Tag: grace

What I Said and What I Was Thinking

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“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you (Matthew 7:1-2)

She was crying and telling me she felt like a total flake.  Life had been crazy, filled with mistakes and missed appointments, misplaced papers, forgotten promises, everything lost and mixed up and wrong.

I remember being partially sympathetic and somewhat compassionate, outwardly consoling her and sharing words of encouragement as other shoppers pushed their way past our carts.

But inside, in the secret places of my mind and heart, that compassion wasn’t genuine.  It was hollow pat-her-on-the-back kind of friendship–the kind that is sorry she had a bad week, but fell short of true understanding or free-flowing grace.

in fact, the all-business side of me was passing unspoken judgment.

Forgetting, missing, losing, making mistakes? It didn’t sound like an attack from Satan to me.  It sounded more like a too-busy schedule and an absent organizational system.  Somehow I thought a few files and a day planner could save the day.

Two weeks later, I was crying at my kitchen table.  It had been a week of misplaced papers and missing items—not little insignificant things—BIG things, like legal documents and Department of Motor Vehicle paperwork.

For someone generally in control and on top of things, the week had been a devastatingly humbling reminder of just how flaky I can be.

An attack from Satan?  Suddenly it seemed possible.  Or even a tool God was using to challenge my heart and burn away the hidden places of self-condemnation and then smother the flames with His unconditional love and grace.

We so quickly stumble into a world of silent judgment, assessing, evaluating, and categorizing the people around us.

The frazzled-looking momma with the crying baby in Wal-Mart.
The parents whose teenager disappeared from church.
The couple who met with the divorce lawyers last week.
The husband and wife holding the bankruptcy paperwork.
The family with the nice new car and large house.
Those who homeschool (or don’t).
Those who have large families (or small).
The mom who commutes every day to work (and the one who doesn’t.)
The highly fashionable woman next to you in church, with perfectly polished nails, a size 4 waist, and a wardrobe that looks like it costs more than your house (or the one in jeans and a t-shirt).

And maybe we think we’re justified, that our own success in these areas qualifies us for positions of authority.  Or maybe we’ve memorized a list of Bible verses that prove our position.  As long as we’re quiet about it, after all, there seems little harm.  It’s only in our heart, only our own private thoughts of criticism.

Sure it might spill over occasionally into snarky remarks and private jibes among our like-minded friends, but mostly we control the collateral damage.

Yet, isn’t that the picture of the pharisees in Luke 5, solemnly and silently sitting off on their own, overlooking Jesus’ ministry and remaining stoically untouched by His compassionate healing?

Scripture tells us: “One day Jesus was teaching and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there” (Luke 5:17).

They had front row seats, a privileged view of the hurting crowd and the four friends carrying a man on a mat and lowering him down through the ceiling.  Jesus saw the faith of the friends, their determination and selflessness.  He saw the paralyzed man, so dependent on others even to carry him to the feet of the Savior.

And Jesus healed him by saying, “Friend, your sins are forgiven” (Luke 5:20).

Maybe the crowd marveled at the miracle.  Perhaps the man who had been confined to a mat danced a jig and hugged his faithful friends.

Others remained unmoved:

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Luke 5:21).

It likely seemed safe, passing silent thoughts of judgment.  They were, after all, just “thinking to themselves.”  They didn’t hop up on a soapbox or try to steal the show.  They didn’t argue with the crowd or publicly condemn the healed or the Healer.

It was just an internal dialogue, a private moment of judgment and condemnation.

But, “Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, ‘Why are you thinking these things in your hearts?‘” (Luke 5:22).

Even our most secretive judgments of others have an audience—Jesus Himself.   That’s why Beth Moore, in her book, Jesus, the One and Only, asks: “How do I silently judge?”  Because judgment that doesn’t appear on protest signs or Facebook posts or Twitter feeds or in pulpits is still judgment.

The truth is I’m desperately in need of the grace Christ has poured out on me, and if I need that kind of grace, then I need to show that kind of grace: unhindered, unqualified, unmarred by an undercurrent of criticism and condescension.  Just grace.  Beautiful, pure, deep down honest grace.

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 © 2012 Heather King

Orange Makeup/White Shirt

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“I’m so grateful we never have to stand at a distance from Christ. Not only is He incapable of catching our ‘disease,’ but also He is never reluctant to embrace us”
(Beth Moore, Jesus: the One and Only, p. 242)

I love my kids.  Normally, I’m eager to accept their hugs and I’ll wrap them up in my arms at the slightest whim.

The other night, though, my daughter was fully decked out in her costume as an Oompa Loompa in a production of Willy Wonka, Jr, complete with thick, bright orange makeup all the way to her hairline and down to her neck.

…And she wanted to hug me.

…While I was wearing a white shirt.

…A really, really white shirt.

Did I mention she was orange?  Really, really orange.  In fact, I think Crayola should consider naming a new color “Oompa Loompa Orange” in her honor.

So, I hugged her at first with an intricately choreographed dance, making sure her orange head never made contact with my clothing. She bobbed; I weaved.

Then, I stood still for a moment and tilted her face to the side so that only the top of her head touched me.  (Her hair, thankfully, wasn’t orange!)   I gave her what I’ve decided to call “the sideways head hug.”

My goal here was a kind of sterile affection: Showing love without staining my clothes.

I’ve learned this dance over years of practice as a mom.  Kids, after all, come at me every day with Oreos on their hands and spaghetti sauce oozing from their fingers. More paint makes it onto them than every makes it onto paper and then they reach out and touch me to get my attention.

In fact, most of my clothes bear the marks of their hands on my thighs (where they could reach when standing up as toddlers) and on my shoulders (from the times I picked those little ones up).

When I read through the Gospels, I’m amazed at how Jesus essentially wore a white shirt and yet never failed to hug, squeeze, lift up, and cherish all those who came to him—even when they were covered in stains of sin, death, and all that was unclean.

He never dodged them in attempts to escape the messiness of their lives.

When the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years braved the disapproving crowd in order to reach Jesus, she was unclean.  Continual bleeding meant continually being cut-off from public worship and physical contact with others.

One brush of her skin against your arm and you’d be unclean, as well.

Yet, she touched Jesus and He didn’t flinch or condemn her.  He didn’t sidestep her presence.  He healed her and set her free.

When Jesus saw the coffin of a widow’s only son pass by surrounded by wailing mourners and his mother in despair, Jesus could have slipped away and ignored it all.  Touching a dead body was a guaranteed mess, making you unclean by the law’s religious standards.

Jesus did it anyway, though, telling the dead boy to arise and then watching this only son embrace his mother again.

Jesus ate with the rabble, touched the eyes of the blind, and laid hands on the demon-possessed.  His was a physical affection, the real and true fingerprints of God placed on undeserving lives and unclean situations.

Yet, instead of being tainted or stained Himself, He brought purity to others.

Paul put it this way:

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Too often we miss the significance of this fact: Jesus did what was unclean and yet nothing could penetrate the purity of the Son of God.

He was sinless, blameless, totally righteous before God, but He didn’t use that as an excuse to separate Himself from others.  Instead, it was His joy to absorb their stains of sin, now bleached white when laid at the feet of the Messiah.

It’s what He did on the streets of Galilee and Judea and Samaria.

It’s what He did on the cross.

It’s what He does even now when we let Him get involved in the dirtiest, muckiest, and most sin-plagued aspects of our lives.

That’s what John assures us when he writes: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

This means we don’t need to hide away or shun his society.  We don’t need to pretend the unclean blots on our lives don’t exist.

It also means that we can follow his example by no longer worrying about our clean white shirts and start doling out affection without restraint, not avoiding the mess of others when it makes us uncomfortable.  Like Jesus, we “walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us” (Ephesians 5:2).

Sometimes real love means getting messy, maybe even orange.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

How is a Christian like an Oompa Loompa?

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The curtain rose and fell for the last time.  The makeup went on and the makeup came off (mostly–there are still streaks of orange along my daughter’s hairline).  Costumes were handed in and tucked away for future shows. A crew of folks broke down the set and put the pieces into storage.

My kids finished their summer-long project yesterday, an all-youth production of Willy Wonka Jr. sponsored by our local community theater group.  They auditioned the Sunday after school ended, rehearsed every week, and performed this weekend.

Now it’s time to kick back and enjoy a few weeks of rehearsal-free summer before school starts again.

Each night before the show, we arrived two hours early so the kids could climb into costumes and sit still for makeup.  This was a particularly involved process because my middle girl was an Oompa Loompa.

The Oompa Loompas are Willy Wonka’s devoted candy factory workers.  Refugees from a horrible land, they’ve come to live and work in his factory as loyal servants of their eccentric chocolate-making master.

Transforming into an Oompa Loompa is quite a task.  It’s more than just colorful shirts, socks and some overalls with curiously expansive hips.

There’s also a bright green wig covered in curls.

And there’s orange makeup–bright orange.

For these six through nine-year-olds, this was a matter of acting, putting on the outward appearance of another.

In the tradition of Lewis Carroll-like riddles, though, I’ve been wondering: How is a Christian like an Oompa Loompa? (Yes, I know Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland, not Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  What can I say?  I’ve got children’s fantasy on the brain . . . )

Peter wrote this description to the church:

“But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9 NLT).

The Oompa Loompas are peculiar.  They are “strange creatures,” unmistakably different from the kids and parents who visit Willy Wonka’s factory.

We also are supposed to be “not like that,” not like the world, not able to blend in with the crowd. God has changed us from the inside-out and people should notice the unique qualities of God’s love and righteousness about us.

I never once saw an Oompa Loompa hit the gym for an exercise routine targeted at reducing his hip-size.  They didn’t climb onto stilts to increase their height.  None of them hid in the bathroom for an hour to dye their hair and they didn’t even try to pass their orange skin off as suntan.

They were comfortable being weird.

Sometimes we’re not.  We’re too often trying to hide, transform, pretend, and deny the presence of Christ in us.

There’s freedom, though, in unashamedly being who God called us to be, in raising our hands in worship with abandon, in standing up for what is right with conviction, and not fearing the disapproving looks of those around us.

We’re supposed to be weird, too.

The Oompa Loompas were also refugees.  Willy Wonka had pulled them out of a land of fear and disaster and offered them a place of peace.

We’ve similarly been lifted up out of pits and carried to safety.  We are God’s “chosen people” and His “very own possession,” who no longer inhabit a hopeless world, facing inevitable death without the promise of a future.  He has “called us out of the darkness into his wonderful light.”

So, we respond as the Oompa Loompas did; we cheerfully and faithfully serve our Master.

He has saved us!  We are rescued and redeemed!

It’s a little thing, then, to show gratitude and loyalty and to obey Him in every little thing.  We work, we love, we give, we minister, we sacrifice, we share, we worship because we are refugees brought to safety by a Savior who loves us.

The Oompa Loompas are also message-bearers.  As each Golden Ticket winner inevitably fails, falling to the temptations of  immediate satisfaction, selfishness, and greed, the Oompa Loompas take the stage. They clean up the mess.  They solve the problem.

They sing their song.

We also “show others the goodness of God,” sometimes by fixing problems and tending to needs, silently ministering grace.

Sometimes we “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15), reminding others that God has a plan, purpose, and design.  We speak truth and wisdom in a world that desperately needs both, but we do it with love, covered over with grace, never out of judgment or pompous self-righteousness.

The Christian life is a call to be different, to be saved, to be devoted, to be messengers of God’s goodness, all without having to wear a green wig or apply orange makeup.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

Weekend Rerun: Packing Up The Tiara

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Originally posted on August 5, 2011

There I sat, cuddling my oldest daughter as she sobbed disappointed tears into her pillow.  Sitting in the minivan that night as we drove home, she had suddenly realized that God wasn’t going to make her a fairy tale princess when she grows up.

Her little life dream had been dashed.

After her sad announcement, my husband tried to shout back persuasive logic to her from the front seat, explaining that princesses don’t really live such great lives.  They can’t choose where to go, what to eat, how to dress, or even who to marry.

Somehow the lack of freedom was overshadowed by Disney ballgowns, glass slippers and tiaras.  And so after the pajamas were on, the teeth brushed, the prayers prayed, there we sat in her bed and she cried and we talked about feeling disappointed.

How life doesn’t always turn out the way we expect.
How sometimes we can’t have what we really want.
How movies and fairy tales rarely represent the reality of life.
How it’s hard to trust God when He tells us, “no,” but that we need to leave our future in His hands.
How our job is to work hard to develop the gifts He’s given and His job is to direct and guide our service.

No matter how you chat and philosophize sometimes, though, disappointment hurts.  For a while, we can hope that despite all odds, God is going to miraculously give us what our hearts desire.

But it doesn’t always happen that way and that’s the truth.

Sometimes God says, “no.”  He may do it so gently and with grace, and it’s not because He hates us or wants to see us sob ugly tears on our pillows.

In most cases, He does it for the same reason I tell my child “no” she can’t wear her favorite skirt that is now too short for her, “no” she can’t have cookies and milk at 5:30 p.m. as I’m dishing up dinner on the table, “no” she can’t watch that movie even if her friends have all seen it, “no” she can’t have a cellphone and laptop for first grade.  “No” is for people we love enough to protect.

Then there are other cases where the “no” is so He can be glorified and our faith refined.  In Beth Moore’s study, Daniel, she notes that there are always three scenarios:

  • God delivers us from the fire.
  • God delivers us through the fire.
  • God delivers us by the fire into His arms.

For the three men who refused to bow down to the towering image of King Nebuchadnezzar, there was no question of whether God could keep them out of the furnace that was blazing in front of them.  They declared:

If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand.  But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.

They had to go through the fire, but Christ showed up in all His magnificent glory and walked them right on out of there.  God said, “no, I won’t deliver you from the fire, but I’ll take you through.”

For others of you, God has said, “no” and it’s not clear why.  Maybe we’ll never know the reason this side of eternity.  You can’t see how this is protection.  You can’t see how He is being glorified.  Maybe it’s disappointing, this waiting for the healing or rescue that doesn’t ever seem to come.

Have you ever wondered how Stephen did it, the first martyr in the church, the first one to take stand up for Christ to the death?  Were he and his friends disappointed that God didn’t rescue him from the riotous Sanhedrin?  Were they waiting for the earth to open up and swallow the mob now raising their stones in murderous rage?

How disappointed and confused did they feel as God didn’t deliver Stephen from or through the onslaught of rocks, but instead delivered him home to heaven?  There was no last-minute rescue or miraculous intervention.

Acts 7:6-7 says:

At that point they went wild, a rioting mob of catcalls and whistles and invective. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, hardly noticed—he only had eyes for God, whom he saw in all his glory with Jesus standing at his side. He said, “Oh! I see heaven wide open and the Son of Man standing at God’s side!” (MSG).

Stephen “hardly noticed” the deafening noise of those about to kill him because “he only had eyes for God.”

Whatever disappointments we face, a fairy tale dream that never came true, a furnace God asks us to walk through, a definitive “no” instead of miraculous intervention, we are victorious by “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:2).  Just like Stephen.  Just like Jesus Himself looked to His Father as He suffered painfully on the cross for our sake.

We’re not looking at the enemy, the storm or the overwhelming circumstances.  We’re not looking at the hoped-for miracle or the anticipated rescue.  We’re looking at Jesus “standing at God’s side,” knowing that even when God chooses not to give us what we want or hope for, He never leaves nor forsakes us (Hebrews 13:5).

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

Weekend Walk, 08/04/2012: Under the Olympic Lens

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I know many of you probably complained about Olympics spoilers this year.  You already know by early afternoon who won the gold medal, but the official television coverage doesn’t begin until after dinner.  It’s pretty hard to be surprised by the results and maybe you hate that.

Not me.  I purposely look up the competitions to find out who won before I dare sit down to watch the actual sport.  It helps me mentally and emotionally prepare to relax and enjoy or fret and face disappointment.

Thus, I knew in advance for the women’s team gymnastics competition who would win.  And I knew which of the girls bounced on their landings or wobbled on the balance beam.

With all of that tension and stress out of the way, I started to enjoy the show, until I noticed the cameramen.

After flipping and twisting and flying into the air, every gymnastics competitor hopped down off the mats and hugged each of her teammates and her coach, trying to act reasonably normal despite the fact that massive cameras with lenses the size of my head were no more than a foot or two from her face.

The photographers were so intrusive.  None of the girls had even one second post-competition to themselves to recover or hide or be herself.

When she’s smiling and high-fiving after a job well done, that’s not so bad.

But when you’ve made a massive mistake that could cost you and your team the medal you’ve trained for most of your life, well, that’s horrifying to me.  Instead of cheering on the gymnasts, I found myself mentally screaming at the cameramen.

“Go away.  Give her some space, will ya?  Good grief, she’s a 16-year-old child who just needs a few minutes to get over a huge life disappointment.  Would it hurt you to take pictures somewhere else for a while and give her some privacy?”

Then the commentators would drone on and on about what she did wrong, how she angled this incorrectly or spun too far or fell off balance here.  They had diagrams and replays and slow-motion analysis.

People have a way of never forgetting our mistakes or perpetually defining us by our errors.

Yet, God always offers forgiveness to a truly repentant heart.

It’s beyond our understanding, then, that our omniscient God, who knows every darkest secret of our mind and heart, can push our mistakes and sins out of His memory.  This week, I’m meditating on passage all about this absolutely amazing grace:

The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
    slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse,
    nor will he harbor his anger forever;
 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
    or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
    so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
(Psalm 103:8-12).

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Don’t Leave Me

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She doesn’t want to be left behind.

My older daughters and I have rehearsals almost every night now for their upcoming big performance in a community theater show.

My youngest little one, though, could stay at home with Daddy, playing games, watching her favorite cartoons, reading books, and being tickled.  She could even snuggle into bed on time, a definite plus in my book.

She, however, is ever-watchful of signs that her sisters and I would leave without her.  Because I’m slightly neurotic, I start slowly packing bags and laying out clothes hours before we need to leave.

She sees me put their shoes by the door and shouts, “I wanna come wif you” and frantically hunts for her own sandals.

I assure her that our departure is still hours away.  But then she sees me pack the bag for the night and declares again, “I wanna come wif you!”  Then she clambers into my arms, snuggles down into my chest and whimpers, “Don’t leave me, Mommy.”

No way am I shutting the door on her now.  She’s absolutely coming with us.

We have a way, don’t we, of pleading with God just like that?  “Don’t leave me.  Don’t abandon me here.  Don’t forsake me.”

We needn’t worry.  He is, after all, Emmanuel, God With Us.  His desire for relationship with us motivated His journey to a Bethlehem stable and His trek to the cross.  Our God will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).

Instead, we are the ones who leave.  We wander, we run away, we linger too long after He’s called us to move on.

We’re the one wayward sheep leaving the fold or the prodigal sprinting from home with a wad full of blessing.

Yet, not only does God neither leave us nor forsake us, Scripture tells us that Our Shepherd will “leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off” (Matthew 18:12).

So for those of you who are lost and afraid, far from the Shepherd, alone and missing the companionship of your flock, know that God is actively searching for you and will carry you home on His shoulders.

For the prodigals who eventually landed in a life of pig-slop and shame, know that your Heavenly Father is running toward you with joy when you choose to return.

Maybe you’re like me, though, who shamefacedly admits that parables of lost sheep and prodigals are sometimes more mysterious than comforting.

I’ve always pictured the 99 obedient sheep left behind so the Shepherd can traipse across the countryside hunting down the one disobedient sheep and I’ve thought, “that’s not fair.”  After all, He will “leave the ninety-nine on the hills” so He can look for the lost sheep.  Now we’re the ones left behind, missing out on the Shepherd’s affection and guidance.

And I’m more the grumpy brother than the prodigal, frustrated that while I’ve been responsibly laboring in the fields my brother’s been squandering on pleasure and extravagance.  That’s just not fair.

And I’m right. It’s not “fair,” of course, but that’s the beautiful thing about it.  The Gospel isn’t meant to be fair in the sense that we get what we deserve.

For all of us, prodigals and older brothers, runaway sheep and obedient followers, our story is that God heaped grace on us that we could never merit or earn.

In her book, God Loves Broken People: And Those Who Pretend They’re Not, Sheila Walsh reminds us that our God is an ever-present, omniscient shepherd, not one with earthly limitations on time and space.  While He’s passionately pursuing the runaway, He’s also actively caring for the 99 who still need his guidance and protection.

That’s our God, the Shepherd who cares attentively for all of us.

And maybe Tim Keller is right when he says that the story of the prodigal son isn’t really targeted at “‘wayward sinners’ but religious people who do everything the Bible requires.”

It’s the reminder that even when we don’t feel like we’ve run away, we can still be steeped in bad attitudes, misplaced motivations, judgment, and religious pride.  We’re so convinced of our own “merit,” we’ve forgotten how extravagant God’s grace is for us—and how others have need of such grace.

After all, if we truly remembered that, we’d be helping to hang the streamers for the prodigal’s Welcome Home party.  And we’d be overjoyed to see the wayward sheep carried home again.  That’s because at some point, God has pursued, carried and rejoiced over all of us.

That’s His passion and heart—to be with all of us without fail or interruption.  If that’s our God’s heart, it should be what pushes blood through our veins, as well: the desire that every seeker is found, every wanderer recovered, and every child brought home.

Caedmon’s Call sang these lyrics in Long Line of Leavers.  They are on my mind today.

I come from a long line of leavers
Out of the garden gate with an apple in their hands
I expect and I believe
You’re gonna run out of love
You’re gonna give me the shove
‘Cause that’s the thing that lovers do
Then there’s you

You’re the only one
Who knows my secrets
You’re the only one
Still you’re the only one
Who never leaves
And I wake up to this mystery

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

Have Mess, Need Mercy

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“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness”
Lamentations 3:21, 22

We all have mess.  I surely do.

When I was a young girl, my mom handed me the book, Old Yeller, and told me, “you’re going to cry when you read this.”

I didn’t.  It was a spiteful hardness, the determination that no matter how intensely sad the story became, I wouldn’t cry simply because she said I would.

This hasn’t changed much over time.  I can generally keep an open mind until someone tells me, “You WILL, you WON’T you CAN’T, you MUST, you HAVE to . . . ”  Anything that pushes me into a corner receives a (sometimes unwarranted) push back.

I have other stuff, too.  Like the fact that I ALWAYS get lost and the directions that make so much sense to everyone else on the planet become a jumbled mass of confusion to me.

I have an organized mind that sees the world in a perpetual outline with points I, II and II and subpoints A, B, and C, but I desperately need a personal secretary to keep me from losing papers and to clean through my desk and help me remember where I put my keys, the library book, the document, the super important thing that I absolutely cannot lose but have managed to misplace.

It doesn’t end there.  I’m a people-pleaser in daily need of encouragement and too easily crushed by constructive criticism.  I’m not always patient with failure, especially in myself, and even sometimes with my kids.  I have a problem with jealousy, not so much for “stuff,” but maybe for success or impact.

There’s more.  The longer I sit here typing away, the more mess I’ll probably discover.

And while in any and all of these areas God has been at work, digging out junk, sometimes with a gentle gloved hand and sometimes with a pick-axe, still there is mess.  There are days where it’s a little overwhelming. Or maybe a lot.

When my house is too disorderly, I can’t think, I can’t concentrate, my stress level rises.  It’s the same with my heart when I see the junk drawers overflowing or discover trash hiding in corners that I hadn’t noticed before.

How is there any room left for what is good and pure and lovely? 
How is there any possibility of inviting God in amongst junk? 
How can anyone feel welcomed and loved into this place of distracting trash?

Once when she was out driving, Ruth Graham noticed that a stretch of highway that had undergone road work for far too long was finally finished and reopened.  They had even posted a sign: “End of Construction.  Thanks for Your Patience.”

She wanted that message to be on her tombstone, a reminder that it’s only in heaven, at the feet of God and clothed in the forgiveness of Christ, that construction on our hearts and minds will be complete.

Until then, we need people–and God–to be patient with us.  Yes, we even need to be a little patient with ourselves.

God is able to transform us and make us new as long as we give over sin, faults, idols, foibles, weakness and failures to Him.  This is part of our salvation story, not a one-time dip in the cleansing blood of Christ’s sacrifice.  It’s the journey of our faith, the sanctification or making holy over time.

And it does take time.

This is what Paul promises, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6 ESV).

In the meantime, we have grace, precious grace, and the reminder that our mess is never too heavy to bring to God.

My own efforts are little more than attempts at self-control, self-direction, self-justification, self-perfection, self-reliance and self-confidence.

Then, SELF just becomes part of the mess that we lug to the feet of Jesus.

Ultimately, our own efforts fail.  Giving up completely hinders our relationship with God.  Wallowing in self-loathing means we reject His grace as insufficient to cover our sin.

All that’s left is to bring our mess to God and rejoice in His mercy.  Like the woman who poured out her tears and expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet, we find ourselves moved to passionate worship of and service for a God who has forgiven our many sins (Luke 7:47).

Paul wrote, “I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God” ( Romans 12:1).

We aren’t holy and pleasing sacrifices to God because we’re finished, perfected, construction complete.

Instead, we offer ourselves up, mess and all,  “in view of God’s mercy.”

His grace covers us, cleanses us and, in His compassion, He transforms us.  He’s big enough and gracious enough to tackle our mess until the day He decides that construction is complete and He takes us home.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Weekend Walk, 07/07/2012: When It’s H-O-T

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Hiding the Word:

Ask anyone in my town, in my state, along my coastline.  It’s hot.

H-O-T.  Hot.

It’s the subject of everyone’s Facebook posts. What’s my status?  Sweltering, melting, sweaty, sticky.  Hot.

The weather monopolizes our conversation, dominating our small talk.  How are you doing?  And then we look, really look at the person and realize there’s no need to even ask.  They’re wiping their hand across their forehead, pushing away sticky strands of hair and catching droplets of sweat before they drip in our eyes.

And it’s all we can think about.  Forget how we’re feeling or how our jobs are going or how our kids are enjoying their summer.  All we know right now is that we’re just too plain hot.

But this morning I sat by the side of the local swimming pool while my daughters took swimming lessons.  Parents on benches against the wall fanned themselves, but the kids were dipped in coolness. They were comfortable, happy, relaxed and refreshed.

Even when they stepped out into the heat, my dripping wet girls were still cool from their time in the water.

Watching my daughters so refreshed despite the heat around them, I saw a reminder of God’s satisfying grace, His presence and the cooling comfort of His Word amidst the heat of our lives–the stress, the busyness, the fires of attack. He’s the Living Water, from which we drink deep and long, enjoying the true quenching of our up-to-now insatiable thirst.

In his famous sermon, Peter promised the crowd that “times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:20). We throw ourselves (belly-flopping or diving or jumping into a cannonball) into God and, totally immersed in His presence, we are refreshed and renewed.

So, this week, I’m meditating on a verse that reminds me that Christ is in me, my source of joy and hope and peace regardless of the heat of life:

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:37-38 ESV).

Weekend Rerun:

His Sufficiency
Originally posted on May 2, 2011

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
2 Corinthians 2:9

I love sharing in this devotional ministry with you, hearing what God is teaching you and how it connects up with the verses and thoughts on my heart.  Journeying together with you these past few months has been a blessing to me.  But, To be honest, there are still some days I struggle with knowing what God has called me to do right here and now in my life.  Insecurities can do that to us, trap us in a pit of questions and uncertainty and prevent us from moving forward in obedience.

You see a great deal of the time I feel ill-equipped to sit across the computer from you and share from my quiet time moments.  I’m no bestselling author, conference speaker, or Greek scholar.  This is just simple me being real with you, a girl totally in love with God’s Word and how alive it is, how relevant for our lives, how powerful to change our hearts and minds.  These are the confessions of my heart, but maybe you’ve felt some of these insecurities in your life, too.

Have you ever felt a little insufficient?  A little overwhelmed by the task God’s given you and a little underwhelmed by your ability to perform it?  A little intimidated by the confident ministry of those around you?

Today, I’m thinking about insufficiency, mostly because that’s how I feel at this moment.  I’m sitting at my kitchen table after a hectic morning of running errands, forgetting something at the store, heading back to another store, returning all the library books and then finding one more book hidden in the car after I got home, and finally running late to pick up my daughter from school.

My youngest girl dug into the Easter candy that mysteriously moved from the inaccessible high counter where I had put it onto the very accessible  floor. (Do “Not Me” and “I Don’t Know” live at your house, too?)  There are candy wrappers dotted across the carpet.  Fortunately, she doesn’t actually like to eat the candy; she just enjoys unwrapping it, so next to the candy wrappers is the chocolate all lined up in a perfectly straight row.  (That chocolate is still good, right?  Because I totally just ate some.)

The laundry is spinning in the washer and dryer and the clean clothes are piling up on the sofa all fresh and warm and in desperate need of folding and putting away.

Meanwhile, I have not yet exercised this morning, but I am excusing myself because I’ve been coughing up my lungs themselves for the last few days.

So, sick, stressed, tired, forgetful, surrounded by mess, and feeling bad for not exercising, I have waved the white flag and retreated to the kitchen table for some time with God.  And I need it because I’m so insufficient for all this.

Fortunately for me, my favorite Gospel event is all about insufficiency!  Jesus had been teaching a crowd of people all day and healing the sick among them.

By the time evening came, the disciples were worried.  They told Jesus, “’This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.’  Jesus replied, ‘They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.’”  Matthew 14:13-14 (NIV). 

The disciples certainly didn’t have enough food for a crowd of over 5000 people, but Andrew did find one little boy with a small lunch: “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” John 6:9 (NIV).

“How far will they go” indeed?!  This boy’s lunch was utterly insufficient.  It probably embarrassed Andrew to even mention it.  Yet, this little boy with a lunchbox willingly and in great faith gave 100% of what he had to Jesus.  Even though it was insufficient, he trusted that Jesus could use his offering.

Certainly, this boy could have worked in his own strength to catch some more fish or bake some more bread.  He could have collected small change from everyone in the crowd and trekked into town to order take-out.

Still, despite his best efforts and hard work, he would never have provided enough in his own strength.  Likewise, I can’t be enough in my own strength either. If I’m relying on my talent, skills, hard work, and ingenuity, I’ll just fail.  I can only give my all to Jesus and trust that He will multiply my offering.

Besides, it was the insufficiency of the boy’s gift that allowed Jesus to be glorified.  If that boy had somehow gathered enough food for the crowd, the story would have been about his ingenuity and generosity instead of Jesus’ compassion and miraculous power.

Even if every attendee had packed a little snack and the disciples had pooled the resources to form a buffet line, Christ would then be a master organizer or administrator—not a God of compassion who sees our need and provides for us in abundance through His great power. 

Our insufficient offerings give Jesus the opportunity to be glorified.

God never expects us to be sufficient in our strength and abilities.  If we are strong enough, together enough, talented enough, smart enough, or equipped enough in our own strength, there’s no room for God to show off in our lives and receive the glory He deserves.   The gifts we bring just become less about Him and more about us.  

And let me assure you that God is powerful in our weakness.  Sure, my day has been crazy and I don’t feel up to the task of managing it all, but after some time with God’s Word and some moments spent sharing with you, I can look around with new eyes and see Him at work. 

My beautiful girls have just bounced through the kitchen after playing outside on a bright and sunny day.  They were chased in by an “enormous, gigantic, ugly black spider” and now they are cuddling together all stretched out and relaxing, little blond curls and wisps of hair falling out of ponytail holders and hair clips.  My baby girl fell asleep peacefully for a nap, tired from all of her effort spent unwrapping chocolate and the house is quiet for these few moments.  A candle is burning.  The last load of laundry is spinning away.   One of the caterpillars we’ve been studying just emerged from her chrysalis and is waving her new wings back and forth, testing them out, feeling the weight of them. 

God is always sufficient in our insufficiency.

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Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

Weekend Walk, 06/23/2012

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Hiding the Word:

Last night, our kids colored their last craft, ran around the gym for the last game, and tasted their last snack of Vacation Bible School.  All week long, we taught the kids to trust God . . . no matter what.

Whoever they are . . .
However they feel . . .
Even when people hurt them . . .
Even when bad things happen . .  .
And anywhere they go . . .
Trust God

Sounds so simple.  Sounds so childlike.  Sounds so easy.

But of course we know the truth.  Most of us need the constant reminder, encouragement and challenge to trust Him.  We need a perpetual bright red string tied around our finger.

So, this week I’m choosing to meditate on a verse that speaks truth about that trust.

It’s not based on anything I do or whatever I muster up in my own strength.  We trust God because of His steadfast, unfailing, loyal, everlasting covenant love for us.

But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
    my heart shall rejoice in your salvation (Psalm 13:5)

Weekend Rerun:

After a week of lessons on Group’s Sky VBS!, I’m reminded of the lessons I wrote last year on the Group PandaMania VBS.  This was one of my favorites that week:

God Loves You, No Matter What
Originally posted June 23, 2011

After a conversation with a friend this week, I recalled the first time I had to turn over my green card on the classroom behavior chart and leave the yellow card on top.  I was in third grade and had forgotten my math homework.  The teacher asked us to hand it in and I quickly zipped open my backpack to grab up my finished paper.

Only it wasn’t there.  So, I pushed things around gently and then more energetically.  I scrambled through the papers and then yanked everything out.  Slowly I realized my paper wasn’t in there.  I had nothing to turn in.

So, I had to shuffle over to the behavior bulletin board and take my punishment.  A yellow card for Heather.  Bright yellow so everyone in the class could see I messed up.  I forgot.  I was careless and irresponsible.

Embarrassed, I slinked back to my desk and slumped down hoping to become invisible in my chair.  My face was burning red hot, the kind of shame that makes your ears sear into the sides of your head.

But, when I sheepishly glanced at the bulletin board the next morning, I saw a green card next to my name again.  It was a new day and with it came a rush of joy that the mistakes of yesterday could be so simply erased and forgotten.

It was the astonishing grace of a fresh start.

That’s what Christ did for us.  Raising us up from the dead.  Taking our place on the cross and erasing the record of our wrongs so that we could stand before the Most Holy God and look . . . holy and pure.

He saw you and me as worth saving even when we were splattered with the mud of sins and caked in the foul dirt of this world. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

So, what should we do with this amazing grace?

I know what I do most of the time—forget it, take it for granted, or, even worse, nullify it by trying to be perfect.  I begin to live in a spiritual world of musts, shoulds, do’s, don’ts, shalls and shall nots.

The Psalmist wrote, “If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?  But with you there is forgiveness; therefore, You are feared” (Psalm 130:3-4).

Yes, we would be pounded into the ground if we carried the weight of our sins on our wimpy shoulders.  We couldn’t stand in His presence much less crawl face to the ground before His throne.

But.

But with Him there is forgiveness.  Praise God!

The Psalmist ends that thought with, “Therefore, You are feared.”  Not the fright of might, though.  Not the run and hide kind of fear.  Not obeying God to escape His wrath.  Not surrendering to Him in order to earn His love.

The Old Testament Bible Knowledge Commentary says this is the fear of “worship and obedience.  The Scriptures state that many results come from fearing the Lord; the most notable is that the person keeps himself from sin.”

In January of this year, I felt the heavy nudging of the Holy Spirit asking me two questions, one of which was, “Are you ready for where I want to take you next?”  The God who loved me passionately was asking me to walk in worship and obedience—holy fear in response to abundant grace.

“That depends,” I answered.  “Where are we going?  How long will it take?  What is the expense-to-benefit ratio?”

It sounds mercenary, but those are the questions that rumbled around in my head and heart for weeks.  Was it safer to stay where I was?  Was safer necessarily better?

His question sounds so simple and easy when we belt out “I surrender all” in a church service.  Then there’s that moment when God takes you up on your offer and asks you to surrender your plans for the future, your comfort, your life, and you wonder how much “all” actually is.

And then I felt it, the pull of performance and the tug on my heart to just do what God wants so He’ll love me, so I won’t let Him down, so I can live up to what a Bible Study girl should do.  It was a works-based response of duty rather than the bride’s response of affection to the overwhelming passion and love of her Groom.

So I waited to answer God.  I waited until I truly believed that God would love me no matter what.  That the choices I make here may affect God’s plans for me, may affect my impact on others, may affect how I am blessed, but they will never affect His unconditional and unending love.

Only then, in the light of so much grace, knowing that I answered Him out of love and not duty, I bashfully answered, “I do.”  I do want to go with You.  I do want whatever you desire for me.

Why do we obey Him?  Why do we whisper “I do” when He asks us to surrender?  Why do we choose the difficult right over the much easier wrong?

So He will love us?  No—because He loves us. 

We ask Him to “lead me along the path of everlasting life”  because there’s no other place where we can walk next to Him, our tiny palm nestled inside His nail-scarred hand (Psalm 139:24).

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

VBS Lessons: No Matter Who You Are

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Every year at Vacation Bible School I watch as adults lead the excited children around the church from station to station, sing the songs (maybe we even do the accompanying motions), shout and laugh.  Do we also, though, compartmentalize? Do we box up the VBS messages and declare they are just for kids and not relevant for us?

But is there any message in Scripture that God delivers just for people under 18? We older and wiser ones sometimes make faith so complicated and fail to recognize or really consider the beautiful truths in these simple messages. So, this week, I’m thinking about VBS and what the lessons for children mean for you and me.  Our church is doing Group’s Sky VBS, so that’s what I’ll be sharing about here.

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No Matter Who You Are….Trust God

I’m easily duped.

I view another person’s life from afar:

Big house, family vacations, nice cars: Finances are solid.

Posts on Facebook about a husband bringing home flowers and how often he cleans up the house, makes dinner and does bath night with the kids: Their marriage is strong and the husband is divinity in human flesh who puts all mere mortal husbands to shame.

Reports of kids’ school achievements, activity accomplishments and cute parenting stories about bedtime prayers and how much they love Jesus: They are perfect parents.

Then their life implodes.  The marriage crumbles seemingly overnight with pain that’s been ripping away the threads of their home for years.  They teeter on the cliff’s edge of bankruptcy and foreclosure or fall right on over into a financial pit.  Their kids rebel.  They disappear from church.  Perhaps they seek solace in suicide.

And we all are catapulted into shock.  We just didn’t know.

It’s true that a life without Jesus can’t be truly fruitful and that “a good tree doesn’t produce bad fruit; on the other hand, a bad tree doesn’t produce good fruit” (Luke 6:43).

Sometimes, though, we’re terribly accomplished counterfeiters, building a facade of happy perfection that belies the truth of what happens in the hidden places of our lives . . . . our marriages . .. our homes . . . our families . . . even more pointedly our hearts.  Maybe it’s just wax fruit that we’ve been surreptitiously tossing onto our branches all these years, but it looked so real.

It’s just impossible to know sometimes what goes on behind the closed doors of another person’s life.

But we try.  In the same way, we might quickly glance at a person’s clothes, makeup or hair and decide whether or not they love Jesus or whether or not they are close to salvation.

Maybe we’re the ones making judgments about others or maybe we’re the ones playing pretend.

God can give us a spiritual discernment to help us see truth in these situations, but often times we finite-minded humans only have what we see–the outward appearance–to help us form judgments and make our minds up about people.

To quote from my favorite movie, The Philadelphia Story, though, “The time to make your mind up about people is never.”

Consider how God’s story would change if He was fooled by outward appearances as we often are:

He would have overlooked the prostitute Rahab as a potential savior for the Israelite spies.

He would never have chosen the teenage shepherd boy, David, to rule Israel.

Jesus would have selected pharisees and teachers of the law to be his disciples instead of a tax collector, a bunch of burly fisherman, and a guy so prone to doubt it became part of his name, good old Doubting Thomas.

A raging bull of a man bent on the destruction of the New Testament church would never have become the apostle to the gentiles, the great advocate for salvation by grace alone, and the predominant writer of the New Testament

And when a centurion burst through the mob surrounding Jesus and asked this miraculous healer to save his ailing servant, Jesus would have turned in disgust.  This Roman soldier was an enemy.  A Gentile.  An occupier.  Instead, Jesus, amazed by his faith, heals the ailing servant with a simple command.

Scripture confirms that “people judge by the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7, NLT).  Aren’t you thankful for that?

King David shared this same wisdom with his son Solomon: “the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts” (1 Chronicles 28:9).  In Hebrews, we read that “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13).

God always knows our motivations and the condition of our heart.  He’s not duped as I am by the Kodak moment snapshots of our lives, where the makeup is perfect, the hair in place, the smiles just right.

He sees all the photos we rejected, not just the one we framed on the wall for all to see.

Yes, God knows the truth about us all—and the truth that God sees ever so clearly—-is that we all need a Savior.

And He is there ready to receive us, whether we’re joyful or broken with sorrow, whether our marriages are strong or crumbling, whether we live in massive new homes or tumbledown shacks, whether we’re church girls from way back or partyers who’ve discovered the emptiness of indulgence.

No matter who you are . . . trust God.

He doesn’t require us to have it all together before we stroll into His presence cocky and self-assured.  He accepts us crawling in on our knees seeking grace, sweet grace, unmerited and undeserved salvation.

Then He lifts our heads up so we can gaze on His glory, covers us with forgiveness, redeems us and makes us new, uses us for His kingdom purposes, and invites us continually into His presence, where we don’t need to pretend or hide any more.

And He reminds us that others need to know this grace-giving Savior, too, not just those who look broken and needy, but even those who seem to have it all together.  No matter who we are, we all need a Savior.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.