Tag: Memory Verse

Weekend Walk: Shifting Shadows

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I can’t quite explain it or rationalize it, but I love Groundhog Day.  I love the fun of it and the silliness and the groundhog himself and the mock seriousness of the traditions.  Maybe I love it even more than my kids do.

So today my family gathered on the outskirts of the crowd and pressed in closer until we 011could see the podium and the table holding a small pet carrier.  The speakers introduced the groundhog while we shivered and rubbed our hands together, hoping for news of an early spring.

This adorable creature gnawed away on his corn cob, caring not a bit for the flashing cameras and rolling video.  And those officials who eyed the groundhog watchfully finally announced that, unlike the more famous groundhog Phil, our particular prognosticating creature predicted six more weeks of winter.

Instead of booing over the news that we’re stuck with the cold longer than we’d like, we accepted it with good-natured whimsy.  It is, perhaps, the cutest way to deliver bad news.  Send in the groundhog to tell it.

Then we toured the museum and colored groundhog pages and played games with shadows.  It struck me that this is what we watch the groundhog for, to see his response to the shifting of shadows.

Shadows shift.  They change.  The direction of the light, the time of the day, the traveling of the clouds across the face of the sun all make the shadows dance or lengthen or shorten or perhaps even disappear.

Life shifts, too.  It changes.  Groundhogs are right and sometimes they are wrong.  Experts are right and sometimes they are wrong.  Circumstances alter unexpectedly.  You make a plan and then God interrupts you with the unexpected.

But here’s what we know: God is our constant, our reliable, ever-faithful, un-shifting Light in a world of uncertain shadows.

And it’s nice to know that we aren’t in the hands of whimsy or relying on the predictions of unreliable sources.  He knows us.  He knows what we need.  He knows where we’ve been, where we are, where we’re going.  He knows what tomorrow holds.  He knows how to take us through.

He knows.

This week, I’ll be meditating on a verse that reminds me of God’s constant character and His trustworthy love, and I’ll be using this as my third memory verse for the year with Beth Moore’s SSMT plan.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17 NIV

What’s your verse for the week?

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

Weekend Walk, 1/26/2013: Snow

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Last year, I don’t remember seeing a single flake of snow.  No snow days off of school for my kids.  No bundling them up in two layers of pants and shirts and socks, then piling on coats, hats, gloves, scarves, and boots to send them outside.  No scraping off the frozen clothes when they pile back in and then making hot chocolate and snuggling them under fleece blankets.

This year, it hasn’t been much snowier (so far), but yesterday the tiny flakes finally piled 005up onto earth cold enough to hold them.

Snow!!!

My kids ran outside as soon as they finished breakfast this morning to play in it.  When they were done, my oldest brought in “clean snow” for snow cream—a recipe we’d never tried before.

Me, I like snow outside while I stay inside.  I like to watch it fall, so peaceful and hushed.  I like the brightness of it, especially when it covers over the drab muddy browns and muted gray-green of a snowless winter landscape. I like the untracked snow, the kind before boot prints and tire tracks and melted slush.

I like the reminder of what Christ has done for us.

Such a simple beauty this Saturday morning: A reminder as clear to me as a rainbow in the sky showing God’s faithfulness to His promises.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow
(Psalm 51:7).

They used this hyssop (really the ezov plant) for ritual cleansing in Israel–for purification and the ceremony to pronounce a leper healed and made clean again.

We’re self-condemners so often—listening as Satan reminds us of past sins, beating ourselves up in our minds, calling ourselves all manner of cruel names: stupid, a mess, flaky, foolish, failure, idiot…

God is so much more gracious than that, willing to cover over our sins, able to wash us and redeem us, able to purify our hearts and heal us from the diseases that plague our souls.

This snow–mostly still outside, some melting in spots on my kitchen floor from where my children have trekked in from outside– reminds me of His powerful, cleansing grace, a “grace that is greater than all my sins.”

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 November 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Weekend Walk, 01/19/2013: A Prayer for Children

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Sure, sometimes I get frustrated by towels heaped on the floor and shoes strewn across the kitchen and living room.  I sigh over coats stripped off and dropped on the linoleum.  I whine over piles of paper and toys dragged from one room to another and then abandoned.  I make speeches about obedience, right away, the first time I say it.

But there are days when your mom heart is shocked into tears and all the petty annoyances fade and the selfish bits of your heart are tamed back into unselfishness.

It’s when you hear of a school shooting and so many little ones dead.  It’s waking up on a normal, totally average morning and slowly going about your normal, totally average routine, and then reading the news: three young children—babies really—and their grandmother dying in a house fire just 5 minutes from my home.

Suddenly average doesn’t seem so average anymore.  Every moment seems specially blessed.

I was thinking and praying all week about the verse to share this morning.  In my scripture memory project through Beth Moore’s SSMT, I needed to choose verse #2 of my 24 verses for the year.

I read through all of the beautiful verses other women had chosen.  I went through my prayer journal for the week and thought first this one and then that one.

And I prayed.  Of course, I prayed.

But when it came down to what was on my heart and mind, the verse that Beth Moore herself chose reflected what I was praying.  How could I not?  So soon after national tragedy and so soon after a tragedy in my very own community, my heart is heavy for my children.

We aren’t promised their safety or their salvation or their health.  Yet, we are given this 002great joy, this weighty responsibility, this amazing calling to love them, train them, guide them, and more than all that, to pray for them.

Parents of adult children can pray this, too.  Grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles, spiritual mentors, teachers and counselors can all lift up the little ones in our sphere of influence and in our hearts with this prayer of blessing:

All your children shall be taught by the Lord,
    and great shall be the peace of your children.
Isaiah 54:13 ESV

Yes, teach these children Your own wisdom and the joy of Your presence, Lord.  Help them to know You personally and be real, present and active in their lives.  In the very moments of their need, reveal Yourself to them and be their ever-present help in times of trouble.  Bring peace into their lives, into their hearts and minds, into their relationships.  We place them in Your hands and trust them to Your care.  Please help us to know when to speak and when to listen, what to say and how to love.  We are imperfect and weak; forgive us when we mess all this up, give us grace for a new day, and guide our steps, actions and words.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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

Weekend Walk, 1/12/2013: Take My Picture

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“Take my picture, Mommy!  Take my picture!”

In the middle of Sunday morning chaos, pulling on stockings, buttoning dresses, clipping 006on bows and tying on ribbons, my three-year-old twirled in her dress and posed for a Kodak moment.

And I clicked the camera.

I don’t ever remember being this way, so eager to say, “Cheese.”  I’ve always been the one declining photos, offering to hold the camera, tossing into the trash any pictures of me I don’t like.

But when I’m out and about with my daughters (or even just running around the house frantically trying to get four females ready for Sunday morning church service)… they want to stop and take pictures.  Lots and lots of pictures.  Not of the scenery.  Of them.

It takes us three times as long to walk down the Main Street of our town and probably twice as much time on location on our family “field trips.”  But I don’t mind.

I love that they feel beautiful enough to want to pose.

There was a day I stepped into the bathroom to put away a stray toothbrush, and I caught one of my girls watching herself in the mirror.  She smoothed her hair and glanced up at her reflection, pleased with what she saw.

How beautiful is the girl who feels beautiful in her own skin.

This rare gift, how do you teach it?  How do you help them keep it for life?

Somehow, most of us grow out of it.  We glance in the mirror and critique the image or sigh in frustration.  We step on the scale and slander ourselves with our thoughts.  We pose for that picture and know we won’t be happy with it later, not with the smile or the hair or the wrinkles or the chin or ….

Even my husband, in the early days of falling in love, would sit across me from the table and I could feel him watching.  I didn’t know where to look.  I was uncomfortable in his gaze.  What imperfections would he see in me if he looked too closely or watched too long?

Later today, I’ll take my seat at a piano and offer up the music for a wedding ceremony.  There will be a moment at that wedding when the soloist will sing, “How Beautiful the radiant bride who waits for her Groom with His light in her eyes” (How Beautiful, Twila Paris).

The beauty of the bride isn’t so much the hairdresser and the hair spray, the makeup, the gown.

It’s that she walks down that aisle feeling loved.  In a moment, she knows she is wanted, precious, and she radiates the joy.

And it’s beautiful how she loves him.  So we, thinking of another, run out of time to be so self-analyzing, so self-criticizing, so self-condemning—so “self.”

It’s a verse for meditating on all week, with a reminder of how beauty is looking to God–our Groom–thinking of Him and less of me.  Beauty is caring for others.  Beauty isn’t feeling shame, but feeling redeemed, feeling precious, feeling loved.

“Those who look to him are radiant;
    their faces are never covered with shame” (Psalm 34:5).

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

Fear of Blank Calendars and A New Year’s Verse

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Afraid.

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

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

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

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

I guess I’d be a failure as a mountain climber or an adventurer of any kind.  I’d never really look forward to what’s over the next peak or around the next bend in the road.  Instead, I’d likely be trekking backwards, always back.  Even if the ground were difficult, at least it’d be familiar.

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

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

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

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

And I need to stop.

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

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

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

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

Weekend Walk: Party Planning and A Christmas Verse

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It’s all part of the plan, my strategy for party preparation.

Today is my oldest daughter’s birthday celebration with friends from school.  She’s almost a Christmas baby, so we decided to plan something simple for a small group of friends earlier in December, and she was determined that it be at our house.

So, all week long I’ve glanced at the kitchen floor with juice spills and mystery splatter and thought….”If I mop you today, I’ll just have to do it acleaninggain on Friday.  Someone will surely spill as soon as you’re clean.”

And to the dust gathering on the television stand in the living room, I promised a wipe with a soft cloth Friday evening.

I interrupted my normal vacuuming schedule earlier in the week so that I could zoom through the house just hours before the party on Saturday morning.

This has been my strategy of preparation.  Knowing as I do exactly when those first little knocks on our door will occur, I can target the precise moment when my house is the cleanest and shiniest and in most presentable shape.

I hope.

Being prepared for visitors is no exact science, you know, and it’s even less so readying ourselves for God.  Christmas, after all, focuses so much on preparation.  The Jewish people, after waiting hundreds of years for the promised Messiah, the savior of their people–and the world— felt more than ready, perhaps even impatient, for His coming.

But they weren’t.  Not really.  So God sent a messenger, John the Baptist, who shouted out the news to prepare, get ready, make yourselves right before God because the Savior was coming.

Still, when Christ came, there was no room, no readiness.  Instead there was debate and jealousy, hatred and power plays.

Only a few men and women willingly allowed God to interrupt their lives and their personal agendas in order to make room for His Glory.  Only a few were ready for obedience.

Mary, bowing the head in submission, doing chores one second and carrying the Son of God in her womb the next.

Joseph, heeding the dreams God gave Him, marry this virgin with Child, take her to Egypt to save the baby from a murderous king, travel back home when King Herod had died.

Shepherds, tending sheep in the night, earning a living, toiling as usual, following the instructions of angels to a baby in a manger, worshiping, and spreading the news across the countryside.

Sages from the East journeying for years, far from their homes and their prominence and wealth in order to lay at the feet of a child gifts of honor and adoration.

Their readiness wasn’t that of twiddling their thumbs, idling their time so that at the slightest move of the Holy Spirit they could jump up in response to His command.

Instead, they were all busy, actively serving in their jobs and homes, doing the daily thing with faithfulness, attention, and care.  And then God spoke.

An angel’s voice.
A dream.
A heavenly choir.
A mysterious star.

And they laid it all aside to follow after God, wholeheartedly, passionately, abandoning everything in order to be present and part of His plan.

May we be so ready this season and every season for God’s movement.  We don’t want to miss it! Even more than that, let us not be an obstruction or hindrance to the miraculous wonder of God.

Our Christmas verse for the week reminds us that God always knows the exact moment to move; His timing is relentlessly perfect.  Let us, then, be expectant and ready to obey Him regardless of our plan or agenda or expectation.

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship (Galatians 4:4-5, NIV).

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

Weekend Rerun: Christmas Verse

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Originally posted on December 17, 2011

Mary.

She’s been on my mind this week as I wrap presents, plan to see The Nutcracker, listen to Christmas tunes, bake cookies and prepare fruit trays for class Christmas parties. She’s all wrapped up in the middle of this Christmas story.

I’ve been thinking about her even more when I complain to God about what He’s doing in my life (or sometimes not doing), or when I prepare my end-of-the-year prayer list for God and realize how much it’s beginning to sound like a Dear Santa letter.

Mary received the greatest blessing from God without asking or seeking, just by walking in obedience and purity of heart in her everyday life.

Mary’s on my mind because the angel called her, “you who are highly favored!” and told her, “The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28, NIV 1984).

So often, I feel thoroughly humbled and honored that God gave me the care of my three precious daughters. Imagine how Mary felt to be asked to mother the Messiah.

She had found favor with God.  Isn’t that what we desire?  Not the accolades or rewards.  Certainly God isn’t looking for another Savior’s mom.  We do, however, long to please God and to bring Him joy.  I want Him to peer into the deepest parts of my heart and rejoice in what He finds there, just as He did with a teenage girl named Mary long ago.

I love Mary’s sweet innocence as she stood amazed that she would miraculously be with child.  Yet, the angel assured her, “nothing is impossible with God” and that was enough for her to believe (Luke 1:37).

If God wanted to stir up miraculous and impossible events in my life, I’d question and wonder, doubt, try hard to believe, believe for a moment, then feel incredulous again.  It’d be a see-saw of faith and doubt.

But Mary believed the promise.  “Nothing is impossible with God.”  I want to believe that God can do the impossible this year.

Then there’s Mary’s submission to all that God wanted to do in her life.  What the angel was asking wasn’t easy.  We think of the honor of being mother to the Promised Messiah, and yet it was entangled with pregnancy, labor, loss of a girlish figure, potential conflict with her betrothed, and societal shame.

It was messy and hard and disruptive.

Sometimes that’s what God asks us to do, skip out on the easy and step up to the difficult.  Mary was willing .Am I?  Are you?

My memory verse for this week shows her heart:

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her (Luke 1:38)

I’ll be praying this week for a Mary heart in preparation for Christmas and for a new year.

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

Weekend Walk: Is this for me?

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She trailed along after me as I dragged out the Rubbermaid containers of Christmas decorations and must have asked 20 times if she could help hang lights, hang garland, hang stockings, hang ornaments.

She oohed and aahed over every decked hall and still periodically runs over to the Christmas tree to turn on every musical ornament—foot-tapping Snoopy who dances to Linus and Lucy, singing Muppets, a cow that moos Deck the Halls and a Pig that oinks O Christmas Tree.

Peeking into the bag of Christmas bows, ribbons and gift tags, my little one asked me an important question:

Is this my Christmas?

As we decorated, she asked the question over and over again.  I knew what she was wondering.  Birthdays are for just one person at a time.  What if all of these decorations and the joy and excitement and the hidden presents weren’t for her at all?  What if only one person celebrated the day and she was just an onlooker?

Dare she get excited or was she setting herself up for disappointment?

It was the question of a three-year-old trying to protect her own little heart.

We explained about Jesus’ birthday and my older girls walked her through the Christmas story as they played with the plastic Nativity scene (after a fight over who got to be Mary).

And then I reassured her all day long that Christmas was for the family; for every one of us there would be presents and treats and joy because we aren’t celebrating one of us at all.  We are celebrating Him, the birth of a Savior who came so we could live.

We might take the inclusiveness of salvation for granted at times.  Salvation is for everyone.  Sure, we know.

And yet there are some asking, “Is this my salvation?  Is this for me?   Is it only for those who grew up in the church, only for those who are generally good people, only for those who know all the Christian lingo?”

Even in the early days of the church, people asked that question.  I’m a woman, I’m a Samaritan, I’m a murderer, I’m a persecuter, I’m a betrayer, I’m a Gentile.

Surely this salvation is for others, for the good and the holy and the accepted, but not for me.

This, however, was part of the glory of the cross, that no one comes to the feet of Christ justified or worthy.  We all come in need of grace.  And He extends that grace to all who believe.

The first verse of the week to kick off our Christmas season is one we all know and have likely recited hundreds of times.  But I invite you to look at it anew and marvel afresh that salvation through Christ is for “whoever believes.”  Yes, this Christmas is for you.  That’s not just a message to cherish ourselves, but to share with others, excitedly and joyously.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him (John 3:16-17).

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

Weekend Walk–It’s not about you or me or them

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We were in the minivan, of course.  It seems like all of our most life-changing, character-chiseling, valuable-lesson, Mom-wisdom moments happen while driving.  What is it about being strapped in by seatbelts and in motion that promotes deep conversation?

So, there we were, mom and daughters, when I praised my preschooler on how well she does in class and how I’m so proud to hear from her teachers how she obeys and shares and listens and is always so happy and eager to learn.

The other girls chimed in immediately with their chorus of eager responses.

“Well, I…..”

“When I was in preschool….”

“But I’m good at this, too….”

And I had to deliver an astonishingly hard lesson right then and there, one that I confess I’m still learning.

It’s not about you.  When I’m praising her, it doesn’t reflect on you at all.  If I say she’s good at this, it doesn’t mean you’re awful or that she’s better than you.  It just means I’m proud of her.  I need to be able to encourage and praise others without it hurting your heart.  Trust that I’m not trying to compare you with each other.

And it grew even more difficult.

Not everything is about you. 

That lesson gulps down like castor oil, bitter to taste and hard to handle, but ultimately the medicine we need at times.  Better to learn it gently from me, in a whisper from someone who deep down loves you, than learning it from the harsh hand of an unsympathetic and unbending world.

Because, truth be told, we’re prideful creatures with a human way of viewing all the world through the filter of “Me” and everything people say as a reflection on “Me” and always comparing her and him with “Me.”

And sometimes it is about us for a moment.  People stop and offer the encouragement we need and the praise we long to hear.  Maybe it’s our “fifteen minutes of fame” or a time of celebration.

Sometimes, however, it’s about others.  It’s their moment to shine or their time of desperate need and it’s best for us to stop trying to steal the spotlight and instead put on the black clothes of a stagehand and serve others.

No matter what, though, it’s really never about you or me or them.  Not ultimately.  It’s always about Him. 

John the Baptist knew this, despite his touchy disciples who didn’t appreciate the attention the upstart Jesus was stealing away from John’s long-term ministry.

John wasn’t bothered at all, saying, “He must become greater; I must become less” (John 3:30).

And it’s as simple and as hard as that.  We must always be willing to become less so that Christ can be greater in our lives.

We must remember that all of this, every one of us, the entire creation, is made by Him and for Him, never for our own personal glory or satisfaction and always to bring Him praise.  That’s the lesson I’ll be reflecting on all week with this verse:

For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen. (Romans 11:36 NLT)

You can also join me in worshiping to Jesus, Lover of My Soul (It’s All About You), recorded at the Passion Conference.

“It’s all about You, Jesus.  And all this is for You, for Your glory and Your fame.
It’s not about me as if You should do things my way.
You alone are God, and I surrender to Your will”

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

Weekend Walk: The Discipline to Keep on Going

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With rain storms and wind, unexpected days off school for my kids, and then packing all my activity into the other three days of the week, some of my normal routines fell by the wayside this week.

Like walking.

By the time I finally hopped out of my car and stretched my legs into a stride on the sidewalk of our town, it’d been five days since my last true “exercise” (unless you count hauling deck chairs and bicycles into the garage in preparation for a hurricane ‘exercise.’)

All that time off and my legs were starting to ache from the lack of movement.

Starting a good habit is tough, with stops and restarts, good days and bad, and not so successful attempts until you find what works.  Then day after day, week after week, you practice the discipline of not just thinking about it or talking about it or dreaming it, but really getting up each day and making it happen.

It’s finding a way to make exercise a reality and cutting that beloved Coca Cola from my daily diet.

It’s setting aside that time to walk and pray.  It’s carving out just 15 minutes at least to sit down in the quiet of God’s Word and His presence.

It’s choosing to put the clothes away when they’re clean rather than let them hide in the dryer for a day or two or three ….or the next time you do laundry.

It’s walking away from Facebook and Pinterest and Twitter instead of losing an hour or two or three….

This is all discipline.  At first it aches to begin.  The pain of those first faltering steps may make you want to quit.

But when you’ve persevered and now it’s habit and part of what your everyday life is like ….then it aches to stop.

Sometimes we treat that time with Jesus as such a burdensome, difficult thing.  How do you fit it in?  How do you avoid the distractions of telephone–and children?  How do you get interested in these Ancient Words?

But then that time with Him is so sweetly life-giving and we ache, not from the doing, but from the not doing.   That’s what happens when my quiet time gets pushed back and back in my day until I’ve managed to cram in activity and I’m exhausted and grumpy.

My soul is aching for my Savior and protesting my lack of time with Him.

I’m reminded this week of the Psalmist, who expressed that longing for His God more perfectly beautiful and true than anything else I’ve ever read:

You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land where there is no water (Psalm 63:1)

This week, if you haven’t established the discipline of time with Him, I urge you to make it happen.  It’ll never just magically occur on it’s own. You have to choose Jesus.

And if you’ve let it get crowded out of your life, if it’s slowly been pushed away, pay attention to the aching of your longing soul and start the discipline afresh.

And if it’s part of your life without question or fail, keep it up, my friend!  Even when it’s hard or quiet, remain steadfast.

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.  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