Dear Tailgating Driver

May 1, 2015April 30, 2015Leave a comment

Dear Tailgating Driver,

I get it. You have somewhere to be. And you needed to be there 5 minutes ago.

And, obviously, you getting there is more important than traffic laws or the personal safety of everyone in my minivan.

But here’s the thing. I’m not going to speed up.

You may ride close enough for me to see your sunglasses and hair-style in my rear-view mirror….

You may honk in annoyance…..

Or weave back and forth like you would pass me in a second if that solid yellow line just had a few dots in it…

But I won’t be pushed along faster than I intend to go. I don’t want to be pulled into some mysterious competition to see who gets ahead and I won’t let you set the pace of our little road trip.

So, I’ll purposefully hang right at the speed limit and not go any faster.

And, you know what, I’ll even pull over and let you go by.

That’s right. I will step aside and simply conceded defeat.

Yes, Mr. Impatient Driver, congratulations. You are faster than me. You are speedier and sportier.

If you want so badly to get where you are going, be my guest. I’ll just continue along behind you without all the stress and bother.

The inner voice of justice might be screaming at me to do otherwise.

I was there first, after all. I have important places to go, too.

I was going the speed limit and not plodding along at 15 MPH or anything, so what’s the big deal?

Someone needs to teach you a lesson!

Where are the state police when you need them? Doesn’t anybody see how right I am and how wrong you are?

But is it worth it?

Seems pretty pointless to fight over who gets to the red light or the stop sign first.

So, you win.

And thanks really, for reminding me that there’s no point to any of the seemingly endless competitions we get pushed into by people tailgating our lives.

Do we need to vie for the position as the Best Mom, Best Wife, Most Stylish, Smartest, Most Used by God, Best Blogger, Best Cake Baker and Craft Maker, Most Professional, Most Educated, Most Awarded?

Does any of that really matter?

Sometimes, we find ourselves in the middle of a competition and we’re not even sure how we got there. Someone just seems determined to show us up and put us down.

Maybe they are criticizing us behind our back and spreading rumors.

Maybe they’ve taken credit for our ideas at work or covered over our contribution to a project.

Maybe they’ve courted the attention of the boss and now receive special privileges and honor at the expense of others.

Maybe they never cease to brag about their life while making us feel insignificant and inferior.

I’ll admit it. Some part of me wants to fight back to defend my honor and my worth. Might as well throw down the gauntlet and just compete already. After all, “she started it.”

Even in ministry, the struggle is there.

Our motives seem so pure, like wanting to share this message God has given us and bring Him glory, but somehow pride sneaks in. We feel like people need to hear what we have to say, so it’s okay to shove others aside and muscle our way to the front.

According to Paul, though, that’s not what love does.

He says, love:

“does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5 NIV).

Love is a humble serving, a self-sacrificing consideration of others, a putting other people first and letting them pass by to sit in a seat of honor or be the first to cross the finish line.

I love The Message paraphrase of Philippians 2:3-4 also:

“Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand” (Philippians 2:3-4 MSG).

So, in love, we may choose to step aside. Let someone else pass.

Love says, “Here, be my guest.”

Because, for all their pushing and shoving to get ahead, and all their tailgating, honking efforts to pass you by, here’s the bottom line:

God loves the humble.

Only He chooses whom to put down and whom to exalt.

For exaltation comes neither from the east
Nor from the west nor from the south.
But God is the Judge:
He puts down one,
And exalts another. Psalm 75:6-7 NKJV

We can leave it to Him and trust Him with our ministry, our calling, our work, our reputation. All of it.

Sincerely,

~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 book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

The Resting Place

April 29, 2015April 28, 20155 Comments

Next week is “the movie.”

That’s what my fourth grader calls it. She’s been fretting about this movie for two years.

She always lowers her voice when she speaks of it. She always calls it “THE MOVIE” in hushed capital letters. Occasionally, her hands even pop up to make quotation marks in the air.

Seems like they’ve been showing a movie like this to fourth graders for decades. I watched it when I was in school, but I sure don’t remember dreading it or worrying over it or spending months terrified of the potential embarrassment.

But that’s my girl. She’s a thinker. A planner. More like a fretter. Maybe an obsesser.

She gets most of that from me.

Okay, maybe she gets all of that from me.

I keep telling her the truth: There’s nothing in this movie about puberty and growing up that we haven’t covered here at home already. So, what’s the big deal?

But truth isn’t really cutting through the emotional trauma she’s built up over the years.

It’s rumbling around in her heart and mind, turning up in the most unexpected places. Last night, I mentioned how quickly April has flown by and she launched into another speech about the imminence of “The Movie” and how her life will end within the week.

Next week, I guarantee she’ll come home and I’ll say, “How was ‘the movie?’ and she’ll shrug it off for the absolutely mundane, not-terrible, unsurprising, non-monumental moment in her life that it really is.

But for this week: It’s a distractor. It’s a stressor. It’s an emotional time-bomb.

So, I’m playing the voice of reason for my daughter. I’m the quiet, calm purveyor of wisdom and I’m the one trying to give her a healthy perspective on this thing called life.

Because apparently when you’re ten, everything is a near-catastrophe.

But I need this for my own life, too.

Because I’m distracted. I’m stressed. I’m fretting over potentialities and playing through possibilities, just turning them over and over like a dryer tumbling my wet towels.

This is what I don’t want. Tumble, tumble, tumble.

But what if it happens? Tumble, tumble, tumble.

I want this….and I want that….and it’s impossible to have both. Tumble, tumble, tumble.

I read God’s Word and it just breezes through my mind without touchdown or impact.

But this finally hits home:

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it (Isaiah 30:15 NIV)

Rest is what I need.

I say I need a vacation, or a break, or a getaway, or a long walk in absolute quiet.

But what I really need is a rested soul, a quiet spirit.

Oh, a physical rest would be nice, of course. But so often that’s a temporary fix and then it’s back to this pacing back and forth, this distraction, this tension.

I need a resting place in the here and now of this life, this moment, this situation, this day and everything that this day brings.

Isaiah wrote:

“This is the resting place, let the weary rest” (Isaiah 28:12).

And the resting place isn’t far. It’s not an exotic island and it doesn’t take a plane-trip to Hawaii or my entire savings account to get there.

It’s trusting Jesus.

In When Women Long for Rest, Cindy McMenamin wrote:

“Rest isn’t just laying down and clearing your mind. It’s retraining your mind to turn over the problems to the only One who is able to work them out.”

My heart finds rest when it sinks into the rhythms of grace God has established.

I’m no longer pushing, pushing, pushing for my own agenda or striving to set my own pace, or straining to head in my own direction.

I’ve relaxed into Him.

Elisabeth Elliott wrote:

“Jesus, in the unbroken intimacy of His Father’s love, kept a quiet heart. None of us possesses a heart so perfectly at rest, for none lives in such divine unity, but we can learn a little more each day of what Jesus knew…”

May I learn a little of this today: A quiet heart, a heart perfectly at rest because I’m aware of the intimacy of His love, trusting in His care, united in His will.

So “let the weary rest.”

Does God Listen When We Pray?

April 10, 2015April 3, 20154 Comments

“Listening is an act of love.”

That’s what she told me years ago as we sat around the table in our Bible study group.

She said it with a laugh, because she was a talker. She liked chatting, chatting, chatting. Listening was the sacrificial gift she gave to others.

Sometimes one phrase like that sticks with you years later. It presses that impression deep into your clay-heart and you can trace your finger along the imprint over and over, to remember, to act, to transform, to put it into practice.

It changes you.

Listening. That’s the act of love we give to others.

We quiet our own renegade thoughts, stop trying to think of what we want to say next, stop tuning others out in order to turn our selfish eyes inward once again.

We listen. Really listen. We listen so we can pray and ask the right questions. Yes, we listen so we can show love.

I take this to heart. Me, the mom perpetually in the minivan. Some days, my kids want to babble on so. I live in a world of noise.

But when I start to nod my head without hearing and insert appropriate “Mmmm—hmmmms” at well-timed pauses simply to pretend like I’m listening to them (while I secretly revel in my own private thoughts), I stop.

Now I choose to listen, choose to value who they are and what they have to say.

And I remind myself of this: Listening is an act of God’s love to me.

He doesn’t just ask me to give this gift to others. He gives it first.

I don’t always feel it, of course. Sometimes I push out those breathy prayers and feel like nothing is changing. He isn’t listening, isn’t understanding my need or even caring about my little self in my desperate situation.

Those prayers sure feel at times like they are hitting that proverbial ceiling.

The Psalmists understood.

David wrote,

“Hear my prayer, O God; listen to the words of my mouth“ (Psalm 54:2)

and

“To you, LORD, I call; you are my Rock, do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who go down to the pit” (Psalm 28:1).

Asaph prayed the same:

“God, do not remain silent; do not turn a deaf ear, do not stand aloof, O God” (Psalm 83:1).

That’s what we feel perhaps, and yet we’re assured that God hears our pure hearts when we pray.

God doesn’t tune us out or ignore us.

Psalm 10:17 says,

“Lord, you have heard the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their hearts. You will listen carefully” (HCSB).

He listens. Not distractedly, absentmindedly, or halfheartedly.

God listens “carefully” to the desire of the humble.

Indeed, the Psalmist could say, “You know what I long for, Lord; you hear my every sigh” (Psalm 38:9 NLT). Even when we can’t cram our needs and feelings into words, God hears the very longings of our heart and every sigh of our overwhelmed soul.

When Jesus stood outside of Lazarus’s tomb, surrounded by wailing mourners who blamed him for Lazarus’s death, He prayed with these words:

Then Jesus raised His eyes and said,

“Father, I thank You that You heard Me. I know that You always hear Me….” (John 1:1:41-42 HCSB).

Jesus prayed boldly on the basis of the promise of God’s character: He is the God who always hears us.

In Beth Moore’s book, The Beloved Disciple, she issues a prayer challenge:

Every time you pray for the next week, begin your prayer with Christ’s words straight out of John 11:42, “I know You always hear me.” Then conclude it with Christ’s words in John 11:41, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.” Practice God’s presence! Pray as if He’s really listening because He is!”

This is my prayer practice this week, the way I am pursuing the presence of Christ through my prayer life.

Because God does hear us. We just need the reminder and reassurance at times. This great God, so Mighty, so Awesome, loves us and chooses to listen to us as an expression of that merciful love.

Originally published: February 24, 2014

After 9:30 p.m. Mommy Needs a Time-Out

April 8, 2015April 3, 20152 Comments

My daughter emerges from her room at 9:30 p.m.

It is now more than an hour past bedtime.

Showers have been taken. Teeth have been brushed. I have reviewed my daughters’ Scripture memory verses for the week, prayed with them, read them the Bible passage for the night, kissed them on rosy cheeks and sent them merrily to bed.

Or something like that.

But she re-emerges at 9:30 to tell me a play-by-play account of the book she is reading. She is a detail person. I’m pretty sure she is telling me exactly what occurs on each page of this 200-page book.

At first, I nod patiently and politely. I do, after all, love her. And, I do share her passion for reading.

Moms should be good listeners. Moms should make sure their children feel heard and understood.

After a while, though, I hug her close and slowly nudge her back to the bedroom while she is still giving a steady stream of book-narration, and I promise to listen more tomorrow.

Because seriously, it has been loud in my house tonight.

I have helped with homework for 3 children, fed and diapered and carried the crying baby around the house, made dinner, cleaned up dinner, packed lunches, supervised piano practice for 3 kids, sent 3 daughters in for showers and bathed one baby, combed tangles out of hair, folded laundry, read books, brainstormed ideas for a project on Ponce de Leon, prepped backpacks for the next day, laid out the outfits for tomorrow morning, signed agendas and math logs and reading logs, and threatened older children with punishment for any further bedtime delays.

You know, what moms do every night.

At one point, I had a baby crying, a child watching YouTube videos with bracelet-making instructions, one child practicing the piano, and one child asking me to quiz her on Life Cycles because her science test is in two days.

I know you all probably think when I’m in my minivan, I like to blast that worship music right loud and sing at the top of my singing lungs.

But you’d be wrong.

If I have the luxury of just 10 minutes in a car without a child talking to me, I turn the radio off.

O-F-F

Off.

Because, some times, a soul just needs some quiet.

Jesus knew it. After days of constant ministry, a needy mob following them around incessantly, clamoring for help and help and help all the time help, the disciples needed a change:

Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31 NIV).

A quiet place.

Jesus knows we need that some times.

And it’s not just a break from noise we need.

We also need to come away with Him.

We need to not answer those e-mails, or check that Facebook, or answer that phone.

Our souls need beauty and filling up after relentlessly pouring out to others. We need Jesus and yet so often we choose to fill that void with anything and everything else.

But as Shellie Rushing Tomlinson writes in Heart Wide Open:

He will ruin you for anything else this world has to offer. However, it is a sweet ‘ruination,’ because the weaker the hold temporal things have on us, the freer we are to lose ourselves in the One who placed eternity in our hearts.

And here’s the hard discovery, that sometimes when I finally sit in relative silence, it rocks my restless soul more than any amount of noise.

That’s when I know I’m an addict, needing that next fix of adrenaline as desperately as others feel the shaking need for another drink.

I’ve become addicted to the rush of activity, addicted to the pride of feeling needed, addicted to the super-hero powers of rescuing people from crises all….day….long, addicted to noise and distraction and busyness.

So, that quiet falls uncomfortably on my shoulders. I fidget. I feel the need to hop up at the slightest distraction.

I need days to unplug, times off of Facebook, off of Twitter, and away from television, and this takes discipline.

I find sometimes that the quiet (in the rare moments when there actually is quiet) is awkward and uncomfortable.

And I find some times that the quiet is refreshing like an ice-cold lemonade after a couple of hours of yard work.

Either way, this is what I know—the quiet is what this soul needs.

Originally published March 26, 2014

You can stop trying so hard

April 3, 2015April 3, 20154 Comments

It started with a road trip.

Our intention had been to make the 3-hour drive as a family, but a stomach virus incapacitated 3 of my 4 children, so it was just mom and daughter in a minivan for hours.

We had plenty of time to talk about life, love, growing up and superior travel snacks (AKA Twizzlers).

On the way home, we stopped to get her a hamburger. My daughter looked at the 16-year-old-ish girl at the drive-thru window and asked, “Mom, did you work or have a job as a teenager?”

She’s 10. She’s thinking ahead. This is a good thing.

I tell her how I volunteered at my local library for years, babysat, and then my first real job was working as a legal assistant at a law firm.

“WHOA.” She stops with her hamburger halfway to her mouth.

“How was that your first job? You mean you didn’t work at a McDonald’s or anything?”

Yes, how did that happen?

Was it my eye-catching resume, my extraordinary job interviewing skills, or some career-launching internship that I had snagged in middle school?

Nope.

I tell her:

“It was God. I just worked hard at whatever God gave me to do and then He opened up new opportunities.”

Be faithful with what you’re doing right now and leave the future to Him.

That’s what I tell her.

I’m a striver.

I’m a do everything you’re supposed to do and more, work until you collapse from exhaustion, pack every day totally full and then spill the to-do list over onto the next day—kind of person.

As a mom, I fight Pinterest-depression because of everything a good mom is “supposed” to be doing.

As a writer, I’m supposed to Tweet and Facebook post hourly, pin on Pinterest 3 times a day, read 5 or so blog posts every morning and comment to them, write my own blog post every day, guest post to other blogs, send query letters and book proposals out monthly, write articles, write books, attend writer’s conferences, and read and study enough to make sure I have something worth saying.

But I fail.

My house is not organized.

I lose my temper with my kids at times.

I let my kids play outside some days instead of making them practice the piano.

I do not schedule enough play dates.

I occasionally forget to sign my kids’ agenda for school (shocker!)

I am sometimes too-much-mom and not-enough-wife.

And as a writer, well, let’s just say Twitter and I aren’t the best of friends.

So I’m talking with my daughter in the minivan about my first job, using the moment to teach her, but I’m also speaking truth to my own weary heart.

You don’t have to be a striver.

God doesn’t ask you or expect you to do everything.

He asks that we faithfully do what He’s called us to do. Just that.

When we pack extra burdens down onto our shoulders of ‘must-do’s,’ should-do’s’ and ‘have-to’s,’ we collapse under the weight.

I’ve spread out face down at God’s feet before and said exactly what those exhausted disciples said:

“We worked hard all night…and we caught nothing” Luke 5:5

They had stayed up all night fishing, working hard with nothing to show for it. Their fishing expedition was a capital-F Failure.

Their nets weren’t faulty. Their boat wasn’t to blame. They had the necessary skills. The location was fine.

They did what they were ‘supposed’ to do.

They had slaved away trying to force success and make something happen, all in their own effort, trusting in their own skill, know-how and sweat.

In the morning when Jesus told them to go put out those same nets off the side of that same boat, they probably blinked tired eyes in disbelief.

But Peter promised to obey:

“You say to put the nets in the water, so I will” (Luke 5:5).

God brings abundance when we bring obedience.

They didn’t have to fish all night. They only needed to fish when and where Jesus said. That’s when He loaded them down with enough fish to snap their nets.

That Psalm we always go to that says, “Be still and know that I am God…” Here it is in the NASB:

Cease striving and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalm 46:10).

Cease striving.

He’s going to be exalted.

Not because we worked hard to exalt Him.

Because He is God.

What has God called you to do today?

Do that. Put your whole heart into it. Be faithful and passionate and focused. Be obedient.

Trust Him with the future and stop trying so hard.

When I Grow Up, I Want to Eat My Own Dinner

March 25, 2015March 26, 20154 Comments

I’m not sure that I’ve eaten more than a handful of my own meals actually on my own in over ten years.

I know maybe it’s not the absolute truth.

But it feels like the truth some days.

It’s as if whatever food I’m eating is a free-for-all for my children.

Sometimes I grab breakfast out of the cabinet and carry it to the minivan as we rush out the door. The very second I open the cereal bar, an alarm system must be triggered because children in all corners of the vehicle ask if they can have some.

Perhaps I should be grateful. Thank you, dear children, I did not actually need the calories from this breakfast-on-the-go anyway.

But there is something so illogical about this mothering phenomenon.

As soon as my children graduate from pureed squash in a jar to their very own mini-portions of actual human food, they want to have what I am eating from my very own plate.

Even though we are eating the same food.

The same food!!!!

I may have cut it up into non-chokeable portions before putting it on the highchair tray; nevertheless, my lasagna will taste the same as their lasagna.

And the Cheerios in my cereal bowl are (earth-shattering announcement, here) the same Cheerios that I put in my child’s bowl.

I know older moms are probably chuckling. Surely my own mom is. Because this is probably a universal mothering struggle going back generations upon generations.

Let’s face it, Eve should have gotten used to sharing her fruit with another person because once Cain and Abel came along, she’d never eat completely on her own again.

The thing is, my kids are buying into the same lie that trips us up all the time.

It’s the lie that whatever she has is better than what I have.

Maybe we’re even eating the same food.

Or maybe it really is different. Maybe she’s sitting down to steak and potatoes while we pick at boxed macaroni and cheese. Or maybe we’re the ones with the gourmet fare while she wolfs down some PB&J.

No matter what the dish, so often we just really want what she has.

We want the same. And we want it to be the same quality. And we want it to be the same amount.

We don’t trust God to care for us uniquely, personally, individually. We don’t trust Him enough to accept what He gives with gratitude, knowing that He loves us and cares for us, knowing that anything He gives us is far more than we deserve or merit.

I read in Numbers how Moses divied up supplies to the people of Israel.

He gave two carts and four oxen to the sons of Gershon.

He gave four carts and eight oxen to the sons of Merari.

He didn’t give any carts or oxen to the sons of Kohath.

Sounds like a rip-off. Sounds like a big, unfair, scam.

Those sons of Kohath could have raised a mighty fine protest about injustice and favoritism and the need for equal distribution of all goods.

But Moses gave out the oxen and the carts “according to their service,” and the sons of Kohath cared for “the holy objects, which they carried on the shoulder” (Numbers 7:7-9).

Every one of them received what they needed for their particular, God-chosen, unique job. He equipped them for their calling.

He does the same for us.

Some days, I’ll confess, it feels like I don’t have enough.

I don’t just mean material goods. I mean enough patience or enough time or enough patience or enough creativity or enough patience or enough sleep—or enough patience. Did I already mention that one?

So many others around me seem to have plates heaped full with the very gifts and traits I feel so desperately in need of.

But I take my need to Him.

Because I don’t need any thing. I don’t need a specific gifting or a particular object.

I don’t need to be the same or have the same as anyone else.

I need Jesus. He is enough for me.

He equips us for our calling.

Yes, He gives me all I need to do what He wants me to do right here in this moment.

I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” (Lamentations 3:24 NIV)

LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure (Psalm 16:5 NIV)

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (Psalm 73:26 NIV).

You are my portion, LORD; I have promised to obey your words (Psalm 119:57).

Lessons from the 5-year-old on prayer

March 18, 2015March 17, 20152 Comments

I put my hand on the back of my five-year-old to usher her into the minivan.

She does not move.

My lecture about wasting time and ‘please can you hurry because we don’t want to be late!’ catches in my throat when I glance at her.

Her head is bowed, her eyes squeezed shut. Her hands are clasped and tucked under her chin.

She is praying.

I lean down and hear the whisper:

Dear God, please help the person who is hurt and help the fire truck make them safe and all better. Amen.

Oh, now I hear them: The sirens in a distance that I’d been blocking out with busy thoughts and Mom-instructions to “get your seatbelts on quickly” and “take turns sitting in the middle seat” and “make sure you have all your stuff.”

You know. Life.

Life crowded out the need, crowded out others. It tunneled my vision so I saw only my agenda, heard only my voice, pushed and shoved and crammed right up to the Father with only my own needy self in mind.

As parents, my husband and I have had our more spiritual moments. We’ve been driving before and hushed the general din of six people (including a baby) in the minivan so we could pray about the fire truck or the ambulance passing us on the road.

My girl took this to heart. She tucked it into her soul and now she watches and listens and drops her head down the instant she senses the need to pray.

She even stopped the mad dash to the middle seat of the minivan and let her sisters rush in to claim the prime spots in order to pause and pray.

She let go of self. She focused on another.

Maybe my husband and I taught her the principle, but this kindergarten prayer powerhouse teaches me to get down on my knees and beg for God to help me see.

Because somehow there’s this automatic pull of humanity back to self. Somehow the noise within us drowns out the noise without….so we no longer hear the cries of need from a needy world.

Somehow we lose the eyes of God, the ears of God, the heart of God.

Yet, Moses teaches me to see others with God’s vision.

He stood on a holy mountain preparing to die. Moses was not to enter the Promised Land and he knew God’s intentions to take him up a mountain that he would never climb down.

But his eyes were for the people of Israel. He could have asked for a legacy. He could have begged for forgiveness and the chance to step at least one weary foot onto Canaan’s soil.

He didn’t.

Instead, he prayed:

Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation ¹⁷who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord may not be as sheep that have no shepherd (Numbers 27:16-17 ESV)

Long before Jesus, Moses stood overlooking the crowd and saw them with God’s eyes as sheep that have no shepherd.

Centuries later, Jesus Himself stood and saw this same need:

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36 ESV).

Moses got it, really got it. Got right to the heart of the matter, right to the need in front of his face and put aside his own affairs—he was, after all, moments from death—-in order to intercede on behalf of God’s people.

His heart matched God’s own heart.

He had 20/20 vision in that moment, not cataracts of selfishness marring his perspective.

Selfishness takes up time and takes up space; it muscles out God and keeps us from loving others.

Today, let’s lay it down.

And let us pray:

Lord, give me Your heart today.
Don’t let me be blinded to need and deaf to the cries of others.
Show me how to bless another.
May I be sensitive to the needs of others so I can be generous and compassionate.
I lay aside selfishness so I can live a life motivated by kindness and ruled by love.
Less of me, Lord. More of You.
Be glorified.
Amen.

Dancing in Worn-Out Shoes

March 13, 20151 Comment

She tells me they fit. “Ballet shoes need to be that tight,” she says.

I’m looking at the worn-out gray of the leather where she’s danced and danced on that shoe, and I’m thinking it’s been two years probably since I bought them for her.

Maybe she’s the dance expert, but this momma knows too small when I see it.

When you have to crinkle your whole foot up to cram it into the shoe and then whisk your finger back before it gets trapped behind your heel, that means it’s time to let those beloved dance shoes go, baby girl.

So, she plops down onto the bench at the studio reluctantly and I tell her to show the teacher and let the expert decide.

About two minutes later, we’re surrounded by boxes and shoes as we skip size after size to find one that finally fits correctly.

It hits my heart as I watch my girl cling to the old and the worn:

Am I cramming myself right down all squashed and painful into life that doesn’t fit anymore?

Am I stubbornly holding onto what isn’t working just because it’s here, because it’s known, because the ill-fitting discomfort of this seems better than the unknown with all its newness and risk and…dare I say it….change?

Am I saying I want to know more of God, but then clinging tight-fisted to the same-old, same-old patterns of faith and even sin?

Jesus saw this man, crippled for 38 years, lying out by the pools of Bethesda, the miracle waters they said, the place where the lame, the blind, and the paralyzed congregated in hopes of a healing.

The man didn’t cry out to Jesus to “have mercy.” He didn’t have friends carry him on a stretcher and lower him down through a roof to get to Jesus’ feet. He didn’t ask for healing at all, not like others in the Gospels who were desperate to get to Jesus.

He laid by the pool of Bethesda, just laid there because he’d lain there so long.

It was Jesus who initiated the miracle, and He began with a question, “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:6 NIV).

Did he want to get well? Wasn’t he there at the pool of Bethesda and hadn’t he been there so long? Wasn’t this what you did when you needed a miracle?

Of course, he wanted to get well!

Yet, we can say all the right things, make all the right promises, repeat all the good-Christian phrases and still miss the honest truth:

That maybe we don’t want to get well.

Not really.

Maybe we don’t want to know Him more, don’t want to be healed, to be transformed from the inside out, to obey Him, to follow Him wherever He leads.

If we did, wouldn’t we be desperate to be at His feet? Wouldn’t we be screaming loud enough to be heard over the crowd, “Have mercy, Son of David!!!?” Wouldn’t we be begging friends to bring us to Christ and crawling on our hands and knees through a crowd of people just so we could brush the corner of His robe?

Instead, too often we lie there and wait for God to come to us.

And when Jesus does come and offers us more, we can make excuses like that man waiting by miracle water.

The man said, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me” (John 5:7 NIV).

Maybe this was genuine hopelessness.

Or maybe it was justification, excuse-making, avoiding what radical obedience might cost him.

Either way, Grace invited him in. Grace held that hand right out.

Do you want to get well?

And isn’t that Grace? Never belligerent. Never forcing, demanding. Always inviting.

He offers us more.

Will we, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk?’ Or will we choose to stay right there, pinned to a mat surrounded by the lame, clinging to the past?

Today, let’s put aside the ill-fitting, worn out shoes we’ve been cramming ourselves into. Let’s stop doing what we’ve always done. Let’s stop justifying the inactivity.

And let’s run hard after Jesus. Let’s learn how to dance in new shoes.

Do you want to get well?

Want to read more about the questions God asks?

Check out my book, Ask Me Anything, Lord, available in paperback and for the Kindle and nook!

Originally published April 4, 2014

Are You Talking to Me?

February 25, 20151 Comment

I thought the note was for some other mom.

Years ago, my daughter toted a note home from preschool. Now that they had all learned their phone numbers, they were working on their address. Could we please practice at home?

I reviewed our address with my four-year-old until she could rattle it off like a pro.

At the end of the month, we received a new note. They’ll be studying spring, plants, and working on their spring program and, by the way, some kids still didn’t know their address….could we please practice with them at home?

I asked my daughter to say her address.

She said it.

I nodded my head approvingly.

This note must be for some other mom.

In April, notes came home every few weeks…about spring break and final plans for the year and what they were learning now and preparations for Easter parties and the spring program and oh, one more thing, could the children who still didn’t know their addresses please make sure they learned them?

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Some parents! You know?

But then in May, I sat at the tiny table with my body squeezed into a preschooler-sized blue plastic chair and had a conference with my daughter’s teacher. She hands me the assessment sheet with checkmarks everywhere. Your child can do all of this….but she can’t say her address.

I’m sorry. What?

Apparently, that note had been for me all along. I called my daughter over to the table and she recited her address flawlessly in just over a second and then ran off to play.

I guess all along they’d been asking my daughter if she could say her address and she just told them, ‘no.’

So, the notes home could have had my name written all over them. They were meant for me! And I had moseyed along on my oblivious way thinking surely my child had gotten her little box checked off.

Sometimes, we need notes and faith and life to be monogrammed with our initials before we realize it’s for us.

We can look at the Bible, we can see what God did and what He’s doing and we can think He’s wonderfully compassionate, powerful and yet full of mercy, for the world and for everyone else in the world.

But then it gets personal.

The disciples tagged along after Jesus as He healed the crowds. Lepers and the lame, the demon-possessed and those wrecked with pain came to Him for rescue and He performed the miracles.

My Bible marks the book of Matthew with newspaper headlines: Jesus Heals The Sick. Jesus Heals Many. Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand.

Jesus changed lives for lots of people.

But then it got personal for the 12 rag-tag followers.

When Jesus went off to pray, He sent them on ahead to cross the lake on their own. In the middle of the night, he came out to them, walking on the water.

Peter jumped out of the boat and took steps out onto the sea….and then sank when he saw the wind and felt afraid.

But as soon as Jesus lifted Peter up and they slipped into the boat, the wind ceased. The storm calmed. The sea rested.

Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” (Matthew 14:33).

Then…they worshiped.

Max Lucado writes:

They had never, as a group, done that before. Never…….You won’t find them worshiping when he heals the leper. Forgives the adulteress. Preaches to the masses. They were willing to follow. Willing to leave family Willing to cast out demons. Willing to be in the army. But only after the incident on the sea did they worship him. Why? Simple. This time they were the ones who were saved.” (In the Eye of the Storm)

Faith has to be personal and intimate.

Sometimes, I confess it, I slip into the humdrum and the mundane and the complacency of religion.

But then God rescues me from the storm. He comes close and draws near. He whispers my name.

This is for you.

Not just everyone else. Not just other moms, other wives, other women.

Not just for the whole world. Not just for the crowd.

This, dear one, is for you.

And the worship that I’d been offering by rote and by habit transforms into heartfelt praise and all-out abandon.

Because, after all, I am the one who is saved.

The one Valentine you really need

February 13, 2015Leave a comment

psalm 45 My fourth grade daughter tells me the news while we chatted about Valentine’s Day in the school cafeteria. Some of the kids in her class are dating.

I leaned across the table to make sure I heard correctly. I’d come for a casual lunch at the school, just some ‘us’ time for me and my girl.

I didn’t expect to have a panic attack with my bottle of water.

“Dating?” I ask, hoping I misheard.

“Yeah…..seems like lots of them are dating each other. One boy gave his girlfriend a necklace already. Another couple kissed. On the lips. The girls who are dating are excited to see what they get on Valentine’s Day this year.”

So it begins. Boys and girls already coupling up. Girls wait expectantly for the special Valentine from their fourth grade suitor, for whom dating probably means little more at this point than playground silliness, passed notes, and an occasional gift ( I hope).

No more box of 20+ Valentine’s that you sign, tear along the perforated line, and then hand out to all the classmates saying things like “U Rock” and “U R Sweet.” These girls are looking to feel special. They want chocolate or a flower and a hand-picked card.

I don’t even launch into my normal ‘save yourself, guard your heart, focus on God….” lecture with my daughter. She’s heard it before.

But I want to tell her something more.

I want to tell her that without childhood flirtations and the first ‘real’ Valentines,’ long before anyone has kissed her on the lips or asked for that first date, she’s already being passionately pursued by a God who is crazy about her.

There’s something about pursuit, something about being chosen and treated special, that fills deep cavernous holes in a woman’s heart.

In her book Captivating, Stasi Eldredge says:

“We desire to possess a beauty that is worth pursuing, worth fighting for, a beauty that is core to who we truly are. We want beauty that can be seen; beauty that can be felt; beauty that affects others; a beauty all our own to unveil.”

These fourth graders are just stepping into that world of pursuit and wooing and sorting through what it means to be worth noticing, worth waiting for, worth sacrificing for, worth fighting for….just worthy.

And my girls need to know they are all that already.

We all need to know that.

So that when the world beats us down with reminders of standards we can’t meet and the girl next door makes us feel ugly and clumsy with her model-like beauty and when we’re run-down from dishes and laundry and carpools and mess . . .we still feel that message deep down.

Let the king be enthralled by your beauty;
honor him, for he is your lord (Psalm 45:11)

You are captivating.

Covered in your toddler’s breakfast and frantic from putting your kids on the school bus?

You are loved.

Exhausted from the day and crashing on the sofa by 9 hoping that no one asks you for one more thing?

Deeply and truly loved.

Not only that, God pursues you. That is always part of our Great Romance.

Stasi Eldredge reminds us that:

“The story of your life is also the story of the long and passionate pursuit of your heart by the One who knows you best and loves you most”

God doesn’t have to romance or woo us. He could remain distant and unmoved, disappointed and disciplinary.

Yet, He bends low and tenderly calls. He watches as we trample after worldly enticements and search for worth in achievement, in status, in relationships, in looks, in Valentines and chocolate, and then He calls us back to Him time after time…..to the place where we are loved not because of what we do but because of what HE has done.

Like Hosea relentlessly chasing after his wife, the wayward Gomer, so God says:

“Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her.

God Himself laid aside the glories of heaven to walk among us, to live for us, to die for us, and to make a way for us to spend eternity with Him.

That’s love. That’s pursuit in the most wildly passionate and extravagant way, more than any bouquet of flowers or Hallmark card.

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

Dear Tailgating Driver

Love is a humble serving, a self-sacrificing consideration of others, a putting other people first and letting them pass by to sit in a seat of honor or be the first to cross the finish line.

God loves the humble.

Only He chooses whom to put down and whom to exalt.

The Resting Place

“This is the resting place, let the weary rest” (Isaiah 28:12).

My heart finds rest when it sinks into the rhythms of grace God has established.

Does God Listen When We Pray?

After 9:30 p.m. Mommy Needs a Time-Out

You can stop trying so hard

God brings abundance when we bring obedience.

Cease striving.

What has God called you to do today?

When I Grow Up, I Want to Eat My Own Dinner

I need Jesus. He is enough for me.

He equips us for our calling.

Yes, He gives me all I need to do what He wants me to do right here in this moment.

Lessons from the 5-year-old on prayer

Dancing in Worn-Out Shoes

Want to read more about the questions God asks?

Are You Talking to Me?

Faith has to be personal and intimate.

The one Valentine you really need

Love is a humble serving, a self-sacrificing consideration of others, a putting other people first and letting them pass by to sit in a seat of honor or be the first to cross the finish line.

God loves the humble.

Only He chooses whom to put down and whom to exalt.

My devotional for today:

“This is the resting place, let the weary rest” (Isaiah 28:12).

My heart finds rest when it sinks into the rhythms of grace God has established.

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

God brings abundance when we bring obedience.

Cease striving.

What has God called you to do today?

My devotional for today:

I need Jesus. He is enough for me.

He equips us for our calling.

Yes, He gives me all I need to do what He wants me to do right here in this moment.

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

Want to read more about the questions God asks?

My devotional for today:

Faith has to be personal and intimate.

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today: