2011

September 17, 20111 Comment

Hiding the Word:

In my personal devotionals this week, I read Psalm 23—“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.”

The danger of familiarity is complacency. We become insensitive to the wonder of Scriptures that we hear and read all the time.

But I was struck anew by this powerful thought in this oft-quoted verse—“I shall not want,” not because I have a shepherd. No, it’s because of who my Shepherd is—The Lord. I have the best, most compassionate and capable Shepherd of all. It is because of His character that I never need to fear or worry or fret over provision and safety.

In her book, Stumbling Into Grace, Lisa Harper talks about Luke 12:22-32, where Jesus instructs us not to worry about what we’ll eat or wear because He takes care of the birds and the lilies of the field. He loves us ever so much more than them and will care for our every need, as well.

At the end of that passage, Jesus says,

But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.
Luke 12:31-32

Lisa Harper notes that Luke’s “use of the term little flock in verse 32 is so unique that this is the only place it can be found in the entire Bible” (p. 10).

Once again, it is the fact that we are such beloved sheep of such a Good Shepherd that calms my heart and gives me peace when I am afraid. And so, this is the verse I have chosen to meditate on this week. I’ll write it on index cards, post it around my house, and remind myself all week long of how much my Shepherd loves me.

For more thoughts on the way we sheep can trust in our Shepherd, please check out my article: Living the Sheep’s Life: Choosing Grace Over the Law.

What verse are you meditating on this week?

Book Review:

Waiting on God and being persistent in prayer—not the two easiest disciplines of the Christian walk. But, John I. Snyder addresses both in his book: Your 100 Day Prayer: The Transforming Power of Actively Waiting on God. Each day’s entry begins with a verse and thoughtful devotional and concludes with an opportunity to pray. The goal is to take a specific prayer request to God every day for 100 days.

Snyder’s book not only gives you verses and prayer prompts, but his daily devotionals are well-thought out and challenging. This is more than a fluffy feel-good devotional. Instead, it is an impassioned look at God’s character and what it means to pray with persistence. He deals with difficult topics, such as “When God Says No” and “The Silent Heaven,” with insight and wisdom.

The author himself says, “This sustained, stubborn, never-give-up spirit of prayer is not so much to persuade God to give us what we want, but rather to transform us in the process.” His book could help transform and enliven your prayer life, as well as spur you on to greater spiritual maturity as you engage in the daily disciplines of Bible reading and meditation, prayer and journaling.

I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

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.

Learning the Ways of the Ninja

September 16, 2011September 16, 2011Leave a comment

For those reading Lisa Harper’s book, Stumbling Into Grace, along with my small group, today’s devotional will match up with her first chapter: “Ewe Scared?” I hope you are enjoying the start of the book!

“‘This is what the LORD says: ‘Do not be afraid’”
(2 Kings 19:6).

I am in training to be a ninja.

Even while driving, I can instantly stretch out my hand as quickly as a frog’s tongue and grab a mosquito out of the air.

There are splatter marks on my car door from where I have slammed my palm down on the pests who foolishly chose to land within my reach.

For those bugs who play it safe and land an inch or two farther away, I have a rolled up newspaper on the seat next to me. I am a prepared ninja.

During the first few days of school, fears of missing the bus and uncontainable excitement lured us outside not five minutes before the bus came, but ten, even twelve. There we stood, open to attack from the swarms of mosquitoes in my front yard.

I’m pretty certain I heard them sending messages to each other, “This family is out here every morning and every afternoon—just standing there in short sleeves and shorts with lots of skin to bite and blood to suck. Come over for breakfast and an early dinner.”

I have become a wise ninja. Now, we stand at the front door until the last possible minute and dash out to the bus just in time. The girls are off to school and we’re back inside before the mosquitoes know we’ve even been there.

I have practiced with the weaponry of the ninja. After two days of discovering red bites on my kids’ arms, legs, feet, necks and even faces, I pulled out the bug spray. We spritzed every inch of revealed skin.

But still I did not let my defenses down because mosquitoes are not always defeated by one weapon alone. One second after finishing the spray-coating of mosquito repellant on my two-year-old, a daring and bold bug landed on her leg. He mocked me as I stood there with my bug spray still in my hand.

I squished him.

In this all-out battle against mosquitoes, I am growing wiser and more capable by the day.

I hope I can say the same in my battle against the Enemy and the greatest weapon he uses against me — Fear.

Maybe you’re afraid sometimes, too. It’s not a God-thing “for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). If we’re afraid it’s because Satan pushes fear on us. We must learn to recognize his tactics so that we can defeat the swarm of worry and anxiety he sends our way daily.

King Hezekiah faced an enemy who used fear tactics also. The king of Assyria had sent his greatest military big-shots with a large army to surround Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:17).

He had one goal—make the King of Judah so afraid that he’d surrender, just give up and hand over the keys to the holy city of God.

This was an enemy swarm if ever there was one.

The Assyrian field commander asked King Hezekiah’s messengers, “On what are you basing this confidence of yours? . . .On whom are you depending, that you rebel against me?” (2 Kings 18:19-20).

Isn’t this one of Satan’s favorite attack methods? He belittles our faith in God. He reminds us over and over of the impossible circumstances we face and ridicules our confidence that God can save us against all odds.

But our confidence in God is never mis-placed. Our faith in the midst of impossibilities may seem foolhardy to our enemy, but our God is faithful to deliver us. We have hope because of our God’s character–His might and power; His incredible mercy.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote,

This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. “ The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “ Therefore I hope in Him!” (Lamentations 3:20-24).

So we must become vigilant warriors against the barbs of fear that Satan sends against us. The times when we look at our reality and think, “Even God can’t help me. It’s impossible.” The moments when we feel overwhelmed by our circumstances and Satan says, “just give up; it’d be so much easier.”

Satan sometimes makes the road to defeat seem more acceptable with minor compromises that lure us into giving up altogether. In the same way, the enemy commander suggested to Hezekiah, “Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria” (2 Kings 18:23).

When we allow fear to take hold, we give in. We wave the white flag, accept whatever deal Satan is offering, and then run as fast as we can off the battlefield.

But Hezekiah ran to God instead.

He took the letter with the words from the enemy, carried it into the temple and “spread it out before the Lord” (2 Kings 19:14). Then He prayed. He declared God’s might. He denounced the enemy. He explained the problem that he faced. He begged God to “give ear, Lord, and hear; open your eyes, Lord, and see.”

Then Hezekiah made the greatest request of all: ^“Now, LORD our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, LORD, are God” (2 Kings 19:19).

Take what you are facing and spread it out on the altar before God. Tell Him all that you are afraid of and make a bold request—ask Him to be glorified in this circumstance. “Be awesome, be powerful, be mighty, be miraculous—do whatever it takes, Lord, to be glorified in this situation.”

The prophet Isaiah sent this message to King Hezekiah, “‘This is what the LORD says: ‘Do not be afraid'” (2 Kings 19:6).

Then God, in a complete and utter miracle, defeated the Assyrian army and sent them back to their homeland. And God was glorified!!

Don’t give in to fear, my friend. Don’t give up and miss out on God’s glory. Take it to the Lord and trust in Him to deliver you.

Online Bible Study: Week Eight (Chapter 15)

August 22, 20117 Comments

Ladies, we have made it to the end of our study of Priscilla Shirer’s Discerning the Voice of God and I’m so thankful for the chance to walk with you for this summer. I urge you to take the time to comment to this post some time this week and talk about your overarching thoughts of this book or study and what God has been doing in your heart and mind these last few weeks.

For those of you catching up, these pages will remain open and available for you to go back and comment as you read each section. We don’t want to miss what you have to say.

My small group will be starting a new book in September called Stumbling Into Grace: Confessions of a Spiritually Clumsy Woman by Lisa Harper. In it, she discusses topics like fear, forgiveness, the importance of community, resting, being less critical and yet more honest, contentment and dependence on God.

I won’t be formalizing that into an official Online Bible Study format, but I will be following along the topics of the book with posts of my own here in this space. So, I hope if you can’t join in my small group, you can grab a copy of the book wherever you are and read along with us. I think you’ll enjoy it!

And, for those of you going to Women of Faith this coming weekend, you’ll get to see Lisa Harper on stage at the Verizon Center in Washington, DC! I can’t wait!

My Thoughts

We have a well problem at my house.

Also a but problem. And yes, I spelled that right.

I say, “Girls, it’s time to clean up. Victoria, you put away the dolls. Lauren, you put away the books.”

And I hear:

“Well . . . she was the last one playing with them so she has to clean it up.

“But playing with that wasn’t my idea; it was hers.”
“Well . . . this is too much for me to clean up all by myself!”

“But I’m not ready to stop playing. I want to play some more later.”

It’s a well and but problem if ever I’ve heard one.

I’ll admit it. God could likely say the same about me. Maybe about you also? God speaks to my heart through His Word, through others, through the heavy urging and impression of the Holy Spirit and I say:

“But, I don’t want to stop doing this. I’ve been doing it for years. I enjoy it. I’m good at it. I’m used to it. I’m comfortable and (this is the ringer), who else is going to do it if I stop?”

or

“Well . . . you may want me to do that, but I’m scared and I don’t know how it’s all going to work out. I’m not experienced enough. I don’t see how doing this is going to matter in the long run. What if I fail and mess it up? What if I heard You wrong and I wasn’t supposed to do it after all?”

We say we want to hear the voice of God. We long to know what He sounds like and desire spiritual discernment.

That’s what we say. Yet sometimes we’re desperately pleading from God to hear His voice and then when He speaks, we argue with Him. So, perhaps this waiting time, this sitting silent before a currently silent God, is more about our willingness to obey than our ability to hear.

Maybe He’s not speaking because He knows we’re not ready to obey. Maybe He’s waiting for our hearts to stop “well-ing” and “but-ing” and instead say to Him, “I will hasten and not delay to obey your commands” (Psalm 119:60).

Like Abraham, we should obey “immediately,” “the very same day,” and “early the next morning” (Genesis 15:10, 17:23, 22:3).

Are you an early riser when it comes to obeying God’s voice? Or are you more of a lingerer, a wait until it’s comfortable and makes sense, wait until the provision comes, wait until You can’t bear the heaviness of the Spirit any longer kind of child?

Choose to obey in advance of the command. Set your heart on obedience. It is the most precious worship to our God, more precious than any sacrifice you could lay at His feet. “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22).

Chapter Outline:

Chapter Fifteen: The Obedient Response

On p. 174, she notes that “God does not speak simply to be heard. He speaks to be obeyed.” She goes on to say that if we’re not willing to commit to obedience, He may very well choose not to speak to us.
She notes that people who always have an “escape plan” are called “double-minded” in James 4:8. On p. 177, she encourages you to check your heart for double-mindedness if you aren’t hearing from God.

Your Thoughts:

Do you have an example of a time you obeyed God even when it didn’t make sense or seemed silly or confusing, and He rewarded your obedience?
How quickly do you tend to obey God’s voice? Has a delay in obedience ever been costly for you?
Do you have any quotes, verses or passages that were your favorite in the conclusion of the book?
Have you changed anything in your spiritual walk as a result of this study?
What’s the most important concept or thought that you’ll take away from this book?

Weekend Walk, 08/06/2011

August 6, 2011August 6, 20112 Comments

Hiding the Word:

Last week, I started the first half of a set of verses from Psalm 145 and they were a blessing to me. There were days when it was hard to trust that God would truly keep His promises, and yet Psalm 145:13 says :”The LORD is trustworthy in all he promises
and faithful in all he does.^“

On days that I felt as if I had tripped and fallen or that the weight of stressors and annoyances and my own faults had pushed me hard to the ground, I recalled Psalm 145:14: “The LORD upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.”

And in those moments when I calculated bank balance versus upcoming expenses, I remembered Psalm 145:15-16: “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.”

This was a powerful set of verses for me. So, on to the second half for this week:

The LORD is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all he does.
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them.
Psalm 145:17-19

Those are the verses that will be posted up on my stove and bathroom and in my journal for me to meditate on and memorize throughout the week ahead.

What verse(s) will you be learning? Please share!

Weekend Rerun:
How He Loves Us, originally published 02/17/2011

If you ever see me driving down the road in my minivan and I’m clearly singing my heart out and maybe even have one hand up in the air (the other hand obviously on the wheel), I’m going to tell you right now what I’m doing because it could only be one thing. I’m singing How He Loves with David Crowder, probably for the fifth time in a row off my iPod. (I know this song was originally by John Mark McMillan, but I’m a huge David Crowder fan, so I’m biased to his version.)

Anyway, if you haven’t heard this song, feel free to stop reading for a moment and give it a listen here. Go ahead, give it a listen. I am going to stop writing and listen to it again, too.

Now, don’t you love that song? It’s just not possible for me to write about God’s love without the song How He Loves playing through my thoughts.

I love the reminder in this song of the powerful simplicity in this truth: He loves us. Sometimes I need to hear that over and over and be reminded of the magnitude and weight of His love. It’s especially true when my circumstances are difficult and I feel like I’m sinking. As the song reminds me, “If His grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking”—-not drowning in our circumstances, but enveloped by His grace.

When I take the time to truly meditate on God’s amazing love for me, I am changed. My focus is shifted off of my failures or fears or what-ifs and fixed instead on His love. Again, as the song says, “I don’t have time to maintain these regrets, when I think about the way that He loves us.” It’s pretty difficult to meditate on God’s great love and be afraid or paralyzed by our past mistakes at the same time.

I wonder how my everyday life would change if I walked around fully aware of God’s love all the time. All my self-condemnation would cease. My worries would end because I’d know God loves me enough to care for me and not to abandon me. I would love others more unconditionally because of the grace I myself have received. I wouldn’t question God’s plans for me because I’d trust His love.

My life would be transformed.

Paul reminds us that our life changes when we live in the knowledge of God’s love for us:

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:17-19

The Message translates verse 19 this way: “Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.”

Amazingly, we’ve done nothing to earn this love and we can do nothing to end it. Paul writes in Romans 5:8 ^“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He loved us in our sin, with all of our mistakes and failures, with our lack of trust and our self-focused lives. He loved us when we didn’t have anything to offer in return.

Life is sometimes exhilarating and sometimes frightening. I cannot explain why we go through difficult times and why life is so hard. But I do know that:

God sees you. He hasn’t lost you in the midst of your circumstances. He knows your hurt and pain, as well as your joy and excitement, and He wants to walk with you at all times.

God is big enough to save you. He is mighty and powerful and has your world in His hands.

God loves you with a lavish, unconditional, and unchanging love. The Psalmist tells us God isn’t just a powerful being who doesn’t care about us. In Psalm 62:11-12, it says, “One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that you, O God, are strong, and that you, O Lord, are loving.”

Rest in this today—He loves you. Oh, how He loves you.

Book Review:

And a bonus for you this weekend! If you click on the Bookshelf tab on this blog, you’ll see some of the books and studies I’ve been reading this year with some brief comments about each one and a link to more information about them. There are some great reads on that list! But, every once in a while I’m going to pop in a quick book review for you to enjoy here on the weekend page.

This past week, I picked up Lisa Harper’s book, Stumbling Into Grace, with no idea what to expect. She’s one of the new speakers to the Women of Faith team and in just a few weeks, I’ll get to hear her speak. After reading this book, I’m even more excited about that opportunity.

First off, she’s a riot. We might type LOL in Facebook all the time, but how often do we actually read something that makes us laugh out loud? Lisa Harper’s book did that for me. She’s genuine and authentic with a knack for storytelling and an engaging wit. Each chapter moved so quickly, I read the book in about a day.

That doesn’t mean what she said had no weight to it. Lisa adeptly moves from funny to thought-provoking. It’s a book I’d like to read again more slowly as a daily devotional or as a small group to really consider each of her points. And she touches on so many big-deal issues for women in this book—things like handling disappointment, feeling loved, loving others, showing grace and receiving grace, and developing a heart of gratitude. Her small group/personal reflection questions at the end of the chapter are what really could push this book from a basic overview of grace to a deeper consideration of each topic.

The bottom line is that we’re not perfect and we’re all stumbling a little into God’s grace, tripping over one untied shoelace after another.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”