Tag: Job

He leads the dance

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1-chronicles-16

At three-years-old, my son is a movie theater pro.

He knows how this whole movie-watching thing goes.

“I get glasses.” (We’ve seen some 3D movies lately).

“I get popcorn.”  (We love movie theater popcorn!!)

“I sit in the big chair and be quiet and watch the movie.”

Yes, sir.  That’s how it works all right.

Only this time we weren’t going to see a 3D movie, so we messed with his routine a little.

No special funky glasses to play with during the movie?

Surely the 3D glasses are an intrinsic part of the movie experience!

Fortunately, we arrived at the movie theater and he didn’t protest when we headed into the dark theater sans glasses.  He just happily munched on his popcorn.

My son went with the flow in a way I kind of envy because going with the flow is the hard thing for me.  I like things to be just so, the way they always are, the way I expect them to be.

But life and faith aren’t always so simple.

Sometimes you get the popcorn but not the glasses.  Or the glasses and not the popcorn.  Sometimes you sit in a movie theater with all the movie paraphernalia, but nothing shows on the screen.

Sometimes I follow five-step formulas of faith and don’t hear from God or fulfill every religious obligation and still feel spiritually dehydrated and dying of thirst.

That’s because faith is relational and relationships can be messy and hard to define.  They can’t always be crammed into facts, figures, and formulas.

Relationships take effort because they are dynamic and changing, close and then distant and then close again…and my relationship with God is the same.

Jeremiah 29:13 tells us:

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

What does it look like to seek God with all my heart instead of just half my attention or a little of my focus?

It means I’m willing to wait and willing to listen.

I’m willing to be honest and tell God where I’ve gone wrong, how I’m hurting, and the places where I’m clinging to unsurrendered disappointment.

I feast on His Word and rest in His presence because just being near Him helps.

It means waking up in the middle of the night and hashing it out with Him in a heart-to-heart instead of counting sheep.

Maybe God purposely keeps us on our toes so we’re drawn into this wholehearted search for Him because He knows we’re distracted.

When Elijah ran in desperate fear from Queen Jezebel, he ended up at Mount Horeb–the very same holy mountain where Moses received the Ten Commandments.

Elijah sojourned to the”mountain of God” to have his own personal God-encounter.

There in that sacred space, he witnessed an earthquake, but God wasn’t in the earthquake.

He saw fire, but God wasn’t in the fire.

Instead, God showed up “in the  sound of a low whisper” (1 Kings 19:12 ESV).

There’s more to this than just the superficial lesson that “God speaks in a still small voice so be quiet enough to listen.”

Sure, that’s often true.

Life can be loud, far too loud for us to reflect, think, listen, or pray with reflection.

But that’s not all there is here.

God didn’t speak to Elijah from a storm or earthquake.  Truth.

But He did speak to Job that way.

Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. Job 38:1 NIV

And no, God didn’t speak to Elijah from the fire, but He did to Moses.

the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush (Exodus 3:2 ESV).

God whispers sometimes and sometimes he doesn’t.  Sometimes He speaks in storms or from the midst of the flame.

All through Scripture, we see this isn’t about methods or venues; it’s about God speaking however He chooses to speak.

If I’m not hearing Him, I can throw my whole heart into listening, allowing Him to speak how He chooses instead of expecting Him to stick to my relational plan.  To show up on my timetable. To discuss what I want to discuss.  To answer the way I’d like.

Maybe this time I need to watch the movie without the glasses.

Maybe another day I’ll need to wear the glasses to see the whole picture.

It’s not always the same.  So I let Him lead in this relational dance.

And I hold on to one beautiful promise:

And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Hebrews 11:6 ESV

When we draw near, we must believe that God does indeed reward the wholehearted seeker.

I just keep seeking.

 

When you don’t know what to say

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Psalm 147

He told me about his wife, about her kidneys not behaving, her liver calling it quits and her heart not being strong.

They had dared to throw out the word ‘hospice’ in one of those foggy discussions with doctors where you’re hearing them and you’re nodding your head, but really the words don’t make sense.

On the phone, I heard how ‘hospice’ made him stumble.  He sucked in his breath and cleared his throat. Then he said how his brother is already there, in hospice–(there he said it again; that word never seems to come out easy).

I had this conversation with my grandfather years ago, and as I listened I thought of my grandmother, spunky and life-filled, always in tennis shoes so she could speed-walk everywhere, always talking about trips to Haw-a-ii and cruises to Alaska and other adventures.

Then I thought of her in the hospital, under 100 pounds, so fragile.

Two irreconcilable images, surely not the same person.  Yet, there it was, unreal but real.

My grandfather said, “I’m fixin’ to be an orphan here soon” and laughed a kind of nervous giggle when you make a joke that isn’t truly funny.

What to say to that?

After years of women’s ministry, I’ll tell you what never gets easy—knowing what to say when it’s all spilling out of someone and you just want to rescue them, but you’re powerless to do little more than hug and slip on a few Band-aids, then pray with desperate cries that God will heal in the deep-down ways we can’t.

Lost jobs, unfaithful husbands, abusive spouses, alcoholism and pornography, runaway kids, bankruptcy, rape, homelessness, pregnancy unplanned and unwanted, pregnancy wanted so bad it hurts every month with that negative test, abortion, custody battles gone wrong, parents not talking to kids and kids not talking to parents, divorce, fatigue, dying moms and dads, babies in caskets, surgeries failing and car accidents turned tragic…

This…. never…. gets …..easy.

How can there be the right words for so much that is wrong?

Maybe that’s exactly the point.

Maybe even a lover-of-words like me has to fess up that sometimes words don’t just fall short, they actually get in the way.

Like for Job, sitting among ashes, wearing torn rags, scraping at the burning blisters on his flesh with broken pottery, mourning his servants, grieving his children.

Scripture tells us:

When Job’s three friends… heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads.  Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him because they saw how great his suffering was (Job 2:11-13).

They spent a week in silence with Job.  For guys who turned out to be so chatty (okay, verbose), this was actually a promising start!

They seemed to get this right, this friendship without words.  Just mourning with those who mourn and leaving it at that.

Unfortunately, Eliphaz eventually asked the question: “But who can keep from speaking?” (Job 4:2) and that’s when it all went awry.

He erupted with spiritual cliches, the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” speeches, theological debates and judgmental accusation…and the other friends joined in.

Ezekiel the prophet, on the other hand, “came to the exiles who lived at Tel Aviv near the Kebar River.  And there, where they were living, I sat among them for seven days–deeply distressed” (Ezekiel 3:15).

For a week, the prophet crouched in the dust with the exiles from Jerusalem, those who had been carried off after years of starvation and the siege by the Babylonian empire.

And he stayed there until God told him to get up and move on (Ezekiel 3).

Sometimes we back away in fear from those in pain, not really knowing what to do.  After all, we can easily say the wrong thing.

But you really can’t mess up listening.

God brings hurting people to us not so we can fix life for them or speak some magical words that make it all better.

He wants us to get down in the dirt where they’ve fallen, love them, pray with them, serve them, and practice the power of presence (maybe even presence without words).

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May I recommend this book if you are grieving the loss of someone or ministering to another who is mourning?  It is lovely and full of practical advice and spiritual encouragement. Grieving God’s Way: The Path to Lasting Hope and Healing by Margaret Brownley

Facts About Mom

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job 42

It seems to be a Mother’s Day staple for elementary school children. All three of my daughters have brought these projects home over the years with “Facts About Mom” (from the child’s perspective.)

I know other moms who have received these treasures and mostly we laugh together over the outrageous things kids say about us.

Like when they get our names wrong (!!!) or guess that we’re either 15 years old or 100, weigh somewhere around 40 pounds and are 20 feet tall.

This year, my kindergartener probably came the closest to giving all the right answers.

What do I love to do?  Read books.
What do I say all the time?  “Don’t fight over the Kindle.”
What is my job?  Writing books and playing the piano at our church.

She did good.

Sometimes my other daughters got it right, too, painfully right in some cases.

Like when one of my daughters described me as “musical, gardener, ….and competitive.”

Competitive?

Ouch.  This is the girl I’ve had to apologize to before because I had fretted and worried over foolish competitions and comparisons and she felt pressure from me when I’m really so proud of her as she is.

What is something your mom always says?  “Do your homework.  Play piano.  Hurry up.  Go to bed.”

Ouch again.

One year on that same assignment, this daughter wrote that I always said, “I love you.”  A year later in her little pencil scribbles on the paper, she wrote down how I always gave instructions.

Why is it so hard to make the words, “I love you” ring truer and louder than the drill sergeant commands of everyday necessity?

What makes your mom mad?  “When everything is out of control and no one listens.“

She got me.

Yes.  Isn’t that what smashes down all of my hold-it-together personal strength? Isn’t it what makes me grumpy, short-tempered and anxious?

When everything is out of control….. and I forget that God is in control…. yes, that’s what makes me “mad.”  That’s what God uses to plow right through my heart and break up all of that well-tended ground covering over my insecurities and my deep-down sin of misplaced trust.

Kids can be so wise.

As I hold this year’s Mother’s Day gift, I wonder what would I say about God on a worksheet like this?

Would I get it right?   Not giving the dictionary facts or the Bible study answers.  Not the good church girl responses or the pat Christian phrases that tie Mighty God up in neatly packaged paper with a perfect bow on top.

No: Would I know Him?  Would I know His heart?  What makes Him happy?  What makes Him mad?  What do I love about Him the most and why is He the perfect Father for me?

Or would I get it all wrong?

In the book of Job, one man lost family, friends, servants, status in the community, riches, property, and physical health.  Without sinning, he questioned God.  Why this seeming injustice, he wondered, why this tragedy and pain for a righteous man?

His friends got it all wrong.  They thought they knew God, boxed Him up into super-spiritual-sounding cardboard.

Yet, God remains silent.  He waits.  He listens and doesn’t answer. Finally, after almost 40 chapters of Scripture, God speaks.

In her book Wonderstruck, Margaret Feinberg writes,

Instead of focusing on the Why’s of our life circumstances, God calls our attention back to Him and reminds us of the Who that controls everything (p. 37).

That’s God’s answer to the incessant questions.  He never answers “Why,” but He tells who He is in one thundering declaration after wonderstruckanother of His sovereignty and power over all creation.

It isn’t until the taking away, the sorrow, the mourning and the grief that Job doesn’t just know about God; He knows Who God is.

And that is enough.

Job says, “I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you” (Job 42:1).  Yes, now he knew, not about God, but now He had seen God with his own eyes (Job 42:5).

We also find intimacy in the silence.

We form intimacy in the listening, the waiting, the mourning, the times when we can’t trust the circumstances, but we can trust the heart of God.

That’s how we learn the “Facts About God,” the binding truths that we cling to when life obscures our divine vision.

Originally published May 15, 2013

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.

 

Why Choosing New Glasses is Hard When You’re a People-Pleaser (Like Me)

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She tells me, “Those look cute on you.”

I wrinkle up my nose and squint my eyes at the mirror.

She’s the sweetest, kindest lady ever, handing me pairs of glasses at the eye doctor’s office.

But I’m a pushover.  One slight hint of someone else’s opinion and I tend to fold up like a pup-tent in a windstorm.

I explain to her that I really like my glasses, the ones I’ve worn for 4-1/2 years that are now cracked, scratched, bent, and about to disintegrate in the palm of my hand.  Can’t I just have something pretty much the same?

She says, ‘They are kind of small’ and points to a few pairs she likes on the shelf.

The pair she hands me aren’t really ‘me.’  They are cool and trendy, big dark frames in that funky retro style that looks great on everyone, but just don’t suit me or who I am.

In that moment, though, I question myself.

She says they look cute.  She says she likes them.

So maybe she’s right?  Maybe all those things I think and feel about myself are wrong?  Maybe I just need to try something different….get wild and crazy for a second.  Maybe I should be more stylish?  Maybe I could grow to like them?

I feel slightly trapped.

Thankfully, I’m rescued from my decision-making paralysis by a friend who works at the office.  She shakes her head, ‘no’ and I feel truly, truly saved as I slip those frames right back onto the display shelf.

I needed someone to back me up.  Given just one more nudge by the sweet and gentle lady trying to help me pick out glasses, I’d have walked right out of there having purchased frames I hated.

And I would have worn them for years.

And I would have hated them every time I put them on my face.

And I would have hated myself for buying them in the first place, for just taking someone else’s opinion as truth without weighing it against the truth I know about myself.

That’s me.  People-pleasing me.  Indecisive me.  Swayed by the slightest push from others and then growing all resentful at the pressure.

The trouble is that this is an opinion-sharing world.  Random people in Wal-Mart like to comment on the groceries you buy and the amount of kids you have crowded around your shopping cart.

God does use people to speak truth to us at times.  They can be a confirmation sent by the Holy Spirit or a loving word of encouragement or challenge just when we need it.

Sometimes, though, they are just people—friends, loved ones, random shoppers with opinions.galatians1

In Scripture, Job endured and ignored the counsel of his friends and his overwhelmed wife’s advice to “curse God and die” (Job 2:9 NIV).

For all their professed spirituality and theological ‘expertise,’ Job’s friends were wrong.

His wife was wrong.

But me, if I had sat there in the sackloth and ashes, would I have discerned the truth?  Would I have held on stubbornly to that challenged faith like Job did or would I have begrudgingly given in?

I’m learning that I must:

  1. Consider the source:  Is this someone whose input has value?
  2. Consider the message: Does what they are saying match up with Scripture?  Does it match up with what the Holy Spirit has been telling me or is this noticeably out of place?
  3. Consider the intent: Are they sharing something prayerfully and in love?  Or are they condemning and hurtful?
  4. Consider the authority: Is this simply an opinion or a way that God is speaking to me?  (Remember that sometimes people even say things are ‘words from the Lord,’ yet they don’t mesh with Scripture or what God has been doing in your life).

In the end, I can’t be both—an obedient servant of Christ or a people-pleaser.  Paul lays it down as an either/or choice:

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ (Galatians 1:10 NIV).

“People-pleaser,” after all, is just a polite way of excusing the truth about me:  I’m an idolater,  worshiping the approval of others just as much as any man-carved image of stone or wood.

It takes discernment and courage to decide that “God’s judgment is the only one that counts” (Galatians: Gospel-Rooted Living, Todd Wilson) .

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.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

Ask Me More…Where were you?

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She said her dad didn’t love anybody.

Not her mom.  Not the kids.  Nobody.

That’s what the girl told my daughter.  And that’s what my daughter told me.

My daughter struggles to understand this invasion of innocence.

We adults slowly learn to cope with the ugly truth about how sin distorts, taints, and breaks.  How this world is hard sometimes, hurtful and messy.

But she’s not accustomed to the pain yet or desensitized to the sadness, so her heart aches for her friend and she struggles with questions and brings them to me:

What does that mean? How come her family isn’t together any more?  Why does that happen to families?  Where will she stay?  Will she still see her dad?

Pain often provokes our questions, too.

There’s something about tragedy that stirs up doubt and wondering.  We want to wrestle with the beasts of injustice and sorrow, trying to make sense of it all with logic and defeat them with some philosophical musings.

But we just don’t know.

We can’t always see why this happened or how it will all work out or what good could come of any of it or what God is doing in the midst of the rubble.

In Scripture, it’s Job that engages in this fight.

We gloss over his pain so quickly as Christians:  Job was a good guy who had bad things happen to him.  Lots of bad things.  Blah blah blah, yeah yeah yeah.

“Bad things” hardly.

His property destroyed, his servants killed, his own body festering with sores, his wife grown bitter, his friends on platforms of self-righteousness……maybe those are “bad things.”

Yet, every single one of his children was killed at once in a freak accident.

If you’ve cradled your own baby in your arms, stroking his cheek with your finger, cooing baby talk, tickling her baby belly, rocking and swaying and humming sweetly, then consider Job’s loss.

Seven sons, three daughters—-dead like a snapping of the fingers.job19

How could he ever breathe again?  No wonder he just wanted to die himself.

So, he ponders and postulates and asks God to explain Himself.  He longs to put God on trial and pose the questions with God on the witness stand.

“Where were you?” Maybe that’s what Job longed to ask God and have answered.

Yet, God never answers all of Job’s questions, not in this life anyway.

Instead, God lets Job pour out all of that bitterness and hurt, knowing perhaps that what we need most in sorrow is the opportunity to be sorrowful.

Then, God responds, not with answers, but with questions.

Lots of lots of questions.  Chapters and chapters of questions.  Pages and pages of questions.  Just about 60 in all.

But here’s the bottom line:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding… (Job 38:4 NASB)

Was Job there when God parted the seas from the land or set the birds in the sky or there as He makes the sun to rise and set every single day as faithfully as our faithful God?

Does Job even know how God makes it rain, or feeds the lions, or transforms water into ice?

The questions bring Job to this place where he looks in a mirror and sees his own limitations.

I don’t know. 

What else could he say?

What else to answer but this:

“Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You?
I lay my hand on my mouth.
“Once I have spoken, and I will not answer;
Even twice, and I will add nothing more”  (Job 40:3-5 NASB)

So, I confess this to my daughter, “I don’t know, baby girl.”

Sometimes there’s not much else to say.

Yet, there were two things that Job did know:

“As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
And at the last He will take His stand on the earth.  Job 19:25 NASB

and this:

“I know that You can do all things,
And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.
Job 42:2 NASB

Maybe we don’t always know the answer to “why” or “what now” or “how could this be…”

Still we know this:

Our God lives and will return one day in victory to redeem us and to redeem this broken world.

and

God can do anything  There’s nothing too insignificant to escape His notice and nothing too difficult for Him to handle.

When God asks us questions, we might not always know the answers, but we know He does.  That’s the simplicity and the challenge of faith.

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.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Broken Lenses and The Faith Dare

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When my daughters are excited, they jump.

Ice cream!
Jump, jump, jump.

Playdate!
Jump, jump, jump.

Trip to the aquarium!
More jumping.

You’d think after years of being a mom to these jumping beans, I’d have learned to announce good news from afar.

But I haven’t.  My dentist can probably attest to how many times one of their heads has slammed into my jaw as I foolishly stood over them and made a thrilling announcement.

So, when I took the girls to a children’s museum for an exhibit on butterflies, I should have maintained a safe distance, walking behind them the whole way.

But I didn’t.  Instead, I held my camera in my hand and walked next to my oldest daughter who took one look at the massive monarch caterpillar entryway and . . . .

Jumped . . .right into my hand, knocking my camera to the concrete sidewalk.  From then on, the lens made this sickening grinding noise as it turned on or tried to focus for a shot.

My husband performed camera surgery and that helped for a while.  Yet, eventually the lens stuck in place again.  Now my camera clicks and grinds when you turn it on and then flashes red light onto the display before showing the message, “Lens error.  Camera will shut down now.”

With my camera out of focus, I’ve been wondering how often we experience brokenness in similar ways.  Something sends us hurtling to the ground—a hurt, a sickness, loss, sadness, fear,13594380_s death, confusion, loneliness, conflict, fatigue—and suddenly our perspective is askew.  We see everything through a lens that is stuck and out of focus.

Certainly we lose God’s perspective often enough.

This earthly life of ours will always be accompanied by a darkened view and limited line of sight.  Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:2, NASB).

It’s not until Glory that we’ll receive heavenly lenses and eternal scope.

Until then, we’ll probably still be asking: Why did that happen?  How long will this take?  What’s the point of this and the significance of that?  Is there any hope?  What is around the corner?  What will my future hold? 

But here and now, even the darkness can be enlightened at times.

We can remember …

….that God breathed life into dust.

The materials we give Him do not limit what God can create.  Peter tells us,

“Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right” (1 Peter 4:19).

In any situation, we can have full confidence in our faithful Creator, who makes beautiful things out of dust and even forms the dust itself.

…that God restores life when all seems dead.

In the book of Job, we read: “There is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.  Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant” (Job 14:7-9).

So if you are feeling the weight of broken branches and fallen leaves, when you feel fruitless, abandoned, cut down to the very stump and left for dead, allow hope to refocus your lens.  Despite seeing fruitless death, we remember that God restores and redeems.

… that even rain is a blessing.

In the book of Joel, God promised Israel restoration and renewal if they would repent and return to Him.  Following judgment and famine, they would see new growth, but it required rain to wash away the dry, crumpled weeds and to saturate the earth with life-giving water.

Joel tells the people to “rejoice in the Lord your God!  For the rain He sends demonstrates His faithfulness” (Joel 2:23 NLT).

Even in the downpour, we can praise Him for bringing new life with His faithful love.

Oh, it’s not easy of course.  Our lenses are still faulty.  It’s the way we’re made.  We’re finite.  Limited.  Created without the ability to see the long-term and the eternal.

We’re broken cameras, all of us.

In The Faith Dare, Debbie Alsdorf writes:

When we focus only on self and become consumed by the conflict, we begin to live under it rather than being an overcomer through faith in Christ (p.. 160).

Let it be our prayer, though, that He be our vision, that He provide our focus, and that He guide our perspective.  It’s the only way to truly see.

Devotional adapted from A Broken Lens, originally published 10/14/2011

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 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

“Facts” About Mom and “Facts” About God:

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It seems to be a Mother’s Day staple for elementary school children.  Both of my older daughters made these projects and, according to my Facebook feed, so did the kids of most of my mom friends.002

On Mother’s Day, my daughters presented their handmade creations:  An ice cream cone picture with six adjectives to describe their sweet momma and a worksheet with “Facts About My Mom.”

Mostly as various moms posted their own kids’ responses to similar projects on Facebook, we laughed over the outrageous things kids say about us.

Like when they get our names wrong (!!!) or guess that we’re either 15 years old or 100.

But I opened the handmade gifts on Mother’s Day and didn’t read silly, mistaken or perhaps outrageously funny comments from my kids.

Somehow my daughters got it right.

Sweetly right, but maybe painfully right, too.

(Well, other than the “fact” that I’m probably 20 feet tall and probably weigh 45 pounds.  That’s a little off.)

Yet there were other “facts,” too.

There was the objective data, of course.  Adjectives to describe her mom?  “Married” and “pregnant” made it on the list.  Undeniable truth.

My other girl included “musical, gardener…..and competitive.”

What second grader diagnoses her mom as “competitive?”  My girl.  The one who has heard me apologize for my struggle to her face, and the one I held close while confessing how wrong I was to fret and worry over foolish competitions and how sorry I was that I ever put even one ounce of pressure on her shoulders when I’m so proud of her just as she is.

What does your mom like to wear?  Pants and a sweater.

Simple and sweet truth-telling right there.  Those are my happy clothes.

What is something your mom always says?  Do your homework.  Play piano.  Hurry up.  Go to bed.

Oh, here I pause.  Because last year on this same little assignment, she wrote that her mom always says, “I love you.”  And now here it is in pencil on paper, how I’m always giving instructions, always directing, always focused on getting those daily tasks done.  Why is it so hard to make the words, “I love you” ring truer and louder than the drill sergeant commands of everyday necessity?

What makes your mom mad?  When everything is out of control and no one listens.

When everything is out of control…..

Yes.  Isn’t that what smashes down all of my hold-it-together personal strength? Isn’t it what makes me grumpy, short-tempered and anxious?

When I feel like I’ve lost control so therefore there must be no control, always forgetting that God is in control…. yes, that’s what makes me “mad.”  That’s what God uses to plow right through my heart and break up all of that well-tended ground covering over my insecurities and my deep-down sin attitudes and misplaced trust.

Second graders can be so wise at times.

But I wonder, given a worksheet like this, what would I say about God?

Would I get the “facts” right and answer the questions correctly?  Not giving the dictionary facts or the Bible study answers.  Not the good church girl responses or the pat Christian phrases that tie Mighty God up in neatly packaged paper with a perfect bow on top.

No: Would I know Him?  Would I know His heart?  What makes Him happy?  What makes Him mad?  What do I love about Him the most and why is He the perfect Father for me?

Or would I get it all wrong?

In the book of Job, one man lost family, friends, servants, status in the community, riches, property, and physical health.  And without sinning, he questioned God.  Why this seeming injustice, he wondered, why this tragedy and pain for a righteous man?

Job wants to call God into court and question Him on the witness stand.

Yet, God remains silent.  He waits.  He listens and doesn’t answer. Finally, after almost 40 chapters of Scripture, God speaks.

In her book Wonderstruck, Margaret Feinberg writes,

Instead of focusing on the Why’s of our life circumstances, God calls our attention back to Him and reminds us of the Who that controls everything (p. 37).

That’s God’s answer to the incessant questions.  He never answers “Why,” but He tells who He is in one thundering declaration of sovereignty and power over all creation after another.Wonder Struck

It isn’t until the taking away, the sorrow, the mourning and the grief that Job doesn’t just know about God; He knows Who God is.

And that is enough.

Job says, “I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you” (Job 42:1).  Yes, now he knew, not about God, but now He had seen God with his own eyes (Job 42:5).

Intimacy in silence.  Intimacy in the listening, the waiting, the mourning.  That’s how we know Him, too.

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

When words get in the way

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He told me about his wife, about her kidneys not behaving, her liver calling it quits and her heart not being strong. Mostly, though, he told positive news and trends for the better.

Yet, they had dared to throw out the word ‘hospice’ in one of those foggy discussions with doctors where you’re hearing them and you’re nodding your head, but really the words don’t make sense.

On the phone, I heard how ‘hospice’ made him stumble.  He sucked in his breath, cleared his throat and told me the rest.  His brother is already there, in hospice–(there he said it again; that word never seems to come out easy)– 5-1/2 hours away.

As my grandfather talked, I though of my grandmother, spunky and life-filled, always in tennis shoes so she could speed-walk to everywhere, always talking about trips to Haw-a-ii and cruises to Alaska and more adventures.

Then I thought of her in the hospital, under 100 pounds, fragile and so easily broken.

Two irreconcilable images, surely not the same person.  And yet there it was, unreal but real.

My grandfather said, “I’m fixin’ to be an orphan here soon” and laughed a kind of nervous giggle when you make a joke that isn’t truly funny.

What to say to that?

After years of women’s ministry, I’ll tell you what never gets easy—knowing what to say when it’s all spilling out of someone and you just want to rescue and protect and bandage it all up.  But you’re powerless to do little more than hug and slip on a few Band-aids, then pray with desperate cries that God will heal in the deep-down ways we can’t.

Lost jobs, unfaithful husbands, abusive spouses, alcoholism and pornography, runaway kids, bankruptcy, rape, homelessness, pregnancy unplanned and unwanted, pregnancy wanted so bad it hurts every month with that negative test, abortion, custody battles gone wrong, parents not talking to kids and kids not talking to parents, divorce, fatigue, dying moms and dads, babies in caskets, surgeries failing and car accidents turned tragic…

This…. never…. gets …..easy.

How can there be the right words for so much that is wrong?

Maybe that’s exactly the point.  Maybe even a lover-of-words like me has to fess up that sometimes words don’t just fall short, they actually get in the way.

Like for Job, sitting heaped in ashes and wearing torn rags, scraping at the burning blisters on his flesh with broken pottery, mourning his servants, grieving his children.

Scripture tells us:

When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads.  Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him because they saw how great his suffering was (Job 2:11-13).

They spent a week in silence with Job, just sitting next to him without speaking or offering hollow words of fake comfort.  For guys who turned out to be so chatty (okay, verbose), this was a big deal!

They seemed to get this right, this friendship without words.  Just mourning with those who mourn and leaving it at that.

Unfortunately, Eliphaz finally asked the question: “But who can keep from speaking?” (Job 4:2) and that’s when it all went awry.

The moment he erupted with spiritual cliches, the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” speeches, theological debates and judgmental accusation…that’s when he felt more impressed with his oratory skills than concerned about loving a friend.

Ezekiel, on the other hand, “came to the exiles who lived at Tel Aviv near the Kebar River.  And there, where they were living, I sat among them for seven days–deeply distressed” (Ezekiel 3:15).

For a week, the prophet crouched in the dust with the exiles from Jerusalem, those who had been carried off after years of starvation and the siege by the Babylonian empire.

And he stayed there until God told him to get up and move on (Ezekiel 3).

Sometimes we back away in fear from those in pain, not really knowing what to do.  After all, we can easily say the wrong thing.

But you really can’t mess up listening.

God brings hurting people to us not so we can fix life for them or speak some magical words that make it all better.

He wants us to get down in the dirt where they’ve fallen, love them, pray with them, serve them, and practice the power of presence, and so often presence without words.

*************************************

May I recommend this book if you are grieving the loss of someone or ministering to another who is mourning?  It is lovely and full of practical advice and spiritual encouragement. Grieving God’s Way: The Path to Lasting Hope and Healing by Margaret Brownley

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

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

What Silence Means…

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It’s when they’re quiet that you need to be worried.

That’s parental advice passed down through generations, usually learned from personal experience.

I learned my lesson, too.

My oldest girl did this thing when she was three years old called a “tantrum.”  Maybe you’ve heard of them?  Maybe you’ve seen one . . . or thrown one.

After a particularly rowdy tantrum on the car ride home one day, she stomped into the house still screaming, ran into my bathroom and slammed the door.

Unfazed, I took my time setting her baby sister down for a nap and tossing my keys and arm-full of papers and baby paraphernalia onto the kitchen counter.  I breathed in deep breaths of Mom sanity.

Then I realized that the banshee wail had subsided into silence, frighteningly loud silence.

Throwing open my bathroom door, I saw my red-faced preschooler crouched on the carpet, her hands covering her head as she sobbed.

On the floor next to her was her hair.

Her hair!

Her long, totally beautiful, golden curly hair.  In her rage, she had climbed onto my bathroom counter and dug through to the bottom of my makeup case where I hid the hair scissors.  Then she had systematically snipped off the two pig-tails on the tip-top of her head.

She was bawling.  I was bawling.  We raced to the local hair salon and plopped her up in the chair for a rescue mission.  Our superhero that day sported a comb and some clippers.

Sometimes we think silence means inactivity and stagnation, abandonment and loneliness, but instead it’s often a sign of focused activity.

With kids, that might mean trouble.

With God, though, as heart-wrenching and full of despair as His silence is, we needn’t fear the quiet.  It’s often a promise that He’s at work right there in the middle of your circumstances, deeply involved in your life.

This was me not long ago.  I thought I had it figured out, what God was doing and how He was at work and how He planned to bless and care for us, but I was wrong.

The thing about cramming God into boxes is that He shatters the confines of the cardboard.

So, when life didn’t go as I had planned, I cried out to Him: What are you doing?  What does this mean?

Why can’t I hear You?

The silence is so oppressive and filled with overwhelming sadness.  We just want to hear His voice, His quiet voice or His booming command, His encouraging cheer, or His tender whisper.  Whatever He wants to say, we’re desperate to hear it.

Because we feel afraid.

I drove off that night on an arbitrary errand, alone in my car, praying away in the quiet.  Then I hit the play button on the CD for our church Christmas cantata:

“Peace, oh my soul, weary from the struggle
Don’t be afraid, Love knows your deepest need.
There is a light shining in the darkness.
There is no shadow where it cannot reach.
Peace, peace, Jesus has come
O soul, be still, receive your King”

The song faded and one lone voice cut through the silence:

“The Lord is with you . . . Fear not, Mary ….For nothing is impossible with God….Joseph, fear not.  Fear not!  For unto us a child is born, to us a Son is given…Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy…Fear not!  They will call Him Immanuel–which means, ‘God with us.’  Fear not, for I am with you”

My husband asked me when I flopped on the couch later, “Were you crying?”

How could I do anything but cry?

I had been desperate for the slightest trickle of His voice and He had drenched me in His Word.

But even when I didn’t hear Him, God was still there, still active, still with me. That hadn’t changed.

In his book, Greater, Steven Furtick writes:

God is often working behind the scenes of your life, orchestrating His destiny for you.  Even though you don’t have a clue what He’s up to.  Just because you haven’t heard God call your name or tell you specifically what to do with your life doesn’t mean He’s not conspiring great things for you.

Sometimes we feel like Job: “I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me” (Job 30:20).

But even in the silence we can hold to the promise:

As for me, I call to God, and the Lord saves me.
Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress,
and he hears my voice
(Psalm 55:16-17).

He hears you.  And when He chooses to speak, the wave of His voice might wash over you and knock you off your feet and carry you to safety.  For now, just keep listening, keep waiting, and don’t be afraid of the silence.

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