What I Saw When I Took the Time to See

April 30, 20142 Comments

This month I’ve learned some things are worth the stopping…

and the pausing….

and the braking and the breaking….

so I can worship the Beautiful One who made such beauty.

I read in the Our Daily Bread Devotional Bible about this botanical garden on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls and a plaque there:

“Enter, friends, and view God’s pleasant handiwork, the embroidery of earth.”

So He does embroider this beauty, His handiwork: Handmade, God-stitched, beloved creation that glorifies its Creator.

I have dropped my armload of worldly goods right on the ground to take a picture of a butterfly.

I have pulled my minivan over to snap a picture of the sunset.

I have walked with eyes wide open.

I have listened to the symphony and strolled through the gardens.

I have dug in the dirt of my own little plot.

And I have watched these butterflies emerge from the chrysalis and then fly free.

Have you been on this quest for beauty, too? And have you found what I have found?

For God is sheer beauty,
all-generous in love,
loyal always and ever
(Psalm 100:5 MSG).

And have You worshiped in response and isn’t worship the only response when You’re seeking His Presence and You see these glimpses of His beauty in the beauty He has made?

I sing:

You are all my heart longs for
The treasure and the hunger
I’ve tasted and I must have more
Of Your Presence, God

You call me deeper than before
I’m falling further into You God
You are just so beautiful
I love Your Presence, God
(Presence, by Kathryn Scott)

and I sing…

The fullness of Your grace is here with me
The richness of Your beauty’s all I see
The brightness of Your glory has arrived
In Your presence God I’m completely satisfied
(Divine Romance by Phil Wickham)

I posted these pictures all month long on my Facebook page as I took breaks for beauty. Did you miss them? You can follow my Facebook page here so you don’t miss out again!

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’?

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.

Is There a Shoemaker in the House?

April 28, 20144 Comments

So I wake up on Monday morning after a busy weekend….

For one thing, the string on the church piano broke in the middle of the worship service on Sunday…

I have meetings, events, appointments, and extra activities all week (adding “Call Piano Tuner” to the list)…

Then right before the bus comes, my daughter pops her foot into the sneaker and says, “Look, Mom, my shoe broke, but I can still wear it,” at which point she takes a step forward to demonstrate its viability as a workable shoe and the sneaker falls off her foot and plops to the floor….

So, I grab an extra pair, but the laces are knotted up tight….

And the school bus comes and picks up one daughter but the other one is still fiddling with the replacement shoe.

I’ve got this. I rush the preschooler through her school preparation because she is at this point still standing there in her pajamas with un-brushed teeth and messy morning hair.

Then I pop the baby in the car seat (still in his pajamas, but who would know?), and expertly drive the oldest child to one school, the four-year-old (who is now dressed with her teeth cleaned and her hair in braided pigtails) to a different school where I arrive early (for once!!!) and the baby back home without losing my temper, my cool, or my driver’s license.

And then…

Then I feel compelled to hit that to-do list all determined and focused despite the wearing down from brokenness and need.

I could cry because it is hitting a little bit on the tender part of my soul still bruised a bit from weekend wear, but it’s also hitting a little on my sense of my humor.

Really?

A broken shoe?

How does that even happen?

It’s also hitting me here, too: thinking how life can trip us up with so much that’s unexpected. You can plan and plan and make those lists and keep those agendas and then a sneaker breaks on a Monday morning and you better hope that all you have holding you together isn’t just a list you jotted down in a notebook with a blue pen.

You better hope you’re resting in Jesus.

Saturday, I was yanking mint out of my garden in patches. Years ago, I planted this tiny pot of mint and now it’s everywhere. As I pull up one sprig, a vine pops up from underneath the soil and I discover an underground network of mint, all connected and interwoven.

The depth, the connectedness, the strength is all hidden in the dirt, only revealed by the weight of my tugging.

And life, it yanks at us here or there, pulling at this little bit, trying to unravel what it sees. Yet, we are to be connected deep, even in hidden ways far beneath the surface, to the Vine.

Jesus said:

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing (John 15:4-5 NASB).

This ‘Abiding….” or “remaining” (as the NIV says), what does this mean for me this day, this Monday of unexpected breaking?

In The Message it reads:

“Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me. I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing” (John 15:3-8 MSG).

Chris Tiegreen writes:

Presence is everything in the Christian life…The truth is that His Presence working within us is the key to everything and without Him we can do nothing.

Why? Because all that is truly important, the obedience, overcoming trials, bearing fruit, navigating relationships and practicing spiritual disciplines changes essentially when I experience the Presence of Christ—-my attitude improves, my prayers deepen, my faith grows, my joy is renewed, passions re-kindle, service comes easy even on a broken Monday morning.

All because when hassles, bothers, broken shoes, minor annoyances and even true trials pull at me, they reveal more than some superficial root system that gives way at the slightest pressure.

They reveal the Vine.

And today, I’m holding on for dear life, but I’m still holding on.

Dear God, today it’s not chocolate or tea, a hug, kind words, or some encouragement from a friend that I need. What I need is You. I know this is true: Apart from You, I can’t do anything. Please “live in me. Make Your home in me” and in the “intimate and organic” relationship that grows, help me to thrive in You.

Do you have a crazy Monday morning story to share? Do tell!

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’?

Drop the stuff to take a picture of the butterfly (and maybe climb a tree)

April 25, 2014April 25, 2014Leave a comment

She saw him there first, sunning himself on those purple flowers, showing off his yellow and black wings.

We hadn’t taken even two steps out of my front door when she shouted and rushed right over.

Two steps out the door? I was still shifting the weight of the baby carrier against my knee with the diaper bag slung over my shoulder and a bag of library books weighing down my other hand with my keys between my teeth. 10170989_696172120430028_1187591291338040542_n

And she’s spotting butterflies.

We stopped. We emptied our hands so we could take pictures and enjoy one spring butterfly in the warmth of the sun.

But if she hadn’t been there, would I have even seen? Would I have paced right by that flower bed from front door to minivan in 0.3 seconds?

And, if after a month of looking for beauty I’m still so apt to miss it, then what exactly am I missing?

I go back to the beginning, back to what I know.

God is both Beautiful and the Creator of Beauty. The Psalmist said:

From Zion, perfect in beauty, God shines forth (Psalm 50:2).

So when I seek out the beauty of what He has made, I worship Him, I enter into His presence, and I can glimpse those hints of eternal perfection—the scent of Eden in the here and now.

David wanted this, too. He wanted to seek out the presence of God and if he could have just one thing, it’d be this:

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).

I want His presence, His beauty, to be my ‘one thing,’ my passionate pursuit, my eyes-on-the-prize, single-minded, totally focused, never-wavering-for-a-moment ‘thing.’

So why then do I walk out of my front door and need my eight-year-old daughter to see that butterfly on those purple flowers?

Because my hands are full?

Because my mind is busy?

Because my heart is heavy?

Yes and yes and sometimes (but not always).

What if there’s something more? I have to at least ask the question.

Isaiah said:

“Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you” (Isaiah 59:2).

What if something blinds us to His face? What if we’re trying to see and trying to see, but it’s just impossible?

Don’t you love Zaccheus, though? This tax collector tried to see Jesus and tried to see Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd.

He could have given up, called it a day, headed on home, took a raincheck on a visit to the Messiah.

But no. He hiked up his robe and scrambled up a tree.

I’m no tree climber. Never really was. But now? A 30-something mom of 4 kids? What a mess of clumsiness I’d be grabbing branches and hoping they’d hold my weight.

Yet, what if Jesus stopped and looked at that tree and called Zaccheus down because it was just that crazy? He knew that this sin-filled tax collector was the one man in the crowd who was willing to make an utter fool of himself and do any wild bit of craziness just to see Jesus.

Face-to-face with so much grace, standing right there in Jesus’ presence, Zacchaeus could do nothing less than repent and change (Luke 19).

In Acts it says,

Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord (Acts 3:19 NASB).

If I want the refreshing of His presence, then it starts with the repenting and the returning.

So, what am I willing to do to see Him? Skin my knees on tree bark and climb on up there?

And when I’m there at His feet, is there anything I need to lay down and be willing to change?

A bad attitude?

Bitterness?

Self-pity?

Selfishness and Self-focus?

Pride?

Jealousy?

Disobedience?

Unforgiveness?

It’s not legalism or getting all tangled up in reminders about how sinful I am.

It’s about seeing the beauty of His face when we discover the beauty of His grace.

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’?

When He Dances It Teaches Me to Dance–Finding Treasure in the Word

April 23, 2014April 24, 201414 Comments

My baby boy has learned The Mommy Dance.

There’s some bouncing and kicking, throwing his body forward and trying to propel himself into my arms. He throws his hands up and half-hyperventilates/half squeaks to get my attention.

He’s all eyes on Momma, two beautiful big and sparkly blue eyes speaking so loud, no words needed.

I know his heart. He’s been playing on his own for a while or maybe he’s been cradled and rocked by someone else in the church nursery, and he’s been fine. They’ve met his needs, changed his diapers, helped him sleep.

But now he sees me and me is what he wants.

Mommy! That’s what his dance says.

Mommy, come hold me! Come love on me! Come feed me and care for me!

He knows I will. He knows in his baby soul a deep-down truth that Mommy will reach her arms right out for him and hold him close.

More than that, I’ll probably kiss him 100 times in a minute and smooth the fuzz of his hair down and I’ll coo at him and whisper how I love him so.

He is wanted. He is loved. He is welcome here in my life, in my arms, in my heart.

But me, how uncertain I feel at times. How shy, how vulnerable—when I feel needy, broken, empty, weary, and worn.

It’s God that I need. It’s being in His presence, and only in that precious presence, that will restore my soul.

Yet I pause.

What if God is weary of my weariness?

What if He wants me to preach to myself for a bit, talk myself right out of my own need before I drop it all down at His feet once again?

What if He wishes I’d just pull it all together already and stop holding out my empty vessel for more?

But Hebrews tells me right there:

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Hebrews 4:16 NIV).

Come to Him with confidence…because Jesus is the High Priest who knows what it’s like to suffer and what it’s like to skip meals and to serve others and to lose sleep and to have to fight for rest and quiet—yes, even more than this momma of four does.

My baby boy doesn’t lift his hands to me with insecurity or self-accusation; he seeks my presence with confidence. hebrews4

So, I can come knowing that God will welcome me because this throne of His is a throne of GRACE.

And at the Grace-throne, I’m confident that I am forgiven and that I am beloved.

Confident that He isn’t rolling His eyes at my needy heart or sighing with frustration at the mess I’ve made of things.

Confident that right then when I need Him the most, He’s offering the grace and mercy I’m so desperate for.

Confident that my emptiness isn’t disappointing to Him and isn’t too much for Him to fill.

No more hiding in the shadows of the throne room doorway or pressing up against the wall and hoping that God doesn’t notice how I’ve stumbled on in.

That’s what I cling to today when I’ve slipped into that place again and I’m so timid in His presence at first because I just want to hold that empty cup right up and it feels so bold, so brazen, so demanding to ask Him for more….

But I think of Jesus’ first miracle. Such a trivial thing it seems, saving a wedding party from the social faux pas of the season by turning empty vats into vessels filled with the best wine at Cana.

In Whispers of Hope, though, Beth Moore says,

“Christ fills empty vessels.”

This is the miracle I need. It’s no sideline magic show or performance, no preface to the great miracles still to come.

Filling empty vessels is what Christ did. It’s what He does.

It’s what I still need Him to do.

And the beautiful promise in Hebrews is that when I raise my arms up, when I ask for His help, when I reach out and beg for His presence and hold out that empty cup, I don’t need to ask ashamed.

For at the throne of grace, I am:

Welcomed.

Loved.

Forgiven.

Filled.

And it’s here I will find the mercy and the grace in my time of need.

Dear Lauren…On Your Birthday

April 21, 2014Leave a comment

Dear Lauren,

You have been growing.

I didn’t need you to step up into the measuring booth at Busch Gardens to tell me that. No need for a doctor’s statistics, a growth chart, or a scale to verify what I’ve known all year.

I’ve seen it.

This one day we celebrate another year of you, but I’ve seen God-at-work not just one magic day, but day-by-day, tiny changes, tiny steps, signs of the Holy Spirit at work.

And I’ve been celebrating all along because oh, how I have prayed for you. I have sunk right down onto my Mom-knees and prayed for you. In that minivan in those rare moments when I am all alone, I’m praying for you. And when I push that stroller down the Main Street of our town, I’m praying then, too.

Praying that God digs the roots of faith deep in your heart and mind.
Praying that He helps you make wise decisions and that you choose good friends.
Praying that you use all those many gifts for His glory and that with discipline and self-control you excel like I know you can.
Praying that you overcome paralyzing fear and the emotions that overwhelm.
Praying that you willingly choose Him and His Word over every worldly distraction.

This spiritual journey, this maturing and growing up, it’s full of stepping forward and then stepping right back at times, full of a million right choices and then those times when we get it wrong.

But we’re growing all the while. Mistakes can often be better teachers than successes.

So, we rejoice because we see how you’ve chosen excellence, responsibility, discipline, and giving it your best in school.

We celebrate how you’ve gotten up early all year long to get ready for school on time without those morning breakdowns.

We marvel at how you sang those solos and stood on the stage and didn’t give in to fear or stage fright or excuses, but you did what we knew all along you could do.

And even on the days when maybe you don’t get it all perfect and right, remember this:

We love you.

You bristle at words like, “I love you” and don’t often let me just hug on you like this momma longs to do.

But in the million tiny ways I try to say it, I hope your heart knows the truth. Picking out those perfect gifts, slipping jokes into your lunch box, sitting across the school lunch table with you while you munch on carrot sticks, taping balloons and streamers and wrapping paper to your door the night before your birthday—-that’s “I love you” without the words because sometimes words fall short anyway.

We love who you are—that way you have of telling jokes, making those funny faces, sending your baby brother into hysterical fits of infant giggles.

We love your quick mind and the way you respond to praise, like the spring flowers reaching to the sun and blooming with all their might. Your teacher this year tells you all the time, “Great day today, Lauren. I’m proud of you, Lauren” and you just open up in her class. She has helped you shine.

The way he gives you these perfect teachers, it reminds me over and over that you are in His hands.

You’ve always been in His hands.

Way back when you were just this tiny squirming baby inside me and those doctors told me you were too small, you were high risk, maybe you weren’t growing as you should, even then God gave me one promise to hold on to: He’s got the Whole World in His hands.

And baby girl, that means Your World is in His hands. Even then when I couldn’t see your face save for a blurry image on an ultrasound screen, I knew His hands were big enough to hold you.

Now you’ve grown so much, but His hands are still just the right size to pick you up, to protect you, to guide you, to rescue you, to lift you high.

On your eighth birthday, I pray this for you:

My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:14-19 MSG).

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

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

What 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’?

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!

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Tag: devotions for moms

What I Saw When I Took the Time to See

I posted these pictures all month long on my Facebook page as I took breaks for beauty. Did you miss them? You can follow my Facebook page here so you don’t miss out again!

Is There a Shoemaker in the House?

Do you have a crazy Monday morning story to share? Do tell!

Drop the stuff to take a picture of the butterfly (and maybe climb a tree)

When He Dances It Teaches Me to Dance–Finding Treasure in the Word

Dear Lauren…On Your Birthday

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

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

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

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

How Can I Dance in Worn-Out Shoes?

I posted these pictures all month long on my Facebook page as I took breaks for beauty. Did you miss them? You can follow my Facebook page here so you don’t miss out again!

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Do you have a crazy Monday morning story to share? Do tell!

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