Ask Me Anything: Giveaway Winner and “You want me to do what?”

November 1, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

It’s time to announce the Giveaway Winners!

Thanks to all those who participated. I absolutely loved hearing the book titles you’d choose to tell your own story and am reminded of how much we can learn from one another.

I used a random number generator to select the comment number of the winners and they are: Mary Reese and Betsy Marmon!

Congratulations! I’ll contact you privately about getting these signed copies of Ask Me Anything, Lord to you.

If you didn’t win, you can still get a copy of the book here:

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.

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, for the final excerpt from Ask Me Anything, Lord. Enjoy!

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You want me to do what, God?

You want me to parent these children? You want me to stay in this marriage? You want me to lead this ministry? You want me to start this program?

When God calls us, it isn’t about us at all; it’s all about Him. We’re the ones looking at our qualifications and feeling mismatched for the job He’s assigning us, whatever that calling looks like in your life.

Moses reacted that way at the burning bush all because he focused on himself. He asked God:

“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’” (Exodus 3:11 NIV).

It was his way of saying he wasn’t qualified for that. “It’s all about me and ME isn’t good enough.”

God, on the other hand, focused not on Moses, but on Himself. He said:

“I will be with you . . . I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ . . . ” (Exodus 3:12-15 NIV).

There are moments and days when I fell like Moses, when I begin to wonder how I could possibly minister to others when I’m working so hard at basics like keeping calm with misbehaving children and not stressing about my calendar.

When I feel so empty, how can I pour out to others?

It’s one thing to serve and encourage when we’re overflowing; God’s goodness just sploshes over the tops of our lives and refreshes all who cross our paths. But, what about when our cup seems dry? What happens when a thirsty neighbor lifts up needy hands in our direction and we ladle out empty air?

In some ways, that’s where Moses was. He felt enthusiastic to the point of foolishness about leading the Israelites decades before when he was still in Egypt. Unfortunately, he was oozing confidence and overflowing with a vision of leading a slave revolt that depended on his own strength. He believed then that if it all depended on him, well then he was enough.

Then he murdered an Egyptian in his enthusiasm. His own people rejected him. Pharaoh sought to punish him. That’s what happened when he served in his own strength.

At the burning bush, however, Moses clearly recognized that if this deliverance thing depended on him, well then he simply didn’t cut it.

And that’s what we say sometimes when we tell God that we can’t possibly do what He wants us to do.

In My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers wrote:

“Jesus was saying, ‘Do not worry about being of use to others; simply believe on Me.’ In other words, pay attention to the Source, and out of you will flow ‘the rivers of living water’” (John 7:38 NIV).

Similarly, the Psalmist wrote, “Then those who sing as well as those who play the flutes shall say, ‘All my springs of joy are in You‘” (Psalm 87:7, NASB).

God is the Source, the Spring from which comes all our joy.

He’s not an immovable Fountain either, located at only one place or accessible at only certain times of the day. He is our Portion and Provision every moment of every day.

When we find ourselves carrying our cups back to Him like Oliver Twist in the orphanage, asking shamefacedly, “Please, Sir, can I have some more?” we’re forgetting that we serve a generous God, who longs to pour out His grace on us. He isn’t stingy and doesn’t want us thirsty or starving.

The more times a day we lift our cups to Him, the more times He will fill them. If that means we’re having a quiet time every five minutes all day long, then that’s what it takes that day to fill up at the Fountain of God.

I know that when I’m running back to the well every few minutes, it’s because I’m a needy and leaky person, with holes punched all in my heart from stress and busyness.

Yet, it’s also because I’m pouring out to others and God is willing, even joyful, to replace what I’ve spilled over into the cups of my husband, my children, my friends, my Bible Study girls, my church members, the Wal-Mart cashier and the girl who cuts my hair.

The frequency of our visits to the Well doesn’t reveal our weakness or failure. It reveals our dependency on Him and how much we pour out to others.

So when we peer into an empty cup and think we’re too dry to walk this Christian life, too empty to share with another, then we’re forgetting that It’s All About Him.

That’s the mistake Moses made. He assumed the ministry depended on himself. Truthfully, though, none of the ministry we perform in our homes or outside of them is contingent on our ability, brains, beauty, education, character or godliness (thank goodness!).

It’s really all about Him, and He promises: “For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you” (Isaiah 41:13 NIV).

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.

How a Smelly Fish Can Rescue Us

October 30, 20131 Comment

What wisdom is this?

My children hopped into the minivan and answered the weekly question.

“What’d you learn in church today?” They know I’ll ask; talking about church lessons is what we do every Sunday afternoon.

So my daughter tells me the basics: Jonah and the big fish.

Her sister fills in the peripherals about eating crackers shaped like fish and other sea creatures for snack and we praise their teachers’ creativity. Then she holds up storyboard cutouts she made with construction paper and markers.

Here’s Jonah (he looks remarkably like a Veggie Tales character). Here’s the fish. Here’s the ship. Here’s the island.

She holds them up for display and, in my mom-way, I praise her work and notice the details.

They finish off the story together about hearing God, about disobedience, about forgiveness, about God’s grace.

Mostly, it’s normal Sunday fare, the retelling of a story they’ve heard, read and seen a hundred times at least.

Yet, my eight-year-old stops me there breathless as we sit in the idling minivan while Dad drives us home from the church building.

“Mom,” she says, “what if the whale was God’s way of rescuing Jonah?”

What if it was part of God’s plan, a salvation mission, a blessing, a large, smelly, hulking mass of grace out there in the middle of the sea on a stormy night?

I’ve heard grown men and women finally come to that conclusion about Jonah, but this child of mine thinks it through slowly.

Because he was out in the middle of nowhere. And sure the fish was smelly and he could have been digested, but he’d never be able to swim on his own to land. He would have drowned.

God sent a fish to save Jonah’s life.

That’s what she concludes.

Not just his physical heart-beating, breath-filled, flesh and blood life either.

That fish gave Jonah the time, the opportunity, and the reason to repent and declare: “Salvation comes from the Lord” (Jonah 2:9 NIV).

Yes, it says it right there in the Bible that I open later as I sit at my kitchen table and ponder this child’s wisdom:

Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights (Jonah 1:17 NIV).

The Lord provided that fish, just as much as manna in the wilderness for a wayward nation, and a ram in the brush for Abraham to sacrifice, and loaves and fish to feed a hungry crowd of more than 5,000.

Miraculous provision and mysterious grace–that’s what that fish was.

Sometimes the grace we encounter is just such a mystery, salvation disguised as circumstances that reek with stench and leave us sitting in the darkness day after solitary day, maybe even as circumstances that seem to vomit us out onto the shore.

Jonah saw the provision of the whale as the unmistakable evidence of God at work.

We don’t always see. We might not know the end result, the reason, the whys and wherefores of this and that.

Perhaps, like Jonah, God disciplines and redirects us. Perhaps, He simply redeems the evil and downright difficult circumstances of a fallen world, protecting us and delivering us in the end.

Perhaps we won’t know all the ways He’s at work in our lives.

Why didn’t we get that job or promotion?

Why not this relationship?

Why this illness?

Why was I stuck in this traffic jam and late for the appointment?

Why this brokenness?

Can we always see the reason for the big fish? No, not always. Yet, we trust that it’s there, a purpose or plan, and we’re just too finite-minded and near-sighted to see it.

We can stop beating the sides of the beast in hopes we’ll be released right out into the middle of the sea….and instead start praising God from the belly of that whale, thanking Him that even when we don’t see the reason or the destination, He’s in control and He’ll take us safely to the shore.

That’s what an eight-year-old teaches me on a Sunday afternoon drive home from church.

What wisdom is this?

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

What are you waiting for?

October 28, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

I am having the best time reading your comments and hearing how you would title a book about your life or what God has been teaching you over on the Giveaway Post!

Please continue sharing your comments and posting to social media like Facebook and Twitter. I’ll be announcing the giveaway winners of two signed copies of Ask Me Anything, Lord this Friday! You can enter the Giveaway by clicking here and following the instructions.

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Originally published July 2, 2012 as Devotions from My Garden: What Are You Waiting for?

So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit (Galatians 6:9 MSG).

We planted in pots and crates on our deck, tiny seedlings of cucumbers, tomatoes in three varieties and jalapeno peppers.

Then we waited.

And waited.

We watered. We tended.

But mostly we waited.

From one day to the next, the leaves didn’t appear to expand and the stems didn’t seem to reach any higher than the day before or the day before that.

It took standing back and surveying growth over time for us to notice we had plants and not seedlings any longer. Then there were the first tiny yellow flowers on the cucumber plant.

The day we spotted the tiniest baby tomato, I called all three of my daughters over to see. There we stood, a mom and three girls gently pushing aside green leaves to marvel at the promise of growth.

And then we waited some more.

And waited.

For signs of ripeness and readiness for harvest.

Gardening, like life, is so often about waiting. The difference, though, is that we waited for our first vegetables with anticipation and excitement. We tracked the progress and closely watched the physical signs of a promising future because we knew the day would come when we sat down to salad and salsa from our garden.

But in life we often wait with a hopeless aggravation and a frustrating impatience.

We wait on God, tapping our foot and glancing often at our wrists with urgency.

Perhaps, though, we should wait for God, watching the signs of growth, rejoicing over every bud and clapping our hands with joy every time we see a reminder that the harvest is coming.

This is how the crowds prepared for Jesus’ arrival:

“Now when Jesus returned, the crowds welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him” (Luke 8:40).

Can you imagine the crowd watching the road for the first glimpse of Jesus’ sandal? Perhaps kids ran back and forth bringing news of Jesus’ journey. “He’s coming. He’s near. He’s closer. He’s just around the corner.”

He’s here!

Imagine the hush of the people. They weren’t whining about the wait or postulating that perhaps Jesus wasn’t coming after all.

No, they were likely listening intently for the first sound of His voice chatting with His followers as He traveled on the road.

This is how we wait for God–we look forward with excited anticipation and uncontainable joy for the moment we see God at work.

And while we wait, we prepare to receive all that He’s bringing our way.

Like the kings who faced the overwhelming enemy might of Moab, we wait for God’s promise. He said He would:

“fill the ditches in the dry streambed with water” overnight and without wind or rain. Yes, He would bring the refreshment and victory they needed (2 Kings 3:16-18).

In the very next chapter, Elisha tells the destitute widow to gather “empty vessels and not too few” and then the Lord filled as many as she gathered with rich oil, saving her from starvation and poverty (2 Kings 4:3).

In two back-to-back passages, God miraculously fills His people up to the brim, giving them all they had prepared to receive.

So we grab as many jugs and cups and bowls and pots and buckets as we can hoping not to miss out on one drop of God’s provision.

We stand at the foot of the dry streambed and rather than complaining about our parched throat, we should dress in a swimsuit, ready to dive into the pools overflowing with His miraculous water-without-rain.

It’s waiting still, surely, as we watch for the signs, the growth, the buds, the tiniest hint of what is to come. We look for God-movement here and there, projecting change and something new.

It can be scary. Sometimes waiting is what we know. Change, even good change, can worry us.

So what are we to do?

See the signs of God on the move, the promises of harvest, and yet refuse to budge? “No thanks, God, I’ll stick with what I have and what I know because at least I’ve dug into a trench of trusty comfort and reliability.”

Or do we hang my shoulders in defeat and stomp away, not seeing the harvest quickly enough? Tired of waiting, we dump over the vessels waiting for oil or walk away from the streambed thirsty for water . . . turning away from those waiting for the first sight of Jesus and choosing instead to complain at home that He didn’t come.

Or we could wait, joyfully and with excitement, nervous perhaps but ready nonetheless. Jumping up and down trying to see Jesus over the heads of the crowd, we could wait for God, not wait on Him.

This is how we reap the harvest, when “we don’t give up, or quit” (Galatians 6:9). This is how we don’t miss out on one drop of what God has planned.

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.

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

October 25, 2013January 23, 201425 Comments

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.

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 young 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.

How Gray Hair is Worship

October 23, 2013January 23, 20141 Comment

I was 24 years old and headed home from the hospital after having our first baby.

My husband took me through the drive-through of a fast food place to compensate for 48 hours of hospital food and I popped the passenger’s side mirror down for a look at my new Mom face.

Two days ago I was an ordinary woman.

Now I was “Mom” to a tiny pink creature snuggled into her carseat.

Did I look different? Could the miracle be reflected on my face, not just in my postpartum body?

I looked into my eyes, examined the reflection critically and hopefully, and then I found it.

My first gray hair.

No one told me about this. They promised that my brown locks might change after delivering a baby, but I was hoping for curls or at least some waves in my stick-straight hair.

No one said I’d begin to go gray the moment I gave birth.

Dear women, we need to keep each other informed about these things!

So, I just had to absorb the shock right there while staring into the car mirror.

There have been other moments since then, of course, the slow acceptance of the changes that Mom-life brings:

More gray hairs.

The putting aside of jeans that do not now and will likely never fit me again.

The loss of sleep and “me” time.

The inability much of the time to finish sentences, remember why I came in the kitchen, or call my children by their rightful names without first running through every other child’s name.

And the hardest of all, the accepting of the post-C-section body in the full-length bathroom mirror.

But after mild shock (or perhaps a private cry) and the eventual resignation, there’s something deeply beautiful about this idea:

That Christ gave His very own body up for me…..

Surely I can give of my very own flesh to others.

It’s not just a mother’s privileged sacrifice, but this is ministry and this is Christ-love.

That’s what Paul tells the church:

Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well (1 Thessalonians 2:7-8).

How do I care for my son in 2 a.m. feedings and all through the day every day? I’m nurturing him with my very own self, putting aside my own agenda and desires to satisfy him, love him, pour health and growth and well-being into him.

Paul says he did this, cared for the church so much that he tended to their needs and nourished their faith with spiritual food brought forth from his own unselfishness.

He didn’t just share the gospel of God. No, it went beyond that, to the very giving over of his life also, all because he loved them.

Yes, Paul laid his body down for the church, for the lost, and ultimately for Christ, enduring the beatings, stonings, shipwrecks, storms, imprisonment, snake bites and more that came with His calling.

Our calling likely requires sacrifice, too. Maybe not the same as Paul’s. Maybe not the same as a mother’s.

But God calls us to lay self down and pick up that hefty splintered cross daily to follow Him.

Sometimes I want self-protection instead, comfy ministry without sacrifice or self-denial. I want my rights, my privileges, my agenda and my plans.

Yet, here is my calling, a ministry to my family, a ministry to others…..

Long ago, a man named Darrell Evans sang:

I lay me down…

I lay it down…

I lay my life down…

A living sacrifice to You

In order to lift up Christ, I lay this down.

All of it.

And you? Has God asked you to do this, to care for another as attentively and sacrificially as a nursing mother pouring in life to an infant in her arms? Has He asked you to share, not just the Gospel, but your very own life, as well?

Perhaps for your husband, for your children. Maybe for the struggling young mother in your church, the single mom, the homeless and hurting, the young children sitting in your Sunday School class?

This is our daily worship, the sacrifice we lay on the altar for God’s glory and for Christ’s name.

Wonder Woman, Here’s Your Cape

October 21, 2013Leave a comment

Pride is such a sneaky slave-master.

It confuses and deceives, tricking you into feeling free, distracting you so that you never notice the slow clinking of the restraints on your wrists, the ever-increasing weight of the chains on your legs, dragging you down, holding you back, restraining your worship and your service.

Friends encourage you. Loved ones compliment you. A boss pats you on the back. They say: How well you are doing, how quick…how strong….how capable……and slowly you believe it.

Slowly you try to live up to it.

Because if you admit just for a second that you’re needy or weak, struggling in hidden ways, tearful, hurt, broken, tired, or sad, you’ve taken a hammer to that pristine persona. You’ve shattered the image of The Woman in Control or whatever fake statuesque creation you’ve built onto that shaky pedestal for others to see.

The truth is it’s hard to admit you’re not Super Girl or Wonder Woman, complete with cape, tights, mask and heroic strength and powers.

Because of pride, that’s why.

Most of us, after all, choose the super hero costume over the average, flawed, everyday, hard-working but imperfect woman we really are underneath all that bright-colored spandex.

But God won’t let us. Not forever, anyway.

He gently reveals our weakness on the tough days:

….When we forget the appointment.

….Or lose our temper with our kids.

….Or pack our husband’s lunch but leave out the sandwich.

….Or put away the groceries one morning only to find the frozen broccoli a week later defrosted and disgusting in the pantry and the box of pasta iced over in the freezer.

I’ve been there, done that, refused to wear the t-shirt.

Truly, I need the grace.

I need the reminder that on the days I actually remember to sign my kids’ school agenda books and send in the right forms with the right child….on days when I get everybody ready for school AND manage a shower and makeup myself (even more so if I actually get to dry my hair)…that this isn’t because I have super powers.

It’s because I have God.

He helps me. He gives me rest. He strengthens me when I’m feeling worn down and He gives me energy when I’m sleep-deprived. I can’t take credit for that. I can’t accept the compliments from others and let it go to my heart and my head, making me think that I sure do have it all together.

I think of Peter’s mother-in-law, feverish and ill in bed when Jesus and His disciples stopped by for an unexpected visit (Matthew 8:14).

That poor woman, too sick to pretend to be Martha Stewart. Guests sat in her living room and she couldn’t pour cups of iced tea and serve cookies. She couldn’t tidy up quickly when she heard them knock on the door and hide the dirty dishes and the pile of clean clothes before inviting them in.

She needed Jesus in her moment of frailty. He healed her and then she could serve. He equipped her and then she could give.

On her own, she lingered frail and tired in the sick-bed, but in Christ and through Christ she rose in worship and thanksgiving to care for Jesus and His followers.

And when I’m struggling, it doesn’t mean I need to pull myself together all on my own. It means I need Jesus.

I need to lean in more onto Christ’s steady shoulders. I need His counsel, His wisdom, His help to be disciplined and discerning.

Or maybe it means I need to give myself the grace to accept help from others.

Either way, it requires being real and downright honest about who I am (plain old regular human being Heather) and who I’m not (endowed with superhuman powers of perfection and infallibility).

Maybe more of us need to make that honest confession.

I, ____________________ (insert your name here), am in need of God and in need of grace. I’m not perfect. I don’t always have it together. Sometimes I’m a mess. I often make mistakes. But I’m forgiven and God promises to help me do everything He’s called me to do.

That’s the challenge, isn’t it? To remember Paul’s prayer:

Now may the God of peace…equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen (Hebrews 13:20-21 NIV).

We’re equipped to do His will, not to do everything we volunteer for or everything others ask us to do or every good service and fun event we could pencil onto our calendars.

He gives us everything we need to fulfill the calling He’s given us today and no more than that.

Ask Me Anything: Seeing The Impossible

October 18, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people”
Ephesians 1:18, NIV

When Hagar ran off into the wilderness with her son for the second time in Genesis 21, she ended up wandering in the Desert of Beersheba. She was a homeless single mother, without friends, caring for her boy in unfamiliar desert territory and running out of supplies.

Her circumstances were desperate.

Placing Ishmael under a bush, she walked away so she wouldn’t have to watch him die. “And as she sat there, she began to sob” (Genesis 21:16 NIV).

It’s in the impossible situations where God is often most visible.

So it was with Hagar. God visited with her once again and asked:

“What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink” (Genesis 21:17-19 NIV).

Just like His question, “Where have you come from and where are you going,” this new question, “What’s the matter, Hagar?” shows that He was concerned about her. He knew where she was and what her circumstances were. Not only that, but He opened her eyes to see the deliverance He had prepared for her.

Nothing about Hagar’s circumstances changed. She was still a homeless single mother, short on provisions and without friends or direction.

It’s possible that God miraculously placed a new well nearby where she sat. Scripture simply says “God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.”

It could also be, though, that the only thing that changed was Hagar’s vision. Blinded by impossibilities and overwhelmed with despair, Hagar had given up when a well was so close. God revealed to her grace and provision that she simply hadn’t seen before.

In the same way, God miraculously gave supernatural sight to Elisha’s servant in 2 Kings 6:15-17. Surrounded by an impossibly large enemy army with horses and chariots, the servant cried out in despair, “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” Clearly, they were doomed to defeat. Yet, Elisha assured his anxious friend:

“‘Don’t be afraid . . . those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:15-17 NIV).

Suddenly their odds of winning didn’t seem so impossible anymore, yet their reality was unchanged. Those heavenly defenders had been there all along; the servant simply hadn’t seen them.

Pray that God will open your eyes to His provision and plan for you.

Sometimes we feel that our circumstances are too impossible even for God. We forget that He is the God of creation, who spoke the sun and moon and all of the earth’s creatures into existence out of nothing.

God hasn’t stopped being a creator God. He can create something out of nothing. He can place wells where there has been no water. He can create a heavenly army to deliver you when you are defenseless.

Remember that, “With man this is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27 NIV). You can trust that the God Who Sees you will know what you need exactly when you need it.

To pre-order a copy of this book, click here.

For more information about the book release, you can click here.

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

Accepting this Gift

October 16, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

That’s what I ask, but there isn’t anything right now….and that’s hard.

It’s hard to be one so used to serving, doing, and giving now mostly watching as another serves me.

This, after all, is a love note I write to my family: one husband, three daughters, now one tiny son. In lunches packed, laundry washed, games played, songs sung, books read, homework helped, appointments made, chauffeuring done, I say, “I love you.”

But this is his message now to me in these first two weeks of life with a newborn, and it’s beautiful and yet all so overwhelming because part of me rebels and revolts, thinking, “I should be doing this.”

Yet, it’s my husband clearing up the dinner table, washing each dish, and there he is driving three far-too-busy daughters to dance classes three times a week and shuttling children back and forth to school and then from school day after day.

He pushes the cart in the grocery store and carries the baby carrier into the church. He serves the cereal in the morning and then bounces a restless newborn while I fix ponytails and bows into long blonde hair.

He forgoes sleep so I can sleep.

He’s been serving me all along, all these years of working hard and caring for me in many ways. But now it’s all-the-time service; it’s middle-of-the-night and throughout the day every day and it’s taking over my jobs and chores in addition to his own normal tasks.

I find it so hard to rest and accept the gift of love…to allow someone else the chance to say:

“I love you” as I wash this dish.

“I love you” as I care for these children.

“I love you” as I sacrifice and as I serve.

It still feels like it should be me giving, not receiving…doing, not resting….loving, not being loved.

Yet, I sit for so much of every day and every night now, cradling a newborn, feeding him, changing him, cooing over him, praying for him, running my hands over his soft skin and kissing his totally kissable cheeks.

And I think….

What if this helpless babe refused my help?

What if, in his need, he declined my acts of love?

He’d be utterly desperate, hungry, filthy. He’d be completely incapable of thriving. He could try as he might to function with determined independence, but he’d fail and he’d suffer.

He needs me to love him.

And I need to let others and let Christ love me with this unmerited, unselfish, undemanding grace, as well.

Paul wrote:

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God” Galatians 2:20-21.

Nullifying grace. How could we do this?

How could we take the amazing grace of God as it pours down all over us and soaks us right through and reject it, make it thoroughly null and void and ineffective in our lives?

Surely it’s by trampling all over this sacrificial gift of God of blessing and forgiveness, salvation and daily mercy, with declarations of our own independence.

It’s refusing the gift and trying instead to earn it. It’s refusing to receive and demanding instead to be the one doing, serving and giving always.

It’s shaming myself for imperfections and living trapped in self-condemnation instead of accepting the freedom Christ offers.

And really, deep down is the ugly truth, it’s making faith all about me and my performance, and not at all about Him and His sacrifice.

Like Peter, I’m tempted at times to refuse the humility of Christ as He bends low 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.”

Foolish me, how I forget that I need:

Grace

Mercy

Sacrifice

Service

Forgiveness

Without them, I have no part in Christ.

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).

This is what I need to learn…the submitting.

Sometimes, I need to let others give to me when I am needy and when I am weak.

And grace from Christ….that’s not something I need “sometimes.” It’s grace I need moment by moment, day by day, new every morning.

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.

Take My Picture!

October 14, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

Originally published 1/12/2013

“Take my picture, Mommy! Take my picture!”

In the middle of Sunday morning chaos, pulling on stockings, buttoning dresses, clipping on bows and tying on ribbons, my three-year-old twirled in her dress and posed for a Kodak moment.

And I clicked the camera.

I don’t ever remember being this way, so eager to say, “Cheese.” I’ve always been the one declining photos, offering to hold the camera, tossing into the trash any pictures of me I don’t like.

But when I’m out and about with my daughters (or even just running around the house frantically trying to get four females ready for Sunday morning church service)… they want to stop and take pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Not of the scenery. Of them.

It takes us three times as long to walk down the Main Street of our town and probably twice as much time on location on our family “field trips.” But I don’t mind.

I love that they feel beautiful enough to want to pose.

There was a day I stepped into the bathroom to put away a stray toothbrush, and I caught one of my girls watching herself in the mirror. She smoothed her hair and glanced up at her reflection, pleased with what she saw.

How beautiful is the girl who feels beautiful in her own skin.

This rare gift, how do you teach it? How do you help them keep it for life?

Somehow, most of us grow out of it. We glance in the mirror and critique the image or sigh in frustration. We step on the scale and slander ourselves with our thoughts. We pose for that picture and know we won’t be happy with it later, not with the smile or the hair or the wrinkles or the chin or ….

Even my husband, in the early days of falling in love, would sit across me from the table and I could feel him watching. I didn’t know where to look. I was uncomfortable in his gaze. What imperfections would he see in me if he looked too closely or watched too long?

Later today, I’ll take my seat at a piano and offer up the music for a wedding ceremony. There will be a moment at that wedding when the soloist will sing, “How Beautiful the radiant bride who waits for her Groom with His light in her eyes” (How Beautiful, Twila Paris).

The beauty of the bride isn’t so much the hairdresser and the hair spray, the makeup, the gown.

It’s that she walks down that aisle feeling loved. In a moment, she knows she is wanted, precious, and she radiates the joy.

And it’s beautiful how she loves him. So we, thinking of another, run out of time to be so self-analyzing, so self-criticizing, so self-condemning—so “self.”

It’s a verse for meditating on all week, with a reminder of how beauty is looking to God–our Groom–thinking of Him and less of me. Beauty is caring for others. Beauty isn’t feeling shame, but feeling redeemed, feeling precious, feeling loved.

“Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame” (Psalm 34:5).

Ask Me Anything: No More Hiding in Shame

October 11, 2013January 23, 20143 Comments

Welcome to the first “Ask Me Anything Friday!”

For the next few weeks, I’ll be posting short excepts from my book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Lives to God’s Questions, as we prepare for the book release in November.

For more information about the book release, you can click here.

I hope you enjoy these glimpses into the study on the questions God asked in Scripture and what happens when we allow God to search our own hearts and draw us closer to Him.

~heather~

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God asked them a question.

Adam and Eve sinned that first sin in the Garden of Eden and they impulsively hid.

That’s when they heard God’s steps as He searched for them and they heard Him ask that one simple question:

“Where are you?”

“At least some part of them probably wanted to remain silent and continue cowering among the leaves as long as possible. They had wandered away from God’s side, choosing sin over innocence, and then when their eyes were opened, they were so filled with shame that they hid from God.

It’s no different than my daughter when she is in trouble. When Momma discovers her disobedience, she’s sad. She cries a bit at punishment and feels remorseful.

The ultimate pain for her, though, is if Momma tells Daddy what she did. It’s not because Daddy is going to punish her again. She’s already received discipline from me. She just so desperately wants to hide away her sin from him because she’s ashamed of it and knows he will be disappointed.

Shame is so destructive. It builds up walls in our relationships, preventing us from experiencing the freedom of vulnerability and intimacy. Adam and Eve were burdened by shame and they couldn’t even stand face to face with God, even the God who created them and loved them.

Yet, it is grace that counteracts shame in our lives…

This is a grace that Adam and Eve had not yet experienced as they stood among the foliage in the garden, hiding their faces in shame. There had been no sin in that paradise and therefore no need for grace. They didn’t know that while there are consequences for sin, there is also forgiveness available.

It’s a grace I struggle at times to comprehend and feel even though I’ve seen and experienced a life overflowing with God’s grace. I fall easily into works-based living, expecting perfection and achieving failure. I see the stains of sin on my heart and even when they are washed away, I still feel dirty, unusable and bound for the trashcan sometimes.

I struggle with a prison of self-condemnation. Long after I’ve repented and sought forgiveness, I feel the heaviness of guilt—no, shame really. It’s a prison of thoughts—“You’re unworthy. God can’t use you. You fail, all the time you fail, same sins all the time.”

Shame imprisons us and hides us away from God. We feel unworthy of His attention and beyond salvation. That’s why Adam and Eve covered themselves in palm leaves and stood still with hushed breaths as God came walking in the garden. They were paralyzed by the shame of what they had done. It probably seemed as if there was no hope of restoration.

That is what we feel sometimes, too, but this is what we can know:

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, NKJV).
” Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7, NIV).
“He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:10-12, NKJV)
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1, NKJV).

Because of Adam and Eve’s sin, God purposed to send His Son, Jesus, to die for all our sins so that we could be cleansed, thoroughly washed clean, all sin stains removed.

Why?

So that our relationship with Him—the relationship broken by that initial sin in the Garden of Eden and then re-broken over and over again in our disobedient lives—-could be restored.

He “reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18, NKJV).

That was a plan enacted by God in immediate response to Adam and Eve’s sin. They and all their descendants were not beyond His reach, even with sin so ugly and shame so heavy that it interrupted their relationship with Him.

God’s grace produces reconciliation.

Satan’s accusations—even long after we’ve repented—bow us low to the ground with shame. We become burdened with sins already forgiven and are unable to look up into God’s face any longer. We can’t walk in relationship with our Savior when we are too ashamed to match His gaze.

So, like Adam and Eve, sometimes we hide from God rather than respond to His call.

Yet, God whispers the searching question to our shame-filled hearts, “Where are you?”

He wants us to return to His side and resume our intimate walks with Him through life, to converse, to share, to listen and respond, but first He must meet us where we are and then heal the heart paralyzed by shame.

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.

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Tag: God

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What are you waiting for?

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

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Wonder Woman, Here’s Your Cape

Ask Me Anything: Seeing The Impossible

Accepting this Gift

Take My Picture!

Ask Me Anything: No More Hiding in Shame

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