Overcoming Fear of a New Year

December 30, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

Afraid.

That’s how I feel. Maybe it’s pessimism or a sort of realistic pragmatism, but pulling out that blank calendar for the new year, all those empty spaces soon to be filled to overflowing with notes, events, appointments, due dates, and reminders, makes me nervous in an awkward and embarrassed kind of way.

It’s the kind of fear that you want to hide and cover over with nervous giggles and by abruptly changing the subject.

I’m no believer in superstition, and yet I battle this one mysterious fear-mongering belief that if the first few weeks of the new year begin poorly, I’m in for doom and dismay for the next twelve months.

Like the year I threw up on New Year’s Eve as a teenager. Even I knew that seemed like a bad omen.

Truth be told, I don’t look at that empty dayplanner with excitement and anticipation about all the unknowns in the coming year. I don’t like surprises and the unexpected makes me nervous. I’d rather see the pages filled out in advance so I can brace myself for the ride with all its twists, turns, high rises and low points.

I guess I’d be a failure as a mountain climber or an adventurer of any kind. I’d never really look forward to what’s over the next peak or around the next bend in the road.

Instead, I’d likely be trekking backwards, always back. Even if the ground were difficult, at least it’d be familiar.

It’s a foolish thing really, this fear of mine coming so soon after Christmas. The consistent message of the Christmas story, heard in the prophecies of Isaiah, the announcements of the angels, the pronouncements of Almighty God, is “Do not be afraid.”

All year I flip open my Bible to these words, returning again and again to take comfort in the promise of an angel to a virgin and the host of heaven to shepherds keeping a night-watch in the fields. God with us. Fear Not. Do not be afraid. Emmanuel has come.

And then I sit just days after Christmas staring at this white-paged calendar, worrying and fretting anxiously, preparing for the worst instead of expecting the best.

How quickly I forget the promise and stumble into this now-familiar pit.

And I need to stop.

I don’t want to be a backwards-traveler, confined by foolish superstitions and held captive by the sin—yes, sin—of fear and worry, refusing to trust my Almighty God who carries the the whole world in His palms and who loves me so passionately and lavishly that He’d sacrifice His Son to spend eternity with me.

It’s uncomfortable at first, awkward like a baby stumbling through those first few steps. Maybe it’s even unnatural, me learning slow to walk by faith, letting go of the comforts of the known within my white-knuckled grasp.

So I’m choosing this week to meditate on a verse that reminds me to be excited about the new work of God in my life, the blessings and beauty He has in store for the year ahead. I’m reminded to take joy in the promise of a new year in His presence and in His care.

Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland
(Isaiah 43:18-19).

Originally published December 29, 2012

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.

A Gift for you: A Christmas prayer, Christmas carols and Bible verses

December 25, 2013January 23, 201410 Comments

Merry Christmas!

I thank God for you all. Just like Paul when he thought of the believers in the churches he’d started and visited, I pray with thanksgiving when I think of you.

You are so often a gift to me.

So, here’s a Christmas gift from me to you, some goodies that will hopefully warm your heart and bless your day.

A Christmas Prayer:

Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” Luke 1:45 NIV

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray
Cast out our sin and enter in
Be born to us today

“For nothing is impossible with God” Luke 1:37 NLT

Silent night, Holy night….

Good Christian men, rejoice!!!

Unto you is born this day…

His name is Immanuel, God with us!!

Thanks be to God his indescribable gift!

He gave His son…

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 devotionals: Keeping it real (and simple)

December 23, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

My dad always insisted on a real tree. Sometime in December, we wandered around the Christmas tree lot, everyone searching for the one perfect tree full of pine needles and vibrant green.

Somehow we always chose trees that were fat and wide and typically too tall for our ceiling. When we hauled the tree home, my dad had to lop off the bottom until it fit in the stand. Some years, we still couldn’t top it off with the angel or star.

There was always the lingering suggestion that perhaps it would be easier and cheaper and neater to tuck an artificial tree away in the garage and just pull it out of the box each December.

But for my dad, this suggestion would destroy Christmas. There are no substitutes for a real tree, he’d say, despite my mom’s suggestion to burn pine-scented candles or potpourri.

This, after all, was his only contention—that no matter how good an artificial tree looked, it would never smell the same as a real tree.

Christmas smelled like pine.

I think about my dad and how he made us all trek every year to choose the real Christmas tree. Mostly, I think about him while I’m pulling the various wired limbs of my own artificial tree out of the box.

I’ve never been a convert, per se, to the need for a real live tree that smells like real live pine. I’m more of a sucker for convenience and control and a bargain.

Yet, as I hunkered down inside my wool coat and pushed through the wind into the Wal-Mart the other day, I lightly brushed the branches of a Christmas tree leaned against the front of the store.

And there it was…the scent of pine carried on cold air.

It was real.

All of those years growing up with sticky sap-covered branches, pine needles scattered on the carpet and my parents crawling under the tree to water it, I never truly “got it.” I never once smelled the scent of pine that my dad loved so much.

It took the incidental brushing against a tree on the Wal-Mart sidewalk for me to understand the appeal…and to breathe deep the air and think of the beauty and feel newly reminded that Christmas is here.

Perhaps we need reminders because it’s so easy to forget.

In fact, sometimes we’re so busy trying to “remember” that we bury ourselves deep in endless tradition-making, busyness, activity, have-to’s and must-do’s that suck the life and energy right out of us.

Oh, I understand the feeling like it just can’t be Christmas without….

For me, it’s not so much the scent of the pine tree as the sound of the Christmas music. We played it all season when I was a child. But every time I flick on the radio for the “all-Christmas all-the-time,” my own kids protest. They balk and whine. Why can’t we just listen to the same ten songs we like and listen to every other time of the year?

My daughter complains for an entire half-hour drive, slumps herself in the back seat of the mini-van and announces, “Well, I won’t sing to it.”

Kind of sucks the joy right out of the carols.

And I understand the desire to make Christmas powerful and lasting. For many of us, we’re just trying to stay Christ-focused and giving-centered. But we set ourselves up for failure at times by trying to heap on so much to make it “really” Christmas.

Why not make this new tradition and that….read this devotional, light these candles, do these acts of kindness, bake these goodies, sing these songs, visit these places, take these pictures, make these crafts…..all in one year.

All of that effort to make Christmas seem real, to infuse it with magic and memories.

Yet, truly it’s just a simple thing. So, we can breathe in and breathe out and relax into the celebration.

The angels said it simply: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord” (Luke 2:11).

What more is needed?

All the rest we can do or not do. We can enjoy, but not stress about. We can choose the live tree or pull out the fake one in the Rubbermaid container. We can sing. We can bake. We can light the candle and make the gift. We can pop the popcorn and watch Rudolph or Snoopy or the Grinch.

Or not.

It doesn’t change Christmas. Christ is all we really need for that.

Are you finding ways to keep Christmas simple this year?

Christmas Devotionals: Always Expect the Unexpected

December 20, 2013January 23, 20146 Comments

My schedule is a delicate balance.

There’s a shopping day. A scrub the bathrooms and the floors day. Laundry days (one doesn’t cut it!). Ballet day and another ballet day and yet another day at the dance studio. Volunteer day. Eat lunch with the kids at school day. Writing day. Bible Study prep day. Prayer meeting day. Homework day and library day.

It’s an intricate design that took effort and some trial and error to develop, but by October it all settled into a perfect rhythm.

Then December arrived and stomped all over my perfectly balanced schedule like a giant through a flower bed.

Suddenly, my calendar has arrows swapping events in my week, items written in ink now crossed out and rewritten on different days and at different times.

Oh yeah, can you fit in a class party? And a holiday concert? Could you make gifts for teachers and stop by the Christmas get-together? Mom, what are we doing for my birthday? Can we have an extra cantata practice?

Onto the calendar it goes. I’ve begun color-coding the items. Red is for the really super important things that I absolutely cannot forget, but am certain I’m going to miss. I add dark circles around those also. And some stars and exclamation marks. You can’t go wrong with stars.

Now my calendar has become illegible. So, I switch to the daily agenda plus master to-do list that spans the next two weeks.

Add in the meal plan for family dinners up through Christmas and the shopping list that I had to restart the day after I just went to the grocery store, and the planning is complete.

How euphoric it would be to keep the schedule in balance at all times and for the expected activities to happen on the assigned days!

No doing laundry on shopping day. No extra trip to the store when it is supposed to be writing day. No third trip to the school on a day I’ve scheduled for cleaning house.

It would all be so expected. So perfectly planned. So in control.

That’s the problem, though, isn’t it? I have a certain capacity for juggling and as long as I’m tossing around the same few balls, I’m a fairly competent performer.

But when God tosses an unexpected ball into my rhythm and routine, I’m liable to drop them all on the ground.

To a certain extent, I need to practice the “no” and guard the schedule. Keep it simple. Don’t try to do too much. Don’t over-commit.

At other times, though, the schedule just is what it is. The lesson isn’t about eliminating activity. It’s about allowing God to shuffle our expectations and disrupt our plans so that we remember how much we need Him.

It’s His reminder that we can’t always package up our days with decorated wrapping paper and a shiny bow, oh so neat and perfect. Life is messy at times. Chaotic in some moments. Fairly unexpected so many days.

The one constant is Him and even He has a way of surprising us.

I think somehow it’s appropriate that December is the month when my calendar is left in tatters and all my perfect plans are shattered. It’s a reminder that God has a way of shaking us up, mystifying us, and going far beyond our imagination.

Like the fact that the Savior of us all, the long-awaited Messiah, entered this world as a baby.

In Nativity scenes, we usually see the pristine image of well-groomed stable animals, fresh hay, perfect baby wrapped in bright white cloth. Mary is already back to her pre-pregnancy weight and looking like she didn’t just labor and give birth.

But God chose to come to this earth the messy way. It was childbirth. It was pain. It was blood. It wasn’t even in the sterile white setting of a hospital, but all smelly and oppressive like the barn it was.

A newborn, a little Child came to save the world.

The Light of the World entered in darkness, while nocturnal shepherds kept the night-watch over their sheep.

The King of kings arrived in a stable.

The Eternal God, the Word who in the beginning was “with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning”—lay in a manger with baby dimples and the red skin of a newborn (John 1:1).

Have you settled into a routine and rut with God? Have you figured Him all out? Have you gotten comfortable with what you can do and with what you believe He can do? Have you scheduled Him and assigned Him portions of your life?

Don’t be too sure!

Just when we figure everything out and fit everything in, God often will interrupt and amaze, befuddle and change your direction.

As Paul writes: “God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. Glory to God in the church! Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus! Glory down all the generations! Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes” (Ephesians 3:20-21, MSG)

Originally posted on December 14, 2011

Christmas Devotionals: Elizabeth, Candy Land, and a lesson in humility

December 16, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

“Congratulations.”

That’s the word we taught our daughters to say when they lost at Candy Land.

Maybe around 2 years old when they could first maneuver those colored gingerbread men around that candy-covered game board, we taught them this massive word.

Mastering the vocabulary came difficult. They lisped out ‘congratulations’ and we’d smile over the cuteness of a tiny person tackling the syllables.

But more difficult than that, harder than the language itself, was the heart uprising at having to spill out “congratulations” to someone else.

Because we all want to win…all the time. And when someone else’s gingerbread man landed on that last rainbow square right at the candy castle, that wrecked little hearts in all their innate selfishness and self-centered ways.

Oh, how the wrestling match with our enemy pride begins so young and does it ever actually end? Will we ever slam that opponent down on that mat and claim victory over such a foe?

If Christmas is about anything, though, it’s about God coming low.

Paul writes:

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:5-8 NIV).

He made himself nothing. Our God chose to be man, born all bloody and small in a stable of dust and grime, straw, animal feed, and manure.

“Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus…” that’s what Paul wrote.

Yet, still pride and envy destroy us, destroy our churches, our friendships, and our ministries because we scramble and shove for the spotlight, the glory and the prize.

We may no longer be counting the squares on a Candy Land board, and yet saying that word, ‘congratulations’ with genuine joy at another’s success may come difficult.

When their ministry takes off….
When they buy that huge new house….
When they book that dream vacation…
When their kids bring home that report card….

I marvel at John the Baptist.

Before Jesus came along preaching and healing, John gathered crowds by the river and baptized them into repentance and renewal. He was the long-awaited prophet, the voice crying out in the wilderness.

So, John’s followers didn’t appreciate the attention the upstart Jesus was stealing away from John’s long-term ministry. But John wasn’t bothered at all, saying, “He must become greater; I must become less” (John 3:30 NIV).

In that familiar old Christmas story, I see where this began.

I see how John learned young to step aside humbly and worship the One who is greater. I see how he didn’t strive for his own glory or stake his own claim to attention and praise.

His mama taught him.

Elizabeth was about six months pregnant with her own miracle baby when Mary came for a surprise visit.

For six months, Elizabeth treasured the joy of a son-to-be, a prophecy spoken over her very own baby. How she had longed for a child during those years of barrenness, and now she was truly expectant. And not just any baby. But the forerunner of the Messiah in her very own womb.

Yet, when Mary walked into Elizabeth’s house unexpectedly, Elizabeth didn’t give way to jealousy or territorial cattyness. She didn’t rush to tell her own story or pridefully demand any attention for herself

She stepped aside.

She extended a joyful and genuine ‘Congratulations’ to the young woman before her.

And she worshiped.

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (Luke 1:41-45 NIV).

Pride chains us down to a captivity of our own creation.

It’s freeing, though, to look past our own lives and choose instead to reach out to others.

It’s freeing to rejoice with those who rejoice.

It’s freeing to listen more than we talk.

It’s the freedom of making this life less about us and all about Him and serving others.

And the lesson begins here at Christmas as Elizabeth humbly congratulates and blesses the teenage girl before her.

As Elizabeth’s own unborn son becomes the first person to worship the still unborn Savior.

And as God Himself grew within the confines of a womb, our God of light couched for a time in darkness waiting to be born.

Devotions for Christmas: Joseph teaches me to pause, count to ten, pray and pray again

December 13, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

I’ve been hit in the face with a hockey puck.

A basketball bounced off my head a few times in elementary school and broke my glasses at least once.

A softball came hurtling at me when I was about 13 or so and slammed into my side.

Most people, you know, see balls zooming through the air straight toward their face and do smart things like step aside or jump out of the way or duck.

Not me.

Given the choice between fright or flight, I just choose freeze.

It’s pretty much a guarantee that if forced to make a decision in a moment of pressure, I’ll choose the most stupid thing you can possibly do.

Now you know not to pick me for your kickball team.

I need time, lots of time, to ponder and consider a response to any situation, question, or problem. I can’t just hit that reply on the email message and I generally avoid the phone which requires instant feedback. A comfortable phone conversation for me would look like this:

“Heather, what do you think about _______?”

“I don’t know. Let me think about it and I’ll email you back later.”

That, of course, defeats the whole purpose of the initial phone call, which was to handle the problem quickly.

But I don’t do quickly. Quickly for me results in broken glasses, a hockey puck in the face and a sore back where the softball slammed into me.

Quickly results in foolish decisions, words I wish I hadn’t said, poor judgment, and costly mistakes.

The world, though, is in a rush and I feel the pushing and the pressure like everyone else to respond, decide, make things happen, be a mover and a shaker and a go-getter!

Yet, I read this Christmas story and consider anew what God can teach me from a carpenter and a teenage girl called out by God to participate in this miracle of God-in-human-flesh.

God chose a simple hard-working man named Joseph, maybe one who knew so well not to rush the measuring, or the cutting, or smoothing over of the splintered surface.

Choose your wood wisely. Go with the grain. Etch out the plan before carving.

Perhaps those are the lessons Joseph knew from years as a carpenter.

In Scripture, he doesn’t talk, not once. We never hear him fret to God about the news that his fiancee was pregnant and not by him….or ask Mary to explain herself ….or welcome shepherds and kings to the Savior’s birth…or even spill out words of wisdom to the little boy named Jesus.

He takes his time, this Joseph, doesn’t spit out words right away and apologize for them later.

He’s the strong, silent type.

And when he hears the news of Mary’s pregnancy, he doesn’t rush to accuse or punish. Instead,

Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:19-20 NIV).

In The Women of Christmas, Liz Curtis Higgs writes:

“Joseph did not act in haste. He thought things through. Prayed things through. He ‘contemplated’ (NET); he ‘pondered’ (MOUNCE). When at last Joseph decided to sleep on it, ‘God graciously directed him what to do'” (The Women of Christmas, p. 105).

Joseph considered, contemplated, pondered.

May we do the same.

And, while I fail and fail again at making quick decisions, still I balk when God asks me to wait and whine about the uncertainty of next steps and needed direction.

I hate to be pushed and pressured, and yet I push and pressure God.

Quickly, Lord, faster, faster. Show me, move me, use me, deliver me….now, now, now!

Pause.

Count to ten.

Pray and pray again.

Ponder, consider, contemplate….choose the wood wisely, go with the grain, measure and plan before cutting and shaping.

That’s what He says to me as I tap my foot impatiently.

He is, after all, a Master Carpenter:

For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything (Hebrews 3:4).

The Nazarene carpenter named Joseph teaches me more about the Heavenly Carpenter who builds and shapes my very own life into the masterpiece of His own choosing and planning. And it requires patience, so much patience.

I must take my time to respond to others, breathe in before answering, consider before replying.

and

I must trust the timing of my God, trust His touch, the way He sands down my roughness and slices off those unwieldy edges with patient care.

Devotionals for Christmas: How to answer when your preschooler asks, “Why?”

December 9, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

She asks me: Why?

Why was the serpent bad in that garden?

Why did Eve give the fruit to Adam, too?

Why did God choose Mary to be Jesus’ mom?

Why did the people shout to kill Jesus when He didn’t do anything wrong?

Why did they slam that crown of thorns down on Jesus’ head and why did they lash His back again and again and again?

Why did He die on that wooden cross?

Why did the women put burial spices on His body and why did they wrap Jesus in those cloths?

Why did Jesus walk on out of that grave?

I try to break it all down, this Gospel, and explain it in the language of a four-year-old. But I stumble and trip, throw in words she doesn’t understand and then toss them out again.

Start, stop, start over. That’s how it goes.

I answer.

But she asks again.

Why?

In the minivan, at the dinner table, as we turn the pages of her children’s Bible, as she holds my hand and walks out the door, she asks. Over and over we walk through the Gospel, letting it sink down deep into her heart and mind, and I pray that the seed sewn and watered will sprout faith, strong and true.

We adults tend to complicate this Good News, fumbling to unwrap the beautiful simplicity with our overgrown paws.

There is, after all, depth here. No matter how down deep we dig into God’s Word, there is rich truth to uncover.

Paul exclaimed:

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! (Romans 11:33 NIV).

Wasn’t that part of the trouble for the Pharisees, though? They piled on laws, rules, legalism and judgment, tripping people up with their obstacle-ridden path to redemption. They took something simple and made it so difficult.

And yet, how capable our God is at breaking down the difficult and complex, making it simple so we, His own precious children can understand.

In the same way, we can tangle the Christmas story in details and asides, but God unravels the mess and says it clear:

This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Matthew 1:18

In the Women of Christmas, Liz Curtis Higgs writes, “He summarized the main characters and their plight in a single sentence.”

That’s what we need. We need our God to free us from complicated explanations and tricky religious routines. We need Him to be clear. We need Him to break it down.

Because when salvation gets complicated, we lose sight of grace. It becomes about us instead of all about Him.

We know what a disaster that is.

Paul tells us what we bring to this salvation table:

Once we, too, were foolish and disobedient. We were misled and became slaves to many lusts and pleasures. Our lives were full of evil and envy, and we hated each other. (Titus 3:3 NLT).

What a mess we make. Foolish, disobedient, mistaken, slaves to sin, evil, envious, and filled with hate—that’s what we are without God.

“But…”

That’s what Paul writes next. One three-letter word of hope and freedom for all of us chained to sin.

But—“When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit.He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. Because of his grace he declared us righteous and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life.” (Titus 3:4-7 NLT)

We bring mess.

He brings mercy.

It’s as simple as that.

All of those “Why’s” my preschooler asks and all of the “why’s” I myself ask when life seems complicated and confusing find their answer here: “because of his mercy.”

And Christmas, oh how we can tangle it right up with confusion and busyness, but here is the clear and simple truth:

It was at Christmas that God revealed His kindness and love, mercifully, generously, with a Savior we didn’t deserve and a sacrifice we didn’t merit.

Why did God send a Savior?

Why did He come as a baby?

Why did He take that crown of thorns, endure that lashing of the whip, die there on that cross?

Why did He walk out of that tomb, alive anew?

Because of His mercy.

Yes, because of His grace.

He’s Unashamed of the Gospel

December 6, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

I wished him a happy birthday.

I’d seen the pictures that week of family and friends celebrating his 94th birthday at the Chick-fil-A in our tiny town. So, of course I wanted to join my “happy birthday” with theirs.

He accepted my birthday wishes with a friendly grin and then opened up his wallet to show me a treasure, not cash or check or credit card, of course.

No, he had packed his wallet full of small Gospel cards that he’d designed and had printed up himself–200 of them. He fingers the Bible verses as he tells me all about them, about how they tell of Jesus loving us, dying for us, forgiving us….and how we can spend eternity with Him if we accept Him as our Savior.

Then he touches his hand to the cross he wears, two nails formed together, and he tells me how he’s given away oh 14 dozen or so because Jesus took the nails for him and me and for all of us.

I gave him a birthday greeting.

He gave me the Gospel.

I received the greater gift.

He knows who I am, knows I’m a Christian, worships with me every week at our church. Still he shares.

I smile as he talks, smile at his enthusiasm and his boldness, and smile to think that Jesus must be his very favorite thing to talk about. How many hundreds of times has he shared this very same message with others? That’s what I wonder…that’s why I marvel.

And that’s why, later that night, I still ponder a 94-year-old man who used his birthday to share the Gospel with a church-girl like me.

I feel the Holy Spirit nudge, the conviction deep.

He, after all, overflows with the gospel. He tells me about Jesus not because I need to know or because I look like a lost soul, but because talking about Jesus is what He does everywhere, to everybody, without fear or shame or concern for public opinion. There’s no keeping it hidden, no compartmentalizing his conversation into Jesus-talk for church folks but small talk about the weather for anyone else.

Indeed, he could say:

For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes–the Jew first and also the Gentile (Romans 1:16 NLT).

Could I say this about myself?

It’s easy, of course, for God, Jesus, the Bible, grace, sin and forgiveness to be my sometimes conversation in safe places with safe people at safe times.

But I’m a people-pleaser, anxious not to offend, worried about the awkwardness of a difficult conversation, the tension of loving confrontation with the truth, or what might happen if someone doesn’t like the salvation message on my Christmas card.

Faced with this man, though, who is clearly not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I long for unashamed boldness and passion.

In The Christian Atheist, Craig Groeschel writes:

….I believe one of the main reasons people don’t share their faith in Christ is that they don’t really believe in hell. Many of us are out of touch with the genuine urgency.

He hits the truth and I wince with this pain: I don’t feel the urgency to share the news of Christ.

I believe the Scripture and that our choice here isn’t heaven or nothingness….heaven or a lesser heaven…..heaven or a mildly uncomfortable but ultimately more fun destination.

It’s heaven or hell. Either/or. Black or white. Here or there. No in between or sugar-coating or gray.

Yet, I’m sometimes more worried about the here-and-now consequences of a difficult conversation than I’m concerned about the ever-after results of others not knowing Jesus.

Street preaching or door-to-door Gospel-selling isn’t the mandate here.

But being prepared.

Being yielded.

Being ready.

Being willing.

Being articulate, clear, simple, passionate.

Being purposeful.

Being loving.

That’s the example he sets for me, a 94-year-old man with a wallet full of Gospel cards and a pocket heavy with nail crosses.

Seven Months: How to Enjoy the Season You’re In

December 4, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

Seven months.

She asked me to take on a new responsibility and normally I just do, I say ‘yes’ and add it on to the stuffed-to-overflowing to-do list and cram it onto the overcrowded calendar.

But this time, I answered, “Seven months.”

This is the season I’m in: a season of no more and not now. For seven months, what I have is what I can do. And then, who knows? God will direct the steps.

For now, though, my life is packed full and I must invest myself fully here with this blessing of a new baby, a new book, and three daughters in school and after-school activities that dictate our schedule and keep me in the car driving here and there for hours in every day.

It’s the best advice my mom ever gave me as I awaited the birth of my firstborn babe when I, in my innocent pre-motherhood state, thought I knew what being a mom meant and the sacrifice it required.

I didn’t, of course.

She told my young, naive self: “Everything is just for a season.”

The advice sounded good enough at the time, something to tuck away for another day perhaps.

But I didn’t realize the depth of the wisdom here or how I would return to this as a promise of hope on the hard days…

when I’m finding it hard to breathe because of the clutter and mess
and the noise is drowning out my own sane thoughts
and I’m longing for a ‘quiet time’ at the kitchen table but settling for a quick devotional-on-the-go while waiting for preschool to end
and dinner is macaroni and cheese from a box instead of the gourmet meal I found on Pinterest
and I’m lacking in sleep and feeling like a mess and groaning about laundry and dishes.

Ecclesiastes made it clear:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).

“To everything – turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven”

That’s how The Byrds sang it in the 1960’s and the song jingles around in my head when I consider the wisdom of this.

There is a season. And one season follows another just as surely as day follows day. Nothing is forever. God makes all things new time after time after time.

It’s been my mantra as a mom.

Sleepless nights….potty training….terrible two tantrums…

A season. Only a season.

A messy minivan and hours outside the ballet studio, endless noise, sibling rivalry, homework, and diaper changes.

A season. Only a season.

I think aloud to a friend about my life right now and she reminds me of my own words,

“I’ve heard you say it often, that this is only a season.”

She echoes it back to me and I realize how often I give that advice to others, sharing the wisdom with them that my own mom gave me.

But I realize something else on the good days—

when my baby is cooing so sweet and tosses me a smile that stops time for that moment because I love him so
and my children work together and play together sweetly and my heart dances with pride in their beauty and strength
and we laugh at the dinner table and tell stories of our day and I think how precious is this gift

Seasons come and seasons go, but God is in every one of them. Yes, in this season of sleeplessness and carpooling….and this season of baby giggles and child songs.

I could grit my teeth, grip the wheel white-knuckled, and hold on tight until this season of busyness passes me by or I could revel in the joy, yes–here, yes—now.

There’s such beauty in this season of watching my children grow, discover, learn, and transform every day.

All too quickly this passes me by.

I could endure the frantic pace of it all, but so much better to enjoy the blessing of it all.

This season you are in right now, whatever it may be, does it chip hard at your rough edges and wear heavy down on your soul at times?

Perhaps you are weary some days.

Maybe you are feeling raggedy, lost, and alone on others.

Hear this sweet breath of hope when you feel the suffocation:

This is only a season, going and then gone.

And hear the urgency of this challenge:

This is only a season; revel in the joy of it, even the joy of knowing God is with you even in this.

On the Air: A Radio Interview About Ask Me Anything, Lord

December 2, 2013January 23, 20141 Comment

He asked me which question was the hardest to write about….

I sat across from the morning show host of the radio station WXGM (99.1 FM) and was chatting about my new book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Lives to God’s Questions.

It’s a book about how I, the queen of all question-askers, learned to stop talking so much and started letting God ask me questions.

God asked other people questions throughout Scripture.

To Adam and Eve, He asked, “Where are you?”

To Elijah, He asked, “What are you doing here?”

To Peter, He asked, “Do you love me?”

Our God is a relation-builder, a reconciler. Right from the beginning, Adam and Eve made a mess of things, disobeyed Him, and hid in the garden. How could they be so foolish, thinking a few fig leaves could hide their whereabouts from an omniscient, all-powerful God who had made them just days before?

But God didn’t lecture, chastise, yell, or rain down fire on them.

Instead, He sought them out with a simple stroll in the garden and this asking: Where are you?

He didn’t ask because He didn’t know. He didn’t ask for His own benefit.

He asked to show two wayward children who trembled in fear and hid in shame among the foliage that He loved them. He still desperately wanted relationship with them, and He would go to great lengths and make the ultimate sacrifice in order to draw all of us back to Him.

These questions of God’s are all through the Bible, and when we let Him ask them of us they root out fear, help us overcome shame and insecurity, and promise God’s presence and faithful provision in whatever circumstance we face.

So I sat across from the radio host last week, a copy of my book about God’s questions sitting on the desk in front of him. That’s when he asked me, “Which one was the hardest to write about?”

I knew right away what to answer.

It was God’s question to Cain: “Where is your brother?”

When I wrote the book, I had so many questions in Scripture to choose from. God is such a question-asker. He fills Scripture with His patient pursuit of His people. So, I had to leave some out. I couldn’t cover them all, not in one book anyway.

I didn’t want to write about Cain. What could we have in common, after all? The first murderer and a middle class minivan mom like me?

It seemed like an easy topic to skip over, too irrelevant to my life to pay it any mind.

Yet, even though I wanted to skip God’s question to Cain, I couldn’t. I knew God wanted me to write about it, and once I started typing on that blank word processor all about it, I couldn’t stop.

Community, after all, can be messy. Relationships are prone to failure. They trip us up with their pits and obstacles and shaky ground. We shove into each other’s space, stepping on toes, bruising egos, making assumptions and getting it wrong.

That’s what Cain’s story is about, really, about how his discontentment, jealousy and unforgiveness grew to disastrous levels until he exploded in rage and destroyed another person….and himself.

Over time, I realized just how much God needed to ask me the same question that he asked this first murderer in history.

Heather, where’s your brother? Where’s your sister?

It turns out that Cain and I have far more in common than I realized…surely far more than I wanted to admit.

Jealousy….anger….comparing the ministry of someone else to my own meager-looking offerings….defensiveness….whining….broken relationships….needing to forgive others….needing to be forgiven.

That was Cain.

It’s me sometimes, too.

Maybe you’ve been there also. Maybe you’ve been Cain.

Or, perhaps you’ve even been Abel, subject to the cruel lashing out of someone who’s been hurt or overlooked.

I don’t know who needed the reminder that day while I chatted on the radio or even who needs to know this today, but God created us for community with Him and community with others. When that’s broken, it rips apart our testimony, it distracts us from ministry purposes, and it taints our offering with bitterness.

So, God asks us this question: Where is your brother? Where is your sister?

And He reminds us that He loved people…messy, sinful, broken people…enough to die for them.

Enough to die for me.

Enough to die for you.

If He loved us that much, surely we should love others, too, even when it’s hard and requires repentance or forgiveness, admitting we’re wrong or trampling our own pride.

In the end, the hardest of God’s questions to write about became one of the questions that taught me the most.

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.

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Tag: Jesus

Overcoming Fear of a New Year

A Gift for you: A Christmas prayer, Christmas carols and Bible verses

Christmas devotionals: Keeping it real (and simple)

Christmas Devotionals: Always Expect the Unexpected

Christmas Devotionals: Elizabeth, Candy Land, and a lesson in humility

Devotions for Christmas: Joseph teaches me to pause, count to ten, pray and pray again

Devotionals for Christmas: How to answer when your preschooler asks, “Why?”

He’s Unashamed of the Gospel

Seven Months: How to Enjoy the Season You’re In

On the Air: A Radio Interview About Ask Me Anything, Lord

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:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today: