Why do we call this Friday “Good?”

April 18, 20142 Comments

She asked me why we call it “Good Friday.” Why “good?”

Why “Happy Easter” or “Happy Resurrection Day?”

What makes this so “happy?”

How could we celebrate this death, this sacrifice, this sadness? We should be so much more serious and sad, she tells me.

Like the disciples who mourned, like Mary Magdalene crying beside the tomb, surely we should remember this day with tears.

This she asks in confusion.

On Thursday, we ate the bread and drank the cup.

That’s what Jesus said that night in the upper room with disciples scattered around:

“This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19 NIV).

So, we remember.

She is thinking of grape juice and crackers, a snack when you’re hungry, but I tell her it’s more than that.

And she asks, why do this? Why talk about blood–so gross, so morbid and earthy?

It’s too corporeal for holiness and for the sacred places, the striking red against the purity of the righteous life.

Why Mom?

That’s yucky.

I think today about the remembrance of it all and why it matters.

Today is Good Friday.

Last year, Good Friday was also the eight-year anniversary of my dad’s death.

So I sat with my daughter brushing her hair and telling her about my dad: little remembrances here and there and what makes that day special.

Then what makes this a day holy and set apart from other days? Why Good Friday?

Because there’s beauty in the remembrance. There’s honor and power in recollection.

I think this about my dad. Talking about him makes his life real here and now after death. It makes it more tangible, relevant.

These daughters of mine who never knew him and only see the pictures in a photo album, mostly after he was sick and didn’t look like the dad I remember, what other way for them to know than for me to tell?

And you just don’t want the anniversary of his death to slip by forgotten because it would be forgetting him.

Is it any different remembering our Savior in this season?

In German, they don’t call this day Good. They call it Mourning Friday.

But isn’t that the beauty of this day? That even as we remember Christ’s death, even as we talk about the cross and give it true attention, even as we drink the cup so apt to stain white and we eat the bread broken, even as we tell our children the stories and we say:

This is what He did for us. Not some pristine ritual, not something pure and clean. It was bloody and painful. It was death. It was hard. And sacrifice like that was suffering.

It wasn’t pushed on Him because He was too weak. Jesus “made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:7-8 NIV).

This is what He chose to do for us because of love so great.

Love so good. Love so amazing, so divine…

Even as we say this and tell this to our children, the beauty of remembering the cross isn’t just the Mourning of our Savior, it’s the Good News that the resurrection came.

Why Good?

Why Happy?

I tell her remembering is how we worship, how we give thanks, how we honor His gift to us.

And that gift wasn’t just a trinket wrapped in a package with a bow.

It was good. Truly good. The greatest gift at the highest price.

And the resurrection; that’s our joy. What better reason to be happy than to know the cross was not the end and the tomb didn’t destroy our hope?

Because of this, we have life everlasting.

And because of that day, we can see any crisis as an opportunity for Him to shine with resurrection power, to resurrect the dead, to defy all expectations and trample all over the circumstantial evidence by doing the impossible.

Yes, this remembering is good.

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.

What to do (and what not to do) when staring at a STOP sign for more than 5 minutes

April 16, 2014April 16, 20143 Comments

I complained about the road work.

Typically, I zip around this tiny town of mine, back and forth all day every day, transporting children. Pick this child up. Drop her off. Go back and get the other child. Drive her somewhere else. Return to the first location to pick up one child and deposit another.

This schedule has been meticulously planned out. I have charted the routes I travel, timed stoplights, and considered traffic flow.

We have exactly 12 minutes to drive from one place to another and it takes exactly 12 minutes to make that drive. No second to spare.

Then they decide to repave my main thoroughfare.

I sit for over five minutes staring at a man in an neon orange jacket holding a STOP sign. I start out cheerful. It’s a beautiful day. I enjoy the sun. I even feel spiritual and pray, “Thanks, God, for this lovely morning.”

I am proud of how well I’m handling the delay.

Then I start rifling through the papers on the seat next to me. I collect some of the trash that accumulates everywhere in a minivan when you have four kids.

Then I grow impatient. I start sighing and tapping my fingers on the steering wheel.

When that fails, I grit my teeth and talk to the hapless man still standing there with that sign that is halting all my progress for the day, “Come on!”

Eventually, he spins that sign around from STOP to SLOW and I am finally released to normal driving, which at this point means being stuck at a stoplight behind a long line of other cars with equally frustrated drivers for another 5 minutes.

I left my house 10 minutes early because of the construction and I’m still 5 minutes late. I’m flustered and bothered, annoyed, stressed.

So I whine to this woman, and she says to me, “That’s when I know it’s time to stop and BREATHE. God gives me these moments so I just listen to what He has to say for a bit.”

This month, in my 12-month pursuit of the presence of Christ, I’m taking breaks for beauty. I’m seeking out the beauty of the Lord by marveling at the beauty He creates.

And still I got it wrong. He gave me moments to rest in His presence, to enjoy the beauty of a spring day (from inside my minivan) and I fretted and fought instead.

In an hour, I will walk my four-year-old daughter, my baby girl, into a brick school filled with cheerful classrooms and hand over the papers to register her for kindergarten.

She is excited. Every 30 minutes this morning, she asks me if it’s time to go.

I am sad. I decide maybe we can just wait another 10 minutes. Could she just be my baby girl 10 minutes more? And then another 10?

Tomorrow I will place my 6-month-old son on a doctor’s scale and marvel at how he’s grown. I’ll probably come home all proud and tell my husband how big this baby boy is, how strong, how healthy.

But really my momma heart will mourn a little because six months never went by so fast.

So when God gives me 10 extra minutes in that minivan to stop, to rest, to breathe, to listen to His voice…surely I should relax into His presence. exodus33-14

This lesson chafes hard against my driven soul. God brings me here again and again and again.

Rest.

And I wrestle instead.

Funny how 10 minutes of inactivity can be more stressful to me than a whole day of rushing from task to task.

If I want to feel God’s presence in the going and the doing, I must willingly remain in His presence during the resting and the being.

God gave Moses this great task, leading a nation from slavery to promise, but He also gave this assurance:

The LORD replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exodus 33:14 NIV)

The rest is in His presence whether that’s driving from place to place or idling in front of a STOP sign for 10 minutes.

The rest is there because His presence is there.

Today, let us enjoy the gift of time He gives, the gift of quiet moments and unexpected pauses, the blessing of His presence in the rushing and in the stillness, the beauty of His voice in the whisper and in the storm, the time with those we love because that time just rushes right along.

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 ‘Enjoy Beauty’?

What Caterpillars Know That Sometimes I Forget

April 14, 2014April 14, 20141 Comment

There’s always a rebel.

This cup of caterpillars arrives in the mailbox and I set it up high so we can watch them grow.

And do they ever grow.

Within a few days, they start scaling the walls of the plastic cup and demonstrate their acrobatics by clinging to the lid and hanging upside down. First one caterpillar, then another.

Every year, this one lone caterpillar delays. All four of his roommates hang over his head and tuck themselves right up into a chrysalis.

The rebel caterpillar enjoys the food down below, munching at leisure, no more competition for the bug buffet.

Sometimes we wonder if he’ll ever climb on up there already!!

But inevitably he does. One morning, he pads his way up to the top and drops himself upside down just like the others. He wraps himself in the brown chrysalis and waits for the change.

Now all five of them hang in their mesh butterfly house, waiting to emerge. Mostly they rest there, perfectly and completely still.

They look dead.

Totally, completely devoid of all life.

But we move their home just slightly and we see one caterpillar wiggle and squirm inside the chrysalis.

A sign of life now and a sign of life to come.

Could it be these insects know more about hope than we do?

That even in a season of waiting, a time of rest, a moment of seeming-death, still they cling. They submit to the dormancy for the beauty that is to come.

Maybe they know there is something more. That hope and future God promises us, that’s why they climb on up, that’s why they hang themselves right upside down.

Because of what is to come.

And in the middle of the death seasons, the long waits and the God-mandated resting, sometimes we forget this. We can abandon all hope of future, of promise, of new life and the return of joy.

It’s Holy Week. Yesterday, we waved those Palms and we sang, “Hosanna!” Today, I prepare my heart for the Good Friday to come, for Communion and remembrance and meditation on the cross.

I read this morning:

Jesus “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2 ESV).

Jesus knelt in that Garden and He prayed, “not my will, but Yours be done” despite the pain, and the humiliation, the torture, and the death because of the joy to come. He submitted because of resurrection hope.

And we have this. That empty tomb is our hope, too. Our God, who defeated death and the grave, has a plan and a purpose, a hope, a future. We are never alone. We are fully loved and redeemed, forgiven and set free.

All that is dead can become life in His hands. All that is broken can be beautiful. All that is lost can be found.

He can make all things new.

Even the impossible becomes possible with Him.

That is resurrection joy.

Those caterpillars don’t abandon hope of life. They don’t linger in that tomb of a chrysalis. In due season, they push right on out and stretch and dry those wings so they can fly to freedom.

Jesus didn’t die on that cross hopelessly uncertain of the future. He had his sights set on Sunday morning and the “joy set before Him.” That’s why He endured that cross.

But we sometimes lose hope.

Naomi walked through that time of deep loss and life-shattering grief. Her husband dead. Her sons dead. The mourning overshadowed her.

She couldn’t be herself any more. She felt broken beyond repair. So, she changed her name: Mara or “bitter” (Ruth 1:19-21) because she thought surely God couldn’t transform her tragedy and bring new love, new life, and a Redeemer.

There’s that demon-possessed man, too. When Jesus and the disciples met him, “for a long time …he had not lived in a house but among the tombs” (Luke 8:27 ESV).

He lived life in the tombs. Maybe the sorrow felt more comfortable than the joy? Maybe death felt less painful than life?

He preferred the grave.

And then there’s us.

In seasons of waiting, maybe of sorrow, perhaps even of death, do we abandon ourselves to the bitterness and make ourselves cozy among the tombs?

Or do we cling to Christ because of resurrection hope? Do we hold on for dear life to the Savior who defeated death?

Do we hide away in the shadows and settle into the despair or do we run like crazy into His arms when He calls us out of darkness and into light?

So I remember what the caterpillars have known all along: even what seems like death is truly just waiting on new life. Hold on tight, dear one. He brings new life. He brings beauty. He brings you wings so you can soar.

Today, I Can’t Do Everything, But I Can Do One Thing

April 11, 2014April 10, 2014Leave a comment

Today, my to-do list keeps growing instead of shrinking. It’s like a monster from a sci-fi movie, a speck of a bug that everyone scoffs at until it morphs into a gigantic beast who crushes unsuspecting humans underfoot.

This is frustrating.

I’m running around, working frantically at each item on my list.

But I’m hopping from the laundry to picking up beads to cooking, back to laundry to writing to playing puzzles to more writing to cleaning up more beads and then reading my daughter a book.

Unfortunately, as I wash and scrub, I’m discovering more cleaning to do along the way. Open up the refrigerator. Good grief—how long since I’ve cleaned in there? Open up the microwave. The inside looks like a modern art painting. Yeah, add “clean microwave” to the list.

I’m working. I’m active. But I’m not getting anything officially done. I’m bouncing too much from project to project. There’s so much to do, it’s hard to pick a starting point. It’s difficult to shut my eyes to the rest of the mess and just scrub the spot I’m on.

Isn’t that it always? There’s so much to take in. So much to do. So many activities and so little time.

So maybe after a little hyperventilating, a big cup of tea and a generous helping of chocolate, I’m ready to do

just

one

thing.

One thing. That’s really all we need sometimes. We’re trying to do it all, and God asks us just to do one thing at a time.

Who is the one person I need to encourage today?
What is the one main thought or verse I need to take away from time in God’s Word?
What’s the one issue I need to make top priority with my kids today?
What’s the one conversation God wants me to have?
What’s the one thing God wants me to learn today?
What one lesson does God want to teach me in this circumstance?

He can do more, of course. He’s God, so abundant the way He rains down blessings in those seasons.

But it’s enough on these days to hold on to one thing, one truth, and trust God with the rest

In Psalm 27, David brought all of His prayer requests into focus with just one definitive longing:

One thing I have desired of the LORD, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to inquire in His temple (Psalm 27:4).

Jesus lifted that duster and the bottle of Pledge right out of Martha’s hands and told her, “One thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42). Her sister, Mary, had found the one thing true and vital—time with Christ.

When the rich young ruler sought salvation, he declared that he had followed every rule, every bit of the law and fulfilled all of its requirements.

Jesus cut through all of the excess and said, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me” (Luke 18:22).

There was one issue, one lesson, one attitude of the heart that Christ needed to address with this man. Unfortunately, even though the rich young ruler was willing to take on the cumbersome burden of the law, he wasn’t willing to do the one thing Jesus really wanted. Material goods mattered more than salvation to him.

When Jesus healed a man who had been blind since birth, his family and friends pestered him with questions.

How did this happen? Who healed you? Where is this Jesus guy now?

Then the Pharisees heard about the healing and asked questions of their own.

Who is this healer? Why does he have such power? How can a sinner perform this miracle?

Tired of it all, the man finally said, “Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see” (Luke 9:25).

That was enough.

Sometimes we want to know everything. The reasons for the past. The destination of the future. How God is going to work it all out and certainly when it’ll all happen.

What if instead of trying to know everything, we stick to the simplicity of truth?

I know God is in control.

That’s enough.

Maybe that’s my one thing.

What’s your one thing?

Originally posted: January 27, 2012

When You Have to Squint Your Eyes to See the Beauty–a devotion from my garden

April 9, 2014April 9, 2014Leave a comment

Sometimes you have to fight for the glory and squint your eyes tight to find the wonder.

Like today.

My daughter woke me up early. She was ready for the day; I wanted to enjoy a little more night, and so the morning began with a headache, fatigue and maybe a not-so-cheerful attitude.

Then, just as I began to settle into the day, I glanced up at the calendar at 7:58 and realized the heating and air conditioning repairman was coming between 8 and 8:30 a.m. Oops, forgot that one.

He came at 8:20 and normally that time for me is for morning tea and long devotions, starting the week with God and then writing.

But how to be inspired and still with God, how to type out these words on the computer when he’s banging parts and dismantling pieces? Then he calls out, “Ma’am?” and I flinch because I know it’s not to tell me good news.

My to-do list was long. The laundry piled high. The sink stacked with morning dishes.

But I’m fighting for this, so I open to Wonderstruck by Margaret Feinberg:

“God desires to captivate us not just with his handiwork but with Himself–displaying facets of His character, igniting us with His fiery love, awakening us to the intensity of His holiness” (11).

Captivate me, Lord. Right here, this tiny person in this moment when all the mundane is pressing heavy on my heart and I’m just about suffocated from the stifling weight of it all.

Feinberg tells me that this is what God desires and I wonder: If I’m not feeling it, is it because I’ve shut Him down and crowded Him out? Is He willing to reignite me and I’m unwilling to notice?

I flip through my Bible to Hebrews 12:28-29:

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

It starts with thanks, gratitude that anything that shakes apart the foundation of my day can’t touch the foundation of His kingdom, my faith, or eternity with Him–Not early mornings, interrupted routines, home repairs, not even the incessant grinding of the daily.

It requires worship grounded in reverence and awe because my God, Savior, Friend, and Lover of my Soul, is a Consuming Fire, and even on days when I’m just seeing the tiniest ember and flicker of that holy flame, He remains the same.

In Scripture, Elisha stood with his prophet-mentor, Elijah, and asked so boldly for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit (2 Kings 2:9). So, when I read Elisha’s story, I expect the miracles all to be earth-shattering, all fire from heaven with awe and wonder.

It was Elijah, after all, who staged the showdown with the prophets of Baal, who predicted a long and devastating drought over the land and then foretold the rain that started as one tiny cloud as big as a man’s fist. He went head-to-toe with Ahab and Jezebel until he was whisked away to heaven in a flaming chariot.

The double-portion of that Spirit must be pretty spectacular.

But when I read Elisha’s story, he made foul water fit to drink. He cursed a group of taunting boys who called him “baldy.” He gave oil to a poor widow, made some poisonous stew safe for consumption. And when an ordinary worker dropped his ax in the lake, Elisha made the ax head float on the water.

It was everyday stuff, most of it. He had a few moments, like raising a boy from the dead. Overall, though, it seems so mundane. So everyday. He helped people eat and drink. Helped them work and not have to trek to Home Depot for some new tools.

And maybe that’s the reminder here. Maybe it takes even more faith to look for the power and spirit of God at work in the smallest of needs and the most everyday of circumstances.

I look out of the window over my kitchen sink while I wash the last cereal bowl and see the plants we bought the day before, still waiting to be planted in the dirt of our garden. We went on a hunt for milkweed to attract monarch butterflies and came home with these two green pots.

They look like the smallest and plainest of dead sticks. My daughter was skeptical. Could this brown spindly stalk grow anything beautiful? Is it even alive?

But today I’ve fought for the wonder and the glory.

Today, I’ve determined to plant and nurture the pitiful, the brown, the spindly, the weak, the seeming lifeless–and wait for God to cultivate and grow the glory and the beauty.

Yes, in my garden. Yes, in my life and heart.

Captivate me, Lord, today.

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

To read more Devotions from my Garden, you can click here!

Originally posted April 22, 2013

Even When I’m Disappointed, I’ll Love You Anyway

April 7, 20144 Comments

Suffice it to say, hiding the evidence didn’t work.

I found her hidden stockpile, proof of mistakes that she’d stuffed into a corner of her bedroom. I suppose she thought somehow that it’d eventually disappear or I’d just never notice.

But she underestimates a mom’s ability to discover truth (she never did figure out those two eyes in the back of my head)….so we stand there in that corner confronting the reality.

She had done something wrong and I had proof.

But instead of bringing all that trouble straight to my feet and asking for help, she’d hidden it away and hoped I wouldn’t notice.

I tell her I’m disappointed, tell her I expected better, tell her she needs to overcome.

But then, when she’s tearful and we’ve retreated to the sofa, we pray for God’s help.

I hope she’s really listening, deep-down-take-this-to-heart listening, because I don’t want the words to just shoot through her before pushing their impression down into the soft clay of her heart.

When you’re in trouble, when you mess up, when you’re hurt, when something is wrong….

come

me.

Yes, your first impulse will be to run and hide, no different than Adam and Eve crouching among the garden leaves.

Yes, I’ll be sad at first. Yes, I’ll be disappointed. Yes, we’ll have to deal with it and that might be messy and hard and it seems easier in the moment to just avoid that pain.

I understand this. Haven’t I stashed sin before, as well, desperately hoping that no one would notice—that HE wouldn’t notice? I’ve been Eve in that Garden before, too, and I know how it feels to hold my breath and hope that God walks on by.

But God picked me to be your mom and that means sticking with you and helping you learn and overcome That means loving you right on through the tough times.

Mary Kassian tells me:

When we face trouble, we are to pour out our hearts to him. Everybody trusts something; we must learn to trust the Lord, our eternal rock (In My Father’s House).

Trust.

Is that what this is about?

If she trusted me enough to love her through anything, wouldn’t she come to me even when she’s done something wrong because she knew I’d help her?

If I trust His love that much, wouldn’t I run breathlessly to His feet, just run, no looking back, no hesitation, because He is the only One who can handle the mess I’ve made?

Yes, He’ll be disappointed.

Yes, He’ll be sad.

But what hurts His Father-heart most of all is when we trust in ourselves, trust in others, trust in programs, trust in Google searches and advice columns and friends and substances and self-help books, but we don’t trust Him.

The Israelites in that wilderness fretted over destination, clothing, enemies, food, water. They whined. They strategized. They rebelled. They wheeled and dealed.

The Psalmist writes

…they did not believe God
or trust him to care for them (Psalm 78:22 NLT).

Troubles rose up, maybe even just minor annoyances like dietary preferences, and they never did just learn to run to God right away.

He was angry. The Psalm says, “When the Lord heard them, he was furious” (Psalm 78:21 NLT).

BUT

He still loved them. And even when they abandoned Him time after relentless time, He always stayed faithful.

God’s love for them, His love for us, isn’t feeling love, temporary love, conditional love. The Hebrew word that Scripture uses over and over is “Chesed”—it’s the loyal, steadfast, covenant mercy and love God has for His people.

They didn’t trust Him, didn’t bring their troubles to Him and they messed it up over and over and over, but He still went on caring for them abundantly, miraculously, faithfully.

He rained down manna for them to eat;
    he gave them bread from heaven.
They ate the food of angels!
    God gave them all they could hold. Psalm 78:24-25

He rained down meat as thick as dust—
    birds as plentiful as the sand on the seashore! Psalm 78:27

So, I rest there with my daughter, my arms wrapped all the way around her and I say it one last time:

Come to me. Do not hide away or lie or run. Bring it all to me.

And I hear God rustling the leaves in my life, calling to me just as He did Adam and Eve, asking me to trust Him enough to bring everything, bring the sin, the mess, the worry, the fear, the troubles big and small, bring it all to Him.

How Can I Dance in Worn-Out Shoes?

April 4, 20142 Comments

She tells me they fit. “Ballet shoes need to be that tight,” she says.

I’m looking at the worn-out gray of the leather where she’s danced and danced on that shoe, and I’m thinking it’s been two years probably since I bought them for her.

Maybe she’s the dance expert, but this momma knows too small when I see it.

When you have to crinkle your whole foot up to cram it into the shoe and then whisk your finger back before it gets trapped behind your heel, that means it’s time to let those beloved dance shoes go, baby girl.

So, she plops down onto the bench at the studio reluctantly and I tell her to show the teacher and let the expert decide.

About two minutes later, we start pulling out new shoes to try on and we have to skip size after size to find one that finally fits correctly.

I wonder this: Am I cramming myself right down all squashed and painful into life that doesn’t fit anymore? Habits I’ve outgrown? Ministries I need to let go? Behaviors I need to put behind me?

Am I stubbornly holding onto what isn’t working just because it’s here, because it’s known, because the ill-fitting discomfort of this seems better than the unknown with all its newness and risk and…dare I say it….change?

Am I saying I want to know Christ more, be more like Him, follow Him more closely, but then stubbornly clinging to the same-old, same-old patterns of faith and even sin?

Jesus saw this man, crippled for 38 years, lying out by the pools of Bethesda, the miracle waters they said, the place where the lame, the blind, and the paralyzed congregated in hopes of a healing.

The man didn’t cry out to Jesus to “have mercy.” He didn’t have friends carry him on a stretcher and lower him down through a roof to get to Jesus’ feet. He didn’t ask for healing at all, not like others in the Gospels who were desperate to get to Jesus.

This man laid by the pool of Bethesda, just laid there because he’d lain there so long. Photo by Ruud Morijn;

It was Jesus who initiated the miracle, and He began with a question, “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:6 NIV).

Did he want to get well? Wasn’t he there at the pool of Bethesda and hadn’t he been there so long? Wasn’t this what you did when you needed a miracle?

Of course, he wanted to get well!

Yet, we can say all the right things, make all the right promises, repeat all the good-Christian phrases and still miss the honest truth:

That maybe we don’t want to get well.

Not really.

Maybe we don’t want to know Him more, don’t want to be healed, to be transformed from the inside out, to obey Him, to follow Him wherever He leads.

If we did, wouldn’t we be desperate to be at His feet? Wouldn’t we be screaming loud enough to be heard over the crowd, “Have mercy, Son of David!!!?” Wouldn’t we be begging friends to bring us to Christ and crawling on our hands and knees through a crowd of people just so we could brush the corner of His robe?

Instead, too often we lie there and wait for God to come to us.

And when Jesus does come and He asks, “Do you want faith? Do you want healing? Do you want to know me more? Do you want to follow me?”

We can act all offended. Pretend like the answer is obvious. We can make excuses.

The man said, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me” (John 5:7 NIV).

Maybe this was genuine, hopelessness, lack of help.

Or maybe it was justification, excuse-making, avoiding what radical obedience might cost him.

Either way, Grace invited him in. Grace held that hand right out.

Do you want to get well?

And isn’t that Grace? Never belligerent. Never forcing, demanding. Always inviting.

Then, when we accept, Jesus gives us the next step. “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk,” He said. ask-me-anything-lord_kd

The man obeyed. He stopped waiting, stopped making excuses, and he grabbed that mat up and walked right out of there.

Today, let’s put aside the ill-fitting, worn out shoes we’ve been cramming ourselves into. Let’s stop doing what we’ve always done. Let’s stop justifying the inactivity.

And let’s run hard after Jesus.

Let’s be unashamed and relentless in our pursuit of Jesus and the healing work He wants to do in our life, our hearts, our minds, so that He can look right at us and all that we’re doing to get to Him and know the answer without even asking.

Do you want to get well?

Yes, Lord, and Amen.

Want to read more about the questions God asks?
Check out my book, Ask Me Anything, Lord, available in paperback and for the Kindle and nook!

Will Break for Beauty Because Eden Is What We Were Meant For

April 2, 201447 Comments

We took a day off for beauty.

We climbed into the minivan for a drive on a sunny, warm-but-not-too-warm day, passing horse farms and the river, watching sunlight burst through the tops of trees.

Sitting along the edge of the beach, we tipped over buckets of moistened sand to form sand castles. Pine needles and lost feathers, bits of shell and pebbles smoothed by the waves became castle flags and decorations.

Then we walked and collected treasures washed ashore by the tide.

Children see treasures in ways we do not. I picked up unbroken shells, shiny, smooth, etched with color and patterns.

My little one picked up massive clam shells covered in barnacles and sand, murky in color and awkwardly shaped. She handed me slivers of broken shells and even tried putting fistfuls of sand in her treasure bucket.

It was beauty to her.

What is it about the seaside that brings peace to the soul? Maybe it’s the rhythm of the waves, the comfort of knowing that the wave will come and another and another, in constant motion, totally faithful, reliable, trustworthy.

And that is our God. He doesn’t wash over us and then pull back never to return again. He brings wave after wave of ever-coming, perpetual grace. The world is an uncertain teeter-totter of a place, with unexpected terrors lurking around corners and surprises that drop us to the ground.

But God—He is faithful. God—-He is always grace. God—He is ever true.

That night, we raced home to eat dinner and become beautiful: Choosing outfits, doing hair. The girls fought over bracelets. We traveled to see the Ballet Magnificat, a professional Christian ballet company.

The music began. Just instruments at first. The dancers took to the stage and one lone female voice sang,“Praise the Lord, O my soul and let all that is within me praise His name.”

One ballerina stretched her arms high in worship. Her fingers almost touched heaven she was so long and outstretched.

And I caught my breath at the total abandon in praise to a God so worthy.

That day, we took a break for beauty. We paused and lingered long with friends and we filled our souls in the deep wells of nature and dance and worship. It was like brushing against the curtain of heaven.

Our God did it on purpose, putting those first two human beings in a garden, and we long for that Eden even now. He created us for that place of intimacy in His presence surrounded by beauty. Stasi Eldredge says it here:

Beauty reminds us of an Eden we have never known, but somehow our hearts were created for.

Scripture reminds me that God is Himself beautiful:

One thing I ask from the Lord,
    this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
    and to seek him in his temple
(Psalm 27:4)

And God is a Creator of beauty:

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

In Captivating, Stasi Eldredge says:

Beauty is transcendent. It is our most immediate experience of the eternal (Stasi Eldredge).

God makes all things beautiful in time—and He has set eternity itself in our hearts. We long for it, ache for the day when we see the transformation He intends, see the untainted beauty of a sinless world.

And so glimpses of beauty here and now stir our hearts for heaven, for eternal glory with Him.

In my 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, I’m breaking for beauty in the month of April, because, as Margaret Brownley writes,

Beauty puts a face on God and makes his presence known (Margaret Brownley, Grieving God’s Way).

I’m digging deep into garden soil. I’m trekking through a botanical garden. I’m watching caterpillars form that chrysalis and then climb out as butterflies. I’m listening to concerts and walking the halls of museums.

There has to be intentionality here. We can get so distracted by that tyrannical urgent, so caught up in the rush and noise of the day.

After beauty fills you up, it too often spills out and sloshes over the sides of your heart every time there is rushing, stress, tension, worry, boredom, work, monotony.

We must work hard to protect the memory and refill often by taking a break for beauty and by seeking the soul-filling glory of God’s presence.

Will you join me this month?

To hear the song by Kristene Mueller that began Ballet Magnificat‘s performance, you can click here or click Play on the video below from the blog.

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 ‘Enjoy Beauty’?

Finding Room to Breathe: A 12-month pursuit of the presence of Christ
January: Be Still and Know
February: Pray Simply
March: Unplug
April: Enjoy Beauty

After 9:30 p.m. Mommy Needs a Time Out

March 26, 20144 Comments

My daughter emerges from her room at 9:30 p.m.

It is now more than an hour past bedtime.

Showers have been taken. Teeth have been brushed. I have reviewed my daughters’ Scripture memory verses for the week, prayed with them, read them the Bible passage for the night, kissed them on rosy cheeks and sent them merrily to bed.

Or something like that.

But she re-emerges at 9:30 to tell me a play-by-play account of the book she is reading. She is a detail person. I’m pretty sure she is telling me exactly what occurs on each page of this 200-page book.

At first, I nod patiently and politely. I do, after all, love her. And, I do share her passion for reading.

Moms should be good listeners. Moms should make sure their children feel heard and understood.

After a while, though, I hug her close and slowly nudge her back to the bedroom while she is still giving a steady stream of book-narration, and I promise to listen more tomorrow.

Because seriously, it has been loud in my house tonight.

I have helped with homework for 3 children, fed and diapered and carried the crying baby around the house, made dinner, cleaned up dinner, packed lunches, supervised piano practice for 3 kids, sent 3 daughters in for showers and bathed one baby, combed tangles out of hair, folded laundry, read books, brainstormed ideas for a project on Ponce de Leon, prepped backpacks for the next day, laid out the outfits for tomorrow morning, signed agendas and math logs and reading logs, and threatened older children with punishment for any further bedtime delays.

You know, what moms do at night.

At one point, I had a baby crying, a child watching YouTube videos with bracelet-making instructions, one child practicing the piano, and one child asking me to quiz her on Life Cycles because her science test is in two days.

I know you all probably think when I’m in my minivan, I like to blast that worship music right loud and sing at the top of my singing lungs.

But you’d be wrong.

If I have the luxury of just 10 minutes in a car without a child talking to me, I turn the radio off.

O-F-F

Off.

Because, some times, a soul just needs some quiet.

Jesus knew it. After days of constant ministry, a needy mob following them around incessantly, clamoring for help and help and help all the time help, the disciples needed a change:

Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31 NIV).

A quiet place.

Jesus knows we need that some times.

And it’s not just a break from noise we need.

We also need to come away with Him.

We need to not answer those e-mails, or check that Facebook, or answer that phone.

Our souls need beauty and filling up after relentlessly pouring out to others. We need Jesus and yet so often we choose to fill that void with anything and everything else.

But as Shellie Rushing Tomlinson writes in Heart Wide Open:

He will ruin you for anything else this world has to offer. However, it is a sweet ‘ruination,’ because the weaker the hold temporal things have on us, the freer we are to lose ourselves in the One who placed eternity in our hearts.

And here’s the hard discovery, that sometimes when I finally sit in relative silence, it rocks my restless soul more than any amount of noise.

That’s when I know I’m an addict, needing that next fix of adrenaline as desperately as others feel the shaking need for another drink.

I’ve become addicted to the rush of activity, addicted to the pride of feeling needed, addicted to the super-hero powers of rescuing people from crises all….day….long, addicted to noise and distraction and busyness.

So, that quiet falls uncomfortably on my shoulders. I fidget. I feel the need to hop up at the slightest distraction.

In my 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, I am taking time to Unplug in March, taking days off of Facebook, off of Twitter, and away from television, and this takes discipline.

I find sometimes that the quiet (in the rare moments when there actually is quiet) is awkward and uncomfortable.

And I find some times that the quiet is refreshing like an ice-cold lemonade after a couple of hours of yard work.

Either way, this is what I know—the quiet is what this soul needs.

Are you taking time to Unplug in March? How is it going?

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 ‘Unplug’?

Don’t expect a laptop or an iPad for your birthday

March 24, 2014March 24, 2014Leave a comment

Laptop, iPad, video game, cell phone.

This isn’t my wish list. This is what my about-to-be-eight-year-old daughter will tell you she wants for her birthday if you ask her.

Seriously.

Her little second grade friends ask her for birthday present suggestions, and this is what she tells them. Not, “Oh, a Barbie would be nice. Maybe some new markers and Play-Doh. I like Legos.”

No, not reasonable requests.

Crazy expensive requests.

So, I tell it to her straight yesterday. Not even mom and dad will get you a laptop, an iPad or a cell phone for your birthday….so when someone other than your loving parents asks you for birthday ideas, think of something far, far, far, far, far…..less expensive.

To be fair, if I take her to pick out a present for her friends when they have a birthday, she always holds up the most expensive item on the shelf (an $80 Lego set or the $40 complete Disney princess collection or a $50 Xbox game) and declare that this is what her friend would like.

I explain that there are presents parents buy you. There are presents other family members might buy you. There are presents friends from school might buy you.

And there are presents so expensive, ain’t nobody gonna buy them for you.

You have to match the request with the giver. You have to know whom to ask.

And sometimes, don’t we all get this wrong? Don’t we carry needs to friends, carry worries to Facebook and Twitter, carry sadness to the phone and bitterness to the coffee shop?

But do we carry it all to Christ?

He’s the only One who can forgive and wash clean. He’s the only One who can care for our every need, deliver us, redeem us, heal us, and restore us.

Yet, there we go, turning to others first and Jesus last.

Why is it that prayer is so often our final act of desperation instead of our first response to trouble?

Why do we so often try every other possible means of escape besides God? And only after we realize that we have no hope in this hopeless and impossible situation do we finally give it over to Him?

Judas, that betrayer, collected his 30 silver coins. Maybe he counted each one, stacking the silver into a pile, planning his financial future.

But Scripture tells us there was regret. There was the deep conviction of sin.

When Judas, who had betrayed him, realized that Jesus had been condemned to die, he was filled with remorse. So he took the thirty pieces of silver back to the leading priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he declared, “for I have betrayed an innocent man” (Mathew 27:3 NLT).

He took that blood money right back, hoping to be absolved of the heavy guilt.

And he confessed his wrong. “I have sinned….for I have betrayed an innocent man.”

There, he said it. He was a sinner. Jesus didn’t deserve that cross.

Shouldn’t confession have shaken the conviction right off his shoulders? Hadn’t he tried to take it all back, hand the coins over, and smooth right over that sin-laden path he’d traveled?

But the thing about taking our burdens to anyone but Christ is that no one else can handle them.

Those chief priests and religious elite took one look at Judas’s stack of coins and said,

“What do we care?” they retorted. “That’s your problem” (Matthew 27:4 NLT).

He’d rejected, denied, and handed over to death the only One who could have forgiven the very sin he now carried. No Pharisee or religious leader could cleanse or absolve such guilt.

Only Jesus.

No only that…they didn’t even care.

Do we do this? Do we expect worldly goods and other people to assuage our guilt, to calm our fears, to satisfy our hearts, instead of taking everything to the only One who can save and redeem and fill us?

The Psalmist gave this testimony:

For I cried out to him for help,
praising him as I spoke.
If I had not confessed the sin in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened.
But God did listen!
He paid attention to my prayer.
Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer
or withdraw his unfailing love from me (Psalm 66:17-20 NLT).

God doesn’t turn us away. He doesn’t reject our requests or shrug us off like they did for Judas,’ What’s that to Me? That’s not my problem.”

No, He listens to our prayers and does not withdraw His unfailing love from us.

So, we bring our sin to Him. We bring our needs to Him. We bring to Him our worries, fears, messes and mistakes, our everyday struggles, and the stress that keeps us up in the night.

He alone can save.

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

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After 9:30 p.m. Mommy Needs a Time Out

Are you taking time to Unplug in March? How is it going?

Don’t expect a laptop or an iPad for your birthday

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