Tag: Job

I Don’t Know

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I remember the day when I walked among the stacks of books for the first time.

It wasn’t my first time in a library, of course.  I was “a regular” at our local public library.  As a teen, I had logged volunteer hours shelving the books in the children’s department and had become a mini-expert.  I knew exactly how much space we needed for our Berenstain Bears collection and for the rows of Dr. Seuss.

Eventually, I graduated to having my own back room in the library where seasonal books were kept in storage to be rotated out through the year.  It was my own personal responsibility to put away Christmas and pull out the books for New Year’s Day.

Yes, by the time I graduated from high school, the library was a comfortable place that I could navigate with ease.  I had long since exhausted the classics aisle, toting books home every time I clocked out of a volunteering session.

Then there was the day I strolled into the Undergraduate Library at the University of Maryland (UM) for the first time.  (Yes, Undergraduate Library, as opposed to the Graduate Library, the Art Library, the Music Library and others.)

Everything about UM was overwhelming.  There were as many students on the college roll as there are people in the county where I now live.  The buildings shot up floors upon floors and I had to ride a shuttle bus to the center of campus and still hike 15 minutes to my first class of the day.

I had a panic attack the first time I ate lunch in the dining hall during the noon rush.

Considering how large everything was, I should have been prepared for the size of the library.  I wasn’t.  I walked in and sucked in my breath.

I had one thought. Just one.

“I don’t know anything.”

(For those parents of teens who believe they know everything, let me encourage you.  A trip to a university library might be in order.)

You just can’t stand there surrounded by multiple floors of huge volumes and endless aisles of more books than you thought any author ever published and then books about those books, and books about the books about the books and think, “I know everything.”

Instead, you have the concrete physical proof that of all there is to know in the world, you actually know very little.

Sometimes life has its way of humbling you in the same way.  You may think you have a good grasp on God’s character and an intimate knowledge of His Word.  You may think you’re savvy to the ways of the world and an expert on life.

Yet, at some point you have to admit, “I don’t know.”

I don’t know why this happened this way.  I don’t know what God is doing.  I don’t know what the next step is or what’s in the future.  I don’t know how to help her or guide him.  I don’t know how to be the best wife, mom, sister, daughter, friend.

Maybe that’s when we’re closest to getting it right anyway.  Admitting that we don’t know allows us to trust God for the answers.  Humbly confessing our limited understanding frees us from slavery to independence so we can freely depend on our all-knowing God.

As Job sat among his friends listening to them debate philosophical questions of righteousness and God and sin and punishment, he must have realized the limits of human understanding.  It was simply inexplicable why God allowed his kids to die, his property destroyed, and his own body ravaged by painful disease.

And that was a better answer to the crisis than giving speeches from a makeshift podium and sounding like you had God all figured out and jammed into a manageable box.

At least that’s what God said. When He spoke, He pelted Job with questions:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?”
“Who determined its measurements?”
“Who set the limits of the sea?”
“Have you decided when morning should begin and told the sun when to rise?”
“Have you seen the bottom of the ocean?”
“Do you know where light and dark begin and end?”  (Job 38).

What can we say other than, “I don’t know?”

That doesn’t mean we don’t study God and pray to know His ways.  We delve deep in His Word and ask Him for wisdom and understanding.
But at the end of each day, we keep it all in perspective.  No matter how much we know, we don’t really know.  We cannot begin to understand as God understands.
Ultimately, the one truth we need is:
“Know that the Lord, he is God!  It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture (Psalm 100:3 ESV).
We don’t know; but we know God does.  That is enough.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

VBS Lessons: No Matter What People Do

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All week long I’m thinking about the Bible points for our Vacation Bible School and what they mean for adults.  This week will be a mix of some old and some new as I share these lessons.

Tonight at Sky VBS! (Group Publishing), we’re learning: No Matter What People Do…Trust God!

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In high school, Carl didn’t score touchdowns like the sports star Norman.  Instead, Carl served as the sports manager for the team—close to the action, but never quite getting the glory.

One day in the locker room, Norman played a teenage prank on Carl and then they went their separate ways.  Norman played football and studied education in college, earning his master’s degree and returning to the high school to teach and coach for over 30 years.

Carl took a different path.  More than 50 years after that initial locker room prank, Carl showed up at Norman’s house and shot him with a pistol.  At 73 years old, Carl is now starting a life term in prison.

Not exactly the best way to spend your retirement years.

I read this new story last week and it troubled me in a deep-down unshakeable way.  It’s partly because the story dismisses that teenage prank.  Of course, it couldn’t possibly be worth killing someone over 50 years after the fact.  Of course it makes no sense to murder a 70-year old man for something he did in high school.

Yet, bullying, teasing, and publicly embarrassing others seem to be the signature traits of our society and they aren’t easily shrugged off, even by the strongest and most confident among us.  It’s a reminder to us all how how lives can be destroyed by what we say and do.

The story, though, also illustrates something else.  It shows how what people do to us usually determines our character far more than it impacts theirs.

Carl—the 73-year-old killer over a high school grudge—lived an embittered life, entangled in jealousy and unforgiveness.  Norman lived a full life that sounded successful and happy.

We have a similar choice when people intend evil for us.  Like Joseph staring across an Egyptian banqueting table at the brothers who sold him into slavery decades before, we must choose what to do with our offenders.

The Lord’s Prayer instructs us clearly: “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

If you look at most modern translations of this passage, they read something like: “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12 HCSB).

That’s because we perceive wrongs against us as a debt that someone needs to pay.  Someone owe us because they took something from us–our innocence, our purity, our dignity, our job, our financial security, our husband, our self-esteem . ..

Pretty soon we’re wrapped up in unforgiveness and anger so tight that our whole life is hindered.  We’re tripping all over ourselves when we try to get anywhere.

In his book, Enemies of the Heart, Andy Stanley reminds us that the only way to break free from the snare of anger and unforgiveness is to cancel the debt.

We need to forgive.  Why?  Because we’ve been forgiven.

Stanley writes:

In the shadow of my hurt, forgiveness feels like a decision to reward my enemy.  But in the shadow of the cross, forgiveness is merely a gift from one undeserving soul to another (129).

Jesus Himself, tortured and crucified by a jeering mob when he had done nothing at all to deserve it, still looked down from the cross and prayed: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

In “You Want Me To Pray What?” I wrote:

“In the same way, Stephen, the first Christian martyr, prayed, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” just as the final stones pelted his body and killed him (Acts 7:59).

Have you considered who Stephen was praying for in that moment?  One of the men standing by the coat rack cheering on the crowd was Saul—later the apostle Paul.

Stephen asked for God to forgive his persecutors and shortly afterward this same Saul sat on a roadside blinded by Jesus Christ himself, experiencing repentance and conversion.

Satan fully intends to tangle us up in bitterness and jealousy.  He wants to defeat our ministry and make us thoroughly unusable because we’re so riled up and distracted by dissension and arguments.

He just doesn’t know what to do when we pray shockingly humble prayers on behalf of others, particularly our enemies.  There’s power there.”

No matter what people do to us, we can trust God to use it for His glory and to help us through.  More than that, we can ask him to help us forgive so we can move forward in freedom and blessing, no longer hindered by the bitter entanglements of our past.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

Broken Crayons And Other Things That Drive Me Crazy

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“Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved!”
(Psalm 80:3, ESV).

Things that drive me crazy:

Procrastination, disorganization, messing with “the plan” and the schedule, slow pokes, Play Doh colors all mixed together, shoes and jackets dropped in the middle of the kitchen floor, crowds, wet towels left on the sink and toothpaste stuck to the bathroom walls, markers with no tops.

Oh, and something else, too: Broken crayons. Even worse, crayons with the paper torn off. I mean, if you rip the paper off, the crayons are more susceptible to breaking. Plus, it’s difficult to tell whether you are holding blue, purple or black in your hand.

It’s enough to give a mom fits.

When my kindergartener told me that Show & Tell this week needed to be something recycled or reused, we started brainstorming.  There was the orange juice carton we turned into a birdfeeder.  The paper towel roll my oldest daughter made into Snow White.  The Popsicle stick my middle girl turned into a pig.  The Mason jar painted over and made into a candle holder.

Or we could find something to do with those pesky broken and naked crayons that drive me so crazy.

Jackpot!

I spent this morning collecting the remnants of Crayola.  Once beautiful, bright, pointy crayons fresh from the box—now broken, bespeckled, faded, and unwrapped.

We filled a tray of heart-shaped silicone with the jumble of brokenness, melted the wax, cooled it and then popped out beautiful new rainbow heart crayons.

We made something fun, colorful, and unique out of the old, broken, and worn out.

God’s plan for restoring us in life is so often like melting down broken wax and transforming it into a uniquely colorful treasure with a beauty all its own.

We pray for restoration, hope for it, long for it with desperate hearts.  We need the fixing, mending, healing power of God in our relationships, in our worship, in our churches, in our sick and hurting bodies, in our grief, in our finances, and more.

David needed it emotionally and knew that the Lord His Shepherd, “restores my soul” (Psalm 23:3).  Later, He needed spiritual restoration after he committed adultery and murderer, as he prayed, “Restore to me the joy of my salvation” (Psalm 51:12).

What we usually long for in the midst of brokenness is full-circle restoration.  We want what we once had, what Satan took from us, or what we’ve lost along our journey.

That’s what Israel prayed for when they were beseiged, starved, and taken captive:  “Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old” (Lamentations 5:21 ESV).

Give us back the good old days!

And it seemed like that’s exactly what God did.  When Nehemiah returned to rebuild the ruins of the Jerusalem walls, he began at the Valley Gate (Nehemiah 2:13).  Then, 52 days later, they finished the job and celebrated with choirs, corporate praise, rededication, and a procession that marched out through the gates they had rebuilt, starting with what scholars believe was the Valley Gate.

In Nehemiah: A Heart That Can Break, Kelly Minter writes: “If God began Nehemiah’s journey at the broken Valley Gate and completed it at a restored one, we have reason to hope He will work with the same restorative power in our lives” (p. 151).

They had, after all, come full circle.  This surely renews our hope.

And yet, this wasn’t exactly the same as what they had lost, and that’s also reason to rejoice!  These were rebuilt walls, walls with a testimony.  They showed God’s faithfulness to His people, bringing them back from captivity and helping them rebuild their land.

The rebuilt walls in our lives are also a testimony of God’s faithful lovingkindness and mercy.  They can’t possibly be misunderstood or misinterpreted as walls pounded into place by our own ability and strength.

They are all about how God brought us back and helped us stand.

The best thing about God’s restoration is that He often does more than we expect.  We want the same as the good old days.  Many times, however, He gives us more than we had before or even something better.

He did this for Job, giving him “twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10).

He does this for us, as Peter tells us:

“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10, ESV).

He doesn’t just give us back the pieced-together remnants of our past; He restores us in a way that makes us stronger, and He does it Himself, stitching us back together with His own patient hand.

God doesn’t give up on the broken crayons in our lives or toss away those of us who’ve come unpeeled.  He may melt us down and it may hurt, but He makes us new, beautiful, different, stronger, unique—restored for His glory and with a story to tell of His goodness.

Want to transform your broken crayons into something fun and new?  There are some great “recipes” online, including this one here.

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I don’t just have things that drive me crazy.  Things can make me happy, too!  Like:

Family time, baking with my girls, heartfelt worship, chocolate, hot tea with sugar, time with God at my kitchen table, words that are fun to say, holding my husband’s hand, triple word tiles in Scrabble, honeysuckle candles, free concerts on the beach in the summer time, my daughters giggling, the smell of fireplaces burning in autumn air, pumpkins, my small group, crossword puzzles, the perfect coupon, Masterpiece Classic and Masterpiece Mystery, brand new pointy crayons, fresh Play Doh, the Beatles, comfy white socks, Dickens and Shakespeare, British comedies, when the lights dim and the play starts, listening to my daughters read, a blank computer screen and the clicking of the keys as I fill it up with words.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

The Sound of Silence

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When I was pregnant with my very first daughter, my husband and I prayed the normal prayers of soon-to-be parents.  We asked God for her health, her character, her faith, and her future.

I threw in a prayer asking that she be a good eater and sleeper. The Bible says we can ask, right?

Then we bowed our heads together and prayed something truly bold. We asked that God would entrust us with a child who had something different than us—a talent, passion or personality trait that set her apart from her mom and dad.

After that prayer, we thought we’d give birth to an athletic superstar. I imagined soccer practices and track meets far into my future life as a mom.

God, however, rarely fits into the boxes we create for Him.

As she grew older, we realized that she was no sports prodigy.  Yet we’ve discovered many ways that she’s different from us—how she’s such a people person and how she spends hours on art projects and how she loves to be fancy.

Still, there’s one way God answered our prayer that I absolutely can’t miss.

God gave my daughter the heart of a dancer.

We don’t understand this.  I never in a million years expected to be a ballet mom.

My husband and I didn’t even slow dance at our own wedding, not because of some super-spiritual anti-dance philosophy.  It’s because we . . . . can’t. . . . dance.  At all.

Victoria, however, puts on a ballet performance at outdoor concerts along the beach and to the soundtrack of every movie we watch in our home.

She also dances at church.

That, my friends, is the rub.  The first time she pointed her toe and began stepping out of her pew to dance to the worship music at church, my palms grew sweaty with nervousness, which is kind of a problem when you’re the church pianist.

I know what Scripture says.

Let them praise his name with dancing,
making melody to him with tambourine and lyre!  Psalm 149:3

 Praise him with tambourine and dance;
praise him with strings and pipe!  Psalm 150:4

Still, while I agree that dancing is part of the Biblical description of worship, I wasn’t sure at first how I felt about my daughter being the dancer.

After all, this isn’t just a gentle swaying to the music.  She throws her head and her arms back and swirls, twirls, and pirouettes.  It’s total abandon and absolute passion.  She’s not ashamed or afraid to dance for God.

When we arrived home after her first praise dancing session, I chatted with her about it.  I hinted that it might be better to stand still and try to sing the songs, just like everybody else.

She stared at me for a moment.  Then she announced:

“The Bible says we should dance for God.
I’m dancing to make Him happy and Jesus likes it.
I think it makes Him smile when I dance.”

Alrighty then!

After being put in my place and given a Bible lesson by my five-year-old daughter, I really didn’t have anything else to say.

Most of the time, after all, silence is the only appropriate response to unmistakable truth.

This is difficult for me because I’m an excuse maker and a justifier.  If you tell me I shouldn’t have done that, I’ll give you 20 reasons why it was necessary.  I feel the need to explain myself all the time.

It’s the people-pleaser in me, hoping to convince others through my combative defensiveness that I was right, even when I was wrong.  Because I don’t want to be wrong, not ever.  I don’t want to mess up, not at any time.

Life would be so much easier for me if I was just perfect.

When God speaks truth to us, our response shouldn’t be excuses and explanations.  It should be the humble bowing of the head and the submissive silence of repentance.  Because we’re not perfect, not any of us.

Even the Pharisees knew that arguing with Jesus was impossible.  When He challenged them on issues of healing, the Sabbath, resurrection, and faith, “they were silent” (Mark 3:4, Luke 14:4).

Later on in the early church, Peter presented his case in favor of Gentile believers to the Jerusalem church elders.  When he finished reminding them of Scripture, his own personal testimony, and the evidence of faith they’d seen as Christianity spread, “they fell silent.  And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:18, ESV).

Then there’s Job.  For forty chapters, Job and his friends had debated about God, discussed, dialogued, and orated.  They had yapped and yapped.

Then God showed up.  He finally decided to speak up for Himself.  Job “answered the Lord and said: ‘Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer You?  I lay my hand on my mouth.  I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further” (Job 40:3-5, ESV). 

The truth stings sometimes, I know it.  It requires that we admit mistakes and demands we take the often difficult steps to change.

But He’s a gracious and merciful God, who only speaks truth to us because He loves us.  So, instead of arguing with Him, let’s choose to place our hands over our mouths and bow our heads in silent obedience. Like Samuel, we say, “Speak, for your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3:10, NIV).

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

You Want Me To Pray What?

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It was my baby’s first articulate prayer request for someone else.

During our nightly family prayer time, she usually doesn’t wait her turn. Whenever the Spirit moves, she just jumps in and starts talking to God, even if someone else is still pouring her heart out.

But that night, she waited for others to finish.  My daughters and I were snuggled up on the couch with our eyes closed while my husband was out for the night at rehearsal.  When my older daughters and I finished praying, we hopped up and headed to their bedroom.

She stopped us.

Holding up her little hands with two Band-Aids on her fingers, my baby girl prayed, “My fingers hurt.  Daddy come home.  Amen.”

Amen.

That night, my two-year-old took the first powerful step in an effective prayer life.  Yes, she prayed for her own little need, her two little scraped fingers that had been on her mind all afternoon.

Maybe she also wanted to show off her Mickey Mouse Band-Aids so God could see them.

But then she prayed on behalf of another—could her Daddy please come home safely and soon?

I’ve written in this space so many times that there is power in the time we spend on our knees for each other.

Yet, I’m still not sure if we truly realize the impact, the great spiritual weaponry that is ours when we intercede for those around us.

It is humbling.  We say, “God, I’m overwhelmed here, but I’m not the only one.  She’s hurting also, so I choose to petition You on her behalf.”

It is faith.  We say, “God, I’m going to trust my problems into Your care.  I’ve made my request.  I believe You’re going to take care of me, so I don’t need to focus only on myself.  Instead, I’m going to turn my gaze outward and lift others up.”

It is forgiving.

Wait, forgiving?  What does that have to do with anything?

Prayer for others is forgiving when we actually do what Jesus said—pray for our enemies, “pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).

I urge you to pause and consider this for more than the half second it took you to read that verse.  I never in my life realized the power of Jesus’ revolutionary call to intercession for our enemies until this year.

And it’s life-changing, I tell you.

In the past, when I was struggling with conflict, I would “pray for my enemy” with something that sounded like this:

Lord, why is he so blind?  Can’t he see that he’s in sin?  Please open his eyes and let Him know that You are God and You don’t tolerate disobedience.  Change his heart, God, and let Your Holy Spirit be heavy on him until he repents.

That seemed to qualify as praying for those who persecuted me.  Let me just check that super-spiritual box.

But Jesus’ prayer on behalf of his enemies didn’t sound anything like mine.  He asked, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

I prayed for condemnation and Holy Spirit judgement on people who annoyed me.

Christ prayed for the blessing of forgiveness for those standing at the foot of his cross, jeering at him and waiting for him to die.

In the same way, Stephen, the first Christian martyr, prayed, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” just as the final stones pelted his body and killed him (Acts 7:59).

Have you considered who Stephen was praying for in that moment?  One of the men standing by the coat rack cheering on the crowd was Saul—later the apostle Paul.

Stephen asked for God to forgive his persecutors and shortly afterward this same Saul sat on a roadside blinded by Jesus Christ himself, experiencing repentance and conversion.

Satan fully intends to tangle us up in bitterness and jealousy.  He wants to defeat our ministry and make us thoroughly unusable because we’re so riled up and distracted by dissension and arguments.

He just doesn’t know what to do when we pray shockingly humble prayers on behalf of others, particularly our enemies.  There’s power there.

There’s also blessing.

After Job’s long ordeal ended . . .his children dead  . . . his servants killed . . . his animals gone and his property destroyed . . . his own body covered in painful disease . . . .after all that, God spoke to Job and hushed the mouths of the “friends” who had spewed religious rhetoric and condemnation while Job sat next to them in pain.

In Sunday School class, you probably learned that God blessed Job even more than before.  Yet, the blessing wasn’t immediate.  Something had to happen first.

Scripture tells us, “After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10).

Job prayed for his so-called friends and then God blessed Job.

I’ve taken this to heart and I won’t lie to you: it is difficult, downright hard, and sometimes truly agonizing.

There are times when my blessings don’t sound like blessings.  The words I’m saying are right, but I’m forcing them out between clenched teeth.

Sometimes I need to start simple.

When I am jealous and full of envy . . .
When someone steps on my toes and hurts my feelings . . .
When someone does something I think is sinful and hurtful . . .
When a driver in the Wal-Mart parking lot drives me totally insane . . .

Then I pray for them—for blessing, for forgiveness, for their future.

I may never see the impact on their lives, but I see it in mine instantly.  God changes my heart as I humble myself, trust Him, and forgive.

You can read more devotionals on this topic here:

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

Giveaway!!! and A Broken Lens

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First, A Giveaway!!!

I’m celebrating this Friday because we are just about to reach 150 posts on this devotional blog!  So, I thought I’d bring a gift for you to this little party of ours by hosting a giveaway.

Go ahead and get excited.  Jump around a bit if you like!

On Monday, 10/17/2011, I’ll announce the winner who will get some real goodies—the CD Beautiful Things by Gungor and your choice of either the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp or What Women Fear by Angie Smith.  I’m sure you’ll love these!

How do you win?  That’s a cinch!  You get one entry for each of these things:

  1. Become a follower of the blog by typing your email address into the blog home page.  Then post a comment to me on this page saying, “I’m following the blog!”
  2. Comment on this post or the Weekend Post on 10/15/2011 with any thought you’d like to share.
  3. Share this post on Facebook and then leave me a comment on this page telling me about it.

That’s all it takes!  If you do all three, that’s three chances to win!

If you have any questions, you can email me: heatherking@cox.net and I’ll be happy to help you out.

And now on to today’s devotional . . . .

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“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).

When my daughters are excited, they jump.

Ice cream!
Jump, jump, jump.

Playdate!
Jump, jump, jump.

Trip to the aquarium!
More jumping.

A blog giveaway!
Triple jumping . . . . Okay, that’s me, not them.  Just couldn’t help myself!

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 top of 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, 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 sees beauty in the broken.

We can remember that God breathed life into dust.

In their song, Beautiful Things, the band Gungor sings:

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You

It’s a reminder that 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). That means in any situation, we can have full confidence in our faithful Creator.  We can trust and have hope because He can make beautiful things out of dust.

We can remember 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, remember the power of hope.

Naomi Zacharias in her book The Scent of Water writes:

“The promise is that at even the scent of water, our roots, like that of a tree, will awaken and extend themselves—at the very hint of refreshment and sustenance.  Ah, the perfume of hope that breathes life into the weary and wounded” (p. 168).

You may see fruitless death, but allow hope to refocus your lens.  This will not last forever.  God promises to be with you.  He will work for your benefit and for His glory.

We can remember 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 would take 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).

Lisa Whittle in her book, {W}hole, tells us “It is the goodness of God to bring forth life from deadness . . . restoration from brokenness  . . . growth from grace-filled rain” (p. 113).

So, when we pray for the “rain, rain to go away,” we miss God’s perspective.  Instead we can refocus by praising Him for the downpour that will bring new life and the rain sent by 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.

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.

The song Beautiful Things by Gungor blesses me continually!  You can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR7VOKQ0xJY&feature=youtu.be

Or by clicking on the video below:

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King

Much More Than We Deserve

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For those reading Lisa Harper’s book, Stumbling Into Grace, along with my small group, today’s devotional will match up with her fifth chapter: “Cat Appreciation Day”

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“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.”
Luke 1:46

The Christmas lists have begun in our house.  My kids spot fairy costumes and toys, games, and crafts at Wal-Mart and suddenly they’re pleading and begging.  My response is nearly automated, “Maybe that’s a good thing to request for Christmas!”

My kids know they’ll have presents under the Christmas tree this year because we love them and we enjoy giving them good gifts. Unlike Santa’s treats, our gift-giving doesn’t depend on whether they accumulated enough nice points and avoided the naughty list.  The gifts we give them are gifts of grace.

Just like God does for us.

It’s so easy for us to blur the lines between grace and works.  It’s easy to slowly forget just how incredible this unreasonable and abundant grace of God’s really is and to start drifting ever so slowly into working, doing, serving, and earning God’s affection and blessing.

Not that there aren’t consequences for behavior.  Sometimes we lose out on God’s best for us simply because we didn’t follow His commands in the first place.

But sometimes blessing is more than just avoiding the pitfalls of bad choices. Sometimes God chooses to rain down good gifts on His children simply because He loves them.

There are times, though, when we’re searching, searching, searching the sky for any sign of showers of blessing.  Maybe we’re even toting an umbrella around in hopes for a drop of grace or two.  But we feel overlooked instead.

Worse yet, sometimes it looks like others are receiving so much.  And then the jealousy kicks in because we’re too busy watching the weather patterns in other people’s yards.

Jeremiah felt the same way when he asked, “Why does the way of the wicked prosper?” (Jeremiah 12:1).  Job asked, “Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?” (Job 21:7).  The Psalmist wrote, “How long, LORD, will the wicked, how long will the wicked be jubilant? (Psalm 94:3).

This was probably Hannah’s struggle on a daily basis.  Her husband loved her, but it was his second wife, Peninnah, who had all the babies.  While Hannah prayed continually for a son, she remained childless.

It just didn’t make sense.  Hannah was a righteous woman.  She prayed faithfully and worshiped God.  All this while Peninnah purposely “provoked her severely, to make her miserable” (1 Samuel 1:6).

Well, that just doesn’t seem right and certainly doesn’t seem fair—does it?

And it’s true.  We don’t always understand the whys and wherefores of when God blesses, who God blesses, how He blesses and why.

In Psalm 37, though, David tells us, “Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither away, like green plants they will soon die away. Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture” (Psalm 37:1-2).

In other words, don’t spend time worrying about others. You just worry about you.  Trust in God.  Obey what He tells you.  He’ll take care of what you need.

God did finally give Hannah the desire of her heart.  Maybe it was because of her persistent prayer or the pain that she poured out on the altar before Him.  Maybe it was because she vowed not to keep the blessing for herself, but instead to turn over the promised son to the service of the Lord.

Or maybe, as she says herself, it was because “by strength no man shall prevail” (1 Samuel 2:9).

You see, Hannah was humble.  She knew that any blessing she received from God was just that—a blessing, a gift, not something she deserved because she prayed hard and long enough or went to church often enough. 

“For by strength no man shall prevail,” she said.  That means it’s never because of our strength, effort, or ability that we get anything.

It’s always because of His grace.

In her prayer, she reminds us of the same principle expressed in 1 Peter 5:5-6: “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”

Hannah says, “The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up.  The Lord makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lifts up.  He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the beggar from the ash heap, to set them among princes and make them inherit the throne of glory” (1 Samuel 2:6-8).

Mary had this exact reaction when Gabriel told her that she was chosen by God to be the mother of the long-awaited Messiah!  It was the greatest honor any woman could receive, but she knew it wasn’t about her.  It was about Him.

She sang:

“My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
   of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
   from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
 he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
   but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
   but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
just as he promised our ancestors” (Luke 1:46-55).

Sometimes we begin to feel that we deserve God’s grace, that we’ve earned good gifts from Him or have merited His favor. It’s the sneaking influence of spiritual pride and deep down we begin to think God owes us something.

But Hannah and Mary remind us that God loves a humble heart.  He enjoys blessing those who receive His gifts with true gratitude and who respond with praise, thanking Him for His mercy, for His grace, and for giving us much more than we deserve.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King

Seeing is Believing

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I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You”
Job 42:4, NASB

Some things you have to see to believe.

I had heard a few mentions about pajama jeans from friends, but then I saw the commercial myself for this “hot new fashion sensation.”  They “look like designer jeans, but are so comfortable, you’ll want to sleep in them!” Wow!  They really exist!  It’s not that I thought my friends were making them up before.  They are trustworthy people and if they said jeans existed that were really pajama pants, I knew they were telling the truth.  Yet, until I saw the pictures with my own eyes, I had no way of envisioning how this fashion enigma looked in actuality.  I had no personal understanding or experience.

Isn’t it the same in our relationship with God?  We hear about Him, we talk about Him, we read about Him, we listen to other people postulate about Him.  In groups, we listen to people talk about hearing from God as if it’s no big deal; it just happens all the time.  We perhaps nod our head knowingly and privately wonder what that’s like.  What does His voice sound like?  How do you know what God is saying?

In some cases, knowing God is twisted and deformed into knowing about God.  In essence, our walk with Him becomes an academic exercise rather than a personal relationship. Job and his friends participated in just such a round-table discussion.  There Job sat in the sackcloth and ashes of mourning, devastated by the loss of his children, his wealth, and his personal health, and his friends stood around him philosophizing and debating.  “God would do this.  He wouldn’t do that.”  So many opinions about how God works and what kind of box you can put God into.  For 33 chapters in this book, they talk, talk, and talk some more about God.

We sometimes think we know a lot about God, but then we have the opportunity to see Him for ourselves, to experience Him in a way that is real and personal.  It’s our moment to believe Him—not just believe in Him and believe that He exists.  No, truly believe Him.  Believe what He says.  Believe in His promises to us.  Believe His character—that He loves us, that He’s mighty, that He’s kind.  It’s a seeing that only comes through experiencing.

Job met God in just such a way. Ultimately, God ended the theological debate between Job and his friends “and now, finally, God answered Job from the eye of a violent storm.  He said: ‘Why do you confuse the issue?   Why do you talk without knowing what you’re talking about?'” (Job 38:1, MSG).  Why all of this intellectual discussion when you actually know so little about me?   Then Job answered the LORD and said,”I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted . . . I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You” (Job 42:2, 4).  Priscilla Shirer in One in a Million paraphrases this as, “Now I know you by experience.”

The Apostle Paul, himself no stranger to hardship, wrote to the Corinthian church:  “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed . . . All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:8, 15, NIV). A pastor at a recent conference I attended broke this down:  All of the trials and difficulties and dark days lead us to understand God’s grace.   That helps more and more people know God and so we give thanks and give God the glory.

My personal “experience” with pajama jeans didn’t involve any cost or discomfort.  It was a safe and painless exposure.  Yet, sometimes with God, He takes us through the difficult times and the seasons of loss and hurt until finally, like Job, we haven’t just heard other people talk about God, but we’ve seen Him ourselves.  We now know the sound of His voice because His Word has become real to us, present, active and alive as a result of our desperate searching for Him in the midst of difficult days.  It’s all for our benefit, so we can experience His grace, know His voice, see His hand—all with our own eyes.  And then we believe.  And others believe because they are watching us.  And God is glorified.  And that is enough.

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Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King

Shelter in the Storm, Part II

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“Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind” (Job 38:1, NASB)

With my husband’s Saturday chores and projects for the day finished, I spotted my opportunity.  I could leave my home and run errands by myself.  Yes, that meant no children along for the ride or little people to shuttle in and out of stores.  No behavior to monitor or lectures to be given.  No looking at products we don’t need costing money I don’t have and saying  “no” to children who declare they need them.  No driving in the car and reaching over to turn the music down or off every 30 seconds so I could answer a question or solve a sibling dispute.

I could feel the tension in me, in my voice, in my reactions, in the speed at which I was cleaning the house and grumbling (Didn’t I just clean this?  How many times do I put these things away every day?  Why are there shoes on the floor again and why are they in the middle of the floor? Who walks 4 feet into a room and then decides to take their shoes off?).  A birthday party had brought new, exciting, wonderful gifts into our home, gifts that were now being played with all over the floor that I had just cleared of toys the night before.

It had been too long since I had left my home by myself.  And so, off I went, list in hand showing what I needed to accomplish.  I went to the first store, used my coupon, bought my necessary items, checked it off my list.  So far, so good.  A little overcast, a slight misting in the air, the wind blowing my hair in my eyes periodically, but nothing too troubling.

Back in my car, I flicked on the radio to my favorite classical music station.  Sometimes without children along, I enjoy music without words.  Expecting Bach, I heard instead hillbilly rock ( I think).  Whatever it was, it was thoroughly un-relaxing.  Confused, I scanned through the stations.  My music had disappeared and been replaced with what the DJ announced was the “best music in the universe.”  I was doubtful.  I was also now whining and fretting.  What happened to my radio station?  Was it an interruption caused by the stormy weather on the way or was this a long-term travesty not just ruining my day, but ruining my future, as well?

On I drove.  My spirit rumbling, grumbling, complaining and whining now.  I spotted a McDonald’s and was inspired.  A large sweet tea for $1 would certainly improve my day and so I ordered and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Twelve minutes later, they had finally served the person in front of me and I pulled up to the window where a cheerfully apologetic woman handed me the drink that took all of 10 seconds to fix and said, “Sorry for your wait.”  I smiled weakly and drove away.

The rumbling in my spirit grew.  My wonderful, precious, much-anticipated time out was not refreshing or relaxing or productive.  It was ruined by inconvenience and disappointment and impatience.

The sky seemed darker now than before.  On the radio, the DJ for the mystery music station announced that in Virginia they were calling for severe thunderstorms, hail and maybe tornadoes.  She didn’t say when any of this might happen.  She didn’t even tell me where in Virginia this might occur.  So, this new radio station has yucky music and unhelpful DJ’s.  Just great.

I whined some more.

And then I felt it, a heaviness on my heart, a deep impression that I could not shake—-it was not okay for me to drive across the bridge and finish my errands across the river.  I needed to stay in my tiny town, do what I could here and go home.  I grumbled to God that this was my only opportunity to complete these errands unaccompanied, that my upcoming weekly calendar was covered from edge-to-edge with things I needed to do and places I needed to be.  If I didn’t go now, I wouldn’t get to go all week.  I wanted to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it.

I complained.  The sky was deep gray now.  Turning my car around, I drove away from the bridge and finished the errands I could do in town–obeying, but not cheerfully obeying.

Arriving home, I fixed dinner and watched my daughters play with my husband.  The power flickered off and on.  It rained.

Then, the news came in, pictures, videos, Facebook posts, phone calls to see if we were okay.   A tornado had touched down just miles away, hitting the connecting road to our street.  The middle school had an entire wing destroyed.  Frames of homes had been lifted up and mangled around trees.  Our hospital’s emergency room was crowded to overflowing and people were sent across the river for care.  People were missing, a few dead.  The only hotel in town filled up with families now homeless.

The book of Job describes a man battling his own life-storm–the death of his children and servants, the loss of his livestock and livelihood, and the personal pain of boils on his skin. For almost the entire book, Job and his “friends” talk and talk and talk some more about God.  And then God shows up in person: “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind” (Job 38:1, NASB).  God spoke to Job through the tornado—perhaps knowing that was the only to make these “talking heads” be quiet.  Sometimes God needs to use a raging storm to get our attention and to stop our incessant personal noise and natural bent toward self-centeredness.

After God spoke, Job did the wisest thing a man could do.  He said, “I am unworthy—how can I reply to you?  I put my hand over my mouth” (Job 40:4, NIV).  And that is what I did in the aftermath of the storm.  I stood silent.  Hadn’t I just whined because my radio station was missing, because I had to wait for a drink, because I didn’t get to go where I wanted to go, and yet just miles away a family now had no home?  Sometimes it takes a whirlwind to put things into perspective, to remind me once again that inconvenience from without and impatience from within have too much power over the attitudes of my heart. 

It’s a matter of my misplaced focus.  At times, I begin to look only at me, me, me and the things I want and need, and Jesus Christ is no longer the center of my life.  Selfishness is at the heart of my whining and complaining about minor annoyances and trivialities.

C.S. Lewis wrote: “From the moment a creature becomes aware of God as God and of itself as self, the terrible alternative of choosing God or self for the center is opened to it.”

It’s a discipline of choosing God over self that takes effort and vigilance.  So, daily we must choose to place and replace Christ at the center of our lives, letting Him have full reign over our circumstances and our heart’s responses to them.

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Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King

Secret Sins

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“You have set our iniquities before you; our secret sins in the light of your presence”
(Psalm 90:8).

If you’re ever a guest in my home, there’s one important bit of information you need to know—-don’t look in any of my closets.  For the first five years we were married, we moved five times.  That meant I was forced into drastic organizing and purging every year.  After three years in our current home with two children under two, though, I started feeling overwhelmed by disorganization.  I couldn’t figure out what the problem was.  Then, I realized–not moving plus young children plus me working more and more hours equaled messy closets.  It was simple math.

My home is never spotless now, but it does have its moments of looking generally clean, usually after the girls have gone to bed or before they wake up in the morning.  Still, no matter how clean it looks to a visitor, behind the closet doors lurks mess.

I’m essentially no different.  Generally, I’m pretty “clean” looking.  To most people, it probably looks as if I have my life in order and, by God’s tremendous grace, I’m not struggling with the big, public, noticeable sins.

It’s in the hidden closets of my heart that you can find the sins, all jumbled together and in disorder from lack of purging.   These are the deep down sins like jealousy, pride, anger, coveting,  impatience, and impure motives.  They are the things that I really haven’t needed to clean out before.  I thought that as long as they were truly private–just between God and me—I didn’t need to deal with them.  I could just pretend they didn’t exist and act as if my heart was as clean as the exterior of me looked.

In her book, Me, Myself and Lies, Jennifer Rothschild says, “I slip into cleaning the outside of my cup and neglecting the inside.”  She’s comparing herself to a Pharisee.  It’s a comparison that most of us wouldn’t generally be honest enough to make.

Yet, Jesus said:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

Sometimes I want God just to shove my sins into closets rather than allowing Him to do the deep cleaning and purging necessary in my life.  This deprives me of true freedom, of authenticity, of pureness of heart, and of greater intimacy with Him.  It makes me an unusable cup and a whitewashed tomb, no better than a Pharisee.

God desires more than a superficial relationship with us, though, so He’s constantly using circumstances and other people to bring these secret sins to the surface so that He can cleanse us completely.

King David told his son Solomon that “the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts” (1 Chronicles 28:9).   In his Psalm, Moses wrote, “You have set our iniquities before you; our secret sins in the light of your presence” (Psalm 90:8).  God always knows our motivations and the condition of our heart.

Sometimes I’m embarrassed and ashamed to come before Him because He knows the ugliest parts of my soul. That’s one of the amazing things about God, though—-He sees us fully and loves us completely.  Chris Tomlin sings about this in Indescribable: “You see the depths of my heart and You love me the same.” To me, that’s just as miraculous as His creation of the universe.

This process of cleaning out the hidden places of our heart is painful and hard at times.  It means being vulnerable enough to let God bring sin to the surface.  It involves confession and repentance, and not allowing those thoughts and motives to find their way back in again.  It requires us to put aside the facade of perfection and deal with the fact that we’re sinners.

Still, the pain serves a purpose.  Job 5:18 says, “He wounds, but He also binds up; He injures, but His hands also heal.” God doesn’t leave us hurting and injured. It’s only when we allow Him to clean out the source of infection–our deep sins—that our broken hearts can heal.  It’s only when He has purged our secret sins that we are free.  As Jennifer Rothschild writes: “Oh the freedom authenticity brings!”

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Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King