing them down like ill-fitting jeans and worn-out shoes.

Unfortunately, some of them aren’t as immaterial as dog-eared book pages–like stressing perfection too much, having too little patience with ourselves and others, always wanting to be in control, and not accepting grace in the wake of messy failure.

Don’t we all have days where it seems we meet with more failure than success? Where Satan can barrage us with reminders of the mistakes from long ago and the crazy mishaps of today?

Where every mom on Facebook seems to have it all together: gourmet meals for their family, a spit-n-shine house, Martha Stewart-like crafting ability, time to bake, snazzy Scrapbook pages, award-winning kids, and time for family service projects….”

Or maybe you feel it at your job or in your ministry or with your friends. What you should be doing. What you failed to do. What you said that was wrong. How you fall short. How you could be better.

The pressure of perfection is far too much for our imperfect selves tripping along in an imperfect world.

And that’s the point, sweet friend. It’s not to get everything right. It’s to get what really matters right. It’s to do our best and just lay it all out, insufficient as it is, as an offering before a gracious God who just wants our heart anyway.

Paul told Timothy:

“The whole point of what we’re urging is simply love—love uncontaminated by self-interest and counterfeit faith, a life open to God” (1 Timothy 1, MSG).

Sometimes we have to stop and ask, “What’s the point? What is it that really matters here?”

Is it a chicken? Missing coupons? Apple juice splatter or the pages of a book turned down at the corner?

What matters is living “a life open to God.”

So, we choose to receive that grace and rest in it. We silence that self-condemning prattle in our mind and heart and decide: it’s okay if we didn’t get it all perfect today and if our life got a little bit messy.

Doesn’t God love us?

Didn’t we try our best to walk in that love?

That’s the point and that’s enough.

Now, it’s your turn: Do you have any bad habits?

Originally posted November 2, 2012

The one Valentine you really need

February 13, 2015Leave a comment

psalm 45 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.

Praying with a Penny Cup

February 11, 2015February 10, 20152 Comments

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. ¹⁵And 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. 1 john 5

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.

12 Bible Verses on God’s Love for Us

February 9, 2015Leave a comment

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, ⁵made 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. ¹⁰This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Dear 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.

Come Messy

February 4, 2015February 4, 20151 Comment

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.

If I Put a Spoon Under My Pillow, Will It Snow?

January 30, 2015January 29, 2015Leave a comment

“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. ¹⁵For 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 C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Tag: Christianity

Dear Son, Let Me Explain How Shape Sorters Work

Ask God.

Ask Him.

He’s generous.

“The One who laid earth’s foundations and settled its dimensions knows where the lines are drawn. He gives all the light we need for trust and for obedience” (Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor)

Recycling Crayons for Operation Christmas Child (and a lesson in restoration)

The rebuilt walls in our lives are also a testimony of God’s faithful loving-kindness and mercy.

Are You Talking to Me?

Faith has to be personal and intimate.

Praying What You Really Don’t Want to Pray

Want to learn how to pray with prayer cards? I first read about them in Paul Miller’s book, A Praying Life.

How to know what really matters

Don’t we all have days where it seems we meet with more failure than success? Where Satan can barrage us with reminders of the mistakes from long ago and the crazy mishaps of today?

The pressure of perfection is far too much for our imperfect selves tripping along in an imperfect world.

And that’s the point, sweet friend. It’s not to get everything right. It’s to get what really matters right. It’s to do our best and just lay it all out, insufficient as it is, as an offering before a gracious God who just wants our heart anyway.

Now, it’s your turn: Do you have any bad habits?

The one Valentine you really need

Praying with a Penny Cup

12 Bible Verses on God’s Love for Us

Come Messy

If I Put a Spoon Under My Pillow, Will It Snow?

Ask God.

Ask Him.

He’s generous.

“The One who laid earth’s foundations and settled its dimensions knows where the lines are drawn. He gives all the light we need for trust and for obedience” (Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor)

My devotional for today:

The rebuilt walls in our lives are also a testimony of God’s faithful loving-kindness and mercy.

My devotional for today:

Faith has to be personal and intimate.

My devotional for today:

Want to learn how to pray with prayer cards? I first read about them in Paul Miller’s book, A Praying Life.

My devotional for today:

Don’t we all have days where it seems we meet with more failure than success? Where Satan can barrage us with reminders of the mistakes from long ago and the crazy mishaps of today?

The pressure of perfection is far too much for our imperfect selves tripping along in an imperfect world.

And that’s the point, sweet friend. It’s not to get everything right. It’s to get what really matters right. It’s to do our best and just lay it all out, insufficient as it is, as an offering before a gracious God who just wants our heart anyway.

Now, it’s your turn: Do you have any bad habits?

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today: