Tag: grace

Live Long and Forget or Prosper

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Not long ago, I wrote these words in a message to a friend, “Middle school was an absolute nightmare for me.”

Oh, it so was.  I had great friends; it wasn’t peer pressure or mean girls that made it so miserable.  Yet, those were difficult years for lots of reasons all piled together forming one mountain of middle school angst.

Most of the time, I forget those preteen emotions.  They have little presence in the workings of my everyday mind and heart.  Yet, just occasionally I am reminded of them.  Although it takes some purposeful recollecting, and although the pictures are unclear, almost as if they happened to someone else—yes, I do still remember.

Joseph knew more than most of us about enduring hard times and living through moments he’d rather forget.  Narrowly escaping being murdered by his brothers, he had instead been sold into slavery, falsely accused of rape, tossed into prison and left there—not for days or weeks, but years and years.

Time passed and Joseph was freed, even elevated to power in a whirlwind of activity.  Now second in the land, lesser only than Pharaoh, he married and had two sons.  The names he chose for them have made me pause.

Before the years of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph by Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On. Joseph named his firstborn Manasseh and said, “It is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household.” The second son he named Ephraim and said, “It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.”   Genesis 41: 50-52

Manasseh, God has made me forget.  In some ways, through the sheer distance of time, we cannot remember the details of the past clearly.  Sometimes that’s God’s grace, that our past of pain grows hazy in the light of present blessing. 

Yet, do we ever forget, truly forget, all our trouble?  Did Joseph?

Surely he was now in a foreign land, an adult and no longer a teenage braggart annoying his brothers. No more following sheep in a field; now he managed a world power.  His life seemed totally broken off from the long-ago upbringing by a doting father. The coat of many colors probably wouldn’t have fit over his frame any longer.

But did he forget?  Truly forget?

Not by the way he reacted to his brothers’ sudden appearance in Egypt, begging for food in the midst of famine.  Not as he spotted their faces in the crowd of travelers.  Not as he invited them to a personal audience.  Not as he conspired to see his younger brother and father once again.  Not as he returned their silver.  Not as he fled the room to cry in privacy after talking with them all once again.

Is it not so much that he forgot, but instead that he learned and grew, matured and transformed?  Through trouble, God had refined him.

Not Manasseh.  Not forgetting.  But Ephraim.  Being made fruitful in the land of my suffering

It seems so much less about a past wiped clean from memory and so much more about allowing God to work “for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28), even during those moments and seasons and years we would prefer to forget.

It is the treasure of God’s presence while in darkness, the discovery of fruitful grace in a barren land, the finding of fresh water for a parched soul.

So it was for Joseph’s brothers, who dug down deep into the sacks of grain they carried back from Egypt.  Suddenly their hands felt not wheat, but silver.  Secretly, Joseph had placed treasure in each bag.

Beth Moore in The Patriarchs wrote:

“In the midst of His unfolding plan, He’d buried treasures for them to unearth at times they least expected.  Do you feel in deep peril?  At great risk?  Your God has given you treasure.  Search for it.” 

We can stand at life’s blackboard and erase and erase and erase in attempts to forget.  Oh, could we just forget how we felt in that moment, how we went through that trial, how we hurt, how we cried, how we were afraid, how we were broken.

But we would miss the treasure hidden there.

When you find yourself in famine, dig deep for the treasure of God.  Perhaps God in His grace will cover over pain with forgetfulness, replacing memories of hurt with the blessing of intimacy in His presence. Yet, even more precious than forgetting is allowing Him to make you fruitful in the land of your suffering. 

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 © 2011 Heather King

Quiet Time With a Mop and a Bucket, Lesson 3

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“Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self.”
1 Corinthians 13:4, MSG

For Lesson 1: You Are Not the Only One, click here

For Lesson 2: There’s Always More to Do, click here

Lesson 3: Extend to Others the Grace You Desire

With the “Big Clean” now finished, you could visit my home at just this moment and make countless assumptions about me.  That I clean all the time.  That the laundry is always washed, dried, folded, and put away.  That my floor is always freshly mopped and carpets vacuumed.  That our home is perpetually dust and cobweb-free.

You’d be wrong.

A few years ago, I was deep in the middle of a “Big Clean” when someone stopped by at the last minute.  Unfortunately, the big bad secret of a “Big Clean” is that the house always looks worse before it looks better.  So, for a large part of the time, even while you are frantically washing and scrubbing, the house looks like a hurricane has blown through.

That’s what my home looked like when our visitor dropped by.  Furniture was all moved out so I could vacuum behind it.  Toys were scattered around waiting to be sorted into bins. Cleaning products were strewn all over the counter.  He could have looked at my home in that moment and thought I was destined to be on the next episode of Hoarders.

But, he’d be wrong.

Fortunately for me, he’s full of grace and hopefully has been in my home often enough to know that we don’t live in a a FEMA-designated disaster zone every day of the year.  Not everyone, though, would look at that mess and assume the best about me.  Not knowing that I was in the middle of an intense cleaning project, they could look around and assume I’m a first-class slob.

We humans are often so quick to judge one another.  Ages ago in my college psychology class, we learned that it’s nearly impossible to overcome a first impression.  What people think about you in the first 3 seconds of meeting is likely how they will think of you forever.

The trouble with these first impressions is that they leave very little room for grace.  And yet, we form opinions and label people all the time.  We push each other into categories.

The truth is, we can be pretty vicious.

In 1 Chronicles 19,  we read about what happens when we make faulty assumptions and judgments about others.  “Nahash king of the Ammonites died, and his son succeeded him as king.  David thought, ‘I will show kindness to Hanun son of Nahash, because his father showed kindness to me.’ So David sent a delegation to express his sympathy to Hanun concerning his father” (1 Chronicles 19:2-3).

Off went David’s men with a message of comfort to the grieving prince.  After expressing their sympathy, though, the king’s advisers questioned their true intentions.  They asked the king, “Do you think David is honoring your father by sending envoys to you to express sympathy? Haven’t his envoys come to you only to explore and spy out the country and overthrow it?” (1 Chronicles 19:3). Full of mistrust, they humiliated David’s men, shaving off their beards, and cutting off their clothes so they were naked, and then sent them back home full of shame.

Even then, King David didn’t react in anger.  He reclothed his men and made accommodations for them to regrow their beards in privacy.  In the meantime, the Ammonites themselves, knowing they had acted badly, preemptively allied themselves with Israel’s enemies and traveled out in battle array against Israel.  And they fought a war, which they lost, all because they didn’t believe in the genuine sympathy that David expressed through an act of kindness.  They assumed the worst about him and made unfair judgments.  They were so quick to take offense and so suspicious of others.

Jesus’s standard, on the other hand, is high.  He said, “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 7:2).

What would happen if we meted out to others the same grace we’d desire from them?  What would happen if we gave second chances and allowed people to grow rather than assuming that one mistake was a sign of permanent character flaws?  What would happen if we assumed the best about others around us instead of allowing mistrust and suspicion to filter our perceptions of their actions and words?  What would happen if we focused on the positives in others and let their faults pass uncommented on?

We would give the same grace we’ve received, sometimes even more.  We would show abundant love to others just as Christ has shown to us.  Paul wrote about love:

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.
(1 Corinthians 13:5-7, MSG).

Pause a moment on each of those and truly consider whether you’re living out love with those around you, in your home, in your work place, in your church, in your community.  Carry those words with you in the next few days and let them guide your interactions.

When you see someone buried in mess, allow love to motivate your response.  Can you give them some grace, allowing time to show whether they are perhaps just in the middle of a “Big Clean?”  Can you extend a hand of help and bring along your own bucket and mop to help them with the dirty work?  Can you give them the words of encouragement that will spur them on to finish the job rather than sitting down too soon, overwhelmed by the mess?

Can you “look for the best?”  Can you “never give up?”

That’s what it takes to love like Christ, who poured Himself out for us as an offering even when we were messy and piled over with junk and debris.  He loved us that much.

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 © 2011 Heather King

Quiet Time With a Mop and a Bucket, Lesson 1

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Today, I did the “Big Clean.”  Some of you may wash behind your refrigerator and stove every time you sweep the kitchen floor, but since that doesn’t happen here at my house, I occasionally have to do this super scrub-down.   Normally, I would sit down at this computer to write and share with you from my time spent studying the Bible.  But, today, I have primarily spent my quiet time with a scrub brush in hand, squeezing into corners on my hands and knees and sponging up the bucket of water that my baby girl has spilled onto the floor while “helping.”  I’ve cleaned and prayed, cleaned and thought, cleaned and worshiped, and this is what I have brought to our time together today—-lessons from a quiet time with a bucket and mop.

Lesson 1: You Are Not the Only One

I walked into my daughters’ room and spotted a tiny blob of jelly on one of her dresser drawers (was that jelly or some other mystery purple substance?).  I washed all the walls down in my home with a wet rag and felt mystified by the unidentifiable splatters.  It could be a game show—name that mess!  Is it cat hair, dust, marker, crayon, pencil, food, or drink?  I rescued a dozen stuffed animals from the prison under my daughters’ bed, collected up about 20 missing hair clips and ponytail holders and returned five books to their appropriate shelves.

And I thought, “I’m the only one.”

That’s right—the only woman whose kids leave behind remnants of food and sticky fingerprints as they move from room to room in the house.  I’m the only one who has a bag of socks to be matched and paired.  I’m the only one who has dirty baseboards and marks on the walls.

I’m the only one.  And if every other woman keeps her home spotless and I do not, that makes me a failure.

But then the epiphany moment—what if I think I’m the only one because I only see the homes of others after they’ve just cleaned and not while they are messy?

After all, if someone visited my home right this second (before my children have a chance to make more mess), they’d think, “She has it all together.  She does all of these things and keeps her home spotless.  I’m a failure for not being like her.”  Yet, if someone visited me this morning before I had washed the jelly off the dresser (yes, I definitely think  it must have been jelly), they would be thinking, “She’s a mess.  I’m a mess.  That means I’m normal.  I’m not the only one.  Other people don’t have it all together while I struggle with the daily juggling of life.  We’re all imperfect together.”  And they’d be right.

In life, we have a tendency only to share with people the areas of our heart, mind, experience and attitudes that have been through the “Big Clean.”  So, it’s easy for us all to look outwardly perfect and yet inside be feeling like a disastrous mess.

My all-time favorite move is Philadelphia Story with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart.  In the movie, Katherine Hepburn plays Tracy Samantha Lord, a rich, intelligent, athletic woman who looks and acts perfect at all times.  Finally, though she discovers that she too has weaknesses, that she also needs grace, and that she is at heart “an unholy mess of a girl.”

Tracy Lord learned that we all are a mess at times.  This is one of the things I love about the apostle Paul, his willingness to share from his struggles as much as from his strengths.  He wrote:

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, “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.   That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).

Paul told others that he had problems, that he wasn’t perfect, that he had been the chief of sinners and that it was only God’s grace that saved him and now allowed him to preach the gospel to those who had never heard it.  More than that, he boasted in his weakness because it allowed God to shine through.  He let people see his life in the messy places so that they could marvel at God’s grace and rejoice in the fellowship of journeying to Christ together.  That’s one of the greatest encouragements we can give one another, the message that we’re not alone, but that we all are in need of Christ’s redemptive and purifying work.


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 © 2011 Heather King

Shelter in the Storm, Part I

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In my small group last week, a beautifully wise lady reminded us that we can’t always see God at work.  He saves us in so many hidden ways, doing things we may never appreciate until we look through our life with a heavenly view.  It’s like the times we were running late and a car accident happened right where we would have been had we been on time.  It’s an invisible hand of grace.

Certainly sometimes God protects us even when we do not know we are in danger.  So it was for many of us in my small town this week.  The day after a tornado hit, a friend posted on her blog, “What tornado?”  Her power had gone out and she hadn’t even known the cause until a friend called to see if she was safe.

It was the same for us.  A split-second loss of power was our only impact from a whirlwind that wreaked havoc on homes, churches and a school just a few miles away.  Others we knew had been watching constant broadcasts on the local news channel and still others huddled under doorways and in bathrooms with laptops and cell phones, trying to stay safe and informed.  We, on the other hand, went about our Saturday night business, eating dinner, giving the girls baths, reading, relaxing and preparing for church the next day.  We were oblivious to even the possibility of a storm, and so we didn’t even know at first that God was keeping us safe.

So often, we miss seeing how God is at work in our lives because we aren’t bothering to look.  The storm demanded our attention, though.  Suddenly, we heard story after story of protection and deliverance.  A car that usually is parked where a tree crashed down, but for some reason people decided at the last minute to drive the car instead of the truck.  A former home totally destroyed down to its foundation.  Trees crashing through the roofs of houses in just the right spot, narrowly missing the people sitting just a few feet away—unharmed and untouched.  A school destroyed on a Saturday night, thankfully empty of the students and teachers there five other days of the week.  Churches similarly empty of people when their roofs were peeled off by the wind, empty because the storm didn’t happen on a Sunday.

We tell the stories and shake our heads as we are astonished by grace and overwhelmed by mercy.

We notice His grace and mercy because of the storm, but God is at work in our lives every day and we’re just generally too busy to stop and see. In her book One in a Million, Prisiclla Shirer reminds us to “practice watchfulness” and to take deliberate pauses in the midst of our daily and our everyday so that we can look for God’s activity.  If we want to see God, really and truly see Him at work, we need to be on the look-out for what He is doing in the quiet and mundane days just as much as in the storm.

God called the Israelites to this stance of watchfulness in Exodus 14:13 in the midst of a storm of their own.  The Hebrews were terrified of the Egyptian chariots barreling through the wilderness in their direction while the Israelites stood trapped–Pharaoh’s army on one side, Red Sea on the other. “Moses spoke to the people: ‘Don’t be afraid. Stand firm and watch God do his work of salvation for you today. Take a good look at the Egyptians today for you’re never going to see them again'” (Exodus 14:13, MSG).  The people were told to watch, just watch.  Be on the lookout for what God is going to do.  Keep your eyes open to how He’s going to save you.  Don’t turn your head or avert your gaze or you’ll miss out on a God-sighting and the chance to see Him at work.

So, I wonder—how can I be watchful for God’s activity not just when I’m trapped at the Red Sea or in the middle of a storm and crying out to God for help?  In her book, One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp determines not to miss out on God in the smallest pieces of her busy days.  She takes on a challenge, to list one thousand things she’s thankful for.  Without paragraphs of description or pages of explanation, she simply writes one-line prayers of gratitude to God.  It changes her life.  Her whole way of viewing the world is now new, passed through a filter that specifically seeks out the invisible hand of God, now made visible simply because she took the time to see it.

A friend and I read this book together.  I gulped it down, reading it in two days.  Most of the time, I found I was holding my breath as I read because I was so focused on the challenge to my heart too often cluttered with whining and complaining.   And then at the end, my friend and I decided we would make a list.  We would go to one thousand, too.

My list sits beside me now. On it, I have written “shelter in the storm even when we didn’t know we needed it.”  It’s thankfulness in the big things of life, in the the evident deliverance—like Israel crossing the Red Sea to safety while the Egyptian army drowned in the waves.

Also on my list, though:

  • Hugs from a baby in footy pajamas.
  • Fresh journals with clean, unwritten pages.
  • Homemade bread with butter all melted on top.
  • Mornings with nowhere to rush off to.

Some days I forget to deliberately pause and be watchful for God.  My list remains untouched on my table or in my bag from morning to night, but I am trying and learning to stop moving for just a brief moment a few times a day and look around, really look.  Because God isn’t just present in the storms—that’s only where we most often search for Him and that’s when His activity is most noticeable.  But He’s also in the mundane and everyday moments in my life and I will see Him there if I only take the time to quiet my heart and open my eyes in watchful anticipation.

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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 © 2011 Heather King

I Want to See

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“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

I grew up with a brother who had an eagle eye.  On car trips, he always spotted the deer far off in the fields that lined the road or saw the eagle soaring overhead.  He’d tell us all, “Look over there!  Do you see it? ” and I’d crane my neck and twist my body, quickly searching to catch a glimpse.

I always saw absolutely . . . nothing.  Ultimately, everyone else in my family would point along with him and shout, “There it is!  I see it!”  Not me.   I saw empty fields and cloud-filled skies.

That’s partly because my vision is so poor, but even with glasses I never could see what any of them saw.   Mostly it’s because I’m unobservant.  I am usually far too focused on whatever I’m thinking about to notice my surroundings.  My husband can shave off a beard he’s had for months and I won’t realize it until he physically moves my hand to his now-smooth face.  I’m the one who asks her friends, “Did you get a haircut?  or Did you get new glasses?”  And they say, “Yeah, about two months ago.”  Oops!  It’s not that I didn’t care, but I just didn’t see.

I’m unobservant sometimes with God, too.  Last week, I was writing about His amazing, abundant grace and I prayed, “Lord, I don’t feel this.  I know about Your grace and I know the verses that tell me about Your grace, but today I just want to feel it and know it personally.  Would you open my eyes and reveal this to me once again?  Help me to be fully aware of Your unfailing love and mercies made new every day.”

From prayer to productivity, off I went about the business and busyness of my day, distracted and hyper-focused on the needs at hand.  Night came.  No grace-revelation.  My feelings didn’t change.  Nothing seemed made new.

Then the phone rang, my mom, her voice serious.  She tells me—just so I know—-that a man often-welcomed in our home when I was growing up had just been arrested for hurting teenage girls.  “Rape of a Minor,” in the cold, official way the courts put it.

And there was grace, overwhelming, astonishing, and unmistakable.

God opened my eyes to see His powerful work in my life, even as a child, preserving me from harm.  He had protected me and I hadn’t even known I had tread on dangerous ground.   Nothing in my circumstances changed that night, but God opened my eyes to see the grace already at work.

In Genesis 21, Hagar ran off into the wilderness with her son for a second time.   During her first misadventure years earlier, she had run away from Sarah, her mistress, because of the abuse and mistreatment borne out of Sarah’s jealousy.  God met Hagar on her way to her native Egypt and sent her back to Abraham and Sarah.

Now, here she was again, this time wandering in the Desert of Beersheba.  She didn’t even attempt to travel to Egypt this time.  With all the years she had spent away from her homeland, it probably didn’t even seem like home anymore.  Sarah had demanded that Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son” (Genesis 21:10, NIV), and so he did.  He arose early the next day, packed Hagar a picnic lunch of “some food and a skin of water,” loaded the supplies onto her shoulders and sent her away with her son, Abraham’s son.

Now, here was Hagar.—-Homeless, single mother, without friends, caring for her boy in unfamiliar desert 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 21:18).

It’s in the impossible situations where God is often most visible. So it was with Hagar.  God visited once again with Hagar 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).

Nothing about Hagar’s circumstances changed.  Still a homeless single mother.  Still without friends or direction.  Although it is possible that God miraculously placed a new well nearby, Scripture says “God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.” It seems to me 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).

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.

Last night, I sat next to a woman at dinner and she shared with me her past so drenched in pain, hurt and betrayal, and her life marred by abuse, murder, suicide.  Now, though, God had opened her eyes to His love and healing, drawing her close so He could redeem and restore her.  I cannot say why God preserved me from harm and yet this woman, still so precious to God, had been hurt.  Yet, everyone’s story is a story of grace.  Mine the grace of preservation.   Hers the grace of perseverance.  Our eyes, previously so blind, were now opened to God’s presence and activity.

In Mark 10:51, Jesus asks the blind man, “What do you want me to do for you?” and he answers, “Rabbi, I want to see.”  I echo that.  “Lord, I want to see your grace and your activity in my life.  Show me  your miraculous wells of provision and your plan for me.  Reveal to me your might and your ability to deliver me from the seemingly impossible situations.”  So often we pray for provision, deliverance and healing, but what we are really lacking is vision–the ability to see grace already present in the midst of our circumstances.

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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 © 2011 Heather King

Don’t Forget Peter

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The other day, I celebrated the start of spring break and miraculously warm and sunny weather with a trip to the zoo.  My daughters and I piled into the van, stopped at a park for a picnic lunch and played on the playground of all playgrounds.  Then, we meandered around the zoo, my baby pointing excitedly even at empty cages, my older girls leading the way, each with a map in hand.

With the zoo finished, we flopped into our seats in the minivan, tired, content, hot and thirsty.  We stopped at the first McDonald’s on the way home.  A cold drink for everyone and a special treat—hot fudge sundaes.

As I handed each older girl her ice cream, I looked directly into her eyes and imparted great words of wisdom with heavy emphasis so she would know I was serious.  “Don’t,” I said slowly, “spill…this…on…your…clothes.”

Moments later, my older daughter had finished her treat.  She was neat and tidy.  No one would suspect she had licked every drop of chocolate out of her ice cream cup.

And then I dared to peek at my other young girl—not a full look, just a slow corner-of-the-eye glance.  The horror!  She had turned into a monster of chocolate.  It covered every inch of her visible skin and she had not one, not two—-but five (five!!!) massive splotches of chocolate on her clothes.  I whined.  I liked that outfit.  It was a hand-me-down that had survived all last year with her older sister and now, after just one ice cream sundae, it was bound for the trashcan.

I stripped her down as soon as we got home an hour later, sprayed on my laundry stain remover for set-in stains and put the washing machine to work.  It hummed, whizzed, rinsed, spun and stopped.  Without much hope, I pulled the clothes out one by one and then un-crumpled the “ruined” outfit.

Those clothes were totally spotless.
I did a happy dance in the laundry room.  I thanked God for all-powerful stain removers.
I paused.  I stood quiet.  I thanked God for all-powerful grace.
It’s a grace I struggle at times to comprehend and feel.
I fall 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.

That is what I feel.  But, this is what I 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).

God’s purpose in sending His Son Jesus to die for our sins was so that we could be cleansed, thoroughly washed clean, all sin stains removed. Why?  So that our relationship with Him could be restored.  He ” reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18, NKJV).

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.

During His travels, Jesus met “a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up.  But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, ‘Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.’ And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God” (Luke 13:10-13, NKJV).

Christ never intends for us to stare at the dirt and shuffle around crippled by accusations and the burdens of guilt.  Like the crippled woman, in my own strength, I can in no way raise myself up.  Yet, He is “the One who lifts up my head” (Psalm 3:3, NKJV).  He reaches down a holy hand, extending grace, His touch on my chin as He lifts up my head so I can see forgiveness in His eyes and feel the reconciliation He offers.

So many of those Jesus healed cried out to Him, asking for His help and His mercy.  But this woman didn’t even yell for Jesus’s attention.  He “saw her, He called her to him.”  A woman bent low.  A woman whose face was forever hidden.  A woman with no voice.

And when He had healed her, she lifted up her new-found voice and gave Him praise.

Grace calls us to Him, calls us out of shame and Satan’s accusations of past sin.  He provides the healing our hearts need so that we’re no longer bending low.   We are straightened up through His strength, and then, with a testimony of thanks, we glorify God.

Don’t you love that God never convicts us of sin only to leave us crippled under its weight?  He always offers grace and restoration.

He did it for Peter, the one who betrayed Jesus three times on the night He was arrested.  Peter, who had sworn that even if he had to die, he would never deny Christ–now the betrayer.  How Peter’s heart must have been weighed down by shame and guilt.

Yet, God extended grace to Peter.

Three women traveled to Jesus’s tomb early in the morning on the first day of the week. They had remembered the spices, but had forgotten something else entirely.  Along the way, they realized they had no way to move that massive stone away from the tomb so they could even get in.

(Forgetting about things on your way somewhere—yeah, happens to me all the time.)

So, they arrived at the tomb and the door was open, the stone rolled away.  The tomb empty.  They stood in shock and confusion and then an angel told them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples—and Peter—that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you” (Mark 16:6-7).

“Go, tell His disciples—and Peter.”

He said to them, “Don’t forget Peter.   Don’t let his shame prevent his relationship with me and impede his future ministry.  I have forgiven him.  I’ve restored him.  I’ve called him and I want him specifically to know that he is invited.”

This grace, this mysterious, incomprehensible grace, means I am fully forgiven and washed clean.  Jesus doesn’t bring up my past in conversations years from now.  “Remember that time when you lost your temper . . . remember that time you were jealous.”  Oh no, Christ doesn’t shame me with my past mistakes.  Instead, He says, “Don’t forget Peter, “Don’t forget Heather,”  “Don’t forget my forgiven ones.”  We’ve been redeemed and made new and while we might want to hide our heads in shame, He is the lifter of our heads and the healer of our hearts.

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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 © 2011 Heather King

Lost and Broken

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For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost
Luke 19:10, NIV

I get lost . . . a lot.  Every time I bravely drive off on my own, I carefully write out step-by-step directions with landmarks and mile markers.  At first, I try talking to myself in my car, verbally reviewing the directions and hoping no one I knows drives by and sees my one-on-one conversation.  Inevitably, I concede defeat and call my husband asking frantically for help.  When I leave on these adventures, I suspect he just keeps the phone by his side awaiting my S.O.S.

Directions confuse me.  My body lacks some sort of navigational center.

Besides that, my memory is jumbled and crowded to the point of spilling over and there’s no room for more trivialities.  I rejoice at remembering my hurriedly scribbled shopping list.  Victory!   The cost is forgetting where I parked my car.

So, I wander.  I wander down side streets and make U-turns and scowl at inconvenient one-way roads.  With my eyes squinted tightly, I try ever-so-hard to read the road signs before it’s too late to turn.  I pray that no one else is behind me, frustrated with the clearly lost driver who is inching down the highway.  I wander around parking lots, searching for a familiar license plate and one gray van among a sea of gray vans.

My life wanderings sometimes happen by mistake.  I am distracted and too busy to pay attention to where Jesus is going.   Stopping to chatter with others and stare at merchandise, I  finally look up and find I’m alone.  My Savior has kept moving forward, and I’ve failed to stay by His side.  I’m the child lost in the Wal-Mart—the one they announce over the loudspeaker, “Would the parents of a small girl wearing a blue shirt please meet her at the service desk?”

That’s me sometimes.  I fail to keep up.  I get lost.

Other times, I am the one who walks away.  I take a wrong step, make a wrong decision.  I stumble and lose sight of the path.  Suddenly the way ahead seems uncertain and shrouded in darkness and I feel alone.  Desperately,  I search the faces of those in the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of Christ’s robe, His footsteps etched in the dust.  I listen for the sound of His voice.

We tell our children if they ever get lost to stay in one place and we will find them.  It’s true for our Savior.   He’s a seeker of wanderers, a finder of the missing, “for the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost”  Luke 19:10, NIV.   His heart is always for reconciliation and restoration.  Sitting down in the places I find myself, I cry out for help.  He finds where I have wandered, lifts me up into His arms and carries me home.

The next time I journey with Him, I grip God’s hand tightly and hover at His side because I know I’m “prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love” (Robinson).

Then there are the times when I’m lost, not because I’ve accidentally lost sight of God or wandered astray in a mistaken attempt at independence.  I’m lost because in this place where God has led me, it is dark and hard to see Him.  I know He’s there.  I know I am not abandoned.  I know this is His will for me.  But still it hurts.

Luke 19:10 expresses the heart of the Gospel, declaring that Christ “came to seek and to save the lost” and by lost here, it means “broken beyond repair.”

I’ve been that broken before.  Shattered into too many pieces to puzzle back together and glue into place.  With David, I’ve cried out, “My tears have been my food day and night” (Psalm 42:3, NIV).  I’ve plastered on Band-Aids and gauze in a sorry attempt to hide wounds and prevent infection.

Those bandages work sometimes temporarily, enough to make me think I’m whole and strong.  Enough for me not to sob out ugly, blotchy-faced, red-eyed tears in public during every worship song and in the middle of every conversation.

But, there’s a weak spot left in my heart where the wound still seeps underneath the skin.  One day I’m fine.  One second I’m okay.  Then words and circumstances penetrate the sores I’ve covered over.

I’m broken.  Broken beyond repair.

The same Savior who calls my wandering heart back to Him, accepts my empty-handed offerings when all I have to give is my heart in pieces.  Like King David, “my sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise (Psalm 51:17, NIV).

And God does something wonderfully mysterious in our brokenness when we place our shattered pieces at His feet.   His Son Jesus was sent “to bind up the brokenhearted . . . to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion–to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair” (Isaiah 61:1-3, NIV).

God binds up the brokenhearted.  He compresses our hemorrhaging hearts, applying pressure to stop the uncontrollable bleeding.  He brings deep and true healing in miraculous ways to a heart that was broken.  Broken beyond repair.

I get lost . . . a lot.  I’ve been broken and crushed.  But our Savior, with inexplicable love and abundant grace, left heaven and endured the cross to seek and save those of us who wander and heal and restore those of us who are broken.

And so this wanderer is found and so this broken one is made new.

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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 © 2011 Heather King

Tyranny of the Urgent

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Charles Hummel wrote about how to be free from the “Tyranny of the Urgent,” and I could probably use some of those tips just about now.  My windows are open, it’s beautiful outside and instead of enjoying a relaxing day, I’m rushing to meet demands and fulfill requests, mostly for people under 4 feet tall.

How about you?  Do you feel like you are pushed from one urgent thing to another, always rushed, always breathless?  When my husband asks me in the evenings or weekends, “What do you want to do?,” I always answer with the list of things I have to do.  I have to do the laundry and the dishes, mop the floor, answer some emails, send a note, finish some work . . .

This morning, I was reading Psalm 127 and it made me laugh.  All you moms of young children might enjoy a giggle, too:

In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—
for he grants sleep to those he loves.

Children are a heritage from the LORD,
offspring a reward from him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are children born in one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them (Psalm 127:2-3, MSG).

Are you laughing?  I just find it so perfect that God promises rest and sleep and then in the very next verse reminds us that “Children are a heritage from the Lord.”  Some days we just need the reminder that these precious little people who don’t let us sleep in and think that Mom sitting down for 2 minutes is a problem best rectified by asking for her help every 10 seconds–yes, these little children are a blessing from God.

Even those of you who don’t have young children at home probably feel the burdens of numerous demands placed on your shoulders.  Living in this world requires us to meet certain demands and expectations.  We can’t simply shrug off all of our responsibilities.  We have school schedules to submit to, work deadlines to meet, ministry demands to fulfill, and families to care for.

It reminds me of Martha in Luke 10. She’s rushing around, totally stressed, trying to provide the best hospitality for her guests, Jesus and His followers.  It says that, “Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.”   She was doing what she “had to” do.

What blesses me about this is that Jesus looked right at her and said, “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things,  but few things are needed—or indeed only one” (Luke 10:41-42, NIV).

God can look straight into my heart many times every day and say, “Heather, Heather, you are worried and upset about so many things, but only one thing really matters–your relationship with Me.”

In the middle of all of the “musts,” “have-to’s,” and “shoulds” on our to-do lists, it’s easy for time with God either not to fit into our highly scheduled lives at all or for it make it on the list just as another “have-to.”

God doesn’t want to be another item on our to-do list.  He doesn’t keep a running tab in heaven of how many minutes you spent on your quiet time today or whether or not you are behind on your Bible reading plan.  He simply desires intimacy with you.  He calls you to come away to spend time with Him, but He does it by wooing us and offering us grace and rest in His presence, not by making demands on us.

As it says in Matthew 11:28-30:

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly (MSG).

This world forces its rhythms onto us, but God offers to teach us the “unforced rhythms of grace.”   Accept His grace.  You are loved and valued by Him whether or not your house is spotless, your kids practiced the piano every day this week, the laundry is folded neatly and put away, your work is perfect and your desk organized.  His grace sets you free from the “tyranny of the urgent” and lets you “live freely and lightly” instead.

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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 © 2011 Heather King

What Would Bring Jesus Joy?

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Today I read a great Valentine’s verse.  In the past two weeks, I’ve actually come across it three times, so today I’ve been meditating on it because obviously God wants me to pay attention.

The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing (Zephaniah 3:17, NKJV).

I love that verse!  There’s two things that encourage me here.

His love

I love how the NKJV says “He will quiet you with His love.”  If I really think about the root cause of so much of my anxieties and worries, what keeps me tossing and turning at night—it’s because I’m not trusting in God to take care of me.  I’m not trusting enough in His love.  When my mind is noisy with anxiety and stress, His love can quiet me.  His love gives me peace.

The NIV translates this as “in his love he will no longer rebuke you,” which to me is such a powerful thought.  When I’m messing up, stressed, or worried, intermingled with those thoughts are thoughts of condemnation.  I say bad things about myself that I would never ever say –or even think–about anyone else.  I think, “You are such a mess.”  “That was so stupid.” “I can’t do any of this.”

But, Romans 8:1 says, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  No condemnation!  God’s great love for me covers over all my mistakes and I am no longer rebuked or condemned.

His Rejoicing

I clearly remember the days when we Christians all wore WWJD bracelets and there were songs, books, sermons and t-shirts asking, “What Would Jesus Do?”  It was catchy and thought-provoking.

Today, though, I’ve been asking myself a slightly different question—What Would Bring Jesus Joy?

Not as catchy, I know.  I’m not trying to sell the rights to make t-shirts or anything.  Still, the Zephaniah verse says, “He will rejoice over you with singing.”  I want Jesus to rejoice over me!

I want my actions to bring Him joy and glory so that people see Christ in me.  In my words and thoughts, I ask as the Psalmist did, “May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer” (Psalm 19:14, NIV).

Unfortunately, I fall short of this goal often.  I’ve read many articles and books lately saying that you can’t disappoint God.  I don’t know that I agree with that.  I think we see His disappointment when Moses tried to get out of going to Pharaoh and leading the Israelites out of Egypt.  We see His disappointment in Israel’s perpetual complaining and turning to false gods.  In the New Testament, Jesus was disappointed even in the disciples and their lack of faith and understanding.

Sometimes, He’s probably disappointed in me.  Sometimes, I don’t give Him reason to rejoice.

But, in those moments I can go back to His love.  As a parent, I always love my children, but I am sometimes disappointed in their behavior choices.   Similarly, even if God is saddened by my disobedience, or lack of trust, or my poor reactions to life’s irritations, He never stops loving me and His grace always covers me.

As Paul wrote in Romans 8:38-39:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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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 © 2011 Heather King

Everyday, Ordinary Life

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“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life–your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life–and place it before God as an offering” (Romans 12:1, MSG).

I love that verse in Romans and I came across it again today in my reading. The thing is, there are so many parts of my “everyday, ordinary life” that don’t seem really offering worthy.  I don’t mean because they are mundane.  I mean because they’re ugly and messy and well, failures really.

Like when your daughter decides to take the ballet shoes that you placed next to the front door, hide them and then forget where they are 5 minutes before you have to leave for ballet class and you lose it.

Maybe that kind of stuff only happens to me, but believe me, my reaction to this “irritation” wasn’t really an offering worthy of God.

To be honest, how I react to the big crises in life is much more holy and Christian.  I lean in to God and I grow in my faith in the process because I have no other choice really.  I know fully well that I’m not able to handle any of the big stuff on my own.

It’s the daily annoyances, interruptions, and irritants that bring out the worst in me, partly because I forget to look to God for any help or input at all.

So, how—-how do I turn my everyday, ordinary life into an acceptable sacrifice and a way to give God glory?

I’m reading this fantastic book by Eugene Peterson called A Long Obedience in the Same Direction and he drew my attention to something I had ignored before in this verse.  Three little words: “God helping you.” In the NIV translation, the verse reads:  “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”

With God’s help and in view of God’s mercy, I can make my life–my whole life, not just the “important” parts—an offering to God.

In Romans 9:16, Paul writes, “It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.”  I don’t know about you, but I’m so thankful to know that my salvation, my joy, my future don’t depend on anything other than God’s great mercy.

That means when I mess it up and lose it over hidden ballet shoes that actually don’t reappear until 3 days later (hidden behind the chair in my room), I can have a fresh start.  As it says in Lamentations 3:21-24:

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning;  great is your faithfulness.  I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.

We fail, but His compassion doesn’t fail.  He gives us new grace every morning.  He is our portion.  He is all we need in every difficult, annoying, frustrating moment of our everyday lives, just like He’s faithfully with us in every crisis.  It is only with His help that my reactions to the daily can be placed before Him as an offering.

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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 © 2011 Heather King