Tag: Memory Verse

Weekend Walk: Feeling Needy but Giving Praise

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I want to say a big thank you to John King over at Smoking Newspaper and Bill Jones at I Was Thinking the Other Day About... for their guest posts this week!

And I want to give a shout out of congratulations to Wesley for winning the book giveaway!!!  I hope you enjoy reading Don’t Smoke the Newspaper and Other Lessons Learned by a Pastor.  And if you didn’t win, you can check out the book on Amazon.com here!

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On Thursday morning, I pushed a cart all around Wal-Mart.  It was already feeling a bit crowded and crowded to me is like narrow and close to others, like an MRI for someone with claustrophobia.  My heart beats a little faster, I’m certain my temperature shoots up about 5 degrees and I feel like I could just sit down on a random store bench and cry.

But I survived with a cart nearly overflowing, shopping for my family, for church events, for prayer group breakfasts, shared meals, and Operation Christmas Child.  My massive list had been divided into five sections for all that week’s events.

Then I had to go back the next day.

Because while I had seemingly put every item on the Wal-Mart shelves in my cart the day before, I hadn’t bought all of the necessities for the prolonged power outages carried along on the wind and rain of Hurricane Sandy.

I was an optimist, hoping the storm would turn or move north or simply disappear off the radar.

So, I reluctantly went back.  Two trips to Wal-Mart…Two days in a row…With a 3-year-old… Pressed in on every side by every other person in my town also rushing the aisles for water, canned goods, paper products, and batteries.  One friendly guy (not an employee) scaled the now-empty shelves and reached to the far back to hand down the last four cases of bottled water to those of us waiting below.

When I arrived home from picking my other daughters up from school, I loaded the cans of soup into the cabinet and piled the water in the laundry room.  One of the girls yelled that her drink spilled and I reached my hand across the kitchen counter to yank off a paper towel….

Only to find that it was the last one on the roll.  A quick search through our pantry revealed no hidden stock of paper towel rolls.

I was completely out.

That’s right.  All of that shopping, and I still didn’t have everything I need.

Sometimes life feels just about that way.  Fill up, consume, search, receive…and still we long for more, still there is the desire, still there is the need.

Perhaps we’ve tended to certain areas, all of our energy and sweat-browed focus exhausted on just getting through this one challenge.  Then we finish.  We make it.  And we realize all that we’ve ignored, the other needs now screaming out for attention.

One crisis ends, another arises.  Storms that never made it onto our radar suddenly threaten.  Or maybe, like me, you’ve squinted your eyes shut to the possibility, choosing optimism ….or willful blindness.

We’re needy folks.  Like baby birds sucking down the prize worm, we so quickly lift our heads and scream for more.

And it’s not that our needs are always imagined or that like spoiled consumers we’ve mis-defined “needs” and “wants.”

Sometimes it’s just because we’re thoroughly dependent on a Dependable God, aware of our insufficiency, surrendered to our out-of-control state and trusting in His guidance, mercy, care, and provision.

This week, I’m not sure what kind of power and Internet outages I might experience with the coming storm.  You might not hear from me as “regularly scheduled” or maybe I’ll happily be online for regular devotionals.  Just know I’ll be up and running as soon as I can.

In the meantime, here’s a verse for the week to remind me of all that God provides to someone as needy as me and that I can give praise and be true deep-down grateful for each need He satiates.

And that I needn’t scream in fear and desperation—because He’s provided before, He will take care of me again.  That’s what gratitude does.  It gives us peace.

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever.  Amen
(Philippians 4:19-20)

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: Cracking Eggs, Learning Faith

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It began with the sugar cookies we made a few weeks ago.

Fall is prime baking season at our house, time to pull out our favorite recipes, now dotted with batter and splattered with sugar and flour, vanilla, and spice.

Of course, baking at our house always involves one Master Baker and three assistants, who all want to crack the eggs.

For years, I’ve declined, confining my helpers to stirring and pouring in the already measured flour.  Finally, though, I relented when we crowded around the table to make sugar cookies.  Thus I began the risky job of teaching children how to crack eggs into a bowl of ingredients without also dumping in egg shells.

One daughter daintily tapped the egg on the table, barely making the tiniest crack in the shell.  Another practically slammed her egg down on the side of the bowl.  My preschooler tried to mimic the other girls, tapping and then slamming.

Eventually, I exhaled.  I had survived the initial egg cracking and only had to dip my hand in to snatch a few shells from the batter.

Since then, we’ve baked another batch of sugar cookies, some cinnamon bread, ginger spice cookies, and a pumpkin pie and every time there is improvement and growing confidence.

I may never crack another egg open again.

As a mom, it’s so difficult at times to teach and let go, instruct and then take my hands off and let my daughters try, maybe fail, maybe succeed, but always try and try again.

But if I’m always the one cracking the eggs into the bowl, how will they ever learn?

Spiritual growth happens the same way.  God may teach us truths from His Word, but eventually we have to live them out and apply them in the dailyness of life.

“Trust Him” we read and so we must eventually trust.  “Rest in Him” we learn and so eventually we must ease our white-knuckled grip off the steering wheel and relax under His guidance.

Anything else isn’t spiritual growth at all; it’s stunted dependence and shallow faith, quickly dried up into cracked and dusty death at the slightest drought.

So, this week I’m thinking about the many ways I need to teach and let go and I’ll be meditating on a verse that reminds me how I myself am growing, little by little, sometimes via mistakes and occasionally in triumph.  But always God is patient when He has to pull out the eggshells when I’ve made a mess of things.  And gently He allows me to try again.

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.
(2 Peter 3:18 NIV)

You can check out some of my recipes here!  Or, you can visit the links below for some of my favorite fall baking:

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 Better With a Friend

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It’s 61 degrees outside right now and the sun shines down on the girls playing in the backyard. Folks along the street are raking and leaf-blowing.  Last night, I stepped out of my car into the chill and breathed in deep the smell of chimney smoke from fireplaces being lit the first time this fall.

Perfect weather for the pumpkin patch.

We go every year and have taken pictures of my oldest out in the pumpkin field way back when we could barely gather her hair into a ponytail.

This year, though, I surprised the girls by secretly inviting a friend to join us on our family field trip.  We stopped by to pick her up and when I opened the minivan door to present her to my daughters, the squeals of joy were fit for any celebrity popstar or princess.

Today we did all of the normal fall faire.  We climbed on tractors and scaled hay mountains, ran through a corn maze, oohed and aahed over fluffy ducklings, laughed at the rooster’s rockstar hair-do, sat still for face painting, and searched an entire pumpkin field for the one perfect prize—for painting, carving, or pumpkin pie baking.

This year, though, we did it all with a friend and, while we’ve always enjoyed our trips, that made it even better.

About a year ago, a good friend of mine pointed out the tiniest passage in Scripture to me.  Following a long litany of King David’s advisors and assistants, including men in charge of the vineyards and the treasury, his sheep and goats, donkeys, camels, olives, grapes and olive oil, as well as men appointed as his wise counselors and as tutors for his sons . . . one name stands out:

Hushai the Arkite was the king’s friend (1 Chronicles 27:33).

He must have been a special and trustworthy friend indeed to be named among all those who were valued for their position, knowledge, and responsibility.  He was valued for relationship.

Shouldn’t we all build into a friendship like that?

Thus, my verse for the week reminds us that in a world that pushes and races us through to-do lists and accomplishments and an ever-hectic dash from here to there and from this to that, sometimes what God really wants us to be is a friend.

Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their efforts. For if either falls, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to lift him up (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 HCSB)

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

Weekend Walk: Baking Cookies/Reading the Bible

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Bake cookies.

It was on the official to-do list.  Sometimes we pull down the flour and sugar canisters and pull out the measuring cups and spoons because of a sweet tooth or just the fun of baking together.

Today, though, it was a must instead of a can, a have to instead of a get to, a duty and not a pleasure.

Bake sales, after all, require baked goods and cookies were to be our offering.

So the mission began, emptying cabinets of cookie cutters and dragging out the flour and rolling pin.  Looking up from the recipe, though, I saw this cutie pie rolling herself out like a cookie and giggling hysterically.

Suddenly, there was joy just in being together, in the pure delight of presence.  We took turns rolling out the dough and cutting out cookie shapes of hearts and flowers, butterflies, pumpkins and fall leaves.

Time in the kitchen so easily becomes a chore, cooking for necessity and baking on a deadline.

But moments together need to be rescued from task lists and enjoyed: Giggling over ourselves covered in flour.  Teaching how to push the rolling pin across the dough.  Recalling shared stories.  Kissing tiny noses dotted in sugar.  Admiring our goodies fresh from the oven and then sampling them as they cool.

So, when I pull down my Bible from the shelf and open my study book onto my kitchen table (still dusted with flour), it’s tempting to read to get it done, to check it off for the day and set it aside again until tomorrow.

“Devotions” is on my to-do list also.

Time in God’s presence, though, should be our joy and delight and the very life-breath to our suffocating souls.  Never just a task on a to-do list waiting for the line crossing it out, time with our Lord should beckon us and fill us with longing for more.

Our verse for the week reminds us to delight in His Word and center our lives around this relationship with our God rather than relegating it to the outskirts of our time and hearts:

 But they delight in the law of the Lord,
    meditating on it day and night.
 They are like trees planted along the riverbank,
    bearing fruit each season.
Their leaves never wither,
    and they prosper in all they do (Psalm 1:2-3 NLT).

Take pleasure in His presence.

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

Weekend Walk: Will Break for Beauty

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We took a day off for beauty.

Yesterday, my youngest and I waved goodbye to her older sisters as they rode off to school and we climbed into the minivan for a drive on a sunny, warm but not too warm day, passing horse farms and the river and watching sunlight burst through the tops of trees, casting shadows here and brilliance there.

We traveled to see friends.  We don’t do this often enough, just sitting and talking, laughing,

watching kids play with toys.  In all of life’s busyness and the red circles around almost every day on the calendar, we don’t give enough time to friendship.

Sitting along the edge of the beach, we helped tip over buckets of moistened sand to form sand castles.  Pine needles and lost feathers, bits of shell and pebbles smoothed by the waves became castle flags and decorations.

Then we walked and collected treasures washed ashore by the tide.  Children see treasures in ways we do not.  I picked up unbroken shells, shiny, smooth, etched with color and patterns.  My little one picked up massive clam shells covered in barnacles and sand, murky in color and awkwardly shaped.  She handed me slivers of broken shells and even tried putting fistfuls of sand in her treasure bucket.

It was beauty to her.

What is it about the seaside that brings peace to the soul?  My friend says maybe it’s the rhythm of the waves.

I think she’s right.  I stood there for a moment and thought of the comfort it brings me knowing that the wave will come and another and another, in constant motion, totally faithful, reliable, trustworthy.

And that is our God.  He doesn’t wash over us and then pull back never to return again. He brings wave after wave of ever-coming, perpetual grace.  The world is an uncertain teeter-totter of a place, with unexpected terrors lurking around corners and surprises that drop us to the ground.

But God—He is faithful.  God—-He is always grace.  God—He is ever true.

After a stop at the school to pick up my older girls, we raced home to eat dinner and become beautiful: Choosing outfits, doing hair.  The girls fought over bracelets.

Then we met with other friends and drove once more, this time to see Ballet Magnificat, a professional Christian ballet company.

The music began.  Just instruments at first.  The dancers took to the stage and we watched and it was fine and it was okay.

But then one lone female voice sang,“Praise the Lord, O my soul and let all that is within me praise His name” and the dancer stretched her arms high in worship, her fingers almost touched heaven she was so long and outstretched.

And I caught my breath.

This was worship.  This was total abandon in praise to a God so worthy.

Yesterday, we took a break for beauty.  We paused and lingered long with friends and we filled our souls in the deep wells of nature and dance and worship.

I want to carry that along all this week and be intentional about it.

After beauty fills you up, it spills out and sloshes over the sides of your heart every time there is rushing, stress, tension, worry, boredom, work, monotony. 

We must work hard to protect the memory and refill often by taking a break for beauty, by seeking the soul-filling glory of God’s presence.

This week, I’ll be meditating on the verse to help me remember:

One thing I ask from the Lord,
    this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
    and to seek him in his temple
(Psalm 27:4)

To hear the song by Kristene Mueller that began Ballet Magnificat’s performance, you can click here or click Play on the video below from the blog.

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.

Weekend Walk: Adding that personal touch

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Whenever I give my daughters a birthday card to sign, I never know what might end up written on the inside.

At some point, they generally remember to scratch out their names, but along the way they’ll do things like:

sign it from every other member of the family also—-even when it’s a card for a school friend who doesn’t know any of us.

sign their entire first, middle and last names, even on a card for their dad, who most likely picked out their names in the first place.

declare themselves “your best friend with love” and sound more like Anne of Green Gables with all her poetic flare instead of a first grader.

sketch pictures of themselves and their friend, hearts, their family, puppy dogs, rainbows, cats, birds, flowers, their houses, and more.

In the end, the card is signed, but never in the expected, conventional way.  Sometimes that’s a little frightening as I look over their shoulders and wonder if they’ll ever venture into the truly outrageous.

When I notice they’re writing and writing and writing when a simple “Love Lauren” or “From Victoria” would suffice, I start asking nervously, “What are you putting in there?  What are you writing next?  What are you saying?”

Ultimately, though, it’s fun to see their personal style and unique touch.

I’ve been thinking today about the way God rescues us from trouble: How it’s so rarely in the expected, conventional way from planned sources and anticipated possibilities.  It doesn’t often happen according to our own plans.  He is, after all, a creative God, able to do far more than we expect or imagine.

I’m meditating on a verse all this week that reminds me that God is able to save us, but He’ll do so with His own personal touch and divine fingerprint.  Unlike us, He isn’t confined by physical resources or limited in imagination, talent, scope or skill.  He’ll choose a method of rescue not because it’s the only one He can manage, but because it brings glory to His name.  And nothing can stand in the way of that.

“Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few”
1 Samuel 14:6

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

Weekend Walk: Back-to-School lessons and a verse

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I have a chatty daughter and a not-so-chatty daughter.

The first year my oldest attended preschool, she would climb into the car at the end of the day and I would ask, “How was your day?”

She would then jabber on for fifteen minutes or so about she-said’s, he-said’s, activities, games, and lessons.

When my next daughter attended preschool, she hopped into the car at the end of the day and I asked her the tried-and-true question, “How was your day?” expecting a full report.

She answered, “Fine.”

I paused and waited.  Silence.

“What did you learn?”

“I don’t remember.”

It took time for me to learn to ask better questions:

“What did Sam bring for show-and-tell?”
“What did you eat for snack?”
“What book did you read at Story Time?”
“What craft or project did you make?”

Better questions merited better answers from her. That is, until this introvert daughter of mine finally announced, “Mom, I don’t want to talk anymore.  Please stop asking me questions!”

At the start of the new school year, I’m thinking about asking God better questions: prayers not so much of need-fulfillment and wishlists, but requests for closeness with Him.

Will You impress on my heart each day where to go, what to do, what words to speak?

How may I abide in You more fully? 

How can my self be so entwined with Yourself that our hearts are united with the same purposes and desires?

Our back-to-school verse for the week is:

He wakens me morning by morning,
    wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed
Isaiah 50:4b

Let’s enter this season of fall, of changes, new beginnings and fresh starts, with the daily prayer to wake morning by morning as a better student of God and His Word with a softened heart, an engaged mind, and a teachable spirit.

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I’ve been sharing prayers for our schools this past week on my Facebook page.  You can join me there by liking the page in order to pray along with me.  Or, you can visit this link to see the prayers and even print a version to keep in your Bible, prayer journal or on your fridge.  Let’s cover our kids, our teachers, our schools in prayer.

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.

Weekend Walk: A Wayward Cat

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We have a wayward cat.

He started dashing out the door for periodic jaunts around the neighborhood long ago.  Whenever we found him crouched in the woods with his bright eyes shining back at us, he’d run into the house and hide for an hour or two under the bed.

Those experiences in the wild scared him to pieces.

Still, he ran away again.  And again.  Today’s adventure is the longest he’s had.  Escaping this afternoon, he’s still not home and it’s long past his bedtime as I write this.

We can never understand why he leaves.  He’s clearly terrified of whatever is out there in the wild.  He’s clearly spoiled here in our home.

And yet he runs.

A man once told me that once a cat experiences the smallest bit of life in the wild, you can never successfully keep him indoors again.

It made me wonder if the prodigal ever thought about running away again after he’d returned to life on the farm and celebrated his homecoming.

When Jesus told the woman, “Go and sin no more,” I wonder if it was as simple as that (John 8:11).  Did her memory of extravagant grace sustain her?  Was it as simple as walking away or did she have to fight for change, falter, repent, and run to Christ again and again?

Paul described exactly this struggle in Romans 7.  He did what he didn’t want to do.  He didn’t do what he knew he should do.  This is the continual battle with our flesh.

Like the hymn writer said, we’re “prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.”

Why do we wander?  Why do we dash out the door at the slightest opportunity and leave the safety and provision of God’s care?  Why risk treacherous territory rather than rest in His love?

After all, as soon as our cat did return home (at 4:00 a.m.) he ran in from the rain to our dry house and was greeted with a can of tuna fish.  You’d think he would understand that home is a better place to be than gallivanting around the woods in the rain sans tuna.

Paul made our choice clear in this same way and that’s my verse to meditate on this week:

“The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:6).

You’d think given the choice between death on the one hand and life and peace on the other, this decision would be a no-brainer.  Unfortunately, though, we slip into flesh-thinking so easily—-choosing to dwell on worry and anxiety, jealousy, fear, anger, bitterness, selfishness, greed, and more—everything that leads to death.

This week, let’s focus on having a Spirit-governed mind.  We must choose not to let our thoughts run wild into flesh territory.  We must choose if we want life and peace.

How do you take control of your thought-life?

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.

Weekend Walk: Fireplace, Meet My Toe

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Last week, I walked into the fireplace.

This usually happens because I am:

a.) Doing too much too quickly.
b.) Distracted.
c.) A general klutz.
d.) All of the above.

The correct answer here is D.

Congratulations to you lucky winners!

At first, my injuries seemed slight, but over time I began to hurt every time I put my left foot to the floor.  It wasn’t my whole foot that was sore, just my pinky toe.

So, I adjusted, putting more and more weight on the other side of my foot.  This made walking look clumsy and more than a little bit ridiculous.

In fact, by the next day I was flat-out limping along, all because of one tiny little tender toe.

That night, I climbed into bed only to find that my big toe now had a blister.  This meant I had two toes out of commission.

It got worse.  The following day my entire leg was sore from limping in an effort to avoid both my pinky toe and my big toe.

The lesson here is simple.

Pay attention and don’t walk into fireplaces.

And value each member of the body, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant.

Just hurting one tiny, seemingly insignificant toe–the smallest toe I have–made life difficult as other parts of me struggled to compensate.

It’s true in the church body, of course, as well.  One small (perhaps seemingly insignificant) member of the body who isn’t obeying God in ministry throws us all off balance, stresses others out, and leaves us limping and ineffective.

Here’s a Scripture verse for the week all about being a healthy, whole, non-limping body of Christ:

 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work
(1 Corinthians 12:4-6).

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.

Weekend Walk, 08/11/2012: Devotions From My Garden: Beautiful Attraction

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We enjoyed a special visit with grandparents this week and they brought with them gifts, as is the way of grandparents.  One of our surprise presents were two tiny plants that they grew from seeds.

They are butterfly plants.  I looked them up online and saw into our future.  They bloom with brightly colored purple, pink and blue flowers.

And they attract butterflies.

This, of course, is the most exciting kind of plant we can grow in our garden that blooms right outside my daughters’ bedroom window.

Pink, purple and blue . . . and a butterfly magnet?

That has “King girls” written all over it.

I’ll be transplanting these tiny green plants into the garden this weekend and then we’ll watch and wait for the day that the first butterfly visits our flowers.

Of course, these aren’t the only kinds of plants that have a peculiar attractive quality.  Some flowers catch the eye of hummingbirds and the shoots of dill and parsley in our garden are the diet-of-choice for the Easter black swallowtail.

In the same way, we as Christians are to have an attractive quality about us that draws people to stop a while, turn aside, glance our way and choose to linger in our presence and know our Savior.

But if we’ve let our life plants wither and die, grow scrawny and unattractive, or deprive them of the necessary nutrients for our fruit of the spirit to bloom, then we’ll fail to attract others to Jesus.  Even worse, we might repel them.

So, this week, I’m meditating on a verse that reminds me to be a sweet scent of Christ in the world, a reminder to others who meet me and know me of God’s love:

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35 ESV).

More Devotions From My Garden:

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