Tag: Christianity

Why won’t anyone sit in the back of the minivan?

4 Comments

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…..”psalm 18

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

 

 

 

 

12 Bible Verses and a Prayer for When You Need to be Refreshed

19 Comments

verses-about-being-refreshed

  • Psalm 19:7 NIV
    The law of the Lord is perfect,
        refreshing the soul.
    The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
        making wise the simple.
  • Psalm 23:1-3 NIV
    The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
    2     He makes me lie down in green pastures,
    he leads me beside quiet waters,
    3     he refreshes my soul.
    He guides me along the right paths
        for his name’s sake.
  • Psalm 68:9 NIV
    You gave abundant showers, O God;
        you refreshed your weary inheritance.
  • Proverbs 11:25 NIV
    A generous person will prosper;
        whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.
  • Jeremiah 31:25 NIV
     I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.”
  • Acts 3:19 NIV
     Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,
  • Romans 15:32 NIV
    so that I may come to you with joy, by God’s will, and in your company be refreshed.
  • 1 Corinthians 16:18 NIV
    For they refreshed my spirit and yours also. Such men deserve recognition.
  • 2 Corinthians 7:13 NIV
    By all this we are encouraged.In addition to our own encouragement, we were especially delighted to see how happy Titus was, because his spirit has been refreshed by all of you.jeremiah 31
  • 2 Timothy 1:16
    May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains.
  • Philemon 1:7 NIV
    Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people.
  • Philemon 1:20 NIV
     I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ.

prayerrefreshing

Dear Daughter, Remember That Nightmare About Divorce?

8 Comments

Dear daughter,

Remember that morning when I found you slipping quietly out of the bathroom into a corner of the house all alone?

I stopped that mad rush of cereal pouring, hair brushing, and shoe finding to smooth down your wild morning hair and ask if you were okay.marriage

Those tears, the loud kind that burst uncontrollably out of your soul, they shook your whole body and I couldn’t understand what you were saying because those words stuck right in your throat.

A nightmare.

I rocked you just as if you were still my baby girl (even if your head touches my shoulders now).

What was it about? 

I expect monsters, fire, death or even a bad grade on a test.

But you tell me one….slow….word….at a time: I dreamed you…..and……dad……got……divorced.

You stun me.  We hadn’t fought.  There was no tension in the home.  No need to fear.

Hadn’t you watched us hug and kiss goodbye every morning?  Hadn’t you seen me stop cooking that dinner and setting that table every evening to hug your dad and welcome him home for the night?

Why are you afraid?

But it wasn’t really about us at all.  It’s about a scary world where marriages don’t often last and your friends split their time between dad’s house and mom’s house.  It’s about a friend telling you, “My dad doesn’t love my mom anymore.  He doesn’t love any of us.”

Even the safe place seems like shaky ground.

I tell you the truth.

How we are happily married and being together even now is joy.romans 5

I tell you how seriously we take that vow we made when we said, “I will love you forever” and slipped those rings onto our fingers.

Sure, we meant romance love and feeling love, but we also meant committed love, covenant love, I-will-make-our-marriage-a-priority love.

Divorce smashes the lives of good people, Christian people, godly women and honorable men.  It’s real and ugly and I don’t want to sugarcoat the danger.

Sometimes even the best wife who has done everything right walks that hard road of aloneness and betrayal.

But I want you to know this, too.  There were decisions I made as a teenage girl, as a single young woman, that made this marriage I have beautiful–not perfect perhaps, but lovely—from the start.

I want you to hear this wisdom: sometimes a good marriage starts when you’re 13 and that first boy asks you to the school dance.   Remember this:

1. Do what God has called you to do—Don’t worry about boys, love, dating, or marriage.  Focus on Jesus.  Grow beautiful and strong in Him.  Go to the college that’s right for you, not the one a boyfriend attends.  Fulfill your calling and your potential.  Don’t look for love; let God bring it to you.

2. Wait for God’s best—That first boy who asks you out isn’t necessarily “the one.”  You are beautiful, smart, funny, strong, kind….Boys might swarm around you; don’t be swayed.  I saved myself body, soul, and mind for the one man who was God’s best for me and your dad is totally worth it.

3. Make sure He’s in love with Jesus—Attending church twice a year, saying you love God but couldn’t be bothered with discipleship or Bible-reading or Christian service?  That’s not loving Jesus.  That’s calling yourself a Christian without the fruit.  If you want to respect your husband as a spiritual leader, he needs to show that leadership before the wedding day.

4. Fall in love with your eyes wide open—You won’t find a perfect man.  No person is perfect and no marriage is perfect either.  Know what his flaws are in advance and be committed with a plan to love him, not change him.

5. Ask hard questions–Some couples marry without talking about kids, career plans, church, or money. Ask the hard questions before marriage.  Don’t just shrug your shoulders and figure love will carry all.  Love dies on battlefields like those all the time.romans 12

6. Give and Receive Respect–If he annoys you with stupid jokes, doesn’t understand or care about what you have to say, can’t hold a job, loses his temper easily, or embarrasses you in public now, he sure will later.  Marry someone it’s easy to respect and be proud of.  And, make sure he treats you as the precious gift from God that you are, valuing your opinion, not dominating you or devaluing you.  Paul wrote to “Outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10 ESV).  Make that your goal because kindness always matters. It matters when you’re dating, when you’re first married, and when you’ve been married 20 years.  Give respect and kindness; expect respect and kindness

7.  Build the friendship–That friendship you develop before marriage is what you should cultivate every year after “I do.”  So when the kids are grown and gone, the freshness of young love fades, and your body ages and changes, you’ll still be best friends.

Marriage can be beautiful and holy, a sacred place where God transforms us to be more like Christ, where joy grows, selfless and sacrificial love blooms, and you help each other produce fruit as individuals and as one together.

This was my prayer for my own marriage on my wedding day.  This is what I pray for you even now:

 For because of our faith, he has brought us into this place of highest privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to actually becoming all that God has had in mind for us to be (Romans 5:2 The Living Bible).

Love,
Mom.

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

14 Days of Prayer for Your Marriage with 1 Corinthians 13 (plus a Free Printable!)

4 Comments

When I was a girl earning my badges in the kids’ program in my home church, I had to memorize the whole chapter of 1 Corinthians 13 in the King James Version.

It’s stuck.  I can still rattle off bunches of it.marriageprayer

But I hope it really stuck…you know?  Not the rote memorization, but the revelation of what love is.  God loves us this way.  And He says even if we’re performing the most outrageous acts of self-sacrifice and service and we’re not doing it out of love, then it’s just meaningless drivel.

So, I’m praying for the next two weeks through this “Love Chapter” for my marriage because I want it to be meaning-full and I want it to reflect God’s love to the world around us.  Perhaps you will be praying for your own marriage, too?

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Cor. 13:4-8 NIV).

Day One, Love is Patient: 

Lord, today let us respond with patience and show each other grace.  We know that no one changes over night and none of us is perfect.  We make mistakes.  We forget, we grow careless, and we become distracted by life and stress.  Please let us be patient with each other, with our marriage, with our circumstances, just as you are so patient with us.  Help us not to push, nudge, or give up on each other, but instead may we give each other room and grace to grow more like You.  

Day Two, Love is Kind:

God, it’s too easy to forget the simple beauty of kindness.  We can neglect courtesy and consideration.  Help us to be thoughtful and kind to one another, showing each other respect and attention in our words and deeds.   Stir our hearts to remember the small things like holding doors, making phone calls, performing acts of service, putting the other’s needs above our own.  As it says in Ephesians 4:32, may we “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave You.”

Day Three, Love Does Not Envy:

Lord, As it says in The Message, “Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.”  Let this be true of us.  Help us appreciate the gift you’ve given us in this marriage and in each other and cultivate contentment and gratitude in our hearts. We don’t need to compare our spouse or our marriage to anyone else’s.  Instead, thank You for the marriage You’ve given us.  Please remind us throughout the day of all the reasons we fell in love in the first place.

Day Four, It does not Boast, it is not Proud:

Jesus, at that Last Supper with Your disciples, You bent so low and You poured that water over their grimy feet.  You, Our Savior, came “not to be served, but to serve” (Matthew 20:28).  May we never be too proud to serve one another in the humblest of ways.  We might think, “That’s his responsibility; that’s her job.”  In our selfishness, we might feel like we’ve given so much already and how could we give any more?  But we bend low today.  We lay down our rights and our pride and choose to serve our spouse just as You served us.

Day Five, It does not dishonor others:

God, may we show each other honor in all we do and say.  Guard our mouths.  May our words be used to encourage, praise, and build one another up, not tear each other down, find fault, or trample all over each other’s feelings.  When we’re with others, don’t let us fall into those traps of complaining about marriage or our spouses, but instead let the way we talk about one another help others to know the beauty of marriage the way You designed it.

Day Six,  It is Not Self-Seeking:

Father, we live in a “me first” world.  We’re told to “look out for number one” and to take care of ourselves above all.  But that is not Your way.  Jesus “made himself nothing” and humbled himself, choosing “even death on a cross” for us—for me (Philippians 2:6-8).  Today, let us choose Your way over the world’s way:  “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:3-4).

Day Seven, It is Not Easily Angered:

God, forgive me for the times I’ve reacted in anger instead of responding with grace.  And so often, too often really, we can make the smallest issues into the biggest deals.  Help me not to be easily angered.  Today, may we overlook petty offenses and minor bothers.  Redirect our vision to focus on what is good rather than what we think is wrong.  Remind us of what is important and learn to let the inessentials pass by unnoticed.

Day Eight, It Keeps No Record of Wrongs:

Lord, if You kept a record of all my sins, I couldn’t stand up under the weight of them all.  I’d be buried in accusations and proof of my failures.  But You show grace.   May we likewise extend grace to each other, as it says in 1 Peter: “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love coves a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).  If we excel at anything in this marriage, may it be at forgiveness.  When Satan tries to drag all that trash up from the past, we ask that You help us choose forgiveness instead, choose to let it go, choose to move toward one another instead of apart, choose to rebuild trust, choose moving on.

Day Nine, Love Does Not Delight In Evil, but Rejoices With the Truth:

God, help us rejoice with our spouse when they rejoice and mourn when they mourn.  Let us be a place of refuge and safety for them when they share their struggles, fears, emotions, hopes and dreams.  Help us to “have each other’s back” all the time and to be such a team that we delight and take pleasure in what is good and true and battle together against what is evil and wrong.

Day Ten, Love Bears All Things (ESV, NKJV):

Lord, we are so thankful that when there are burdens to bear, You’ve called us to bear them together.  As it says in Your Word,  “Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2 NLT).  May we bear all things together.  May we carry each other to the cross and help each other each day.  If one of us is weak, may the other be strong in You.

Day Eleven, Always trusts:

God, build trust in our marriage.  Create that environment of honesty and truth.  But more than that, may we always trust You to care for us and to guide us.  We know that start to finish, this marriage, our lives, our family is in Your hands.  We know You are trustworthy, so faithful and full of merciful, loyal love for us.  We pray that our home and our marriage reflect that to those around us.

Day Twelve, Always hopes:

Lord, we don’t want to ever lose hope.  We know that You have a plan and a future for us as individuals and as a couple, and we thank You for that.  Thank You that You never give up on us and we pray that we never give up on each other.  Each morning, let us wake with hope for a new day, for fresh starts, and for the work that You want to do in us.

Day Thirteen, Always Perseveres 

God, remind us during the hard days, when we’re hurt or angry, tired, frustrated, or broken, that You are with us.  Help us to persevere through every season of difficulty.  Draw us together during those times instead of letting circumstances drive us apart.  Where there is distance, bring intimacy.  Where there is bitterness, bring reconciliation.  Where there is coldness, bring passion.  Where there is pain, bring healing.

Day Fourteen, Love Never Fails

Father, Your love for us doesn’t fail.  You just never give up on us.  Thank You for that unfathomable and astonishing love when we are so unworthy.  We pray that our marriage will grow ever more beautiful each day, not fading, not failing.  In every single season, we pray that You will help our relationship thrive.  Teach us how to avoid the pitfalls in communication, in intimacy, in finances, in conflict, in friendship, in parenting and in every way so that we will always be putting on love, which binds every other virtue together in perfect unity (Colossians 3:14). 

In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.Photo by Cora Miller

Will you join me in praying for your marriage for 14 days?  If you would like a printout of these prayers to place in Your Bible or journal or maybe on your fridge or bathroom mirror, you canclick here for the free printable!

If you’d like to see the 12 Verses I pray for my husband, you can click here!

Originally posted MAY 2, 2014 

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

When I Fell in Love

2 Comments

I can’t say exactly when I fell in love with this man.

He was on stage the first time I saw him, portraying Mr. Elton in a production of Jane Austen’s Emma(my favorite), and I was an audience member.   I laughed loud and long when he delivered the first line of the play while pretending to read from a book:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

I heard my laugh hit the silence of the auditorium.  Apparently, I was the only one who got the joke (as a character from Emma read the first line from Pride and Prejudice).  And so I slumped into my chair wishing someone—anyone—shared my sense of humor.

I actually met him a week later after a college worship service.  Someone in the crowd pointed to the guy up front strumming the guitar.  “See that guy,” he said, “You just saw him on stage last week.”

Unbeknownst to me, this young guy who led worship and the drama ministry and acted in productions based on my favorite literature had just prayed a daring prayer two weeks before.

He told God he wasn’t looking for a relationship any more.  He was content to be single until God hit him over the head with a 2 x 4 and told him “Thou shalt marry this girl.”

I met him two weeks after that.

And a week after that, I was the new pianist on his praise team (and he’s still my worship leader even now).

I fell in love with the way he used his gifts and talents for God’s glory.

There was his calmness, too.  I loved my dad, but life with him wasn’t calm; it was loud much of the time and sometimes downright volatile.  This man, though, measured his words with wisdom and careful thoughtfulness.

Add to that his quick and witty humor that kept me giggling endlessly in the corner of the praise team section, and I realized that he was smarter than me and that was okay.

We’ve never been an opposites-attract kind of couple.  We’re probably two of the most alike people who God matched together.

Except for the fact that he only cares about doing what’s right and not whether it pleases anyone else while I’m a people-pleaser.

And the fact that he can rest and take time (perhaps . . . dare I say it . . .procrastinate) and I’m neurotically pushed to do and do and do relentlessly, first, fastest, and rest when you die.

I can’t say when it happened, but at some point I fell in love.jeremiah 31b

I can’t speak for him and say exactly why he fell in love with me.

Nor can I say exactly why God loves any of us either, surely not my awkward, nervous, uptight, worrying self.

Amazingly, though, this isn’t a “fall in love” kind of love at all.  God doesn’t grow to love any of us over time or awaken one morning and realize how much He cares.

He loves us.

It really is the beginning and the end of our story.

Like the first time I saw my daughters, I loved them in an instant.  I didn’t slowly grow to appreciate their character or develop feelings for them over time.

In Jeremiah, God declares:

“before I formed you in the womb I knew you”  and David similarly prayed, “you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139:13).

God loved you before you squinted your eyes at the first burst of light, screamed out and got cleaned off, bundled up and handed to your mom.

He loves you when you feel loved and when you feel overlooked, when you received a blessing and when you endured a trial.  This love of his doesn’t wax or wane, change or alter or depend on us and what we do or say or feel or think.

We’ve never been good enough, pure enough, beautiful enough, or wise enough to earn it.

But even though we’re unworthy, even when we’ve strayed, even when we’ve felt that seemingly incurable distance from Him or poured out in painful honesty what’s troubling us…

Still He loves.

He says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3).

And what can we do with this everlasting and unfailing love, so amazing and confusing because it’s far more than we deserve?

“We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

Originally published September 24, 2012

 

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

12 Bible Verses to Pray for Your Husband

4 Comments

I’m celebrating my 15th wedding anniversary in a little over a week, so I decided to have some fun sharing and re-sharing some posts about marriage in January.  Several of these have been the most-visited posts I’ve ever put up on the blog, so our hearts seem to be in the same place, wanting to pray for our husbands and be a blessing to them!  Enjoy!

You can also find me sharing in other places today online:

I’m blessed to be leading the new Womens Bible Cafe study of Kelly Minter’s book, What Love Is, for the next several weeks.  We are just getting started today with introductions, so there is still time to grab a book and join in!  You can find me blogging over at WBC with today’s Welcome Post here!

You can also find my post, Having Hope When You’ve Been Stepped On, over at the Ruby for Women blog today.

Thanks for stopping by, for celebrating with me, and for praying together~

~heather~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“My man.”

I’ve never really been into that phrase.verseshusband

“I’m waiting for my man to come home.”  “So proud of my man.”  “Enjoying some time with my man.”

It’s a Facebook status favorite.

It’s just not my favorite, not my personal style or verbal inclination.

But still this is truth.

Song of Songs:

I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine (6:3 NIV).

Paul said it, too:

 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife (1 Corinthians 7:4 NIV).

Mine.  Joined to me and fused into me so strong that hurts to him can suck the breath right out of me and the way he smiles on the good day is my joy, too.

He’s my blessing, this gift.  Mine to treasure, to enjoy, to love.

But gifts aren’t just enjoyed; they are watched over, cared for, tended, and kept safe.  God entrusted him to me.

He’s mine to respect, listen to, encourage, fill up and build up, support and to stand by.

And mine to pray for. 

Stormie Omartian wrote, “Prayer is the ultimate love language” (The Power of a Praying® Wife, p.29).

Here are 12 of my favorite verses to pray for my husband:

  • A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones (Proverbs 12:4 NIV).

Lord, help me to be a godly wife, an encouragement and support to him.  Show me how to love him and help me to see him with your eyes.  Forgive me for my mistakes and failings and help me be a better wife every day.

  •  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength (Mark 12:30 NIV).

God, draw my husband closer to You each day and stir in him a passion for You and Your Word.

  • Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me (Psalm 51:10 NIV).

Create in my husband the desire for purity.  Help him to hunger and thirst for righteousness and give him the steadfast spirit, the strength, and the discipline to choose what is right and godly.  When he is tempted, help him to overcome and to run closer to you.

  • But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Matthew 6:33

Show my husband how to balance the priorities and stresses on his shoulders.  Help him always to place You first and then allow every area of his life to fall into place as a result.

  • Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.  Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV

Help my husband trust in You and submit to You in all ways.  Make his path straight.  Show him where to step and how to walk in obedience.  Renew his faith even in the tough times and the dark places.  Remind him of Your presence with Him and the way You have gone before him.

  •  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 (James 1:5 NIV).

Fill my husband with Your wisdom so that in all things, in every situation, he will know Your will.

  • Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up…Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm…Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 NIV)

Strengthen our marriage daily.  Unite us as a team that cannot be broken.  Show us how to love one another selflessly, to communicate, to show affection, to work together and always to honor You in our relationship.  Teach us how to forgive and give us opportunities to laugh and find joy together.  Defeat any attempt by Satan to divide us with anger, bitterness, infidelity, divorce…

  • Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4 NIV).

Father God, be with my husband as he parents our children.  Help us be in agreement as we care for and discipline them and attempt to “bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”  Give him wisdom and compassion, fairness and grace, strength and sensitivity.

  • Let love and faithfulness never leave you…Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man (Proverbs 3:3-4 NIV).

Make my husband’s godly character shines in every situation.  Give him favor with You and with man, especially in the work place.  Protect his reputation and allow his life to be a witness to those around him.

  • May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us– yes, establish the work of our hands.  Psalm 90:17 NIV

Establish the work of his hands.  Let it be successful and fruitful labor, well-rewarded and recognized.  Help him overcome obstacles and solve problems with creativity and wisdom.  Reveal solutions to him.  Protect him  from mis-steps and bad decisions.

  • The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered…the Lord gave him success in everything he did,  Genesis 39:2-3

Just as you blessed the work of Joseph, bless the work of my husband.  Let everything he touches be successful and prosperous.  Prosper his business/company because he is there.

  • But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin (1 John 1:7 NIV).

Give my husband friendships with godly men.   As he walks in the light, give him this “fellowship with one another” so that he doesn’t walk alone, but is strengthened and encouraged by other men of God.

In Jesus’ name….Amen.

If you would like a printout of these prayers to place in Your Bible or journal or maybe on your fridge or bathroom mirror, you can click here for the free printable!

You can also check out 14 Days of Prayer for Your Marriage With 1 Corinthians 13 and grab that free printable resource, too!

Interested in learning more ways to pray for your husband?  My favorite resource is Stormie Omartian’s The Power of a Praying® Wife.  She has also written a book to help you pray for specific areas of conflict and difficulty in your marriage: The Power of Prayer(TM) to Change Your Marriage.
Originally posted on May 24, 2013

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

What’s This Gonna Cost?

1 Comment

I tell my daughters about the email.

Their teacher at church sent us information about an upcoming missions project.  They’ll be collecting money as a class for a ministry in our area, but she doesn’t want the parents to just give kids money to contribute.

Sure, I could stuff a few dollars and some coins into that empty container and send it in with my  kids.  And sure, they could hand it in and feel like they participated and did the good Christian thing that good Christians are supposed to do.

But giving should cost something.

In fact, giving should be costly.

It should require some effort or sacrifice.   We shouldn’t just give when we have more than enough.

True generosity and true love require giving out of need and giving out of not-enough.

My girls protest the fact that they have empty piggy banks, no allowance and no source of renewable income since birthdays only come once a year.

So we return to our tried-and-true method:  Extra chores allow them to earn money to give to missions or charities or ministries.1peter2

The King girls will be sweeping floors and scrubbing toilets to earn those coins to give away.

On Sunday morning, I hold the cup and bread in my hand and pray before Communion, thinking this is a lesson for me, too.

I think about the cost of giving, the cost of generosity.

Surely God has given generously to us.

Maybe it’s complacency from long-term faith, from hearing those same lessons taught in the same ways.  Maybe it’s selfishness.  Maybe it’s forgetfulness.

Whatever the cause, sometimes I cling selfishly to what I have and forget the abundant generosity of God’s gift to me.

Could anything be more generous than grace?

Yes, I mean the cross, but even before that.

Adam and Eve stood in the aftermath of forbidden fruit and witnessed the ugly truth for the first time:  Grace demands sacrifice.

They sinned.  They felt shame in their nakedness and they tried to fix things on their own, fitting leaves together to form a makeshift outfit.

Genesis 3:21 says it wasn’t enough:

The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them (Genesis 3:21 NIV).

I’ve read that verse so often and just ran over the words without thought, but here’s the truth of it.

They sinned.  So God slayed an animal at their feet.  He couldn’t just pick a few animal skins off of a store shelf or drop by the tailor’s so they could be custom-fitted with a faux-leather outfit.

God handcrafted the clothes for His wayward children.

Adam and Eve stood in the garden and watched another creature die for their own offense.  They witnessed the blood running red for the first time ever.

Max Lucado writes:

 “God slays an animal.  For the first time in the history of the earth, dirt is stained with blood.  Innocent blood.  The beast committed no sin.  The creature did not deserve to die……….” (A Love Worth Living).

Then they had to wear the result and remember the high cost of their God-designed outfit.

As Max Lucado puts it: “As a father would zip up the jacket of a preschooler.  God covers them.”  

It’s the act of a dad, helping a little one fit arms into arm-holes and socks onto feet.  It’s tenderness and gentleness and love when they deserved wrath.

And God did this for us, too:

For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness (Isaiah 61:10 NIV).

Right there in the garden it began: Outrageous, undeserved, generous, complete sacrifice of one life for another.isaiah1

I read Leviticus and wonder what it must have been like to watch the whole gory mess of atonement with its blood and guts and death.

It became routine to the Israelites.  How could that be routine?  How could the stench and the bleating of the lambs become routine?

Yet, has the cross become routine to us?

Sin should be shocking.

Grace should shock us all the more.

Maybe if I had to stand and watch God pay the price for my mess with my own two eyes, I’d be less complacent and more overcome.

Maybe if I had to let God silently drape my shoulders with a covering of His own making to hide my nakedness, maybe my heart would break with sorrow at my sin.

Maybe if I watched someone die in my place, knowing how little I deserved it, I’d learn what true generosity is: giving abundantly and without complaint even when it’s undeserved and even when it costs me dearly.

The truth is that Jesus did just that:  He died for us and then He dressed us in His righteousness.

May we be overcome by grace anew.

 

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

Having Hope When You’ve Been Stepped On

1 Comment

My daughter was about two-and-a-half when she stepped on a butterfly.

We do this every spring as we prepare for Easter, order a cup of caterpillars and follow their journey to new life.  We watch the change, marvel again at the miracle: how the tomb doesn’t always mean death; maybe it means resurrection.

We remember that we are the ones who die to self and then gain new life in Christ, like caterpillars willingly spinning themselves into tight dormancy only to be made new.psalm 31

We watched those caterpillars climb all over the tiny plastic cup for about a week.  Then they scaled the sides of the cup, flipped themselves upside down and wrapped themselves into a chrysalis.

They looked dead for a week.

One morning, I shuffled around the kitchen, moving through routine with my eyes barely cracked open.  Poured cereal. Made tea. Oversaw teeth-brushing and hair-brushing.

Then I saw the wings.

The chrysalis had cracked open and there in the morning light sat our first butterfly, fanning his wings slowly, testing the air, while the other caterpillars remained entombed.

Over the next day or so, the other new butterflies pushed their way out and flexed their wings.

We squeezed drops of sugar water on freshly cut chrysanthemums and watched the butterflies strengthen.  First they sat in stillness.  Then they hopped to the bottom and explored.  Then they started flying around in circles, eager for freedom.

So, we set them free.

We gathered into the garden in the warm sun of a spring Saturday and one by one released each butterfly into our garden.

But we forgot to explain the difference between butterflies and bugs to my youngest daughter, I suppose.

When one of the butterflies flew up and then back to the ground, she squashed it.  Quick as any reflex, she just stomped down her tiny foot on the ‘pest’ just like we would any spider.

We all tried to stop her.  It was like a slow motion moment in a film, with us leaping to try to rescue the butterfly and prevent the impending doom, but failing in the end.

Amazingly enough, that butterfly still lived.  We eased him and his bruised wing onto a flower where he could enjoy some food without needing to fly.

Maybe you’ve been that butterfly.

Eager to fly.  Excited for freedom.  Hoping for beauty.

Then crushed, bruised, broken.

Maybe you’ve started this year with anticipation, holding your breath for that first sign of good news.

And you’ve already felt like a giant foot has squashed you to the ground.

Maybe it seems like nothing ever changes even though you desperately long for it to change.

Proverbs 13:12 says:

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

Hope isn’t a fickle whim, a fanciful impression that maybe good things will come your way.

Hope is a steadfast knowledge, an anchor of truth that without a doubt you know: God is good and He will take care of you.

And when you feel a little bruised and battered, like a butterfly crushed at that first taste of freedom, hope can feel a little shaky, a little elusive, a little hard to see in the deep of the dark.

Surely Noah must have had those days, floating on that ark long, long after the rain had ceased and the world was covered in a blanket of endless water.

How long, Lord?  When will this end, Lord?  Will we ever get off this ark, Lord?

Are we stuck here forever?  Will we walk on dry land again?  Can we please live without the stench of a floating zoo in our nostrils day and night?

He started sending out messengers of hope: ravens and doves.

He was desperate for the sign, the assurance of dry, solid ground.

The dove brought him an olive leaf.  More than that, the dove brought him renewed hope.

Max Lucado writes:

“An olive leaf.  Noah would have been happy to have a bird but to have the leaf!  This leaf was more than foliage; this was promise.  The bird brought more than a piece of a tree; it brought hope.  For isn’t that what hope is?  Hope is an olive leaf—evidence of dry land after flood… (From A Love Worth Giving)

And so, when we are weary and defeated, we can seek hope.  We can send out those doves and ravens and ask God for a sign of dry land after flood.

And so, when we are strong, we can be the dove for another.  We can bring olive leaves to the hurting. We can bring reminders of hope and God’s faithfulness to those who can’t see the solid ground.

Do you need an olive leaf today?  Do you need to bring an olive leaf to someone else who is hurting?

Here are 30 Bible Verses on Hope to help.

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

Nobody wants to drink lukewarm water in this house: One Word 2015

5 Comments

My daughter tells me her water is “soggy.”

And my other girl chimes in: “I don’t want this old water.  I need fresh water.”

Then she bops her head up and down for emphasis: “Really.  It needs to be FRESH.”

I pick up the cups of water I poured just two hours before and dump them into my plants.  At least foliage appreciates lukewarm refreshment.

Or, perhaps I’m feeling particularly savvy that day, and I pop in an ice cube before handing these daughters the same cups of water.

Either way, my youngest girl guzzles it down and lets out a satisfied “ahhhh” in gratitude.

It’s fresh water she wants.  Cold.  Newly poured.

Even if the water she has isn’t stagnant or stench-ridden, hot or unhealthy, it sat just a little too long in that Tinkerbell cup and now she needs new.

Normally, as a mom I protest a little.  Two hours is not enough time to de-freshen water, I tell her.  It’s not ice-cold, but it isn’t ‘soggy,’ or undrinkable.

It still prevents dehydration.jeremiah 31

But my soul takes this in because surely she’s discovered what I’m longing for.

For “Fresh.”

My Christian walk isn’t stagnant or rancid, but still I long for ‘new’ and ‘more.’  I don’t to walk out of 2015 the same way that I walked in.

Each year, I choose this One Word and a Scripture to meditate on all year long to focus my heart, mind, and life.

The first year, I chose “Breathe” (Psalm 62:2 MSG).

Then last year, I spent 12 months meditating on “Presence” (Exodus 33:14 NIV).

These were spiritually life-changing for me, not just a random New Year’s task that seems so important on January 1st but loses all meaning by January 31st and not just a cute catchphrase that is temporarily inspiring but ultimately meaningless.

So I prayed over this year’s focus and searched Scripture until I read it:

A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed (Proverbs 11:25 NIV)

Re-fresh.

Already, I relax into the grace of this.

So often, New Year’s is a time of heaping burdens on our backs.

Resolutions.  Reading plans.  Prayer plans.  Devotional plans. Health plans.  Schedule plans. Clutter plans.  Relational plans.  Educational and job plans.

This is what we want to do, do, do this year.

Piled on top of that are the bricks we haul around of recrimination, regret and self-condemnation because of all the plans that failed last year and the year before that.

There are the projects we didn’t finish and the resolutions we let fall by the wayside.  There are the 15 pounds we were supposed to lose.  There is the study we started and never completed.

So, we carry “Failure” from one year onto the next and chain the new year before it’s even begun.

What if we started Fresh?

What if we let the past go and we eased into the new year with devotion and relationship with God instead of any agenda or program?

What if we take this in?

he leads me beside quiet waters,
   he refreshes my soul (Psalm 23:2-3 NIV).

He does the work.  He leads; we follow.  He offers us the cool water to drink and we guzzle it down and let it drench our parched soul.

The beauty in this promise is that as we pour out encouragement, blessing and generous helpings of grace to others, He will refresh us.

Proverbs 11:25 tells us that God looks after the generous.  He refreshes those who refresh others.

Not with leftovers or scraps or day-old water, either, but with the deeply satisfying draft of the Living Water only He can give.

I can try to fill up from the tap of the world or the tap of self-accomplishment or the tap of taking care of me, me, me.

But it will be ‘soggy’ and old, tepid and bitter.

It’s Jesus I need.  And not the Spiritual experiences I had ten years ago or five years ago or yesterday.

I need Jesus—Fresh—-now—-newly poured into my life day after solid day.

This year, I am praying that God will do this work:

Refresh me with His Word: (Psalm 19:7).

Refresh me with rest in His presence: (Psalm 23:2-3).

Refresh me through service: (Proverbs 11:25).

Refresh me through a pure heart (Acts 3:19).

Refresh me with His people (1 Corinthians 16:18).

It’s strength we need for the weary days and revival we need for the dead and broken within.  It’s a filling up so Christ is splashing over the tops of our lives so that we can pour out to others with generosity and grace.  It’s rest in His presence rather than perpetual motion, and it’s new, cold, Living Water we need from it’s only true Source.

Refresh us, Lord, we pray.

prayerrefreshing

 

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

What Can Make You Lose Every Time

3 Comments

I watched as this college friend pulled clothes from her suitcase and packed them into a duffel bag for the Thanksgiving weekend at home.

She still had an empty dresser and a full suitcase 3/4 of the way through the college semester.

I am not like this.  I am an insta-unpacker.  The moment I arrive at a hotel, I nest.  I empty every bag, tuck every item away, fill the mini-kitchen and set up the bathroom sink.

When we return home, I’m going to unpack no matter how late it is.  I’m going to start that load of laundry and pull out the toiletries because it cannot wait until morning, not if I want to get any sleep.

Maybe I looked lost in confusion as I watched my friend move clothes from one bag to another because she stopped to explain it to me.psalm16-11

It wasn’t procrastination or laziness.

It was perfectionism.  It was that ugly enemy that paralyzes us with the lie:  If you can’t do it perfectly, then why do it at all?

“I was so busy,” she said, “I knew I didn’t have time to put my clothes away just right, so I left them in the suitcase.”

Beth Moore wrote:

Perfectionists always lose (Esther).

It’s the same way my son chose to crawl rather than walk for weeks and weeks.  People asked me, “Can he walk yet?”

Yes, he could walk.

Did he always choose to walk?

No.  It amused him to walk a little from room to room or place to place.  But when he wanted to get somewhere with certainty and with speed, he dropped to all fours and crawled like a rocket.

Perfectionism does this; it paralyzes us into this one place of development.  We’re comfortable here.  We move along well enough.  This is what we know.

Why choose stumbling?  Why choose uncertain steps and potential embarrassment?

This is what we lose when we demand perfection from ourselves:  We lose the journey of grace, the way God walks alongside, the way He steadies us with His strong hand and smiles at our progress.  The way He cheers us along and encourages us on the weary days to persevere and not give up, to get up and try once more because He is with us, after all.

Jesus said these words to His disciples and it could have broken over their weary souls like the cracking of a whip, so they felt trampled and beaten and hopeless:

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48 ESV).

Be…..perfect?

It’s tucked in just one tiny verse after the beatitudes and after Jesus tells them not to retaliate against their enemies, not to get divorced, not to lust, not to sin when they’re angry, and to love their enemies.

Yes, do all this.  And be perfect.

That would have caused me some religious whiplash.  If I were taking sermon notes on that hillside, I’d have written it down on my bulletin with exclamation marks and references to look up later in case the preacher was wrong.

Hadn’t the Pharisees preached legalism and works-based faith?  The religious elite told them to be perfect, be perfect, be perfect and if possible, be more perfect, because that’s what it took to please God.

Here I am at the end of my 12-month pursuit of the presence of Christ, and I’m ending the year with this: Abandon Perfection.

But how do you move on past a verse like this?

Be perfect?  That’s impossible.  I’m a mess some days, broken and faulty and prone to sin.

So, Jesus, does that mean we’re hopelessly blocked from Your presence and Your favor because this perfection just trips us all up?

Oh, but here’s the grace we perfectionists need.

Ravi Zacharias writes:

Perfection, then, is not a change in the essential character but the completion of a course...We can never be who God is, but we can complete the task he assigns us to do” (The Grand Weaver).

Jesus didn’t mean we had to attain that holiness on our own or get everything right and never falter or sin.  He knows we can’t.

He asks us, though, to move forward.  Take those steps.  Make progress.  Obey Him.

When He tells us to move, move.  When He plants us, bloom.  When He leads us, follow.  When He prompts us, go.  When He nudges us, yield.

Perfectionists lose because we get so focused on the end that we despair in the middle and simply give up.  Or we never begin in the first place.

But God asks us to just take a walk with Him, rest in His presence, trust His direction, enjoy His company.  Then we’ll be where He wants us to be, with Him….and that’ll be perfect.

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

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