Tag: Habakkuk

Stop and Watch and Wait

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“Look!”

This is what I shout out in my minivan while my kids were a captive audience.

“Wow!  Look!  Look!  Look!”

I point out the front window at the massive rainbow stretched from one side of the road in a perfect arc all the way to the other side.

Its colors are deeply defined and easy to spot in the curious sky—deep gray, light mist, bright sunbeams shooting through dimples in the clouds.

The week had been long and busy and I had been weary as in weary-in-the-soul.

And then this, this glistening reminder, this flash of hope, this tangible presence of God-at-work. God created something beautiful THIS DAY.

All  the beauty isn’t in the past.  His glory is here and it’s now, not just been there, done that, and nevermore to come.

So, it’s not just the beauty of the sky, (though it was beautiful), it was the beauty of  God bursting through the gray and the overcast; this is what caught my attention.

My kids, however, weren’t so impressed.  Most  of them ignored me.  One child gave a halfhearted attempt at interest and asked, “Where?”

I’m not confident she even bothered to look.  I think she was just trying to  make me happy because she’s nice that way.

But I didn’t let this one go, not easily anyway.  I told them to LOOK.  Really LOOK.  I’ve seen rainbows before in my life, but this was astonishing and breathtaking and they were MISSING IT!

At this point, I was on a tiny country road with no other car in sight.  I slowed to just below the speed limit and urged my kids to please look at the sky.

It still didn’t matter.  They listened to their music.  They flipped another page in the book.  They didn’t see because they were busy,  busy with their  own noise and their own agenda.

A few minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot and stopped the van.  We unloaded lawn chairs and jackets and gathered with friends around a bonfire.

“Did you see?” others asked.  Many had missed  it, but some of us were in on this divine secret, this magnificent rainbow caught in the early evening sky.  We shared that moment of awe with each other.

This time, I was one of those who had seen.  But maybe other times, maybe lots of the time, maybe even most of the time, I miss seeing.

Maybe God has been painting rainbows in the sky and I’ve been too busy with my own noise and my own agenda to  notice.

What about you?

Frederick Buechner writes:

Listen for God, stop and watch and wait for  him. To love God means to pay attention, be mindful, be open to the possibility that God is with you in ways that, unless you have your eyes open, you may never glimpse.  He speaks words that, unless you have your ears open, you may never hear.  Draw near to him as best you can” (The Remarkable Ordinary).

Pay attention.  Be mindful.

Stop and watch and wait.

God said it this way to the prophet Habakkuk:

“Look among the nations, and see;
    wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
    that you would not believe if told.” (Habakkuk 1:5 ESV).

How often do we do this?

How often do we:

Look

See

Wonder

and Be Astounded?

Maybe today is the day to begin, to  renew our determination, not to look for signs or miracles, but to wait expectantly for God Himself with eyes wide and ears open.

Of course, my life is loud.  My son is no longer napping and he likes to talk to me.  A lot.  My older girls come home from school and they want to review their day and maybe fight with each other and practice the flute, the piano, the drums and ask for homework help.  Maybe they are doing all this at the same time.

I’ve been considering the discipline of silence, though, how choosing quiet whenever possible heightens my senses to God at work around me.

I try to keep my words few.  I walk in  quiet.  I drive in quiet.  I listen more with friends and try to talk, talk, talk less.

I can’t be silent all the time.  I can’t be quiet all the time.  But there are times when it’s possible and I step into those possibilities and choose the discipline of quiet and silence.

Somehow quieting the noise helps me not only hear God better, but see Him better, too, and hearing Him and seeing Him…well, that’s what we really want.

This Turkey is Hereby Pardoned (And So Am I)

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We crowd around the fence-line and watch as the turkeys waddle around fairly oblivious to the crowd that has gathered.

The mayor waits until we’ve all arrived and then he reads the official proclamation that goes something like this:

“I, the mayor of Newport News, do hereby pardon these turkeys.  May they live to enjoy many more Thanksgivings.”

Then we all clap and go back to making turkey hats and other Thanksgiving fun.

The turkeys carry on the same as ever, as if they were not just spared being the main course on someone’s table.

We’ve done this a few times now, watched as a local mayor “officially pardons” the turkeys at one of our favorite children’s museums.

Of course, these particular turkeys are never truly in much danger of becoming dinner.  They are decidedly off the menu.

But this year…this year I consider their pardon….beyond the fun yet essentially meaningless ceremony we love to witness.

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, but I’ve struggled this year in a new way. In fact, I’m tempted to brush right past on my way to the bigger and better things of Christmas.

This year has been beautifully blessed and I am truly and sincerely grateful because God is good and faithful.

Still, there has been sorrow this year and mourning, loss, loved ones with cancer, unanswered prayers and prayers answered with “no.”

There has been a struggle.  Even the blessings only came after long seasons of persevering and battling and then, by the time you settle into the promised land, you feel more weary than victorious.

So, what I feel in me is a deep sense of longing, an intense desire to see God’s glory, to see the blessing, to see promises fulfilled, to see heaven and healing and resurrection.

I want to toss myself down at the feet of Jesus in exhaustion and implore Him to “Come.  O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

Perhaps this is why for the first time in my entire adult life I sheepishly played Christmas music while I cooked dinner and cleaned before Thanksgiving.

Shocking.  I know.

Scandalous.  Yes.

I’m a champion of Thanksgiving and of protecting the sacred celebration of gratitude before any and all Christmas cheer.

But this year the longing is intense and Advent draws me in.

I have even lugged in some of the Christmas decorations from the garage and stacked them in my kitchen.  There they sit, Rubbermaid containers of joy with Christmas all ready to spill out of them.

I wanted to start slipping Christmas into the house this morning.  A little decoration here.  A lighted Christmas village there.

I’m desperate for the joy of knowing that Christ came.  That God fulfilled HIs Word.  That even in seasons of long and silent waiting, God was at work and what He did was beautifully more than anyone could have imagined. 

This is the reassurance I need.

But instead of decorating the house, I went for a drive and as I did,  I listened to these verses being read:

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
    nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
    and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
    and there be no herd in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
    I will take joy in the God of my salvation (Habakkuk 3:17-18 ESV).

This is the Thanksgiving reminder I needed.

We have been so very blessed this year and I give thanks.

But even in the middle of sorrow and sadness, of disappointment, discouragement, and fatigue, I still give thanks. 

Habakkuk reminds me: “yet I will rejoice in the Lord.”

In poverty, in despair, in hunger, in failure, Habakkuk took “joy in the God of my salvation.”

That’s why I consider the turkeys this year because, while the pardon I witness is fun and symbolic rather than real, they remind me of the truest reason to give thanks.

I have been pardoned.

Really and truly pardoned.

Not just symbolically, but deeply forgiven and washed clean.  Healed and made whole.  Declared not guilty before God even though I don’t deserve it.

The Psalmist said:

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
    whose sin is covered. (Psalm 32:1) 

And that is me.  I am the blessed one.

You and I are the blessed ones.

This is why we give thanks.

“Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!
(Great is Thy Faithfulness).

Christmas devotions: How Many Days?

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“Mom, how many days until Victoria’s birthday?”
Nine.

“How many days until we go see The Nutcracker?”christmas14
Nine.

“Once we see The Nutcracker, how many more days will it be until Victoria’s birthday and then to Christmas?”
Zero and Four.

“How many days until the last day of school before Christmas break?”
Seven.

“How many days until our program?”
Two.

“How many days to Christmas?  Do you know how many hours that might be?”
Thirteen and go ask your dad.

This is my house.

Every day.  All day.  From three of my four children and I’m sure if the 14-month-old could count and talk, I’d be doing this for him, too.

Mom is the walking Advent calendar, the perpetual countdown machine.  Punch in the numbers and out spits the carefully calculated response.

Unless I’ve answered enough times that day, in which case I point mutely to the calendar on the wall and let them do the math.

We are living for the countdowns and loving the promise that on appointed days at specific times, we will celebrate.  The big day will arrive.  The anticipation will give way to fulfillment.

Yet, so much of life seems to hang on uncertain hooks with undefined strength.  The deadlines are hazy.  The promise is there, but not the timing.  We can’ t count down the days and know that on this date, at this time, the one we’ve circled in red on our calendar, God will come through for us.

The waiting will end.

The promise will come.

The deliverance is here.

The prayer will be answered.

The waiting eats away at our hope; it’s the corrosion of impatient despair.

What to do?   What to do when you read the words that God will work this out but each day you wake up thinking “Maybe this is the day” and each night you lie back down, “Maybe it’s tomorrow?”

For 400 years, Israel paused.  For 400 years, they waited for the Messiah and heard only silence between the Old Testament’s end and that first moment that John the Baptist stepped out of the wilderness and yelled out for the people to repent.

In the Gospel of Mark, the very first words we have recorded from Jesus are “The time has come.” (Mark 1:15).  How appropriate.

Maybe some had long since given up hope.  The anticipation perhaps gave way to cynical apathy.  Or frenzy—maybe the desperation spurred them on to follow any false teacher with any false message of hope.

Yet, just when the perfect time had come, Jesus was there.  He wasn’t late, not for a second.  And He wasn’t early.

Paul wrote in Galatians that:

“when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship (Galatians 4:4-5, NIV).

And later in Titus:

God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, and which now at his appointed season he has brought to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior (Titus 1:2-3).

The writer of Hebrews tells us:

But [that appointed time came] when Christ (the Messiah) appeared as a High Priest of the better things that have come and are to come (Hebrews 9:11 AMP).

The appointed time came and God answered.  He is faithful.

Those prophets said it centuries before:

 “For the vision is yet for the appointed time;
It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
For it will certainly come, it will not delay (Habakkuk 2:3, NASB).

God’s promises are for the appointed time.

It feels like so much hesitation and delay, but “It will not fail….wait for it….it will certainly come.”

Christmas does this.  It gives us hope for the waiting room and the silent days because God did not fail His people.  He had not abandoned them.  He never let go of the promised salvation, never wavered or faltered.  Nothing interrupted His plans.  No one stood in His way.  He never for one single second lost sight of the perfect plan for the perfect time.

Christmas is God showing up in glory in the way and on the day they least expected His presence, but in the way and on the day God planned all along.

I don’t want to miss Him showing up in my life.  I don’t want the waiting to rile up doubts.  I don’t want to settle my heart into complacency so I stop even looking for the glory and just shift my eyes to the mundane.

In the waiting, let us keep hope.  In the waiting, let us keep watch.  In the waiting, let us busy ourselves with obedience for today, trusting tomorrow to Him.

Originally posted December 12, 2011

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.

Making Progress

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Writing doesn’t make you vulnerable until you let someone else read it.

And then, it opens you right up like a patient on the table, the critical eye of the surgeon evaluating the inner parts of you, what’s working and even what isn’t.  Even your life blood is laid bare and open to inspection.

I admit it.  I’m afraid sometimes.

Like the time I read a blog by Lysa TerKeurst, the president of Proverbs 31 Ministries.  She had just gotten her nails done.  It was such a simple thing.

And some of those lovely Christian women reading her sweet little blog post just about ripped her head off through the computer.

They called her all manner of horrid things, equating a nail file and some polish at a salon to being a harlot of Babylon.

Good gravy.

I’ve read about Beth Moore and the vicious, scathing letters she receives from Bible scholars and disgruntled readers.  Mary DeMuth talks about the nasty emails in her book, Everything, and how they just about crumpled her to the floor.

I’ve even ended up on email lists of people who feel the need to criticize every word every Christian writer has ever written….ever.

Blogging this way, pushing that “publish” button on the side of my screen as I finish each post, never lacks a certain amount of fear for me.  Fear I’ll offend.  Fear I’ll get it wrong.  Fear the words won’t be enough or they won’t be articulate enough, poetic enough, beautiful enough, inspirational enough, truthful enough.

I don’t sit here at the computer typing away several days a week because I’m bold or even slightly brave.  I don’t do it because I think I’m qualified or more capable.

Mostly, after all, I’m afraid.  I’m the people-pleasing girl daunted by failure, criticism and embarrassment, who’d rather sit on the sidelines and miss out on the fun than lay myself out there for everyone to see.

But if God says, “Go,” He means “go.”  And if God says, “Sing for others to hear…Write for others to read….Speak so others can listen….Dance so others can see….,” He’s asking you to be brave in Him.

For Moses, this calling was so difficult.  All he could see was his past—a murderer-turned-fugitive, who had spent 40 years in the desert tending sheep and trying to forget his life in Egypt.

He could see his inability, his sin, his insufficiency.  He was crippled by fear.

In fact, Moses wanted God to choose somebody else, because he spoke “with faltering lips” (Exodus 6:30).

In the Message paraphrase, Moses says, “Look at me. I stutter.”

“Look at me.”  Isn’t that what we’re doing when God calls us forward, but we remind Him of others who are more equipped and how incapable we really are? We’re fixing our eyes on ourselves or maybe on the fears that we’ve made bigger than God.

But God told Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet.” (Exodus 7:1 NIV).

The Message says it this way:  “God told Moses, ‘Look at me…'”

It’s a re-direction of our focus, a looking up instead of a looking in or looking down or even looking ahead.

The prophet Habakkuk described it this way:

The Lord God is my Strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me to walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make [spiritual] progress upon my high places [of trouble, suffering, or responsibility]! (Habakkuk 3:19 AMP).

God is our Strength.  He is our personal bravery.

It is He who makes us walk forward rather than standing still in terror.  Even more than that, He gives us progress when we’d rather give up or run away or fail to even begin the journey.

But only when we let go of fear (of failure, of criticism, of people, of abandonment, of getting it wrong…) can we move forward.  Only when we stop looking at our own clumsy feet or squinting ahead trying to make out any dangers along the path can we trust Him to guide us along the rocky mountain climb, making us as nimble and sure-footed as the practiced mountain deer.

Do you have any fears that are holding you back from obeying God’s call?

Christian Writers Blog Chain

Today’s post is part of the January topic, ‘Forward’ by the ChristianWriters.com Blog Chain. You can click on the links on the right side of this page to read more articles in this series.

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

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Remembering: The Christmas Countdown

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Originally posted on December 12, 2011

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship (Galatians 4:4-5, NIV).

“Mom, how many days until Victoria’s birthday?”
Nine.

“How many days until we go see The Nutcracker?”
Five.

“Once we see The Nutcracker, how many more days will it be until Victoria’s birthday and then to Christmas?”
Four and Eight.

“How many days until my party at school?”
Three for Lauren, four for Victoria.

“How many days until our program?”
Four.

“How many days to Christmas?  Do you know how many hours that might be?”
Thirteen and go ask your dad.

Right now, my kids are living for the countdowns.  We’ve carefully examined the calendar, marking every upcoming event and charting out the wait-time from now until then.

Still, every day they ask me to perform mental calculations rapidly and with precision.

Then they moan and groan as if five days of waiting is interminable and two weeks of patience too much to bear.

Inspired by all the anticipation, my oldest daughter asks, “How long until I’ll be thirteen?”

Now I’m the one moaning and groaning.

In some ways, I share all their excitement.  I can’t wait to see them open the special gifts I’ve chosen for them or enjoy special family time and build on the traditions they’re only just becoming old enough to appreciate.

Still, it’s made me realize how I struggle with the Christian walk because there so often aren’t any countdowns at all, not that I know of anyway.

How many days until You reveal Your will, Lord?

How many days until I know what this experience is for?

How long until You deliver me from this circumstance?

How much time must I wait for You to answer this prayer?

So much of my life seems to hang right now on uncertain hooks with undefined strength.  Perhaps you feel this way also–like you’re just dangling there, waiting for the “Go” sign, the signal, the map, or the plan.  And until then, you wait with anxious anticipation, always on guard, always watchful so that you don’t miss the moment when God says, “Now.”

The trouble is, we have no date on the calendar to circle in red as the day God will speak or the moment our time of waiting will end.  No certain time of revelation or definitive arrival date for answered prayers.

So, we keep up our focused vigil and continue doing what God has told us to do right now, trusting that He’ll reveal the next step to us clearly and in His perfect time.

That’s what the Israelites did for 400 years between the end of the Old Testament and the moment that John the Baptist first stepped out of the wilderness and began crying out for people to repent.

They waited.

They looked for the Messiah.

They prayed and searched His Word and obeyed (hopefully) what He had told them to do before.

In the Gospel of Mark, the very first words we have recorded from Jesus are “The time has come.” (Mark 1:15).

How appropriate.

Maybe the people of God weren’t able to countdown the days to the Messiah’s ministry on earth, but God could.  He knew the right moment all along and He didn’t rush His plan or sleep through the alarm.

When the time had come, Jesus was there.

Paul wrote in Galatians that “when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship (Galatians 4:4-5, NIV).

And later in Titus:  God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, and which now at his appointed season he has brought to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior (Titus 1:2-3).

The writer of Hebrews tells us: But [that appointed time came] when Christ (the Messiah) appeared as a High Priest of the better things that have come and are to come (Hebrews 9:11 AMP).

The time between the promise and the fulfillment must have seemed impossible and unending.  Just as there were many who still fervently sought out the Messiah, still others probably had given up.  After hundreds of years without revelation from God, who could blame them?

And yet, at the appointed time, Jesus was born.

This was the promise for the prophets during all of those centuries of waiting:

 “For the vision is yet for the appointed time;
It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
For it will certainly come, it will not delay (Habakkuk 2:3, NASB).

Notice that Habakkkuk says, “it will not delay.”

We might disagree.  For those tapping their foot in the waiting room, it certainly seemed like a delay.

Yet, not from God’s perspective.  He knew all along when the appointed time would come, and He wasn’t a moment too soon or a second too late.

He never is.  We can take heart that God knows exactly where we are in the countdown even when we don’t and we can rejoice with the Psalmist that “my times are in Your hands” (Psalm 31:15a).

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.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

Lowering the Hands, Releasing the Fists

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“Mom, why do turtles have shells?”

My preschooler draped herself across the sofa, seemingly inert and bored, but truly thinking about the great mysteries of the world.

“The shell keeps their soft body safe and protected.”

“Oh.  Okay, mom.”

So far, so good.  Her questions simple, her mind and heart trusting and easily satisfied by easy answers.

My middle daughter was never so quick to accept and move on.  A conversation with her could go something like this:

“Mom, why do turtles have shells?”
“To protect their soft bodies from harm.”
“Why are they in danger and need protection?”
“Other animals might try to catch and eat them, or they might be stepped on or run over…”
“Why do some animals like to eat turtles?
“Some animals are herbivores and eat only plants and some are carnivores and eat meat.  Turtles are meat.”
“Why do animals eat other animals?”
“Because after the fall in the garden of Eden, one of the curses was the destruction of the peace between animals in the animal kingdom and now some animals would be food and others would eat other animals.”

Falling back on theology or “because God said so” became my frequent defensive position.

This curiosity about the world, I love.  This exploring and questioning and wondering “what if” and “how come”–while it occasionally makes me explode and bluster out  “because God made it that way” or “because I said”– ultimately I appreciate.

Ultimately I understand.

Because I’m a questioner, too.  I want to know “why” and “how come” and “what about” and “why not?”  I want to pester God with question after question like a three-year-old first discovering the world around her.

More than that, more than asking God true and honest questions, I nag and whine and push and nudge.

Oh, and it’s even more than that.  I’ve been Jacob up all night wrestling the angel of the Lord.  I’ve locked my grip with God’s and fought hard for what I thought constituted a blessing, for a victory, for triumph over circumstances and over the Enemy who’s been battering at the walls of my life.

Yes, I’ve pummeled the chest of Christ with my fists, fighting and demanding, manipulating even, making promises, issuing threats, and crying for mercy, help, deliverance—for rescue.

I’m being honest with Him, I tell myself, and honesty is something God treasures in us.  He never asks us to fake it or play happy-faced Christian when life is a mess and this mask we wear becomes increasingly ill-fitting.

God desires truth.  Job, Habakkuk, David, Asaph, Elijah, Jonah, Mary and Martha laid their complaints before God, plead their case, and He listened and answered with awe-inspiring mercy.

He didn’t strike them down with lightning.  He let them empty out hearts filled with fear, hurt and anger and then He answered, not always in the way they expected or wanted, but still He met them in the place of pain and questioning and carried them on out.

Now, though, I’ve been studying the fruit of the Spirit and found I didn’t really get it before.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23, NIV).

Gentleness is on that list.  All those years of sermons and Sunday school lessons and I thought this meant “being nice, not hurting others with our words, kindness and tact.”

The Message translation however, describes gentleness as: “not needing to force our way in life.”

Is this Gentleness?

In Living Beyond Yourself: Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit, Beth Moore defines the root word here “praotes” as “the complete surrender to God’s will and way in your life.  The term basically means to stop fighting God” (p. 178).

Gentleness is submission to God, His will and His way, His plan and His timing and all He has determined for us.

It means dropping to our knees and pouring out the honest struggles of our heart, but deciding at last, “Not my will, but yours be done.”

It’s singing with true conviction, “Have Thine own way, Lord,” and “I surrender all.”

No more fighting God.

How then can I still be honest with Him?  How can a prize-fighter like me lower the hands and open the fists, cease fighting and nagging and choose instead to trust?

Does this require me to be fake after all?

There is my answer in the verse itself, “but the fruit of the Spirit is…” not the fruit of my own discipline or maturity, strength or ability.

This is what the Spirit at work and alive within me does—the impossible, the new, the Christ-like—As I yield and grow in the Spirit, so slowly I trust more, believe more, fall in love with Jesus more and understand how much He loves me more.

And I stop fighting Him.

I drop the knee, I bow the head, I cry the tear, I confess the pain, I trust my God and the Spirit works out Gentleness in me.

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

Copyright © 2012 Heather King