Tag: devotions

Bible Verses About the Power of God’s Voice

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  • Genesis 1:3 ESV
    And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
  • 2 Samuel 22:14 ESV
    The Lord thundered from heaven,
        and the Most High uttered his voice.
  • Psalm 18:13 ESV
    The Lord also thundered in the heavens,
        and the Most High uttered his voice,
        hailstones and coals of fire.
  • Psalm 29:3-4 ESV
    The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
        the God of glory thunders,
        the Lord, over many waters.
    4 The voice of the Lord is powerful;
        the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
  • Psalm 46:6 ESV
    The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
        he utters his voice, the earth melts.
  • Psalm  68:33 ESV
    to him who rides in the heavens, the ancient heavens;
        behold, he sends out his voice, his mighty voice.
  • Jeremiah 10:13 ESV
    When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens,
        and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth.
    He makes lightning for the rain,
        and he brings forth the wind from his storehouses.
  • Ezekiel 43:2 ESV
     And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. And the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory.
  • Joel  2:11 ESV
    The Lord utters his voice
        before his army,
    for his camp is exceedingly great;
        he who executes his word is powerful.
    For the day of the Lord is great and very awesome;
        who can endure it?
  • Matthew 8:8 ESV
    8 But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.
  • Luke 4:36 ESV
    And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!
  • John 1:1-2 ESV
    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God.
  • Hebrews 1:3 ESV
    He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
  • Revelation 1:15 ESV
    his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters.

Hope is worth fighting for

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There’s an abandoned house in my neighborhood and I pass it every time I drive out and I drive in, or when I  walk  my normal exercise route.

It took me a while to notice.  Mostly the grass is the telltale sign.  It’s not just uncut for a week or two.  The grass reaches to my knees before someone runs through it with a lawnmower, mostly for mercy I think.

There are other hints.  The lack of cars coming in and out.  The missing mailbox.  The tiles on the front porch that are stacked up and never, ever move.

It’s surrounded by the cutest bunch of houses all down the lane with well-tended gardens.  They have gazebos and bird feeders, wind chimes, and color-coordinated flower beds,  porch swings, garden flags and pinwheels.   Every house around it looks loved and still this one sits, not just empty—abandoned.  That’s how I think of it:   Abandoned.  I’m not sure if that’s a technical truth;  it’s just got the aura of ‘left behind” around it.

A friend told me the house’s sad story, of the family who lived there and of their sorrow.  Perhaps it is all just too much to return to  this place of memory?  Perhaps it is too hard to let it go?

I have entertained myself with big plans about this house: Of the person who might one day fall in love with it and move in.  Or maybe one day I’ll even buy it and rent it out to my young adult children. Or what if….?  Or  maybe….?

There is potential here!

There is still hope!

Maybe that’s the reminder I need in this season as I pray over some requests in situations that  seem too far gone.  It’s all over  now.  A hopeless mess. Doomed.  Broken beyond repair.

I realize as I look at this lost little house that it would take serious work to restore it.  You’d have to  wage a great battle against aggressive vines that are threatening to overtake the whole  side.  And you’d have to cut through the knee-high grass and paint over the cracking trim.  You’d have to  clear out the overgrown flower beds and plant new life.

That’s when it  hits me:  Hope takes effort and hope is worth fighting for.

We hope, but if hope is just  this passive emotion, just  this feeling  that we may or  we may not have and it can flit away in an instant,  then what’s the point of hoping?

Instead, Scripture says:

“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure….” (Hebrews 6:19a CSB).

This unshakeable, strong anchor that keeps us from being swept away and overcome is the hope we have in Christ, that He came, that He saved us, that He intercedes for us now and is preparing a place for us in heaven.

So, we hope because of who He is:  Jesus redeems.  He restores.  He revives.  He resurrects.  He renews.

We might have to fight to hold on to hope, though.  It might take effort to maintain hopefulness in circumstances that seem hopeless, but still “we put our hope in the Lord” because “He is our help and our shield.” (Psalm 33:20 CSB emphasis mine).

We put our hope in Him.  We renew that hope  and tend that hope and rebuild that hope  when it’s close to crumbling.

It’s not that we hope for a specific answer or particular deliverance.  We hope in the Lord–in His character, in His ability,  in His mercy.  We know He is able and that we can trust Him to do what is right, best, compassionate, loving and perfect.

I can place needs,  worries, fears,  conflict, disappointment, dreams all in His hands.  Because He will do this:

Redeem.

Restore.

Revive.

Resurrect.

Renew.

Yes, I can hope in Him.

That means pulling  out the plow and breaking up some hard, stony ground.   It means yanking away that overgrown vine and mowing down that too-tall  grass.  It means tending the garden and replanting with new life.  It means pulling  out the paint brush and the hammer and the nails and all the tools I can grab to rebuild hope in the places I’ve let it crumble into hopelessness.

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13 CSB).

This is the invitation to go together and not alone

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“I want to come!”

This is my son.  He lives in a constant state of high-alert awareness, making sure no one in the family goes out for an adventure or for some fun without bringing him along.

We plan a movie day, just me and my girls to see a film that isn’t animated and isn’t going to hold the interest of my active four-year-old boy.

Somehow, though, without us talking to  him or even talking near him so he’ll overhear us, he manages to catch the word “movies” and pipes up with his current catchphrase, “I want to come!”

This is so hard.

I am an oldest child in a family of 5 kids.  Until I had a youngest child of my own, I had no idea how hard it can be sometimes to be the baby of the family.

He is the one who wants to play, but the others are too old to play.

He is the one who always wants to come even if we’re going somewhere he can’t go.  That means feeling left behind and that breaks his momma’s heart.

So, we try our best.  We draw him in.  We take him whenever we can.   That’s not everywhere and that’s not always, but we do our best.

Right in the middle of decorating our Christmas tree, last weekend, I ran out of working Christmas lights.  It had been a long and busy day full of projects, but unfinished projects are like fingernails on a chalkboard for me.   I cannot do, “let it wait until tomorrow.”

So, off I went, grabbing my bag and prepping for an emergency dash to the Wal-Mart.

My son saw my bag and sure enough said, “I want to come!”

He didn’t even know where I was going.  He just didn’t want to be left out.

Of course, making quick runs into a store is much easier without children along for the ride, but I grabbed his coat and shoes and took him with me because I could.

We drove out of our neighborhood slowly, marveling at all the Christmas lights.  We bought our supplies at the store and as we walked back out, Andrew shouted to a group of unknown bystanders, “Hey, they have a lot of Christmas stuff in there!”  Then we drove back home a slightly different way so we could see the decorations on a whole new set of houses.

The best part  of our unexpected adventure was his presence.  He was there.  He didn’t miss it.  I had drawn him in to the journey and pulled him alongside as a companion and he brought all the joy when wrestling with the lights on that tree had left me joy-depleted.

This is one of the gifts of the Christmas season: Jesus draws us in and He draws us together with others.

This is what He did for Mary, as she was commissioned to be the mother of the Messiah, right when the calling was at its most overwhelming and she could have felt both overwhelmed and all alone.  That’s when the angel said:

And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren (Luke 1:36 ESV).

You’re not in this by yourself.  Come.  Share this experience and this calling with another.

That was the invitation.

It was an invitation to do the hard thing with another rather than all alone.

And the angels made other announcements.  The heavens displayed other signs.  They shared the good news of great joy with a group of shepherds co-laboring in the fields, and a group of wise men studying the skies and ancient texts together.

These men had been working together and searching together.   Now, they became fellow-travelers and fellow-witnesses, bringing their community to Jesus and bringing Jesus to their community.

So much of me wants to hide away and hibernate by the time we hit December.  The calendar has “no more room at the inn” and my depleted resources leave me with little left to give.

But Jesus.

Jesus draws others in.

He brought His very presence right into the middle of the everyday, ordinary, needy lives of people and then invited them to come and not just to come alone, but to come together .

Maybe this Christmas can be a Christmas of invitation for us.  Maybe instead of doing alone and going alone, we can ask another, “Do you want to come?”  It can be last minute, it can be messy, it can be casual, it can be crazy.  It can be formal and planned or it can be made up as we go along.

It can be a prayer as we begin the Advent season, “Lord, draw me to you….and draw me to others.”

 

 

Finding peace when it’s hard to see

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Here’s my primary job at the zoo as a mom.

Sure, I help break up fights over who will hold the map.

I plan our itinerary so we don’t bounce from the lions on the one end of the zoo, to the goats on the other end of the zoo, back to the giraffes way back where the lions are.  No, we take an orderly path.

I make sure no little hands slip into the fences and no children wander off in search of wild animals.

I decline to pay for every souvenir, snack, and photo booth that we see.

I take pictures of children giggling at the baby monkeys.

But mostly I do this—I point so that my youngest child at the time can actually find the animal in the tank or grass or exhibit or whatever.

I’ve been doing this for years for all four children at one time or another.

See the lizard? 

No.

See, right there.  Look where I’m pointing.  See?

No.

See that leaf?  The big one right there?  Look under that.  See the lizard?

No.

Every so often, we struggle to find the tiger or the bear, but mostly it’s these camouflaging reptiles and miniature frogs that have us standing at the cage for more than five minutes squinting our eyes, pointing our fingers, and eventually giving up.

But when I started taking my son to the zoo back when he was just learning to talk, I discovered he has super-sight.

He could spot a hidden reptile or amphibian the moment he walked up to the glass.

Snake. Lizard. Frog.  He pointed and said the name like this was the easiest exercise on the planet.

Hiding under foliage?  Didn’t matter.

Blending in with the pebbles?  Not a problem.

Hanging from a tree at the top of the cage?  Couldn’t fool him.

He sees what is hard to see and notices what is hard to notice.

I need vision like that.  I need spiritual super-sight.

Sometimes I’m searching through my circumstances and situations for the peace God promises.

Still, I can’t see it, not through the murky glass, not with my limited vision.

I need God to give me eyes that see His peace, even when it’s hidden, even when I don’t have answers, even when trouble looms, even when the waiting lingers and the uncertainty remains, even when I need the impossible.

Sheila Walsh writes:

In the last major conversation Jesus had with His closest friends, He spoke about peace–but not as we might have expected Him to (5 Minutes With Jesus).

We’d expect perhaps to find peace in the moments of calm or peace in the seasons of blessing.

We have peace when we’re at rest or peace when our relationships are happy and healthy, no one’s mad at us, we’re financially stable and physically well.

Isn’t that when peace comes?

Yet, Jesus told the disciples,

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace (John 16:33a ESV).

What things had He said to them?  Had He been talking about heaven, miracles, salvation, grace?

Not at all.

In John 15 and 16, Jesus tells his dearest friends about sorrow and His imminent death, about persecution and martyrdom, and how the world will hate them and harm them.

Then He gives them hope.

Then He promises them peace.

We seek peace in answered prayers, resolved situations, the end of conflicts or the arrival of provision.

We seek it in chocolate, bubble baths, getaways, and running away.

But peace isn’t found there.  Peace is found in Jesus Himself right where are in the middle of the pain, before the answers and the fixes and the resolution.

He told the disciples “in me you may have peace.”

PEACE ISN’T FOUND IN A POSITION OR A PROVISION; IT’S FOUND IN A PERSON.

Jesus is constant, unchanging.

He is faithful.

He is able.

He is compassionate and abundant in His love.

We can rest in Him, deeply rest.  We can entrust our lives to Him, every care and concern, every worry that keeps our thoughts churning at night as the clock ticks down hour after hour.

Jesus finished the promise to the disciples that night:

“In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33b ESV).

This is our courage.  Our reason to ‘take heart’ and have hope!  He has already overcome our every enemy and our every battle.

So, we look to Him and we ask for His vision right here when peace seems hidden and hope hard to see, when we’re staring at circumstances and not seeing the light for all the darkness.

Lord, help me see you!  Help me not lose sight of who you are.

Originally published March 11, 2016

Bible Verses About Snow

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 verses-about-snow

  • Psalm 51:7 NASB
    Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
    Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
  • Psalm 147:16-18 NASB
    He gives snow like wool;
    He scatters the frost like ashes.
    He casts forth His ice as fragments;
    Who can stand before His cold?
    He sends forth His word and melts them;
    He causes His wind to blow and the waters to flow.
  • Psalm 148:7-8 NASB
    Praise the Lord from the earth,
    Sea monsters and all deeps;
    Fire and hail, snow and clouds;
    Stormy wind, fulfilling His word
  • Proverbs 25:13 NASB
    Like the cold of snow in the time of harvest
    Is a faithful messenger to those who send him,
    For he refreshes the soul of his masters.
  • Proverbs 31:21 NASB
    She is not afraid of the snow for her household,
    For all her household are clothed with scarlet.
  • Isaiah 1:18 NASB
    “Come now, and let us reason together,”
    Says the Lord,
    “Though your sins are as scarlet,
    They will be as white as snow;
    Though they are red like crimson,
    They will be like wool.
  • Isaiah 55:10-11 NASB
    For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
    And do not return there without watering the earth
    And making it bear and sprout,
    And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
     So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth;
    It will not return to Me empty,
    Without accomplishing what I desire,
    And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.
  • Lamentations 4:7 NASB
    Her consecrated ones were purer than snow,
    They were whiter than milk;
    They were more ruddy in body than corals,
    Their polishing was like lapis lazuli.
  • Daniel 7:9 NASB
    “I kept looking
    Until thrones were set up,
    And the Ancient of Days took His seat;
    His vesture was like white snow
    And the hair of His head like pure wool.
    His throne was ablaze with flames,
    Its wheels were a burning fire.
  • Revelation 1:14 NASB
    His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire.

There’s No Surprising Him

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galatians-4

When my older girls were preschoolers, we’d keep every activity a secret until the last possible second.

If I planned to take them to the zoo, they’d find out that morning at 8:30 when I put on their sneakers and packed the cooler.

If Grandma was coming for a visit, they found out when she pulled in the driveway.  Maybe, just maybe, I’d be generous enough to clue them in a few hours before she arrived.  But that was it.  No more advance notice than that.

This parental strategy was for several reasons.

  1. Sometimes plans change, so I kept things secret so no promises were broken or kids felt disappointed.
  2. My children would pester me every hour of every day if they knew something exciting was going to happen.  “How much longer?  How many days?  How many hours…minutes….seconds?”

One year, I kept the secret that Grandma was coming right up until the night before her visit when some unforeseen event dragged the news out of me at bedtime.

Disaster ensued.  Huge childhood drama.

My oldest daughter wailed, grumped, and grew outrageously angry at me for keeping the secret.

I had not given her acceptable planning time.  She informed me, “Had I known Grandma was coming, I would have made her a project.  I had time to make a project today. Tomorrow will be too busy and I will not have time.  You should have told me!”

Oh sweet daughter, I understand.

I do truly hate surprises.  I love my planning and processing time. Springing anything on me is just asking for a meltdown and a whole lot of trouble.

Surprises rock our world a bit, even good ones.  We’re thrown off balance and take time to adjust.

And isn’t Christmas all about surprises?

Zechariah was simply performing his priestly duties when an angel appeared unexpectedly and delivered the news that he and his wife would be parents.

Gabriel arrived in the middle of an average, ordinary day and announced to a young girl named Mary that she would be the mother of the Messiah.

Joseph was sleeping when the angel told him the news in a dream.

Shepherds gathered on the hills outside of Bethlehem to watch over the sheep just as they did every single night.  But on this night, the angels declared their Savior had come.

A people who had spent hundreds of years praying for the Messiah, searching for the Messiah, waiting and longing for the Messiah were completely surprised when the Messiah came.

It’s altogether an astonishing tale.  Everyone waking up on an average day, going about their average ways, and then the most extraordinary happens: An encounter with an angel.  A miraculous sign.

God at work in their midst.

There’s only one member of this entire Christmas account who isn’t stunned and surprised by the Messiah’s birth.

God Himself.

And this brings me great comfort.

None of this was a surprise to God.

Not our need for a Savior. Not the timing.  Not that He’d send His Son to be born of a virgin in a tiny town.  Not that His Son would die on a cross to save His people from their sins.

He knew all of it.

The very first Christmas verse I can find in the Bible isn’t in the Gospels at all.  It’s in Genesis.

I will put enmity between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
    and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15 ESV). 

The moment Adam and Eve sinned, God declared the plan of salvation, the war with Satan, and Christ’s ultimate victory.

Sometimes surprises can send me into a mad scramble.  Life takes unexpected turns.  An average ordinary day can catapult me into a crisis with a single phone call.

It feels precarious and frightening to teeter-totter every moment, never knowing when my perfect plan will be bumped into.

But this is what I know:

Even when I don’t have a plan, God does.

Nothing sends Him into a frantic search for a Plan B.  Nothing stresses Him out or tosses Him into crisis mode because He didn’t see that coming.

God knew we’d need a Savior all along and He knew exactly how to save us.

God always knows what we’re going through and what we need.  Even when we’re surprised, He is not.

So we can rest from our vigil of anxiety and loosen our tight-fisted grip on control.

Christmas reminds us that we can trust Him with today and again with tomorrow.

He has perfect plans and perfect timing and we are perfectly cared for by a God who rescues and saves.

We Bring All the Pieces to Him

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christmas-perfection

The first crash of that shattering glass hit and it was just the day after Thanksgiving.  We were only one day into the Christmas season and only about 1 hour into Operation Decorate the House.

‘Twas an accident of course.

The penguin soap dispenser hit that floor and ended in a puddle of hand soap and broken glass.

That’s decorating with kids.

Accidents happen, you know.

An hour later, another crash.  Our box of special, keepsake, treasured ornaments hit the floor and a daughter cried with remorse.

Still, a little sweeping, a little mopping, a little gluing, a little comforting and we slipped back into the decorating groove, crooning along with Bing Crosby to White Christmas.

Stuff is stuff.  Things break (especially when you’re clumsy like me, especially when you have four kids like us).

Look at our Christmas tree from afar and it still has that glow of perfect.

Look up close and you’ll see the ballerina’s feet are glued on, Noah’s ark is missing a dolphin leaping up out of the ocean waters, and the three kings no longer carry a sign: “Wise Men Still Seek Him.”

Brokenness can still be beautiful when we look with eyes of grace.

But when we squint up close to critique and criticize….when we look right past the glory and seek out the flaws…..suddenly that’s all we see.

Perfectionism is a bully.

It muscles in and takes over our perceptions.

It demands that we see only brokenness and faults.

It insists that we remain chained to the past, obsessing over mistakes, battering us over past sin, beating us up with shame.

Lysa TerKeurst writes:

My imperfections will never override God’s promises (The Best Yes).

The promise of Christmas is “God with us.”  The promise is that when we were farthest from Him, He came to us.

The promise is that we didn’t have to get it right on our own or check the boxes of the law until we’d met some prerequisite to grace.

We didn’t come worthy.

We came needy.

And He came down.

Our imperfections never negated the promise of Emmanuel’s presence.  Not then.  Not now.

He still promises us this, “And surely I will be with you always” (Matthew 28:20 NIV).

He is with us always, but not to leave us there in the brokenness.

Sometimes we stop right there at this thought: “Beauty in the brokenness.  We’re all a mess in need of a Messiah.”

Sometimes we stop right there and, dare I say it, glory in the broken?  We cling to our mess instead of releasing it to Him.

But the glory is in the Healer.  The glory is in the redemption.  The glory is in the One who puts His own pure robe of righteousness over our shaky shoulders.

He doesn’t leave us naked and ashamed.  He “has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10 NIV).

We’ll never be perfect in our own striving and strength.  True.  But we don’t have to remain stuck there in the mud.  He grips us with the hand of grace and pulls us out of that pit so we can move forward with Him.

Those disciples on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection didn’t have it all right.  They didn’t have perfect understanding.  Their belief was delicately trembling and about to topple their whole foundation of faith.

They thought Jesus had been the Messiah, yet He had died.  These rumors from ‘crazy women’ about an empty tomb left them confused and alarmed.

But Jesus walked alongside without them recognizing him, going back to the beginning, telling the story start to finish.

When He was about to leave, “they urged him strongly, ‘Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.’ So he went in to stay with them.”

There at the dinner table, He broke the bread and their eyes opened wide to the truth: This was Jesus.  This was God in their midst.

God’s presence doesn’t depend on my perfection.

God’s presence doesn’t demand perfect understanding or faith without fail.

But if I want God’s presence, then I have to invite Him in, urge Him strongly, “stay with me…..”

He can only make us whole when we trust Him with the pieces, all of them:

God made my life complete
    when I placed all the pieces before him. Psalm 18:20 MSG

We bring all the pieces.  We don’t hold any back.

We lay them at His feet, not running away or hiding from Him.  We come into His presence, broken as we are, and He makes us whole and holy, and He stays with us.

Originally published 12/10/2014

How to dominate the smartphone before it dominates me

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Apparently it’s a modern psychological condition, Nomophobia:  The fear of being without your smartphone.

I have the opposite.cellphone

I’m no Luddite, no hater of all things technological or modern, but I have an overwhelming fear of owning a smart phone.

I just don’t want to be connected all the time. Sometimes I want to leave my house and not be available.

I don’t want to fall prey to those stereotypical smartphone pitfalls and gain convenience but lose the beauty of real relationships.

So for years, I’ve ignored a steady stream of phone upgrade offers from my cell phone company and cheerfully toted around my non-fabulous, plain-old dinosaur of a cell phone.

Most of the time, I forgot to have it charged anyway.  Or I couldn’t find it in my bag.  Or I left it at home.  Or I had turned it on silent and forgot to turn it back up.

I didn’t know how to check the voicemail on the thing and didn’t text back when someone texted me.

The truth is, my introverted soul dislikes phones in general.  Something about talking on the phone is an overwhelming social experience for me.

What do you say on the phone?  How do you know when the other person wants to talk so that you don’t also start talking and end up interrupting them?  What about awkward pauses?

And my least favorite….you call someone and they answer, “Hello…” and that’s it.  So you wonder: Am I talking to the right person?  Or did I dial the wrong number?  Will I launch into a conversation and find that I’m spilling my guts to a stranger?

Then, when you’ve completed the phone conversation, how do you say goodbye without getting on that farewell carousel that just goes round and round until someone finally hangs up?

Okay, see you later.

Bye.

Bye.

Have a good day.

Okay, see ya.

Yeah, bye.

I will do just about anything to avoid talking on the phone.  I will write endless e-mail messages back and forth with someone, send notes via Facebook, or wait to chat face-to-face.

I will even put on a stamp, walk to the mailbox and mail a letter first.20932501_s

Clearly a smartphone and I don’t seem look a good match for each other, this ostentatious, life-controlling, telephoning device and me, the hater of all things descended from Alexander Graham Bell’s initial great invention.

But last week, the cell phone company made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

So I stopped hyperventilating long enough to call them up and say, this free iPhone yada yada yada (I don’t even know what smartphones are called)..is that for real?

The guy says, “Let’s figure out how much data you might use in a month…..what do you want to do with your new smartphone?”

I think of all the things I DON’T want to do with this potential technology tyrant, but I just tell him what I do want.

I get lost.  Like, a lot.  Pretty much every time I drive in my car, I get lost.  I need to be able to look up directions and find out how to get un-lost.

Oh, and, I’d like to be able to look up phone numbers for places while I’m out and about.

Yup, that’s what I want.

I find it strangely funny…or perhaps absolutely perfect….that during the month of March when I’m choosing to Unplug, a new smartphone is on its way to my front door.

After all, there are choices I need to make now to dominate this device before it dominates me.

Maybe you do, too?

  1. I will not fall prey to the tyranny of the urgent.  Phone calls can be returned.  Text messages can wait for answers.  Facebook and Twitter and that endless stream of Internet information doesn’t need to be accessed all the time.
  2. I will not ignore the people I’m with to interact with the people who aren’t with me.
  3. I will remember social graces—make eye contact with my cashiers, thank the person at the desk, chat in a friendly way with the folks waiting in lines, listen to those I’m with.
  4. I will know when to turn it off and set it aside.  I don’t want to be distracted and I don’t want to distract the people teaching me, talking to me, or performing on a stage.
  5. I will use the tool (the maps!!  the GPS!!  the Bible apps!) and not be dominated by the toy (Candy Crush, I have your number).  

The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out (Proverbs 18:15 NIV).

 So, tell me all about it….What do you love about your smart phone?  What are your favorite apps?  How do you keep nomophobia at bay and stay in control of the smartphone?  Fill this novice in on all of the details.

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

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

Ask Me Anything: A Giveaway, Book Orders and a Lesson on Feeling Insignificant

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I was cradling my newborn son when my husband brought the package in from the porch and opened it next to me.

Inside was my early author’s copy of my book: Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Lives to God’s Questions.  It was the first time I held it in my hands, the first time I’d seen the actual book with my own eyes instead of just a picture file sent to me by the publisher.

There I sat holding two physical reminders of God’s blessing and grace in my hands: a precious baby boy and a brand new book.

So, today I’m celebrating with a giveaway!!! Because joy like that you just can’t keep all to yourself!

I’ll be giving away two autographed copies of the book to two different winners.

Here’s how to enter:

You earn one entry into the giveaway for each of these things, but in order for your entry to count, you need to comment to THIS POST letting me know how you entered.

Entry Opportunity #1: Leave me a reply to this question at the bottom of today’s post: (Yes, it needs to be here and not on Facebook please!)

If you wrote a book about your life or what God has been teaching you, what would it’s title be?

Entry Opportunity #2: Share this post on Facebook and leave a comment below saying, “I shared on Facebook.”

Entry Opportunity #3: Share this post on Twitter and leave a comment below saying, “I tweeted this post.”

Each entry needs to be a separate comment please!  The individual comments are your separate entries.

I can’t wait to hear from you!

Entries can be posted any time between now and midnight on October 31st.  I’ll announce the winners using a random number generator on next Friday’s post (11/1).  I can only ship within the United States, so please keep that in mind when entering.

Have you already ordered your copy of the book?  That’s okay!  Maybe you could win a copy to share with a friend, a women’s ministry leader, a family member or to give as a Christmas gift!

If you don’t win the giveaway or one copy just isn’t enough, here’s what you need to know:

Visit me at Discovery House Publishers to read a sample chapter and order online!

Follow these links to find the book at Amazon,  Barnes and Noble and also at Christianbook.com.

You can click here to visit my Amazon Author Page.

Or click here to order an autographed copy via PayPal.

The book will also be available on e-readers (like nook and Kindle) and in some local Christian book stores in November 2013.

And now, on to the promised weekly excerpt from my book.  I hope you enjoy!!!

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Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord all night and when the first signs of day started breaking through the darkness, “the man asked him, ‘What is your name?’” (Genesis 32:27-28, NIV).

It’s such a deceptively simple question. We know our names. It’s one of the first words we learn to respond to, one of the first words we learn to write with our tiny hands gripped around a pencil and guided by our moms and dads. ask-me-anything-lord_kd

Our name.

Who we are wrapped up in a few letters and typed up on our birth certificate and Social Security card.

Sometimes, though, it’s not so easy to remember what our name is.

A few weeks ago, I was sound asleep and slowly awakened into consciousness by a sound traveling across the house, into my room, and all the way into my two ears so comfortably laid on my pillow: “Mama, mama, MA-ma, ma-MA, mama, mama, mama  . . .”

From the time I put feet to floor and walked the tiny space between my room and my baby’s room, I had heard “mama” 62 times. It was never an upset cry or a yell, just a determined and incessant calling out for me. And in those few moments between my bed and her crib, I longingly recalled the days when my name used to be Heather.

Is that what my name had been? Most days it really isn’t anymore. Perhaps you find yourself in this position, too—so defined by roles, that your true identity is shrouded in mystery and long since lost. Are there days when you feel like your deep-down soul is buried under mounds of roles and expectations? You aren’t you anymore—you’re “Mom,” “Wife,” “Daughter,” “Employee.”

It’s as if we no longer wear nametags at events; we just post job descriptions to our shirts and that’s how people come to know us. We meet, we shake hands. They say, “So, _______, what do you do?” We answer and suddenly that’s how they know us, not by who we are, but by what we do.

Nicole Johnson wrote and performed a skit about a woman who uses a label maker to define and categorize everyone around her, even to the point of hurtfulness when she labels her isaiah43young daughter “fat.” Do you ever feel like your face is obscured by neon-colored labels printed out and stuck all over you by the people you meet every day?

These labels oversimplify who we really are, transforming us from a dynamic person with unique feelings and thoughts into “working mom” or “stay-at-home mom,” “church-goer,” “liberal,” “conservative.” People often think they know us by the box they have placed us in.  Sometimes we even forget that we aren’t defined by labels and roles and categories and boxes. Then we wake up one morning and feel like somewhere along the way, we’ve just gotten lost.

God doesn’t lose sight of us, though.

Even when we forget our name and the essence of ourselves, He remains intimately aware of us, His creation. Part of God’s unfathomably deep love for us is that He never overlooks our complexities. Isaiah tells us:

“God says, ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.   . . Since you were precious in My sight, You have been honored, And I have loved you;’” (Isaiah 43:1, 4 NKJV). 

Later, Isaiah writes:

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:14-16, NIV).

God knew Jacob’s name. He didn’t need to ask. It’s the same with us. He knows exactly who we are and what has brought us to this place.

Yet, He draws us into closer intimacy with Him by asking the question, “What is your name?” He wants to remind us that individuals matter to Him. He isn’t just a Savior who died for all humanity; He died for you and me and every other person uniquely and specifically.

Taken from Ask Me Anything, Lord,© 2013 by Heather King. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 49501. All rights reserved. www.dhp.org.

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 now available!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Tap-Dancing and Life

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She tossed open the box from Payless and snatched out the two shiny black shoes with metal plates on the bottom.

Tap shoes: Her little six-year-old heart’s great desire! She slipped her feet in and immediately started performing.

Then my eight-year-old crammed her feet into the shoes and put on a grand show.  My three-year-old even stepped into the shoes and shuffled round the kitchen a bit.012

They were like magic shoes, all shiny and loud, and they transformed any girl into a superstar on a grand stage.

On the first day of tap lessons, my girl clip-clopped her way into the dance studio along with the other excited students. I heard them take those first steps onto the wooden floor, hesitant at first, and then heard them break into freestyle tap routines of their own.

How could they resist?  This studio and those magic shoes made them all feel like Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire.  It was inspiration and joy and visions of grandeur accompanied by tip-tapping rhythm.

Then the lessons began, and the order to contain the disorder…the structure, the routine, the method to the madness.

It’s a slow realization for a kid, but eventually it comes: tap dancing doesn’t just mean slamming your feet on the floor in any combination of athletic flailing you choose.

You have to practice.

Bummer.

You have to watch and listen and then move in just the right way.  You have to drill and rehearse and repeat.

For a week, I asked my daughter to “shuffle” and “flap,” and practice, practice, practice.  Then, because I know absolutely nothing at all about tap dancing, I asked her if she was doing it right (because, after all, how was I to know?).

She rolled her eyes at me occasionally and huffed loudly at times, blowing her bangs up off her forehead in exasperation.

Reluctantly or not, though, she practiced.  When she returned to class and shuffled correctly and the teacher announced, “You all must have been practicing,” that was the reward.  My daughter beamed.

She loves tap, she declares.

Life and tap-dancing, they can convince us all at times that inspiration is all we need.  They can woo us into running on spiritual and emotional highs.  We’re at our best.  It’s fun and grand (and noisy perhaps).  And the lessons and the practice come easy.

Quiet times are easy, too, when God is speaking so clearly we can hear His voice ringing in our ears. When that time with Him is overflowing, it’s no great discipline to carry our bucket to the Well.

And we have these seasons with Him, where we’re hearing and learning and it’s thrilling to be used and useful, to see ministry grow and faith deepen, to see prayers answered and miracles happen, to read God’s Word and actually feel it tingling in our souls.

It’s a slow realization for us, perhaps, but eventually it comes: This walk with God isn’t always easy and the emotions and the highs and the results we expect aren’t always immediate or obvious.

Truly, it’s discipline.

It’s waking up, pouring that cup of tea and opening up that Bible not because it feels so good, but because this is how we grow over time.

It’s going to church even when the sermon isn’t about your needs and singing even on days when it’s hard to really mean the words on the screen.

It’s praying even when you don’t sense the connection and it feels like silent heaven and empty air.

It’s committing to Bible study even when you’re busy, tired, distracted, complacent and just downright don’t feel like it.

Yes, it’s practice and rehearsing, repeating, growing slow and steady, committing and then choosing not to give up–not today, not tomorrow, not a week from now.

It’s feeling the desperation of the deer panting after water and heading to the stream even when it’s elusive and difficult to find.

And like, Elijah, it’s listening for God’s voice even in despondency, depression and despair.  He stood on that mountain and listened for God.  Even after the mighty wind passed by, the earthquake ceased shaking, and the fire abated, still Elijah listened.

He could have given up: God’s not speaking.  I couldn’t see Him in the big and the obvious, the glorious and spectacular, the emotional or the ear-shattering.

He could have headed back into the cave and abandoned the effort.

And then he would have missed it.

No, Elijah continued to stand, waiting, listening, still.

And God spoke.

Sometimes it’s there in the quiet that we hear God simply because we haven’t given up.  We’ve continued to stand in His presence beyond the silence, faithfully and determinedly waiting…listening…still.

Beyond the point of inspiration, fun, glory, and ease, we discipline ourselves to listen.  And so we hear.

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