Declaration of Dependence

July 4, 2014July 4, 20141 Comment

I picked my older girls up from the weekend camp and breathed a mom sigh of relief at the sight of them.

They survived without me.

They had on slightly crazy outfits despite my careful planning as we packed their bags days before. “Mom, I ran out of shorts and play-clothes,” they tell me.

Their cheeks were a little red from too little sunscreen, but not truly burnt. (Hadn’t I fretted all weekend about sunscreen application?)

They tried Mountain Dew for the first time.

I opened up those suitcases at home and shook my head at the wet swimsuit and towel folded in there with the rest of their clothes.

But, really, all things considered it’d been two-and-a-half days without mom and they had made a million little decisions and done just fine.

Sometimes you gotta let them grow up. Maybe it’s harder for us moms than it is for them.

I hear it all the time.

“I can do it myself, Mom.”

Little bursts of independence from these ‘babes’ and that includes the nine-month-old, who wants to feed himself and make his very own decisions about where to go, when to go, and what to put in his mouth.

This is my job as a mom, to love them into independence, teach them how to do and what to do on their own.

But that’s not God’s desire for me as my Father, not His parental mission or responsibility. He’s doing the opposite, wooing my independent heart into trust and showing me the lesson of the vine:

Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:4-5 NIV).

This abiding life, the never separating from God, never stepping out on my own and depending on my own strengths or abilities sounds so simple.

It’s not.

It takes effort to remain in Him.

Dependence after all can feel so uncomfortable, so helpless, so out of control, so uncertain.

But Jesus didn’t say, “Apart from me you can do small things, but not the big stuff.” Nor did He say, “Apart from me you can be okay, but with me you can be extraordinary.”

He said that without Him, we can’t do a thing. Anything. Not the big stuff. Not the small things.

In the same way, Lisa Harper says, “We can become more dependent on God by trusting Him with the full weight of our lives” (Stumbling Into Grace 165).

When I consider the “full weight” of my life, I realize just how often I stroll along carrying most things on my own. It’s only the big cumbersome packages of circumstances that I hand over to God.

Sometimes we have no choice but dependence. We’ve exhausted ourselves in independent efforts and faced the fullness of our weakness.

Most of us have been there. The stress of overwhelming circumstances breaks us down and we know that what we face is simply too much, too impossible and too weighty to handle on our own. We’d be crushed.

So, we turn to God. That’s all that’s left to do. As Paul said, “I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). We declare dependence, we trust in His strength alone to help us through, and for a short season we have no choice but to rest in Him.

Yet, we have a way of confining God’s direction to “important” life matters. When it comes to where to live, our job, our relationships, our marriages, our health, and other huge life decisions, we pray frantically for God’s will and for direction and wisdom.

But when it’s a matter of those everyday life details like our schedule, our eating and spending habits, our conversations, and our tasks at work or home, we tend to think we can handle that “all by myself.”

Apart from Him, all by myself, I make things more difficult, I make a big mess, I miss out on blessing, I reject obedience, and I can do nothing.

This is the lesson of dependence, the learning to listen, learning to respond to that gentle nudging of the Spirit all day, every day.

This is the Spirit-led life: Yielding, loosening the grip, and giving over control.

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.

It Would Be Easier if We Didn’t Have to Love Our Enemy

July 2, 2014July 1, 2014Leave a comment

My daughter was about 3-1/2 years old when she made this enemy.

After a week of summer dance camp, she declared that she absolutely did not want to take ballet in the fall.

Did she enjoy dance?

Yes.

Did she have fun at the camp?

Absolutely.

Did she want to try the dance classes?

No.

End of story. No explanation. I plied her with Mom-questions. She stuck to her decision without explanation.

In October, we sat together on one of the benches in the dance studio waiting room watching the tiny dancers file out after class. We picked up my oldest daughter and headed out the door. 1corinthians13, photo by Cora Miller

That’s when my girl said it: “I didn’t see Madelyn in the class.”

Madelyn? Who are you talking about?

Then she exploded with the report that Madelyn always wanted to sit on the triangle at dance camp even when other kids wanted to sit on the triangle and she wouldn’t let anyone else sit there no matter what.

She sucked in one big breath, harumphed, and tossed her arms criss-cross around her chest while stomping her feet for effect..

Well, babe, Madelyn was in dance camp, but she isn’t in the regular dance class.

“Oh.” Long pause while 3-1/2 year old process new information.

“Well, I want to take ballet then.”

All this time, territorial conflict with another preschool child had dominated her life choices.

Territorialism, jealousy, just plain old being annoyed with another person….it doesn’t get much easier handling all that mess as a grown-up.

We’ve all been there, forced into relationships with folks that drive us insane maybe with their negativity or pettiness or meanness, maybe insecurity, pride, constant bragging, insistence on arguing with everything you say, trying to compete with everything you do.

But I tell my girls this:

You don’t have to be best friends with mean kids, but you have to be kind and loving to everyone.

1 John 4:20 says it this way:

“If anyone says, ‘I love God’ yet hates his brother, is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother whom He has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

I quote it at my kids, but taking it to heart? Practicing what I preach? That’s a little harder.

Sometimes I want to edit the command, soften it a little, make it fit a little more comfortably instead of stepping on my toes.

Maybe: “For anyone who does not love his brother….when his brother is a pretty nice person….cannot love God, but when his brother is annoying, a jerk, mean, or immature, then it’s fine not to love that guy.”

Of course, that’s not Jesus.

God is love, and Jesus showed that best by loving the unlovely, by loving the enemy.

So, I could pit myself against the ‘unlovable’ or I could choose Jesus and the discipline of kindness and sacrificial love.

It starts with prayer, but the temptation is there, too, to pray that God change them when what I need to pray is that God shows me His love for them.

Because maybe, just maybe, the person who needs changing is me.

Paul wrote this to the Thessalonian church:

constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father (1 Thessalonians 1:3 NASB).

Love itself is part of the labor.

As Beth Moore says,

Sometimes loving comes easy. Other times it nearly kills us (Children of the Day).

This is at work and it’s at church. It’s with the annoying mom in the PTA and the gal who drives us crazy on the sidelines at soccer.

It’s in our own homes, too.

Sometimes love is hard. It’s labor and toil and discipline to believe the best, to serve and feel like you’ve given all and then given some more. It’s looking past imperfections and choosing to focus on the good and lovely and of good report (Philippians 4:8).

Love means choosing to give grace and forgive. It means not keeping score and a list of wrongs.

Love

….is

….patient (1 Corinthians 13).

I think of a favorite promise:

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns (Philippians 1:6 NLT).

God’s not finished with me yet and He won’t give up on me. I cling to that.

Yet, here’s the challenge, too: He hasn’t finished with others either. He hasn’t given up on them.

So, maybe I need to give them the space and the grace to let God continue that work because, after all, He’s given that space and grace to me.

In June, I took time for friendship and learned that God uses others to bring me into His presence, sometimes in unexpected ways and sometimes through unexpected people.

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 ‘Invest in Friendship’?

14 Bible Verses on Loving Others

June 30, 2014June 30, 2014Leave a comment

Matthew 5:43-44 NIV
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”
Mark 12:29-31 NLT
Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
John 13:34 NIV
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
John 15:12-13 NLT
This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
Romans 13:8 NLT
Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.
1 Corinthians 13:1 NIV
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Ephesians 4:2 NLT
Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.
Ephesians 4:31-32
“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
1 John 3:18
Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
1 Peter 1:22 NLT
You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.
1 John 4:7-8 NIV
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:11 NIV
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 John 4:19-21 NIV
We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

VBS for Grown-ups: Even Though You Do Wrong…

June 26, 2014June 23, 2014Leave a comment

Vacation Bible School. That’s just for kids, right? Silly songs. Silly skits. Silly costumes. Kids stuff. Sure.

But is there any message in Scripture that God delivers just for people 12 and under? We older and ‘wiser’ ones sometimes make faith so complicated when the simple beauty of truth is what we really need.

This week, I’ll be singing songs and doing those silly skits from Group Publishing’s Weird Animals VBS at my own church.

Here on the blog, I’ll be sharing with you those same stories, the same lessons, the same truth, but for grown-ups.

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Some days, you must choose grace.

Not just to give, but to receive it, take it in, soak it up past the superficial skin and let it seep down deep into your soul, into the places of self-condemnation and records of wrongs and mistakes and imperfections.

Like yesterday.

It was a day of frustrating grocery shopping with lost coupons and a store that hadn’t stocked the chicken that I needed for almost a week’s worth of family meal planning.

And having to skip out on my exercise because I had to trek to a second grocery store to find said elusive chicken so I could feed my family more than one meal in the next seven days.

Then I finally unloaded it all at home, over-budget, discouraged, and frustrated with my non-exercising self for messing up my fitness plan.

As I sorted the groceries onto shelves and into drawers, I noticed the dirt in the corners of my kitchen floor, the apple juice splatters, the toothpaste in the bathroom sink, the laundry piled in the basket.

Wow, I just can’t ever keep this house clean enough.

And that writing project I planned for the day…didn’t get done.

My children had breakdowns, so did I, and there were the devotions I put off until 9:00 that night.

At the end of the evening, after dinner and bath time, and after my kids didn’t practice the piano, I read one chapter in a book to my daughters and sent them off for “independent reading” before lights out.

It had rumbled inside me bit by bit all day, but as we finished up that little bit of reading time together, my daughter reached over and turned down the corner the page to hold our place.

And I felt the full rush of failure.

I’m a page-turner-downer from way back. Despite a lovely, inspirational, unique and large collection of bookmarks, I fall back on a long-established bad habit: I just dog-ear my page and snap the book shut.

Unfortunately, it’s a bad habit I’ve unwittingly passed along to these daughters of mine. In fact, it’s so extreme they’ve even coined a term for it, transforming the word “chapter” into a verb.

“Mom, don’t close the book until we ‘chapter it!” they say and I dutifully slip the corner of the page down.

In that moment I thought: I’m passing along my bad habits to my children, handing them down like ill-fitting jeans and worn-out shoes.

Unfortunately, some of them aren’t as immaterial as dog-eared book pages–like stressing perfection too much, having too little patience with ourselves and others, and not accepting grace in the wake of messy failure.

Oh, how I recognize some of my kids’ hand-me-down perfectionism.

Don’t we all have days where it seems we meet with more failure than success? Where Satan can barrage us with reminders of the mistakes from long ago and the crazy mishaps of today.

Where every mom on Facebook seems to have it all together, gourmet meals for their family, a spit-n-shine house, Martha Stewart-like crafting ability, time to bake, snazzy Scrapbook pages, award-winning kids, and time for family service projects….”

Or maybe you feel it at your job or in your ministry or with your friends. What you should be doing. What you failed to do. What you said that was wrong. How you fall short. How you could be better.

The pressure of perfection is far too much for our imperfect selves tripping along in an imperfect world.

That’s why there’s grace.

Jesus looked at that thief on the cross and promised eternity in paradise right there at that first profession of faith. The thief didn’t earn it, didn’t have a lifetime of ministry credentials or a life heavy-laden with fruit.

Jesus forgave Him.

Period.

Sometimes we make grace so complicated. We think He forgives us when we prove we’re worth it or when we’re mostly getting things right.

But He knows our hearts. He knows our desire to please Him, our desire to be close to Him, and He knows sometimes we’ll still get it wrong. He died for us anyway. He forgives us anyway.

As John says:

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Even though you do wrong, Jesus loves You.

So we must choose to receive the grace He offers, deciding it’s okay if we didn’t get it all perfect today and if our life got a little bit messy.

Doesn’t God love us?
Didn’t we try our best to walk in that love?

That’s the point and that’s enough.

Originally published November 2, 2012

VBS for grown-ups: Even when you don’t understand….

June 25, 2014June 25, 2014Leave a comment

Vacation Bible School. That’s just for kids, right? Silly songs. Silly skits. Silly costumes. Kids stuff. Sure.

This week, I’ll be singing songs and doing those silly skits from Group Publishing’s Weird Animals VBS at my own church.

Here on the blog, I’ll be sharing with you those same stories, the same lessons, the same truth, but for grown-ups.

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I’d been a mom for just under two years when I got pooped on for the first time.

It turns out new babies can’t quite tell when the diaper is on and when Momma has removed it for bath time.

You just never expect this. You go to college, study hard, earn a degree. Go back to school and earn a Master’s degree. Have your dream job.

Then two years later you’re cleaning yourself up after being mistaken for a diaper.

Every mom has Kodak moments of familial perfection. For a few minutes, it’s domestic tranquility.

Kids are healthy.
They used their manners at the dinner table.
The homework is done.
The laundry is put away.
You cooked a delicious and healthy dinner in your Crock Pot and baked homemade bread.

You are, in fact, Super Mom, the ultimate domestic diva. You are June Cleaver, Betty Crocker, and maybe even Mr. Clean in one grand super hero package.

Until noses start running and children start fighting when you have a headache. A stomach virus shoots through your family. You realize that “dressing up” now means wearing the jeans without the worn knees and Sharpie stains from your child’s experiments with permanent marker.

Does Super Mom lose her cape now?

But right then when you’re the diaper, when you’re worn down and weary, when you’ve cleaned toilets and scrubbed floors and you feel broken and overlooked.

Maybe you pray it: “Can you help a girl out, God? It’s pretty hard to feel like this job has any eternal significance. Do you even know what it’s like to put other people first all the time?”

But oh, may we pause there and remember who we’re talking to.

Oh, sure, Jesus was the Savior of mankind. He had the power of divinity at His fingertips. He could multiply the bread instead of having to knead it by hand. He could command the fish into the nets instead of pushing a cart around Wal-Mart with a shopping list, a budget, coupons, and a toddler.

And yet.

When we over-romanticize the life of our Savior, we forget the utter humility and selflessness of Jesus, who emptied Himself for us and sympathizes with us on our hardest days.

Christ bends Himself low to wash our feet and heal our hurts.

And maybe it doesn’t make sense.

Like Peter, I’m tempted at times to refuse the humility of Christ as He stoops to wash my feet. How shocking to see the Messiah on His knees.

Foolish Peter—he didn’t know how much He needed a Savior who served, so he told Jesus at the Last Supper, “No…you shall never wash my feet” (John 13:8 NIV). Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

Even when he didn’t understand Jesus’ purpose or plan, Peter submitted. He stopped protesting and willingly accepted the gift: “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” (John 13:9).

Maybe Peter didn’t get it, but Jesus knew these disciples needed to see humble ministry face-to-face so He could tell them this:

I’ve set the example. Go and do the same.

As I’ve washed your feet, wash one another.

I’m still needing this lesson now, on days when I’m the diaper, when I’m worn or weary, when it seems like I’m making no difference, that Jesus made Himself low….for the disciples….for me.

Sometimes grace does the unexpected. Sometimes God shatters the confines of the cardboard box we’ve put Him in and we just can’t understand: “Why, God? Why this? Why not that?”

It doesn’t make sense.

Not to Peter.

Not to us.

Yet, here is what we know:

Even when you don’t understand….Jesus loves you.

And He has a plan and a purpose for this and for you, so we bring it all to Him as an offering:

Lord, I don’t get it, but I know You love me.

Lord, it seems all wrong to me, but I know You love me.

Lord, this ministry You’ve called me to doesn’t seem to have any eternal impact, but I know You love me.

Lord, I don’t see how this can possibly be used for good or how this can be Your best plan, but I know You love me.

Like Peter we submit and we trust. We quiet our quaking hearts and choose to rest in His love.

Originally posted March 16, 2013

VBS for Grown-Ups: Even When You’re Left Out….

June 23, 2014June 23, 2014Leave a comment

Vacation Bible School. That’s just for kids, right? Silly songs. Silly skits. Silly costumes. Kids stuff. Sure.

This week, I’ll be singing songs and doing those silly skits from Group Publishing’s Weird Animals VBS at my own church.

Here on the blog, I’ll be sharing with you those same stories, the same lessons, the same truth, but for grown-ups.

***************************************************************************************************************************

Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high,
who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth?He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes, with the princes of his people (Psalm 113:5-8).

“Mom, can you tie my shoe?”

I kneel down, slightly off balance, and whip the laces into loops and knots.

“Mom, can you wash my hair?”

Bending over a daughter with her eyes pinched tightly shut, I scrub with shampoo and rinse away suds.

“Mom, can you show me how to play this on the piano?”

I stoop to press the keys, one hand pointing to the music, the other playing notes.

“Mom, can you hold my hand?”

Tilted to one side, I lean over to entwine our fingers and we swing our arms together.

“Mom, I’m hurt!”

Dropping to the ground, I clean the wound and press on the miraculously comforting Princess Band-Aid.

Life with children is a life bent low. It’s the ministry of kneeling down, stooping over, leaning, and bending to wipe, scrub, heal, hold, read, listen–to love. So often, it’s the movement down to hug a child and lift her up.

God bends low to reach His children, too.

He could have sat, poised on His righteous throne, holy and unresponsive to our need.

But He didn’t. Jesus Christ, our Savior, our Sacrifice, is the great Love of God bending low so He could raise us up.

And He continued that ministry. Finding Peter’s mother-in-law sick in bed with a fever, Jesus “bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her” (Luke 4:39).

Petitioned by a leper for healing, Jesus “reached out his hand and touched the man” (Luke 5:13).

Confronted by an angry mob gathering stones to throw at the adulterous woman, Jesus “stooped down and wrote on the ground” (John 8:8).

He could have stood at a distance. He had the power to heal with words alone, and sometimes He did.

These ten lepers, society’s outcasts, living away for so long from family, friends, faith, they didn’t even know they could come to Jesus. They knew the rules. Stay away from others. So, “they stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, ‘Jesus, Master, have pity on us!'” (Luke 17:12 NIV).

And He healed them with a word, just simple instructions.

But other times He chose to make it physical, and it so often required Him to bend low, to stoop, to reach out.

Jesus didn’t mind the mess. He touched the “unclean,” when it was against the rules for them to have contact with other humans for fear they’d stain the holiness of others.

Jesus got down in the dirt with people. And not just the high and mighty, the lofty, the righteous, the elite.

With the shunned, ignored, rejected. With the outcasts. With the unclean and the sin-stained.

With them.

With us.

Even now, He promises, “surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20 NIV).

If you feel left out…rejected…outside….outcast…shunned….dirty….not good enough, never good enough, never gonna be good enough…..

Drink in this truth:

Even when you’re left out, Jesus loves you.

God is not waiting for us to get cleaned up, to overcome, to fix it all up, to force holiness either. He isn’t put off by our faces smudged with dirt, our hands caked with mud, our fingernails lined with soil from trying to claw our way out of the pit we’re in.

Instead, David tells us:

“He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand (Psalm 40:2).

You cannot be so deep in the darkness to be beyond His reach. You cannot be so covered in dirt that He’s scared away or disgusted.

God puts on His muddy boots, wades in and rescues us so that we can be with Him.

As Lysa TerKeurst writes:

We may be overlooked by others, but we are handpicked by God.

Originally posted May 11, 2012

Keep Praying, Keep Hoping, Keep Looking

June 20, 2014June 25, 20142 Comments

Lunches packed for the last time. Desks cleared, backpacks cleaned out and stowed away. Field day over. Class parties celebrated. Awards ceremony concluded and certificates photographed. End-of-the-year pictures taken of each daughter and compared to the photos from the first day of the school year.

And now we collapse. We did it. Somehow it feels like a joint accomplishment, not just theirs. Sure, my kids worked hard. So did I. And somehow, by God’s grace, we made it here to summer vacation.

It’s only taken 15 months of prayer. I started praying for this school year last March, praying for this teacher, this classroom, these friends, this school, these character issues, and these lessons.

And here as the school year ends, I give thanks:

Thank You, Lord, for answering my pleas for my children. Thank You for helping them learn, being with them in all of the struggles that have sent this loving (and worried) mama to her knees. Thank You for helping them with difficult concepts and friendship drama, bullies and mistakes on tests, report cards and forgetfulness. Thank You for these teachers You chose specially for my kids.

And I began again, just that quickly, one sentence to another, thank God for this year and then praying for next year: for classroom placements and teacher assignments, for the responsibilities of a new grade and for the friendships they’d make.

So it continues.

“Pray without ceasing….” that’s what Paul wrote (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

He meant that living prayer, that breathing in and breathing out of living life alongside God, taking in crises and handing them right on over to the Lord, receiving blessing and offering up spontaneous praise.

It means no more arbitrary separations between the sacred and the secular, between the holy parts of my life where God is welcome and invited and the dusty living rooms of our hearts where we try to hide away the clutter in corners.

Having kids, though, reminds me of this, too:

Prayer is perpetual; it’s insistent and consistent.

And sometimes I’m not. I’m driven to the throne by need and I’m pouring out pleas of desperation until the need eases a bit. Or perhaps I just grow weary or fall back into the coziness of complacency and apathy.

I’m not praying so fervently any more. It’s more like unemotional have-to prayers, perhaps performed out of duty, perhaps totally forgotten and not prayed at all.

We pray for that intervention, that salvation, that redemption, that rescue…for us or for another….and then slowly we cease the praying. We need the reminder to keep on keeping on, to not give up asking God for that healing and to refuse to stop praying for a loved one’s salvation.

With kids, you can’t really forget, not for long. Time just pushes you right through from prayer need to prayer need. I’m not even done praying over one school year before I’m on my knees for the next.

I read the Psalms and here is the reminder anew:

“But I keep praying to you, Lord, hoping this time you will show me favor. In your unfailing love, O God, answer my prayer with your sure salvation” (Psalm 69:13 NLT).

“But I will keep on hoping for your help; I will praise you more and more” (Psalm 71:14 NLT).

“We keep looking to the Lord our God for his mercy, just as servants keep their eyes on their master, as a slave girl watches her mistress for the slightest signal” (Psalm 123:2 NLT).

Keep praying….keep hoping….keep looking.

Keep at it and when He answers, press on in more prayer.

With this fresh resolve, I flip through the pages of the neglected prayer journal. What did I pray then….and what do I still need to pray now?

What have you neglected in prayer? What have you given up on and long since stopped asking God for? Who used to be on your prayer list but somehow slipped off?

It’s discipline to begin again. And when we cease praying, which feels like the inevitable failing of us forgetful ones, we return again and resolve again to be insistent and consistent in seeking God and hoping in His deliverance.

What have you stopped praying about that you need to pray for again? What prayers are you already praying for your children’s next school year?

Originally posted June 7, 2013

A family motto for summer

June 18, 2014June 25, 20141 Comment

My daughter asks, “Why is it so much easier to get along with friends than with sisters some times?”

Four days into summer vacation and she’s already pleading for more time with friends and less time with siblings.

But here’s the truth I tell her….time with others destroys masks, facades, and fake perfection. It has a way of dragging all of those sins and faults, all of that selfishness and the bad attitudes from where they stay safely hidden during play dates and public outings.

Anyone can behave for a few hours on a play date.

That’s what I tell her.

Then I remind myself: Any mom can respond sweetly to her child who is having a meltdown in the Wal-Mart aisle five minutes into your shopping trip when there are people around who might overhear you.

And those TV moms—sure, any of us could be super creative, fun, and even-tempered enough to fill 40 minutes of film footage once a week.

God isn’t satisfied with superficial sweetness, though. He wants genuine transformation. He wants the world to look deep and long at us and see the reflection of Christ, not some plastic Jesus or some temporary super-Christian persona.

It’s part of His design with family and others to wield us as tools, chipping away at one another, breaking off the pieces that simply need to go, and masterfully forming us little by little into tried-and-true, walking and talking, in-season and out-of-season examples of Christ in the world.

Proverbs tells us:

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17).

So He places us in families and in community with one another.

And then He gives us summer seasons…when we’re up close and personal and with each other all day instead of scattering away to schools, activities, and our own busy lives.

It’s so much time so close together that causes the explosions….when she won’t share the game, and she says something unkind, and she makes annoying noises, and her piano playing is too loud, and she’s hungry and impatient, and she wants to go to the library when she wants to stay home in her pajamas all day…when all this “self” collides with the “self” in everyone else, that’s when He reminds us of grace.

Maybe that’s the lesson in summer, after all.

Grace to rest.

Grace to stop the frantic running from school pick-ups to evening activities, tossing back granola bars to your kids from the front of the mini-van while you rush to ballet where you yank hair back into buns and push in bobby pins before class begins.

Grace to linger over the cup of tea in the morning instead of putting on the drill sergeant hat and barking out commands to children to get dressed, brush teeth, comb hair, find shoes, pack lunches and then kiss them on the cheek and send them out the door just in time to rush onto the school bus.

Grace to skip the chores and pack the car for the beach.

Grace even that I need to extend to myself—to not adhere completely to the writing schedule, to post late to the blog or even miss a day—because we’re out enjoying the summer and I’m taking this time I’ve been given with my kids for these few short weeks and I don’t want to miss it. ephesians4-32 photo by Jaroon Ittiwannapong

And grace for each other.

This is the mom speech I make for my daughter after a sibling melt-down.

In this family, we give grace because we need grace. When someone makes a mistake, we don’t mock, or point fingers, or jump up eagerly to show off how they were wrong.

After all, we need grace. We receive grace, so we show grace to others. It becomes my call, my standard, my motto for this summer with my kids:

We need grace.

We receive grace.

We show grace.

Paul wrote this:

And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ (Ephesians 4:32 HCSB).

And that’s how we breathe in and breathe out when daily annoyances and mistakes, sins, and forgetfulness, bad days, troubles, and trials threaten to consume us.That’s what we do when others step on our toes and bruise our feelings. We forgive because we’ve been forgiven.

This summer, we lean back full into this grace and rest. Choosing not to be stressed over the schedule, but to relax in relationship. Choosing to forgive the hurts and cease the fault-finding as Christ uses this season together to transform us.

That’s the grace that is summer.

Originally posted June 12, 2013

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 ‘Invest in Friendship’?

15 Bible Verses on Peace

June 17, 20141 Comment

Numbers 6:24-26 (NASB)
The Lord bless you, and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine on you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance on you,
And give you peace.’
Psalm 29:11 (NASB)
The Lord will give strength to His people;
The Lord will bless His people with peace.
Psalm 119:165 (NASB)
Those who love Your law have great peace,
And nothing causes them to stumble.
Isaiah 9:6 (NASB)
For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;
And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 26:3
You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.
John 14:27 (HCSB)
“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Your heart must not be troubled or fearful” (HCSB)
John 16:33 (NASB)
These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
Romans 5:1 (NASB)
Therefore, having been justified by faith, ^[awe have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Romans 8:6
The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.
Romans 14:17-19 (NASB)
for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another.
Romans 15:13 (NASB)
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Galatians 5:22-23 (NASB)
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law
Philippians 4:6-7
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Colossians 3:15 (NASB)
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.
2 Thessalonians 3:16 (NASB)
Now may the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance. The Lord be with you all!

Black Tea Strong and Sweet with a Drop of Milk

June 16, 2014June 16, 2014Leave a comment

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
John 15:15

She always asks me if I’d like a cup of tea.

From visit to visit she remembers I like black tea, not those fruity teas or herbal teas. She places the sugar beside my cup and says, “You like it strong and sweet, right?” Then she sets the milk down on the table because she knows I pour in a little milk and not cream.

Her house is a home. It’s clean but not perfect with all the signs of family and love and growing. Magnets of the kids’ artwork dot the refrigerator door. I see toys and school papers and the book she set aside so she could sit with me.

I marvel at her because this gift she has, this hospitality, this welcoming friends into her home and making them feel cozy and relaxed, this is a gift I don’t have.

I always thought hospitality meant fancy party planning and expensive china. It meant having a house straight out of a decorating magazine and the whipping up of gourmet dishes with names I can’t pronounce.

And here I am this simple girl.

Hospitality seemed so complicated. So stressful.

But my friend shows me this, it’s really pouring a cup of tea and welcoming someone in.

She never makes me feel like an interruption in her day and she sits there and lets time pass without stress or bother and just chats in this easy way she has of talking open and honest.

It’s refreshing like cool water on a parched soul.

All this month, I’m pursuing the presence of Christ by investing in friendship because when I’m learning from His people, I’m learning from Him.

My friend reminds me that Abraham didn’t scramble to shove dirty dishes into the oven, toss the laundry pile into the backroom and stash papers into the closet when God showed up unexpectedly with two friends.

He didn’t shoo them away with a list of why he’s too busy that day to chat, but maybe they could schedule a lunch date next week….

He didn’t flick off the lights, close the curtains and duck in a corner, pretending he wasn’t home in hopes they’d back on out of the driveway and leave him be.

No, when Abraham saw the three visitors trudging up the distant path, he “hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground” (Genesis 18:2).

Then, he immediately (and without complaint) abandoned his plans for the day and made their comfort his sole focus.

He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant” (Genesis 18:3-5).

He showed hospitality to God.

Abraham begged the Lord to “not pass your servant by” and God didn’t. He rested in that place. Rather than delivering a divine message and being on His merry way, He sat in the cool shade of the tree, eating and chatting with Abraham.

God and Abraham “hung out.” john15-15

And when the visit was over, the Lord, having been shown hospitality, shared with Abraham the plan for Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction. This was not the purpose of the visit, but it was a divine revelation borne out of intimate fellowship.

While we have the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives continually, still there are moments when He shows up in clear and powerful ways in the middle of our busyness.

He appears at the tent of our heart. He inquires if we’re home, if we’re willing to spend time with Him.

Do we tell Him to come back tomorrow because we’ve already fulfilled our quiet time quota for the day? Or do we usher Him into the center of our hearts and show Him hospitality?

Chris Tiegreen wrote:

When He comes to you in the heat of the day, do you bow before Him, offer Him the refreshment of your hospitality, and give of your possessions? Do you aim to serve? Then don’t be surprised if God lingers. Don’t be surprised if He communicates with you as with a privileged friend.”

And this is my heart, that God linger here and “not pass your servant by.”

So we make Him welcome. We invite Him in. We rest in His presence and rejoice in this miracle of friendship with Him.

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 ‘Invest in Friendship’?

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Tag: Faith

Declaration of Dependence

It Would Be Easier if We Didn’t Have to Love Our Enemy

Love

….is

….patient (1 Corinthians 13).

14 Bible Verses on Loving Others

Keep Praying, Keep Hoping, Keep Looking

A family motto for summer

We need grace.

We receive grace.

We show grace.

15 Bible Verses on Peace

Black Tea Strong and Sweet with a Drop of Milk

My devotional for today:

Love

….is

….patient (1 Corinthians 13).

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

We need grace.

We receive grace.

We show grace.

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today: