When you’re tempted to react instead of respond

June 12, 2015June 9, 20154 Comments

I made a speech about it.

My oration covered the themes of procrastination, respect for others, taking things for granted, and gratitude. I delivered my speech while I drove in my minivan, while I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror, and on the phone to my husband while he drove home from work.

It was a great speech and I delivered it really well. My points were well-argued and well-reasoned. By the time I finished, I had her accused, cross-examined and pronounced guilty on the stand.

This woman….

This woman had not only ignored my email messages, she had left the email group I was using to send out information about an upcoming event for her child.

So, how’s she going to know all the info that I’ll be sending out in the highly important emails she now had prevented me from sending her?

I mean, good gracious, what is wrong with people?

It wasn’t until the next day that I got hit in the face by the full impact of my foot flying into my mouth.

Turns out due to the odd spelling of her last name and some messy handwriting, I had mis-read her email address.

Turns out this woman had never gotten any of my messages I’d sent and I’d actually been blocked by some poor, random stranger who probably thought—this lady is out of her mind.

Oops.

Good thing all those speeches I made were to myself, my mirror, my one-year-old and my husband.

Serves me right for jumping to conclusions, for being easily offended and for judging without contemplation, without grace, without time for facts and truth and gentleness.

I was wrong. So, so very wrong. And I had to take a long humbling look at myself and see what was ugly, infected and festering in my heart.

The Psalmist says:

The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (Psalm 103:8 ESV).

In fact, I read this song of worship all over my Bible. It is the hymn of God’s character:

“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6 ESV).

‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ Numbers 14:18 ESV

But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious,
    slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Psalm 86:15 ESV

Return to the Lord your God,
    for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
    and he relents over disaster. Joel 2:13 ESV

I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster (Jonah 4:2 ESV)

I read it and I’m so thankful. I’m moved to worship, moved to humble gratitude.

Because if there’s one thing I need, it’s a God who is slow to anger, who is gracious and full of abundant mercy for a messy, sin-covered girl like me.

Yes, our God is Slow To Anger.

Are we?

We could chalk this up to divinity. That’s just who God is.

But no.

James writes:

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger (James 1:19 ESV).

Ouch.

God wants to do this work in me also.

He wants me to listen first and listen well before making speeches in my car or shooting off a nasty email or calling up a friend to gossip or jumping into conflict.

I am to be quick to hear, slow to speak.

And yes, slow to anger also.

More willing to bestow grace than to deliver an oration.

More apt to overlook an offense than leap into an argument.

More inclined to believe the best about another person’s intentions or motivations than assuming the worst and jumping to unfair conclusions.

More prone to listen and love even when someone else hurts us, because maybe they just had a bad day, maybe it’s not how things appear, maybe they just didn’t know or didn’t mean it that way.

This world doesn’t respond to situations. It reacts.

We can learn how to stop reacting in anger and start responding with the same grace and mercy that Christ shows us.

It starts by slowing down.

Wait before answering.

Listen before speaking.

Think before acting.

Pray before we do anything.

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

Dear Daughter, When You’re Nine, Make It Count

April 17, 2015April 16, 2015Leave a comment

Dear Lauren,

There’s something about nine.

Eighth birthdays seem like a passageway to life as a ‘big kid.’ Welcome to third grade and the upper end of your elementary school years.

And then there’s ten, this monumental moment where you hit double digits and head into life as a ‘tween.’

But nine.

It’s a little bit of growing up and a little bit of holding on. Prepping for the big time. Enjoying life as a little for just a bit longer.

And that’s good. There’s no need to cling stubbornly to childishness and there’s no need to rush heedlessly into growing up.

So, happy ninth birthday! Enjoy it. Celebrate this year. Make it count, make it fun, and make it beautiful.

You are one loved girl. Sure, you shield your face with your hand in order to ward off our attempts to kiss you. You sidestep us as we try to give you a hug. I say, “I love you,” and you blink big blue eyes at me and purposely refuse to say the magic words back, “I love you, too.”

I tell you how beautiful you are and you ‘harumph at me’ in annoyance.

“No mushy stuff,” you say.

Affection has to happen on your terms and I get that. You cuddled up next to me on the sofa the other night and snuggled into my side and I just silently savored the moment. If I made a big deal about it, you’d probably re-establish distance, but I just slipped my arm around you and let you sit there with me.

Because I love you. That’s the truth.

We love your cackle, the way you throw your whole body and voice into laughing over a silly joke, a groan-worthy pun, pranks and knock-knock routines.

I love that independent soul of yours, even if it does mean we stand toe-to-toe and battle out anything from meal-times, to piano practice, to math assignments.

I love how fiercely loyal you are to those you care about.

Enjoy who you are. You like to call yourself a tomboy and you wouldn’t be caught dead in a dress unless it’s Easter Sunday or picture day at school (and even then you set pretty rigid parameters on acceptable clothing.) That’s fine. Girls don’t have to be prissy, frilly, pink and fancy.

Just remember that being a woman doesn’t mean being weak or being stepped on. It’s no punishment to be a girl. It’s an honor and privilege.

You’ve planned your whole life–no marriage, no kids, just two dogs that you’ll adopt from the pet shelter. If that’s what God wants for you, great. Just don’t think that somehow marriage is a burden or kids aren’t worth the pain of childbirth.

If you see anything when you look at your dad and me, I want you to see the way marriage is a blessing and a gift and how beautiful life is when lived with someone you adore who is your teammate and best friend.

Raw talent doesn’t determine success. You’re astounding. It was true when you were a toddler. It’s true now. You are a whirlwind of intelligence, memory, and creativity without being showy or in the spotlight most of the time.

Know this, though: Hanging on tight and not giving up is far more important than being smart.

So it takes you more than two seconds to figure out a math problem. Don’t put your pencil down, tear up, shrug your shoulders and walk away. Tackle it. Battle it out. Work on it this way and when that fails, work on it another way until you finally write that answer down.

So you have to actually study for 2 minutes. So you can’t play a song on the piano perfectly the first time you look at it.

The only failure is giving up. Wrong answers…Wrong notes…. All of that is okay as long as you are giving everything you have to give, persevering, overcoming fear, and learning from your mistakes.

We do excellence in this family, but we also do grace. We love each other through mistakes because we know mistakes are the price to pay for growth and learning.

So, don’t avoid trying something because it takes effort or because you might fail.

Try.

If you fall, get back up, but DO try again. DO push yourself for your best effort and never settle for what you can do with your eyes closed and your hands tied behind your back. That’s just what’s easy. Don’t settle for easy. Live for the challenge.

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men (Colossians 3:23 ESV)

I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13 ESV)

Sometimes a Crock-Pot is Just a Crock-Pot (and other wisdom for the indecisive)

April 15, 2015April 14, 20153 Comments

An indecisive person (AKA me) plus a store aisle full of choices = paralysis, disaster, and maybe a meltdown in the middle of the Wal-Mart.

It all started when I poured spaghetti sauce ingredients into my beloved Crock-Pot. I felt like a domestic diva, a household management expert.

After racing from school to activities and then home, I’d be greeted by the aroma of simmering sauce instead of shoving a hamburger and French fries in my face after a drive-thru dinner run.

Win!

Only when I arrived home, there was no lingering scent of basil, oregano and tomato sauce in the air.

My Crock-Pot was still cold.

Knowing my propensity for human error, I ran through the possible list of user failures. Had I plugged it in? Check. Had I turned the dial from OFF to LOW? Check.

It had simply died. (Cue funeral dirge).

That means my shopping list now included the item: new Crock-Pot.

Was this a reason to celebrate? Or was it no big deal?

Neither, my friends.

This became a capital-D Decision. I prayed about it. I read about it. I scouted prices online.

Then I stood in that aisle with Jeopardy music ringing in my head, clocking the ridiculous amount of time I stared blankly at slow cookers. Who knew there were so many choices to be made?

Oval or round?

Which brand?

6 quart or 7 quart?

How many programming options did I want?

Was I willing to pay $80 for a slow cooker that would not only prepare delicious meals for me but clearly should also vacuum and do the dishes? (I mean, for $80 it needs to do something incredible.)

I waffled.

I waivered.

I see-sawed.

It was agonizing. Finally, my Wise Inner Voice held an intervention of sorts and talked my troubled, indecisive soul down off the ledge.

You need a Crock-Pot. This is not choosing a career, a college or who to marry. For crying aloud, you are simply choosing a relatively inexpensive cooking tool for your home. Just pick something.

So, I did. I wanted a Crock Pot with clamps on the lid so I could carry it to church potlucks without spilling soup all over the inside of my minivan.

Programmable would be helpful when I’m out all day and I need the slow cooker to start at noon.

Awesome. I had officially made a decision.

Until I got home. And, that Crock Pot sat in its box. A week later it is still sitting taped up in the original packaging on my kitchen floor.

Because….what if I change my mind?

What if I find a better deal?

What if I made a bad choice?

I am paralyzed by indecision. It is a daily occurrence in my crazy life for me to be trapped by what if’s, possibilities and the pursuit of what is right, wise, and perfect.

Do I want red or blue? Small or medium? The park or the zoo? Soup or a sandwich? To watch a movie or read a book?

Yes. No. Maybe?

I. Do. Not. Know.

And when I do decide, I evaluate and criticize that decision, living in a perpetual state of regret and self-condemnation.

I knew I shouldn’t have bought that Crock-Pot. What a stupid decision. What’s wrong with me?

So, this is the prison of indecision I inhabit, just four walls holding in my kind of crazy. I’m a cowering shadow, afraid of one false move or one bad decision that will disappoint God’s heart.

God says I can ask Him anything. So, I do. I pray for wisdom and guidance for every possible decision, including Crock-Pots.

No lightning strikes, though. No neon arrow points to the right choice.

But here’s what I need to learn.

Sometimes it’s okay to just choose a Crock-Pot. The world isn’t going to explode if I go with the oval one or the other brand.

Not every decision is a life or death matter of discerning God’s will.

Sometimes a Crock-Pot is just a Crock-Pot.

Sure, I’ll sometimes make the perfect decision.

And, at times I’ll just need to break off the chains of regret. So, things didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped. It’s in the past now. Time to let it go and make a new choice on a new day.

As Paul writes:

Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, ¹⁴I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14 HCSB).

After all, God still loves me. He gives fresh mercy with each new day. His grace covers my every flaw, foible, and failure (regardless of my choice of Crock-Pot).

How to know what really matters

February 18, 2015April 12, 2018Leave a comment

Some days, you must choose grace.

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

Like when you shop at at the grocery story and you forgot your coupons. And they don’t have the chicken you need, which messes up your meal plan for the week.

So you skip out on exercise because you had to trek to a second grocery story to find said elusive chicken.

And during the rush to put away the groceries, all you can see is the dirt in the corners of the kitchen floor, the apple juice splatters, the toothpaste splotches in the bathroom sink, and the laundry piled in the basket.

At the end of the day, what’s on your mind is mess and failure, what you didn’t accomplish….how your kids didn’t practice the piano, your toddler threw a tantrum every hour, and you didn’t finish the project you’re working on.

I collapsed onto the sofa after having that day and read to my daughters quickly. When we finished the chapter, my daughter reached over and turned down the corner the page to hold our place.

And I felt the full rush of failure.

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

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

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

Watching my daughter turn down that page without hesitation, I heard that voice in my head: I’m passing along my bad habits to my children, handing them down like ill-fitting jeans and worn-out shoes.

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s the point, sweet friend. It’s not to get everything right. It’s to get what really matters right. It’s to do our best and just lay it all out, insufficient as it is, as an offering before a gracious God who just wants our heart anyway.

Paul told Timothy:

“The whole point of what we’re urging is simply love—love uncontaminated by self-interest and counterfeit faith, a life open to God” (1 Timothy 1, MSG).

Sometimes we have to stop and ask, “What’s the point? What is it that really matters here?”

Is it a chicken? Missing coupons? Apple juice splatter or the pages of a book turned down at the corner?

What matters is living “a life open to God.”

So, we choose to receive that grace and rest in it. We silence that self-condemning prattle in our mind and heart and decide: it’s okay if we didn’t get it all perfect today and if our life got a little bit messy.

Doesn’t God love us?

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

That’s the point and that’s enough.

Now, it’s your turn: Do you have any bad habits?

Originally posted November 2, 2012

What’s This Gonna Cost?

January 7, 2015January 7, 20151 Comment

I tell my daughters about the email.

Their teacher at church sent us information about an upcoming missions project. They’ll be collecting money as a class for a ministry in our area, but she doesn’t want the parents to just give kids money to contribute.

Sure, I could stuff a few dollars and some coins into that empty container and send it in with my kids. And sure, they could hand it in and feel like they participated and did the good Christian thing that good Christians are supposed to do.

But giving should cost something.

In fact, giving should be costly.

It should require some effort or sacrifice. We shouldn’t just give when we have more than enough.

True generosity and true love require giving out of need and giving out of not-enough.

My girls protest the fact that they have empty piggy banks, no allowance and no source of renewable income since birthdays only come once a year.

So we return to our tried-and-true method: Extra chores allow them to earn money to give to missions or charities or ministries.

The King girls will be sweeping floors and scrubbing toilets to earn those coins to give away.

On Sunday morning, I hold the cup and bread in my hand and pray before Communion, thinking this is a lesson for me, too.

I think about the cost of giving, the cost of generosity.

Surely God has given generously to us.

Maybe it’s complacency from long-term faith, from hearing those same lessons taught in the same ways. Maybe it’s selfishness. Maybe it’s forgetfulness.

Whatever the cause, sometimes I cling selfishly to what I have and forget the abundant generosity of God’s gift to me.

Could anything be more generous than grace?

Yes, I mean the cross, but even before that.

Adam and Eve stood in the aftermath of forbidden fruit and witnessed the ugly truth for the first time: Grace demands sacrifice.

They sinned. They felt shame in their nakedness and they tried to fix things on their own, fitting leaves together to form a makeshift outfit.

Genesis 3:21 says it wasn’t enough:

The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them (Genesis 3:21 NIV).

I’ve read that verse so often and just ran over the words without thought, but here’s the truth of it.

They sinned. So God slayed an animal at their feet. He couldn’t just pick a few animal skins off of a store shelf or drop by the tailor’s so they could be custom-fitted with a faux-leather outfit.

God handcrafted the clothes for His wayward children.

Adam and Eve stood in the garden and watched another creature die for their own offense. They witnessed the blood running red for the first time ever.

Max Lucado writes:

“God slays an animal. For the first time in the history of the earth, dirt is stained with blood. Innocent blood. The beast committed no sin. The creature did not deserve to die……….” (A Love Worth Living).

Then they had to wear the result and remember the high cost of their God-designed outfit.

As Max Lucado puts it: “As a father would zip up the jacket of a preschooler. God covers them.”

It’s the act of a dad, helping a little one fit arms into arm-holes and socks onto feet. It’s tenderness and gentleness and love when they deserved wrath.

And God did this for us, too:

For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness (Isaiah 61:10 NIV).

Right there in the garden it began: Outrageous, undeserved, generous, complete sacrifice of one life for another.

I read Leviticus and wonder what it must have been like to watch the whole gory mess of atonement with its blood and guts and death.

It became routine to the Israelites. How could that be routine? How could the stench and the bleating of the lambs become routine?

Yet, has the cross become routine to us?

Sin should be shocking.

Grace should shock us all the more.

Maybe if I had to stand and watch God pay the price for my mess with my own two eyes, I’d be less complacent and more overcome.

Maybe if I had to let God silently drape my shoulders with a covering of His own making to hide my nakedness, maybe my heart would break with sorrow at my sin.

Maybe if I watched someone die in my place, knowing how little I deserved it, I’d learn what true generosity is: giving abundantly and without complaint even when it’s undeserved and even when it costs me dearly.

The truth is that Jesus did just that: He died for us and then He dressed us in His righteousness.

May we be overcome by grace anew.

Having Hope When You’ve Been Stepped On

January 5, 20151 Comment

My daughter was about two-and-a-half when she stepped on a butterfly.

We do this every spring as we prepare for Easter, order a cup of caterpillars and follow their journey to new life. We watch the change, marvel again at the miracle: how the tomb doesn’t always mean death; maybe it means resurrection.

We remember that we are the ones who die to self and then gain new life in Christ, like caterpillars willingly spinning themselves into tight dormancy only to be made new.

We watched those caterpillars climb all over the tiny plastic cup for about a week. Then they scaled the sides of the cup, flipped themselves upside down and wrapped themselves into a chrysalis.

They looked dead for a week.

One morning, I shuffled around the kitchen, moving through routine with my eyes barely cracked open. Poured cereal. Made tea. Oversaw teeth-brushing and hair-brushing.

Then I saw the wings.

The chrysalis had cracked open and there in the morning light sat our first butterfly, fanning his wings slowly, testing the air, while the other caterpillars remained entombed.

Over the next day or so, the other new butterflies pushed their way out and flexed their wings.

We squeezed drops of sugar water on freshly cut chrysanthemums and watched the butterflies strengthen. First they sat in stillness. Then they hopped to the bottom and explored. Then they started flying around in circles, eager for freedom.

So, we set them free.

We gathered into the garden in the warm sun of a spring Saturday and one by one released each butterfly into our garden.

But we forgot to explain the difference between butterflies and bugs to my youngest daughter, I suppose.

When one of the butterflies flew up and then back to the ground, she squashed it. Quick as any reflex, she just stomped down her tiny foot on the ‘pest’ just like we would any spider.

We all tried to stop her. It was like a slow motion moment in a film, with us leaping to try to rescue the butterfly and prevent the impending doom, but failing in the end.

Amazingly enough, that butterfly still lived. We eased him and his bruised wing onto a flower where he could enjoy some food without needing to fly.

Maybe you’ve been that butterfly.

Eager to fly. Excited for freedom. Hoping for beauty.

Then crushed, bruised, broken.

Maybe you’ve started this year with anticipation, holding your breath for that first sign of good news.

And you’ve already felt like a giant foot has squashed you to the ground.

Maybe it seems like nothing ever changes even though you desperately long for it to change.

Proverbs 13:12 says:

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

Hope isn’t a fickle whim, a fanciful impression that maybe good things will come your way.

Hope is a steadfast knowledge, an anchor of truth that without a doubt you know: God is good and He will take care of you.

And when you feel a little bruised and battered, like a butterfly crushed at that first taste of freedom, hope can feel a little shaky, a little elusive, a little hard to see in the deep of the dark.

Surely Noah must have had those days, floating on that ark long, long after the rain had ceased and the world was covered in a blanket of endless water.

How long, Lord? When will this end, Lord? Will we ever get off this ark, Lord?

Are we stuck here forever? Will we walk on dry land again? Can we please live without the stench of a floating zoo in our nostrils day and night?

He started sending out messengers of hope: ravens and doves.

He was desperate for the sign, the assurance of dry, solid ground.

The dove brought him an olive leaf. More than that, the dove brought him renewed hope.

Max Lucado writes:

“An olive leaf. Noah would have been happy to have a bird but to have the leaf! This leaf was more than foliage; this was promise. The bird brought more than a piece of a tree; it brought hope. For isn’t that what hope is? Hope is an olive leaf—evidence of dry land after flood… (From A Love Worth Giving)

And so, when we are weary and defeated, we can seek hope. We can send out those doves and ravens and ask God for a sign of dry land after flood.

And so, when we are strong, we can be the dove for another. We can bring olive leaves to the hurting. We can bring reminders of hope and God’s faithfulness to those who can’t see the solid ground.

Do you need an olive leaf today? Do you need to bring an olive leaf to someone else who is hurting?

Here are 30 Bible Verses on Hope to help.

What Can Make You Lose Every Time

December 29, 20143 Comments

I watched as this college friend pulled clothes from her suitcase and packed them into a duffel bag for the Thanksgiving weekend at home.

She still had an empty dresser and a full suitcase 3/4 of the way through the college semester.

I am not like this. I am an insta-unpacker. The moment I arrive at a hotel, I nest. I empty every bag, tuck every item away, fill the mini-kitchen and set up the bathroom sink.

When we return home, I’m going to unpack no matter how late it is. I’m going to start that load of laundry and pull out the toiletries because it cannot wait until morning, not if I want to get any sleep.

Maybe I looked lost in confusion as I watched my friend move clothes from one bag to another because she stopped to explain it to me.

It wasn’t procrastination or laziness.

It was perfectionism. It was that ugly enemy that paralyzes us with the lie: If you can’t do it perfectly, then why do it at all?

“I was so busy,” she said, “I knew I didn’t have time to put my clothes away just right, so I left them in the suitcase.”

Beth Moore wrote:

Perfectionists always lose (Esther).

It’s the same way my son chose to crawl rather than walk for weeks and weeks. People asked me, “Can he walk yet?”

Yes, he could walk.

Did he always choose to walk?

No. It amused him to walk a little from room to room or place to place. But when he wanted to get somewhere with certainty and with speed, he dropped to all fours and crawled like a rocket.

Perfectionism does this; it paralyzes us into this one place of development. We’re comfortable here. We move along well enough. This is what we know.

Why choose stumbling? Why choose uncertain steps and potential embarrassment?

This is what we lose when we demand perfection from ourselves: We lose the journey of grace, the way God walks alongside, the way He steadies us with His strong hand and smiles at our progress. The way He cheers us along and encourages us on the weary days to persevere and not give up, to get up and try once more because He is with us, after all.

Jesus said these words to His disciples and it could have broken over their weary souls like the cracking of a whip, so they felt trampled and beaten and hopeless:

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48 ESV).

Be…..perfect?

It’s tucked in just one tiny verse after the beatitudes and after Jesus tells them not to retaliate against their enemies, not to get divorced, not to lust, not to sin when they’re angry, and to love their enemies.

Yes, do all this. And be perfect.

That would have caused me some religious whiplash. If I were taking sermon notes on that hillside, I’d have written it down on my bulletin with exclamation marks and references to look up later in case the preacher was wrong.

Hadn’t the Pharisees preached legalism and works-based faith? The religious elite told them to be perfect, be perfect, be perfect and if possible, be more perfect, because that’s what it took to please God.

Here I am at the end of my 12-month pursuit of the presence of Christ, and I’m ending the year with this: Abandon Perfection.

But how do you move on past a verse like this?

Be perfect? That’s impossible. I’m a mess some days, broken and faulty and prone to sin.

So, Jesus, does that mean we’re hopelessly blocked from Your presence and Your favor because this perfection just trips us all up?

Oh, but here’s the grace we perfectionists need.

Ravi Zacharias writes:

Perfection, then, is not a change in the essential character but the completion of a course...We can never be who God is, but we can complete the task he assigns us to do” (The Grand Weaver).

Jesus didn’t mean we had to attain that holiness on our own or get everything right and never falter or sin. He knows we can’t.

He asks us, though, to move forward. Take those steps. Make progress. Obey Him.

When He tells us to move, move. When He plants us, bloom. When He leads us, follow. When He prompts us, go. When He nudges us, yield.

Perfectionists lose because we get so focused on the end that we despair in the middle and simply give up. Or we never begin in the first place.

But God asks us to just take a walk with Him, rest in His presence, trust His direction, enjoy His company. Then we’ll be where He wants us to be, with Him….and that’ll be perfect.

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

Christmas Devotions: Try Not To Gash Your Head Open on the Kitchen Cabinet

December 15, 2014December 15, 20141 Comment

I found a $1 treasure at a summer yard sale, an oak step stool to solve my problem.

Picture by daphoto; 123rf.com

My kids had been scaling the counters to reach cups and bowls from the cabinets, a heart-stopping feat if ever there was one.

They carried the bathroom stool out to the kitchen and left it there where it didn’t belong. It was a step stool in demand, actually. Every time we needed the stool, it was inevitably hopelessly lost in whatever room in the house we didn’t think to look.

I spotted that “new-to-us” wooden stool in that yard sale and my heart skipped happy beats of victory and accomplishment. With just a simple coat of paint, I’d have a sturdy new stool that belonged in the kitchen, kept my kids off the counters, and matched my home décor.

Score!

The first time it wobbled, we dismissed it as our own clumsiness. That’s easy to do in our house.

But the offending stool failed us again and again, causing bruises, bumps, scrapes, tears and accusations.

I gave lessons to my kids on how to keep from smashing your head on the kitchen counter. Surely, they simply needed to know “How to Stand on the Stool” and “How Not to Stand on the Stool.”

The problem, though, wasn’t our technique. The stool itself was faulty in a way a coat of paint couldn’t cover. It was treacherous and off-balance.

Finally, I admitted defeat and threw it out with the morning garbage before I added an emergency room visit to my daily agenda.

This year in our church cantata, we sang that “Christmas Makes Everything New.”

More than that white covering of snow that sparkles in the moonlight and hides the wilted grass and un-raked leaves, Christmas offers us a fresh start.

But do we believe it? Do we treat ‘newness’ as little more than cosmetic refurbishing? A coat of paint, perhaps, and God sends us on our merry way with a façade of Christian niceties covering over a truly treacherous human condition?

Scripture is radical in its promise:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come(2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV).

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26 NIV)

God’s work in us isn’t just life with a Christian ‘varnish.’ He promises to remove the diseased and petrified heart that plagues our life with sin and transplant in us a new heart of flesh, a heart where His Spirit dwells.

It’s complete. It’s not refurbishing a $1 step stool and hoping you don’t gash your head open when you use it. It’s not ‘settling’ for a little bit of God in a big pile of mess.

More than this. Oh, so much more.

It isn’t God handing us a 12-step instruction sheet with complicated diagrams and a paint kit and telling us to go make a new heart.

That’s the law. That’s us trying to get it all right. Trying to be perfect. Trying to reach heaven on our own tip-toes (maybe with a faulty step-stool).

That’s us landing on the ground again, worn and weary, exhausted from trying so hard to stop the wobbling, the failure, the mess the brokenness.

That’s us trying to hold it all together and still finding that it falls all apart.

I’ve been spending this month learning to Abandon Perfection in my 12-month Pursuit of the Presence of Christ. And here’s what I find while standing on a church stage with a choir singing away:

Christmas is God come down; not us reaching up high enough to touch Him. Christmas is God’s gift, God at work, God-with-grace, God-with us.

Too often, we make it all about us. What we have to do to make Christmas perfect. What we have to accomplish in our homes and in our hearts. The projects, the parties, the get-togethers, the programs, the traditions, the attempts to pack more meaning into something so deep-down meaningful.

And we almost miss it. For all the to-do, we almost miss this:

Christmas is about Him.

He will take us as we are and He will make us new. It’s all in His big hands, big enough to hold us all together, big enough to heal, strong enough to carry us right on through.

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

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

Christmas Devotions: How many ornaments have we broken so far?

December 10, 20141 Comment

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

‘Twas an accident of course.

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

Photo by jeka81, 123rf.com

That’s decorating with kids.

Accidents happen, you know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perfectionism is a bully.

It muscles in and takes over our perceptions.

It demands that we see only brokenness and faults.

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

Lysa TerKeurst writes:

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

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

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

We didn’t come worthy.

We came needy.

And He came down.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’ve spent a year pursuing the presence of Christ, and as I “Abandon Perfection” this month I’m reminded of this:

God’s presence doesn’t hinge on perfection.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My kid found the kryptonite to bring down Supermom

December 3, 2014December 3, 2014Leave a comment

My daughter climbed into the minivan after school and nailed me with Mom-guilt before she even sat down and buckled on her seatbelt.

“Mom, why didn’t you come to National School Lunch Day and have lunch with me like all the other moms?”

photo by Nataliia Kelsheva , 123rf.com

I sucked in my breath and battled the personal demons of fear of failure, perfectionism, and people-pleasing like I was fighting a sneak attack from a three-headed monster.

This beloved child of mine was essentially throwing kryptonite at me and bringing Supermom to her knees.

We had talked about this. I had sat these girls down at the kitchen table and explained to them that I didn’t like to come on the ever-popular National School Lunch Day when the cafeteria was crowded and loud and it wasn’t a good day for me to come this year, anyway.

I have lunch in the school cafeteria with each of my girls every single month on our own ‘special’ day of my own choosing when it fits with our schedule and when we can actually sit and enjoy each other’s company without shouting over the ambient noise of 150 kids plus their parents and grandparents.

In fact, it was on my calendar to have lunch with this very same child just two days later.

But she nailed me with disappointment anyway.

It nagged at me persistently all afternoon even though I knew what she wanted of me wasn’t fair or right or true.

Still I felt the weight of condemnation:

A good mom would have gone to National School Lunch day.

You disappointed her.

You just need to try harder, do more, be more.

Few things cripple the heart of a perfectionist like fear of disappointing your child.

(Or fear of messing them up so much they’ll spend their entire adult life in counseling. Or never move out of your house and lead a healthy adult life. There’s that.)

We’re desperately terrified of failing at this. We know God gave us these precious gifts and from the moment that pregnancy test line appears, we feel the full weight of this responsibility.

Then you hold that newborn life in your hands in a hospital room in the dark of that first night without sleep and you know how desperate you are for God’s help to do this right.

But I read this in Courtney DeFeo’s book, In This House We Will Giggle:

“I don’t want to be Jesus for my kids; I just want to draw them close to Him. I don’t need to be perfect, because He already is… I have to remind myself daily that God offers grace. Yes, we are going to mess up. We will not, cannot, get all this parenting stuff just right. But God fills in the gaps and gives us tremendous grace and mercy along the road.”

That grace fills up my mercy-starved lungs so I can breathe again.

Sometimes I need to let the guilt go.

I need to let the perfection go.

I don’t need to be Jesus for my kids.

In fact, if I try to be Jesus to them, I’ll block their view and they won’t see Christ at all ’cause my bumbling shadow is in the way.

I’m spending this month pursuing the presence of Christ by learning to Abandon Perfection.

Because as long as I keep up the pretense of being perfect, I can’t collapse into the grace-filled arms of my Savior—not as a woman, not as a mom.

And grace is what I need.

I read in Scripture about the woman who splashed that expensive perfume all over the dusty feet of Christ. Those self-righteous men at the table criticized her offering and mocked her worship.

But Jesus said,

Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me…She has done what she could (Mark 14:6, 8).

All those Pinterest boards tell me hundreds of ways I need to be a better mom.

The blog posts overwhelm me with plans and programs and ideas.

The parenting magazines show me everything I’m doing wrong.

The Facebook pictures show everyone else doing it right.

But that’s not life. That’s not real life anyway. That’s the suffocation of perfectionism, impossible standards, guilt and failure.

Ann Voskamp says:

Perfectionism isn’t a fruit of the spirit…Joy is.

Oh, if there’s anything I want it’s the Joy of Jesus in this home.

And here’s the joy I find: I don’t need to be perfect.

I just need to give what I have and do what I can and bring these kids to Jesus.

I’m not enough. I’m not perfect.

But He is.

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

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Tag: grace

When you’re tempted to react instead of respond

Yes, our God is Slow To Anger.

Are we?

We can learn how to stop reacting in anger and start responding with the same grace and mercy that Christ shows us.

Wait before answering.

Listen before speaking.

Think before acting.

Pray before we do anything.

Dear Daughter, When You’re Nine, Make It Count

We do excellence in this family, but we also do grace. We love each other through mistakes because we know mistakes are the price to pay for growth and learning.

Sometimes a Crock-Pot is Just a Crock-Pot (and other wisdom for the indecisive)

How to know what really matters

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

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

And that’s the point, sweet friend. It’s not to get everything right. It’s to get what really matters right. It’s to do our best and just lay it all out, insufficient as it is, as an offering before a gracious God who just wants our heart anyway.

Now, it’s your turn: Do you have any bad habits?

What’s This Gonna Cost?

Having Hope When You’ve Been Stepped On

What Can Make You Lose Every Time

Christmas Devotions: Try Not To Gash Your Head Open on the Kitchen Cabinet

Christmas Devotions: How many ornaments have we broken so far?

My kid found the kryptonite to bring down Supermom

Yes, our God is Slow To Anger.

Are we?

We can learn how to stop reacting in anger and start responding with the same grace and mercy that Christ shows us.

Wait before answering.

Listen before speaking.

Think before acting.

Pray before we do anything.

My devotional for today:

We do excellence in this family, but we also do grace. We love each other through mistakes because we know mistakes are the price to pay for growth and learning.

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

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

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

And that’s the point, sweet friend. It’s not to get everything right. It’s to get what really matters right. It’s to do our best and just lay it all out, insufficient as it is, as an offering before a gracious God who just wants our heart anyway.

Now, it’s your turn: Do you have any bad habits?

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today: