Tag: Christianity

Not the Other Mom

Leave a comment

Her Other Mom cooks yummy pancakes.

Her Other Mom bought all of her clothes (although I clearly remember shopping myself).012

Her Other Mom has a big house with a pink toilet in it.

Her Other Mom owns a dog.

Her Other Mom tells her when to eat, when she can have a snack, when she can go outside to play, what shows to watch on television, and whether or not it’s bedtime.

Her Other Mom has that book, that Kindle app, that game, that movie, and every toy that’s ever been advertised on television…ever.

We’re not exactly sure when it happened or how, but at some point my three-year-old transitioned from a mini-van full of fairly typical imaginary friends to an imaginary “Other Mom.”

Eventually the Other Mom had an Other Dad and Other Sisters and even Brothers, and she chats about this entire Other Family all day long.

We laugh most of the time (quietly to ourselves, of course) and let her chatter on about this pretend family.

Once I mistakenly corrected her, reminding her at dinner that it wasn’t the cape-wearing superhero Other Mom who gave her a birthday gift, but it was in fact me.

She cried.

So, I mostly leave it be and certainly don’t use the words “pretend” or “imaginary,” “not real” or “fake” whenever she launches into one of her Other Mom fairy tales.

But the other day, I leaned in close to my little one and whispered, “Who loves you?”

Without a second’s breath, she blurted out “My Other Mo……” and then she stopped.  She put down the crayon she was coloring with and let it roll on the table, concentrating on my question.  She pushed back the flyaway hairs escaping from her ponytail.

Then she looked right into my eyes and said, “You!” and giggled at me like we had just shared the best knock-knock joke ever heard by a preschooler.

“And who else loves you?” I asked her, pressing in on the moment.

“My cats….and Lauren and Victoria and my Dad.”

Not her Other Dad, not those Other Sisters, or the Brothers or the imaginary dog…

We love her, this real family who takes care of her real needs and buys her real clothes and cooks her real food.

It’s innocent, of course, this imagination of hers.  Most days, I try to marvel at it rather than question too much whether deficiencies in me gave her reason to create an Other Mom (I don’t, after all, have a pink toilet in my home).

But then there’s God and then there’s us and it really isn’t innocent much of the time, forgetful, yes…apathetic at times…generally oblivious in some moments.

Like Israel just a short hike from Egypt, not long enough for a generation to develop spiritual amnesia about their miraculous deliverance out of slavery, still they were forgetful beings.  Moses delayed on the mountain with the Lord, so Aaron threw some gold into the fire and pulled out a golden cow.

The people looked at that man-made object and declared, “Israel, this is your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!” (Exodus 32:4).

And they did it again generations later.  King Jeroboam decided it was too difficult for the people to trek to Jerusalem to worship in the temple.  It required too much sacrifice, too much effort.

So, “he made two golden calves, and he said to the people, ‘Going to Jerusalem is too difficult for you. Israel, here is your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.'” (1 Kings 12:28).

How?

How could they give any fake god or false idol the credit for miraculous salvation?

How could worship be so fickle?

How could they forget who God is and what He had done?

How could we?

We’re not three-year-olds with active imaginations.  We’re His children who forget to thank Him, forget to worship Him, forget to give Him glory for what He’s done, forget today what miracle He did for us yesterday, forget to look for Him in the middle of our everyday lives.

We too often just accept the gifts without pausing to see, really see, the way they drip with grace.

Praising Him one day; forgetting the next; overlooking His goodness; blaming Him for what is wrong and not thanking Him for what is good….so we fall and so we fail, and so we end up worshiping golden calves of our own making.

But God reminded His people: “I am the Lord your God, who brought your out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery” (Exodus 20:2).

Yes, He is the God worthy of our praise.  He is the God who rescued us.  He is the God who loves us.

Yes, He is God and God alone.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in the Fall of 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

My Addiction

2 Comments

Originally posted April 13, 2012

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life–your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life–and place it before God as an offering” (Romans 12:1, MSG).

I love routine.

I plod around my house each morning with my eyes barely open, doing the same tasks I did the day before. I follow a schedule day by day, week by week.

Each night, I drink a cup of hot tea in one of my favorite mugs before I go to bed.  Every night.  Summer, winter, makes no difference.

So, a few weeks ago when my whole schedule was off and it was far too late for a reasonable cup of tea before bed, I felt a little shaky and definitely “off.”  I couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t settle in under the covers and turn out the light without at least a few sips from my teacup.

It’s not that I’m a tea addict. 

I’m a routine addict.

Given my love for the routine of daily life, I was not at all surprised when my six-year-old brought me a neon orange paper that read (and I quote):

Lauren:003
eat Breckfest
Brush teeth
Go to school
Play Victoria’s games
Play hide and seek
eat lunch
watch TV
take a Nap
eat Dinnr.
Brush teeth
Go to bed

The basic reality of daily life, of routine, and of the mundane is that we all live it in some way or another—me in my adult world, my daughter in her child world.

We commute to work.  We go to school.  We walk the dog.  We make phone calls.  We volunteer.  We give baths and make dinners.  We run errands.  We clock in; we clock out.

There’s beauty in the resurrection appearances of Jesus as He invited himself into the daily and mundane routine of the disciples. 

Sure He appeared to them in the upper room where they were gathered for worship and prayer. That’s to be expected.

But then He did something unexpected.  He showed up on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and watched them wrestle with fishing nets and bring emptiness up from the water.

Yes, Jesus went to their workplace.

Early in the morning, maybe as the first flickers of sunlight skipped over the Galilean waters, Jesus called out to his tired friends.  They didn’t recognize his voice; he was just some curious bystander sticking his nose into their own personal business, giving them instructions as if He knew more about fishing than they did—a bunch of expert fisherman.

He told them to “‘Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.’ When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish” (John 21:6).

That’s when they recognized the Lord.

In A Year With Jesus, Eugene Peterson wrote:

“Work that was futile apart from Christ becomes successful in His presence . .. Your resurrection life, Lord Jesus, is like a sunrise in work that has lost meaning and in routines that have become pointless.  Whatever my work today, I will do it in the recognition of Your presence and under Your command” (p. 594).

and

“The resurrection transforms Monday work as much as Sunday worship” (p. 596).

Jesus made it clear in those 40 days following His resurrection that He wasn’t just looking to be part of our sacred lives and in the religious moments we schedule on the calendar.

He wanted us to live with a curious mesh and entwining of sacred and secular, where He’s with us during every part of our day.

He sets our routine.  He is our routine.  He shakes up our routine.  He designs our routine. He redesigns our routine.

You’d think we fairly intelligent people could get by on our own living out our daily lives.  But, I’ve decided that I can’t and I’m okay with that.

That’s why you’ll find me in the Wal-Mart parking lot once a week with my head bent low in the few minutes before I exit my car.  It’s because I’m a mess on my own—making stupid decisions about what to buy and what not to buy, forgetting what I need, falling for advertising gimmicks and sales tricks, traveling back and forth across the whole store because I forgot something on my list, making a list and then leaving it in my car or at home, trying to use outdated coupons and failing to use perfectly good coupons that I spent perfectly good time cutting out.

Why should God care about my budget and my meal plan for the week and for the items on my list and my own personal sanity?  Because He loves me, that’s why.  Because the grocery store is where I lay out my nets and hope for an abundance of fish.

You have your own Galilean place, where Jesus is trying to invite Himself and where He’s waiting to give you input and advice.

Perhaps it’s the routine that makes you feel so comfortable and that you think you can handle all on your own.  Perhaps it’s the place you feel most capable and expert.  Maybe it’s a place where you experience failure and emptiness.

You haven’t seen abundance until you’ve felt the blessing of His presence in the midst of your routine.  It’s time to invite Him into the boat with you.

You can read more devotionals on this topic here:

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in November 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Please Break My Heart…Really and Truly

Leave a comment

Originally posted March 23, 2012

It’s the drill, the sound if it screeching unnaturally close to your face.

Plus there’s the smell of sterilized tools and latex gloves.dentistchair

There’s the tooth-shaped clock on the wall and the charts portraying healthy and not-so-healthy gums hanging here and there.

It’s the dentist’s office and I don’t love the place, but I had to be there for a filling—easy and routine, my dentist tells me.  He asks me how I’m doing today.  “Nervous,” I confess with a conversational giggle.

Still, I like him.  He’s pleasant and efficient.  His degrees and certifications adorn the walls, assuring me that he knows what to do.  He’s the kind of doctor I prefer, one who explains to you what’s going on and assumes you’re intelligent enough to understand.

So, he glances at my chart and sees the note written in large letters, “Needs extra anesthetic.”

He asks me about it and I tell him the gruesome story of another dentist starting to drill and me feeling it.  I tried to fake it and pretend like I was numb just for the sake of expediency, but my flinches and the pain in my eyes apparently gave me away.

When you’re numb, you ironically can’t help but feel it.  You feel that your face is heavy and your speech difficult.  They ask you to rinse and it takes effort.

It’s a simple filling and yet here I sit at my computer five hours later, feeling the last remaining bit of numbness around my mouth.  I’m a poster child for the old Bill Cosby standup routine about a dental patient.

Numbness takes time to fade, but thankfully it eventually does.  Truly, I’m grateful for the fact that two shots of medicine helped me not to feel the dentist’s drill.  It’s a comfort of the modern age that I’m happy to enjoy.

Yet, as I sit in the chair waiting for the drilling to start, I wonder if I’ve grown too numb in other areas of my life.  And sadly, the numbness of our hearts and minds doesn’t fade away as assuredly as a dentist’s shot.

Hillsong sings in their song Hosanna:

Break my heart for what breaks Yours
Everything I am for Your Kingdom’s cause
As I walk from earth into
Eternity

worldvisionThis was the prayer of World Vision founder, Bob Pierce: “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.”

So I wonder…is my heart too numb?  Has it become an unfeeling organ?  Or, am I only slightly bruised occasionally, crying for a moment and then resuming life as normal, patching up momentary sorrow with practicalities and emotional distance?

What actually breaks the heart of God anyway?

Surely it’s our sin, our breaking faith with God and causing Him disappointment and sadness (Numbers 5:6, Hosea 11:8b).

Yes, David’s heart broke after his devastating sin of adultery and murder, and he desired restoration and forgiveness (Psalm 51).

Are you grieved over your sin and the times you’ve broken faith with God?  Do you shake it off with excuses and acceptance, compromising because it’s “normal” and just “who you are?”  Or do you humbly bow at His feet and ask for His help and His forgiveness?  Do you hate your sin enough to do whatever it takes to change?

Surely the lost break God’s heart, the “sheep not having a shepherd,” who stirred Jesus’ heart to compassion and self-sacrifice (Mark 6:34). 

Are you broken-hearted over those who do not know Jesus and moved to compassion and boldness by their presence in the world and in your community?

But it’s also the hurting and needy.  When Israel complained that God wasn’t overly impressed by their fasting rituals and legalistic religiosity, God told them exactly what kind of fasting He desired: freeing the oppressed, sharing bread with the hungry, caring for the homeless (Isaiah 58:6-7).

James agreed when he wrote, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27, ESV).

Is your heart broken by the orphaned, the widowed, the hungry, and the oppressed?  Do you do more than shed a tear at an Internet video and actually advocate for those who need a voice?

We have a God whose heart is broken over sin, over unbelief, over the hurting, oppressed, defenseless and hungry.

What about our hearts?

It’s a strange thing, this spiritual numbness.  While a shot at the dentist’s office fades over time, our hearts respond in opposite ways to hurt.  We may begin compassionate and then grow numb from forgetfulness.  We may grieve over sin at first and then slowly grow accustomed to it.

Instead of needing extra doses of anesthetic, we must go to God continually and ask for more of His broken heart.

To listen to Hillsong’s Hosanna, you can click the link here or watch the video posted below on the blog:

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in the Fall of 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Do I Look Dead to You?

Leave a comment

Originally posted April 11, 2012

It’s Spring Break here in the King house and we’re enjoying time together and starting each morning slow.
This week, I’ll be sharing some devotions from the past as I take time for my family.

After we’ve packed the cooler, dressed everyone in bathing suits and sandals, double-checked the bag for diapers, towels, tissues, Band-Aids (for blisters), sunscreen, and more, and then loaded every last item and person into the mini-van, we have the same-old chat with our girls as we drive to Busch Gardens, the amusement park near our home.003

First we begin with the safety reminders, about strangers, about wandering away from us, and what to do if you get lost.

Then we remind them that we aren’t buying every snack, toy, or novelty item strategically scattered along our path through the park.  And no whining when it’s time to go home.

We finish up with the “friends speech.”   It goes something like this:  You are sisters.  God designed you to be best friends.  Don’t ditch your sister so that you can ride in a boat or car or dragon or whatever with some random stranger who you’ll never see again.

This last speech generally elicits the most protests.  My girls are friendly people.  They like to meet new kids and form what they are certain are life-long bonds of friendship while standing in line at Busch Gardens.

So, it was no surprise that during our spring break outing, my middle daughter stood in line for a ride and then announced, “Mom, I made two new best friends!”

Not just friends.  Best friends.

And how did she know these two new girls were now her bosom buddies for life?

“They told me their names, Savannah and Julia.”

That was it.  The loyal bond formed simply by exchanging names.

Friends, best friends, nice people you’ve only just met, a stranger whose name you’ve learned, sisters, the person you thought was your close friend but who gossips about you behind your back  . . . it’s a mesh of relationships they haven’t quite figured out yet.

As difficult as this is, even though life is busy, complicated, hectic, and hard, and investing time in those loyal friendships seems an impossible task, still Scripture tells us this is one investment that’s worth making.

We need a friend who loves sacrificially, and for whom we likewise will sacrifice.  Jesus commanded us to “love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends”  (John 15:12).

We need a friend who remains faithful even when we’re at our ugliest, worn-outest, saddest, and yuckiest, just as it says in Proverbs 17:17 “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

And we need a friend who is not afraid to get dirty with us as we live this resurrection life.

Jesus stood at the entry to the tomb of his close friend, Lazarus.  He heard the weeping of others around him.  His own tears trailed down his cheek.  The crowd scolded him for not coming earlier and healing his friend while there was still time.  The pragmatic folks complained about the stink of death and decay wafting out of a reopened tomb.  Mary and Martha shot hopeless, hurt-filled glances in Jesus’ direction.

Undeterred, Jesus demanded, “Lazarus, come out!”  (John 11:44).  The shocked crowd watched as the dead man emerged from the grave, living, breathing, and walking—alive.

But he moved slowly, maybe a little like a mummy in a sci-fi horror flick that plays on Saturday afternoon television.  He didn’t leap out from the tomb and dance before the Lord with all the joy of a resurrected worshiper.

Instead, “the dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.  Jesus said to them, ‘Take off the grave clothes and let him go” (John 11:44 NIV).

Chris Tiegreen reminds us in One Year At His Feet:  “When Jesus raises us out of our sinful state of death, there is something left to do before we run free.  The grave clothes must go”  (p. 21).

That’s something Lazarus couldn’t do on his own.  Jesus instructed others to come alongside him and unwrap the linen bindings, the remnants of death and the grave that still had him hindered, trapped, and blinded.

That’s the church’s job.  That’s the job of a loyal friend, who patiently strips away all the habitual sins, guilt, shame, false beliefs, hang-ups, terrors from the past, and hurts that trip us up and slow us down.

Sometimes we simply require a love that doesn’t give up on us.

Sometimes it takes someone holding us accountable with truth and lovingly showering us with grace when we struggle with the ugliness of sin.

Only a true friend skips the flattery and digs past the superficial chicanery of niceness in order to challenge us with a truth and encourage us to change.

Only a friend tells us when they see some of the grave clothes stubbornly stuck to our skin and then lovingly and patiently unbinds us so we can live in the freedom of new life.

We need a friend like that.  We need to be a friend like that, who brings grace and freedom to another.

You can read more devotionals on this topic here:

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in November 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

The Quest: Teaching Kids What Easter is About

2 Comments

I’ve been on a bit of a Mom Quest these past few years.  We’ve never been an Easter bunny family who lines up for pictures at the mall or decorated the house with rabbits, chicks and eggs every spring.

Our goal as parents is to keep the focus on Jesus’ death and resurrection.  That’s what we want our kids to remember, ask questions about, investigate and take to heart this season.

But when you bypass the bunnies in the Wal-Mart aisle, you can end up with Easter looking something like this:

Go to church in a pretty dress.  The end.

I want to teach my kids that Jesus is the Reason for THIS Season, too, and that needs to be a big deal.  Not just preaching at them; engaging them.

So, I’ve collected ideas that we do, some every year, some every few years to keep things new and interesting.  Here are some of our favorite ways to focus on Jesus this holiday:

Resurrection Eggs:  It’s an oldie but a goodie, a classic that’s been around since I was a kid.  I love the fact that the children drive the discussion in this activity. They open 12 eggs in a specific order.  Each egg holds a symbol of an event in the Passion week.  My kids tell what they think it might be about (the praying hands for the night Jesus prayed in the garden or the coins that Judas received to betray Jesus), and the booklet directs us to Scripture to fill in any blanks.003Empty Tomb Snack: This was so fun and only took a few minutes.  Each of my kids could basically put the pieces of the snack together.  I didn’t tell them what we were making, just gave them directions along the way.  Once they put the Oreo in place, they knew we had made the empty tomb.  Added bonus: Eating a yummy Entenmann’s chocolate doughnut (a secret passion of mine).  You’re supposed to use shredded coconut dyed green for the grass, but coconut isn’t my favorite.  So, I opted for green icing.

011Butterflies: I order a cup of painted lady butterfly caterpillars every year from Insect Lore.  We learn about how butterflies transform while also talking about a long-standing symbol of the resurrection—how the caterpillar goes into the chrysalis and seems to be dead, but then emerges with new life even more beautiful than before.  It’s science and Scripture together at its best.

butterflyResurrection Rolls: This was a new discovery this year and what a treat!  It’s especially good to do on Holy Saturday, talking about preparing Jesus’ body for burial, placing him in the tomb and sealing it up tightly.  When you open the rolls, they are empty inside.  A great surprise for kids.  It’s easy, too, with crescent rolls, melted butter, marshmallows, and cinnamon and sugar.  Bam!  Here are some great step-by-step directions.Resurrection RollsLamb cupcakes: These cupcakes aren’t just cute, they remind us that Jesus is the lamb of God.  Just top a cupcake with white icing (I’m a cream cheese icing fan, personally) and cover with mini marshmallows and one large marshmallow cut in half for the lamb’s head.  The kids mostly love the cupcake, but it’s also a great opportunity to talk about the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and why Jesus was the perfect sacrifice.

Lamb cupcakesJelly Bean prayer: This is simple and sweet—literally.  I put a handful of jelly beans in a baggie (at least one of each color) and include this little poem to walk my kids through the Gospel.  And I sneak a few of my favorite flavors to eat while I’m packing the bag.  That’s a mom bonus.  Here’s where you can find a free printable for the prayer.013

Easter garden:  This idea went viral on my Facebook and Pinterest feed this year and instead of just looking at it, I did a unique thing.  I decided to actually make it.  Shocking, I know!  My daughters and I had the best time setting up our little potted garden.  After all, it feels good to get your hands into a some potting soil in anticipation of spring!  The grass grew very quickly, though, so I’d likely wait until closer to Easter to plant our garden again next year.  I loved that my kids were asking questions about the three crosses, about the size of the stone covering the tomb, and how it was rolled away.Easter Garden

Of course, we don’t miss out on the basics.  We go to church and worship on Easter Sunday.  At night, we read from different children’s devotionals or the Bible, walking our kids through what Scripture says about the week of the Passion.

So, how do you teach your kids about Jesus’ death and resurrection during this season?

What Makes this Good?

2 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.P1040320

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.

It’s also the eight-year anniversary of my dad’s death.

This morning, I sat with my daughter brushing her hair and telling her about my dad: little remembrances here and there and what makes today special.

So, 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 today.  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 this day 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 upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in the Fall of 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

In Times of Need

Leave a comment

They gave her some string, a box, some tape and a few other odds and ends and told her group of second graders to design a leprechaun trap for St. Patrick’s Day.

If they’d thrown in a bar of soap and a paperclip, MacGuyver might have been able to break out of a sealed room packed with explosives on a timed detonator with two seconds to spare.020

As it was, these kids designed a contraption that would entice the leprechaun, and then stick him to the floor when he stood on the tape, and finally capture him inside the box.

My daughter described the process to me and I asked her—Did you use peanut butter to lure him in?  Did you have a stick that would hold the box up and then collapse down when you pulled on the string?

“No, mom,” she tells me, “we didn’t have any of that.  We had to use only the things on the desk.”

I could design a successful leprechaun trap, too, if I had more supplies available.  After all, I have experience from all those years as a kid with hamsters that could escape out of the most escape-proof cage and then skitter around the house…until, of course, we laid out our peanut butter trap.

It’s one of those lessons of life, though, the making do with what you have, the realization that sometimes you face circumstances where you feel oh-so-insufficient to meet the demand.

The days are hectic, the to-do list long, and we just don’t have enough time.

The relationships are stretched to breaking, and we don’t have enough patience.

The bills are too much and those unexpected expenses keep dumping themselves down on us, and we just don’t have the money.

The need is overwhelming, weighing down on our shoulders until we’re pressed to the ground, and we just don’t have the strength, or the wisdom, or the experience, or the training, or the spiritual gifts, or the manpower.

I am, after all, only one person and I only have these two hands. 
There are, undoubtedly, only so many hours a day. 
The dollar, sad but true, only stretches so far.

And even though we’ve said it so often before (God will provide) and sang it out so many times (You are more than enough for me), still we feel the lack and still it’s hard to see past the need.

Yet, when Jonathan stood with his armor bearer overlooking the Philistine camp, they were just two guys out scouting a more powerful enemy.  It was crazy to think they could actually win a fight.

But Jonathan knew that whatever the statistics said or however the odds might have stacked against them, “Nothing can keep the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few” (1 Samuel 14:6c).

Nothing can hinder our God from rescuing us and equipping us.  Not our lack of resources.  Not the strength of the enemy.  Not the circumstances or the “facts.”  Not our own weaknesses.

That’s why God’s people could walk away from slavery in Egypt without a battle.

Or why a teenage shepherd boy knocked a Philistine giant to the ground with a stone in a slingshot.

That’s why God built an army for David out of “men who were in trouble or in debt or who were just discontented—until David was the captain of 400 men.”  This rag-tag army came as they were, refugees, runaways, and rejects, and they managed to evade King Saul’s “3,000 elite troops from all Israel” (1 Samuel 22:2 and 24:2).

And that’s why Jonathan and his armor bearer led their nation to a great victory against the enemy that day.  It started with two men stepping out in faith and trusting that God could save them whether they had 10,000 soldiers or just themselves relying on God to rescue them.

Rescue them, He did: terrifying the enemy until they scattered in fear and sending an earthquake at just the right moment.

We just don’t know what resources God will use to provide and deliver.  We can look at our projected income all we want.  We can stare at our day planner and refine the to-do list as much as we please.

We can consider every possibility and take into account the likelihood of this or that.

But if God has decided to deliver us, then deliver us He will…whether by many or by few…and nothing will stand in His way.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in November 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

This Little Kitty Stayed Home

Leave a comment

One of our cats ran away last week for a 3o-hour trek into the woods.

Our other cat stayed home.003

In sympathy, my daughters talked about our large black cat missing his smaller orange “brother.”  He meowed and we thought it was a meow of sadness.  My three-year-old showed him extra affection out of concern for his worried feline heart.

Maybe he was just meowing because he was hungry.

Because when our orange cat finally sauntered home at 2 a.m., the stay-at-home cat seemed to care less at first.

Then the hissing started.

Here we are four days later, and there is still hissing.

The prodigal tries to eat food, or brush up close to the larger cat, or snuggle up on the bed where the stay-at-home cat is napping.

And we hear the ugliest, most evil hissing sound.  It’s hardly a warm reception for our runaway.

We have the classic case of the prodigal son and the older brother who remained at home working the fields.  It’s playing itself out between a behemoth black cat and a skittish orange cat in our very own home.

And this I understand just a tiny bit.

In Scripture, the prodigal son demanding his inheritance before his father’s death was more than just a young adult rebellion and a little bit of wandering and partying before responsible adulthood.

Sure it sounds so calm and level-headed at first glance when the younger son said to his dad, “Father, give me the share of the estate I have coming to me” (Luke 15:12).

Yet, it was really the ultimate rejection of a parent.  In essence, the prodigal son said, “I wish you were dead, so I’m going to take my inheritance and leave as if you had already died.”

We sometimes miss the enormity of the disrespect and insult and treat the prodigal as if he just had a wild stage that he needed to get out of his system or simply a little curiosity about the big wide world.

But it was so much more than that.  It was cutting off that relationship in what the son knew was a permanent, hurtful, totally destructive, rude, and unfeeling way.

“I don’t want to ever see you again.  I wish you were dead.  I hate you.”

That’s what the son said.

And here I am with this runaway cat, feeling the tiniest bit of rejection (and worry) that he would choose a frigid night outside in periodic snowfall over our warm home with food, fresh water, and places to stretch out for comfortable naps.

How much more the hurt of that father watching his son slamming doors and shouting in anger.

Of course, in their case when this same prodigal son crawled home, humbled and hurting, the father killed the fatted calf and threw a Welcome Home party.

And we haven’t done that.  No special treatment.  No canned tuna opened to celebrate our cat’s return.  It’s just business as usual for us.

But still our other cat hisses in annoyance like that older brother in the field, re-asserting his authority and his territorial rights. It’s more than a bit ugly.

It seems like a fitting time of year to talk about runaways and prodigals, the lost and the hurting.  Our churches are in full preparation for the Holy Week with egg hunts and sunrise services, special breakfasts and brunches.

The truth is that in the next week people we’ve never seen before or those we haven’t seen for a long time will walk through the doors of our church buildings.

In some cases, they will be simple visitors, passing through the sanctuary for only a brief time.  Others might be long-lost friends.  Still others might be the prodigals slipping into the pews, hoping not to draw too much attention to themselves.

And we have to choose how to welcome them.

With open arms.

Or with territorial hissing.

Or unforgiveness.

Or sanctimonious displays of righteousness and very little grace.

This past week, I read of a woman who slipped into the pews of a church before the service began one Sunday morning.  She bowed her head low and cried, mourning the death of her son.

A woman in the church walked over and stood looming over her while she prayed.

Finally, the visitor looked up expecting someone to pray for her or hug her or ask how to help her.

Instead, she was told, “I’ve been attending this church for 17 years and that’s my seat.”

That’s the ugly sound of hissing.

We do this in other ways, making 200 “older brothers” feel mighty cozy on a Sunday morning, and we’ll look polished and shiny on Easter Sunday, like we have it all totally together.

But perhaps we need the reminder to leave room–and not just pew space–for the younger brothers returning home, for the lost, and for the hurting.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in November 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Weekend Rerun: Peppermint in the Spring

Leave a comment

Originally published March 14, 2012

Let my prayer be counted as incense before you,
and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!  (Psalm 141:2)

I bought it on a whim and I’m so glad I did.

Years ago, I was filling my garden with herbs.  I bought the tiniest pots of rosemary, lavender, sage, thyme, oregano, basil, parsley and chives for $2 each and just hoped they’d grow larger over time.

Then, as I left the garden center one day I walked by another table of herbs.  I thought there’d be nothing among those leaves to entice me—now the proud owner of herbs I knew how to cook with and some I didn’t.

I almost passed by without even looking, but as I did a breeze blew through and I caught the hint of the most heavenly scent ever.

It was a tiny pot of peppermint.

I fell in love.

Over the years, some of those miniature $2 herb plants have overtaken my garden.  The rosemary has invaded the entire back left corner.  I keep cutting it back and still it grows undeterred.

The basil last year towered over my six-year-old daughter and made me crave Italian food every time I climbed the steps to my back door.

Then there’s the peppermint.  It quickly spread and overtook every available space in the right corner of my garden plot.

Now, as I sit here typing away next to an open window, I can smell the scent of fresh peppermint even with the gentlest breeze.

I’m pretty sure heaven smells like peppermint.  And if the aroma of heaven is sweeter than that, it’s aromatherapy at its greatest.

There’s no “if” about it, though.  We know for sure that God has His own brand of Scentsy and His own favorite aroma.

And believe it or not, it’s sweeter than fresh peppermint dancing in a spring breeze.

The Bible tells us that in heaven there are “golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (Revelation 5:8) and that:

“Another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel” (Revelation 8:3-4).

Our prayers are being mixed with incense and wafted before God’s throne all the time.  It’s the cries of our heart and the pleas for grace, the humble praising of His name, and the intercession on behalf of others that fills the throne room.

They are a continual offering to God, a sweet-smelling sacrifice that brings God joy.

This, then, is truly my heart’s desire.  I want to smell nice for God.

Sound foolish?  Perhaps it seems silly at first.

And yet, what I really mean to say is that I want to be pleasing to Him.  I don’t want to be the foul odor among the incense of the saints’ prayers. I don’t want to be the one lone stench among the sacrifices offered up to my God.

I want Him to receive my prayers with pleasure and to take joy in the life I offer to Him, in the planned prayer times spoken at my table, in the heartfelt cries I send up to heaven without premeditation, and in the thousands of conversations and the running dialogue I carry on with Him every day, all day.

This isn’t a mystery, either.  We aren’t left to guess what life-scents God enjoys and which of those He finds distasteful and nauseating.

In Exodus and Leviticus we read that the sacrifices burnt on the altar before God could be a “pleasing aroma” to Him (Exodus 29:18, Exodus 29:25, Exodus 29:41, Leviticus 1:9, Leviticus 1:13 . . . ).

When offered with obedience, these burnt offerings brought God pleasure.

Yet, God told the Israelites “if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me . . . I will lay your cities waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing aromas” (Leviticus 26:27, 31).

Lives of disobedience and idolatry became the stench of garbage and death before God.  He held His nose at their offerings and didn’t receive their sacrifices.

So when you choose to obey Him, even when it doesn’t make sense and doesn’t fit into your five-year-plan, you are spraying on the perfume of the God-life.

When you pray with humility, when you commune with Him continually, and when you offer up praise, your prayers drift through heaven like peppermint on a breeze and like the candles making my living room smell like honeysuckle on a summer’s eve and my bedroom like gardenias in bloom (my favorites!).

This has become my prayer for today and the days ahead, that the life I lay on the altar before God, the offering up of my actions, my words, my thoughts, and the hidden motives of my heart, will be acceptable to Him.  And that the prayers I place at the feet of His throne are a pleasing aroma of incense to my God.

With David, we pray:

Let my prayer be counted as incense before you,
and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!  (Psalm 141:2)

and

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer (Psalm 19:14)

Amen.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in November 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

The Prodigal Returns

1 Comment

Our prodigal finally tiptoed through our backdoor at 2 a.m. last night.

We’ve had our orange cat for about 11 years now.  I picked him out of a litter of tiny strays at the Humane Society when we lived in New Jersey.  He was strikingly beautiful with swirls of white in his fur.

And he was terrified of us and the world.

When people visited us, our other more-friendly goliath of a black cat would greet them at the door, and our orange skittish feline would hide away for safety.002

Since he had lived outside as a newborn before he was taken to the Humane Society, what he knew was the outdoors.  For years, he would stomp all over my potted plants to push their leaves down and then sleep on the soil.

At some point, this Scaredy-Cat, who is supposed to stay inside, got a taste of the outdoors again.  At first, it was little excursions out the back door.  Then longer jaunts into the wooded area behind our house.

On Wednesday night, he ran out in the evening, after it had already grown dark and bitterly cold.  It was the first day of spring and we’d been watching bursts of snow showers all day.

So, we went into “recovery” mode.  I opened the back door and made a loud production of pouring food into his food dish.  My husband searched the yard and called his name.  We left the door cracked open all night and put his cat bed out on the deck.

And we prayed.

But he didn’t come home.  Not all that night.  Not all the next day, even though I abandoned chores to trek through the woods calling his name and spent the rest of the day peering out the back windows watching for him to shoot up the stairs of the deck.

…Not even after I started to suggest to my daughters that maybe he wasn’t coming home and they invented adventure stories about how he made a new friend or went to kitty preschool or visited the cat doctor.

…Not after we bowed our heads as a family and each daughter and parent prayed that Oliver would come home.

At 2 a.m., though, I woke abruptly and fought the urge to roll back over and go back to sleep.  I fumbled for my glasses and plodded in bare feet to the back door, expecting to see an empty deck.

Instead, I saw our orange cat nibbling at the food we’d left for him. He lifted his face to look at me as if nothing had ever happened, and when I opened up the door, he just tiptoed inside nonchalantly like it was no big deal whatsoever.

All that time he was gallivanting through the woods or maybe hunkered down somewhere trying to keep warm, I thought and prayed about this cat.  Every time I walked outside, pulled my coat up close and felt the chill deep down in my bones, I thought about him.

And I’m not sure I ever really understood Jesus’ passionate, intense, and committed pursuit of the lost and the prodigals until now.

I was worried about a cat.

He’s concerned about people He loves enough to die for.

Sure, I read the parables in Luke 15.  The Lost Coin.  The Lost Sheep.  The Lost Son (there’s that prodigal).

I thought I knew–Yes, “the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10 HCSB).

But I really didn’t understand.  Not the way that they would linger on His mind or how He’d put aside other agendas to pursue them or that He’d keep searching long after most of us would lose all hope.

He leaves the 99 sheep, to wander the hillside looking for the one stray.

He runs full speed toward the prodigal returning home and welcomes him in, celebrating rather than chastising.

And that woman who lost the one silver coin—I’ve been there.  Turning on all the lights.  Sweeping the whole house.  Scripture says she would “search carefully until she finds it” (Luke 15:8).  I don’t know what “carefully” looks like for her, but it sounds so methodical and orderly.

My searches look more like frantic overturning of dresser drawers, tossing things out of closets, sweeping papers off of desks and rumbling through junk all while whispering desperate prayers that God would just help this crazy woman find this oh-so-important-thing already!

I lose that for people too much of the time, that willingness to keep on relentlessly praying for the lost and the fervent intercession for and seeking out of the prodigals.

I struggle to confess–it’s ugly, but true—I think I felt more worry over my runaway cat and more desperation about finding missing pieces of paper than over the wayward and hurting around me.

And that needs to change.

Do you need to re-commit to praying for lost loved ones or loving the prodigals you know?

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in the Fall of 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King