The Top 10 Best Things About Hotels (Says the Mom Away From Home)

July 25, 2014July 14, 2014Leave a comment

10. When there’s a problem, someone else has to fix it! No breaking out the tools when something is wrong. One word to a hotel staff member and within five minutes the handyman shows up with his own tool box.

9. How excited your kids get about every little thing: There’s a tiny refrigerator!! And a microwave!!! And a TV!!!! And a couch with a pull psalm39-6 -out bed!!! There’s a closet!!! And a bathroom!!! Everything is more exciting in a hotel room. Add in some luxuries like a hotel swimming pool, electronic key cards, and elevators with buttons to push, and you have kid-paradise.

8. Styrofoam cups with lids: Our hotel has a little hospitality bar in the lobby with packets of tea, hot cocoa, creamer, sugar and more. One night after swimming in the pool, I grabbed some hot chocolate packets as a treat for the girls. The best part? The cups they supplied came with plastic lids. Hot cocoa at home ALWAYS involves huge messes and near-industrial-sized spill clean-up. Why didn’t I think of travel mugs with lids long ago?

7. The Indoor Pool: We don’t the fanciest hotel with the most expensive amenities available; we just need access to an indoor pool. Happiest kids ever.

6. Short-Order Cook Breakfasts: At home, I sometimes feel like I should snap my hair into a bun, tuck a pencil behind my ear, don an apron and take down breakfast orders in a tiny notebook. At the hotel, we had buffet-style breakfasts where everyone found something yummy—well, except for the child who prefers breakfast at home with her favorite cereal every . . . . single . . . . day.

5. Someone else washes all the towels and sheets.

4. Someone else vacuums the floor.

3. Someone else washes the dishes.

2. Someone else scrubs the toilets. Sensing a trend here? I sure did. We’ve tried stay-cations before, but do you know what I still have to do then? That’s right—laundry, dishes, cooking, and general clean up. For a few days in the hotel, I picked up mess but never once pulled out the bleach or loaded a dishwasher or washing machine. Of course, we carried home a trash bag full of laundry that I washed the night we got home, but I had a few days of respite.

1. Being together: Our house is pretty small, so it’s not like we spread out and never see each other when we’re home. Still, there’s something special about experiencing time together without my husband heading off to work, propping up our feet and watching a movie together, making plans for the day, and sharing in a nighttime snack.

School starts up for the year far too soon. So does ballet, play practice, activities at church and more.

When life gets packed so full, it’s so hard to appreciate every little thing—like escalators and the electronic keys in hotels and cocoa cups with spill-proof lids. We lose child-like wonder and excitement about the little things

Almost ten years ago, I held my first baby girl in a hospital room and now, after what seems like a blink of the eyes, I’m about to send her off to fourth grade.

How does it all happen so fast? How do we miss so much?

In her book, A Sudden Glory, Sharon Jaynes says:

“The travesty is that we allow the busyness of life to crowd out the Source of life. As the Psalmist wrote, ‘We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing’ (Psalm 39:6 NLT).”

All this month, I’m learning to Retreat and Refresh so I can pursue the presence of God. And I’m thinking of Moses, who prayed: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

We can pray the same.

Lord, help us to number our days. Help us to make each one count. Don’t let a single one slip by us unnoticed and unappreciated.

Don’t let us ever miss or skip time—One, two . . . twenty . . .fifty–and not be able to account for the days in between.

Don’t let us get so wrapped up in doing laundry and dishes that we forget to thank you for the clothes and food you’ve given us.

Help us not to get so focused on the minutiae of everyday worries and stressors that we forget to have joy.

Show us how to slow down each day, rest, pay attention—yes, notice Your grace, Your beauty, and the gifts You’ve placed in our lives.

To sit with our children a moment longer. Linger over a cup of tea. Breathe in the scent of a garden. Notice the beauty. Enjoy deep down the laughter of our children.

Amen.

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Retreat and Refresh?

Originally posted August 31, 2012

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Would you like some pizza with that doctrine?

July 14, 2014July 14, 2014Leave a comment

She’s a four-year-old chowing down on pizza and breadsticks and prodding us with deep theological questions in between bites.

Where does God live? She drops it casually into family chatter just like “What are we doing tomorrow?” or “Can I have some more lemonade, please?”

Then she returns to the task at hand: Munch, munch, munch.

I nudge my husband’s elbow. Pass. Your turn.

So, he walks her through theology and doctrine right there as she slurps through her straw. God is omnipresent, everywhere and always there.

I mean what country does He live in? Munch, munch, munch.

He doesn’t live in a country, but there is one special place where he is present and that is Heaven.

And His angels?

Yes, and the angels.

I think He has 61 angels.

He has lots of angels. Lots and lots.

Like 61?

Well…..

But she’s distracted now and that moment when you feel like your child’s faith is that moldable clay in your parental hands has passed. She heard it—God is everywhere. He is always with you.

Christian parenting 101 pop quiz over.

She may think He has only 61 angels, but one lesson at a time.

I’ve been spending all year pursuing God’s presence right here in this minivan life, so her question lingers, bouncing around in my head and heart.

Where does God live?

Right here. Always with me. Here in this place and that. Here in the stress and the rush. Here in the quiet corner I’ve sneaked into to hide away from the noise.

I can nod my head right along with the lesson I know so well, and yet still I choose to pursue more.

It might even seem like a fruitless endeavor. Why pursue God’s presence when His presence is here, always here? He will never leave you nor forsake you. He will not abandon you.

I know how it goes.

I’ve felt the difference, though, between knowing God is with you while you fill that dishwasher up with bowls from breakfast and when you’re passing back the snacks in the minivan while zipping from school to ballet class and then to church.

And that moment when you don’t want to move because God’s presence is so heavy in this place, you feel the Holy Spirit’s fingers leaving deep impressions on your spirit, and you simply not walk away from this very second the same as you were just the second before.

Israel saw the difference. God was with them as they pounded out those bricks in Egypt. Four-hundred years of slavery and He never abandoned them. He was there all the time.

Yet, they headed out of that bondage and into the desert, stopping at that holy mountain where God’s presence came down in power.

On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.

God came down to that mountain.

And Moses went up.

Chris Tiegreen says it this way:

This is a graphic picture of the distinction between God’s general Presence and His manifest Presence…..there are times when He is more present, when He manifests Himself uniquely, when He becomes more obvious that nature’s designs or a whispering voice. Sometimes God shows up.

All this month, I’m pursuing God’s presence by Retreating and Refreshing. Because sometimes we have to escape the everyday rhythms of life in order to breathe in and out the presence of God.

After all, Moses had to go up on that mountain.

I need to go, as well.

So, we pray:

God, come down to us, we pray. Bring the full weight of Your glory here so we can see you.

And then sometimes we need to shake off the daily grind, walk away from the ordinary, and go up on that mountain ourselves.

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Retreat and Refresh?

Sometimes I feel like a nut; sometimes I don’t: Finding stability in a fickle world

May 16, 2014Leave a comment

Yesterday, I felt like I could run a marathon.

I clicked that exercise DVD off and felt strength, like my limbs had grown long and powerful in 30 minutes.

I was a lean, mean, health machine who laughed at crunches and slammed through jumping jacks with precision and ease.

Today, I was about to throw my running shoe at the TV screen because that guy in the t-shirt and gym shorts wouldn’t stop jabbering. Couldn’t he see I was short on oxygen after just 5 jogs in place?

When someone is suffocating right in front of you, don’t you bypass the small-talk and incessant chatter and tell them to skip to the end already and go have an ice cream cone or something?

Some days choosing blueberries and yogurt with granola comes easy.

Other days I need chocolate so bad I want to order a hot fudge sundae from McDonald’s–hold the sundae.

Isn’t so much of life like this incessant movement back and forth and back and forth, making progress, stumbling, feeling accomplished, feeling like giving up?

Some days I’m attacking that to-do list with energy and focus. The next day I’m distracted and just want to play hookie from grown-up life.

Some days I’m relaxed, spontaneous, fun mom. The next day I snap in half when three of my kids demand that I help them right this second, now, now, now as if they can’t see with their own two eyes that I only have these two hands.

What is this roller coaster life I lead? Why these fickle whims and why is perpetual progress so elusive?

I read in Beth Moore’s Whispers of Hope:

If we place our faith in what God is doing, we should brace ourselves for a lifelong roller-coaster ride. Our faith will be high and mighty one day and free-falling the next because it is based on the apparent activity of God in our circumstances. ….In our most difficult losses victory does not result from seeking God’s answers or His activity. Many answers will never come; much of His activity will never be seen. Victorious faith walks evolve from seeking Him. In Hebrews 11:27 we read that Moses “persevered because he saw him who is invisible”–not because he saw the burning bush. He gazed straight into the face of the invisible God. He built His faith on Who God is, not what God had done.”

She says, “When you don’t know what God is doing, you can find stability in Who He is” (p. 112).

Moses looked right past that burning bush. Sure, it caught his eye, but he glanced at the bush so he could gaze on God.

That compelled him into perseverance, into pushing past the fear and insecurity, pain, anger, the possibilities and probabilities of failure, and the overwhelming threat of the unknown.

I admit it. Sometimes I flop down in the middle of these circumstances and think—this is what God will do. This is how God acts.

But He’s so much more creative than little ol’ me and those unexpected ways of His send me into spirals of doubt and worry.

Why isn’t God doing what I want Him to do, when I want Him to do it, how it makes sense to me?

That wobbly faith of mine, it’s revealing the cracks in the foundation, how I’ve trusted in what God does, not Who He is.

I think of the farmer in the parable, sowing that seed on the rocky soil, on the path, among the thorns.

And I think how I’m fickle here, too.

I’m this avid gardener in April and May. But come July, one summer rainstorm sprouts a rain forest right in my front yard. I walk out that door and step into a mighty jungle that has grown to towering proportions overnight.

Overnight, I tell ya.

And a girl just can’t keep up with that, not in the mid-summer Virginia heat and humidity.

The weeds choke out those tended and welcome plants, just like that parable says.

Yet:

the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop (Luke 8:15 NIV).

The NLT says they:

hear God’s word, cling to it, and patiently produce a huge harvest.

Cling to it.

There it is.

Look past the burning bush and fix those eyes on Jesus, on WHO He is, constant in every situation.

And hold on for dear life to God’s Word, not letting those fingers fall loose for one second.

That’s what prompts our hearts into patient perseverance. That’s what produces this abundant crop of a harvest if we just don’t give up.

What to do (and what not to do) when staring at a STOP sign for more than 5 minutes

April 16, 2014April 16, 20143 Comments

I complained about the road work.

Typically, I zip around this tiny town of mine, back and forth all day every day, transporting children. Pick this child up. Drop her off. Go back and get the other child. Drive her somewhere else. Return to the first location to pick up one child and deposit another.

This schedule has been meticulously planned out. I have charted the routes I travel, timed stoplights, and considered traffic flow.

We have exactly 12 minutes to drive from one place to another and it takes exactly 12 minutes to make that drive. No second to spare.

Then they decide to repave my main thoroughfare.

I sit for over five minutes staring at a man in an neon orange jacket holding a STOP sign. I start out cheerful. It’s a beautiful day. I enjoy the sun. I even feel spiritual and pray, “Thanks, God, for this lovely morning.”

I am proud of how well I’m handling the delay.

Then I start rifling through the papers on the seat next to me. I collect some of the trash that accumulates everywhere in a minivan when you have four kids.

Then I grow impatient. I start sighing and tapping my fingers on the steering wheel.

When that fails, I grit my teeth and talk to the hapless man still standing there with that sign that is halting all my progress for the day, “Come on!”

Eventually, he spins that sign around from STOP to SLOW and I am finally released to normal driving, which at this point means being stuck at a stoplight behind a long line of other cars with equally frustrated drivers for another 5 minutes.

I left my house 10 minutes early because of the construction and I’m still 5 minutes late. I’m flustered and bothered, annoyed, stressed.

So I whine to this woman, and she says to me, “That’s when I know it’s time to stop and BREATHE. God gives me these moments so I just listen to what He has to say for a bit.”

This month, in my 12-month pursuit of the presence of Christ, I’m taking breaks for beauty. I’m seeking out the beauty of the Lord by marveling at the beauty He creates.

And still I got it wrong. He gave me moments to rest in His presence, to enjoy the beauty of a spring day (from inside my minivan) and I fretted and fought instead.

In an hour, I will walk my four-year-old daughter, my baby girl, into a brick school filled with cheerful classrooms and hand over the papers to register her for kindergarten.

She is excited. Every 30 minutes this morning, she asks me if it’s time to go.

I am sad. I decide maybe we can just wait another 10 minutes. Could she just be my baby girl 10 minutes more? And then another 10?

Tomorrow I will place my 6-month-old son on a doctor’s scale and marvel at how he’s grown. I’ll probably come home all proud and tell my husband how big this baby boy is, how strong, how healthy.

But really my momma heart will mourn a little because six months never went by so fast.

So when God gives me 10 extra minutes in that minivan to stop, to rest, to breathe, to listen to His voice…surely I should relax into His presence. exodus33-14

This lesson chafes hard against my driven soul. God brings me here again and again and again.

Rest.

And I wrestle instead.

Funny how 10 minutes of inactivity can be more stressful to me than a whole day of rushing from task to task.

If I want to feel God’s presence in the going and the doing, I must willingly remain in His presence during the resting and the being.

God gave Moses this great task, leading a nation from slavery to promise, but He also gave this assurance:

The LORD replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exodus 33:14 NIV)

The rest is in His presence whether that’s driving from place to place or idling in front of a STOP sign for 10 minutes.

The rest is there because His presence is there.

Today, let us enjoy the gift of time He gives, the gift of quiet moments and unexpected pauses, the blessing of His presence in the rushing and in the stillness, the beauty of His voice in the whisper and in the storm, the time with those we love because that time just rushes right along.

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Enjoy Beauty’?

Trust the Director (A Lesson from the Theater)

March 12, 2014Leave a comment

Lesson Two: Trust the Director

She said there was a magic oven, a gingerbread house, a fireplace, an enchanted forest and a bridge to hide the troll.

We couldn’t see them, of course. Not yet.

For months, the cast of The Story of Hansel and Gretel interacted with an invisible set, pretending to eat an invisible house, ducking behind an invisible wooden bridge, all because the director told them, “This is where it’s going to be. This is what’s going to happen.”

And they had to trust her.

So it is with us. Our Director tells us to step here, walk there, and do this, and in so many cases, we don’t see the purpose or the ultimate design.

We have to trust Him anyway.

During those weeks of rehearsing with no props, no set, and no costumes, the actors could have assumed it would last forever and that they’d walk on an empty stage on opening night in their street clothes.

Yet, behind the scenes, there was a bustle of activity. A costume designer measuring, shopping, and sewing. A prop master searching for the perfect basket. Painting and building sets. Printing tickets. Prepping make-up.

Our God is also at work behind the scenes, even when we can’t see the evidence. Then, at just the right moment, He provides for our need and unveils the completed design He’s been working on all along.

Oswald Chambers wrote:

On looking back we see the presence of an amazing design. . . Be ready to discover His divine designs anywhere and everywhere.”

It’s in retrospect that we see God’s glory in our circumstances. Just like Moses, we see God’s glory as He passes by.

Moses entered the most holy place of God’s presence on that sacred mountain and with inexplicable boldness, he asked God to “show me your glorious presence” (Exodus 34:18).

Mortal and sin-plagued as we are, we can’t see God’s face. We can’t take in the fullness of His glory without falling dead at His feet.

Yet, God told Moses,

“As my glorious presence passes by, I will hide you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand and let you see me from behind. But my face will not be seen” (Exodus 34:22-23).

What if we’re staring at our surroundings, straining to see God and we see nothing? No sign of His presence. No hint of His favor or blessing. No indication of his design.

Perhaps He has hidden you in the crevice of a rock and covered your face with His hand.

Then when He has moved in all His glory, we will look again and see where God has been. We will see what He has done by the trail of His presence.

In the meantime, as we squint our eyes to see the now-invisible glory, we take those steps of faith, trusting that if our Director says to ‘move here,’ we go even if we still can’t see, even if we still don’t understand.

When Naaman, the powerful army commander for King Aram, asked Elisha to heal him of leprosy, the prophet sent a messenger telling Naaman to bathe in the Jordan River seven times.

It was ridiculous. Mundane. Not a glorious enough miracle for Naaman’s powerful position.

Yet, after blustering about the foolishness of it all and complaining about how ridiculous it was, Naaman obeyed.

And that obedience took perseverance. He had to obey without giving up, dipping down in that river again and again, never seeing the healing until the seventh time he ducked his head down in obedience.

At any moment, he could have said, “this clearly isn’t working,” and walked away with the leprosy still ravaging his body.

But because he obeyed completely and awaited the appointed time, God showed up in His glory and healed him.

Like the actors rehearsing without props and without a set, we move where God says to move. We do what He tells us to do.

We trust our Director’s vision and instruction, and we do it with faith and patience, obeying without giving up, just as Naaman did. We obey with anticipation, knowing that we will see God’s glory as He passes by.

Pursuing His Presence: Because Being Still Is Not Enough

January 31, 20141 Comment

I found her with untied tap shoes on her feet and eyes red from crying.

We zipped into the ballet studio, one mom and three girls (plus one baby boy) on a mission.

Three daughters in four back-to-back and sometimes overlapping dance classes during observation week. This means instead of huddling in my minivan or zooming around town doing errands in between classes, I sat in the corner of class taking pictures.

We all piled into my youngest daughter’s class except for my tap-dancing girl who left to change into her tap-tap-tappy shoes. I watched the clock carefully and slipped out just in time to check on her before her tap class began.

She wiped her eyes and explained, “I couldn’t get the ribbons on my shoes tied and I didn’t have anyone to help me….”

I tie the ribbons swiftly and then smooth down her hair with my hand. Then I say it so she knows it’s not just about shoes anymore:

You didn’t trust me to come help you. I knew you’d need help and I came just in time.

She’d been frantic and upset and all along I had a plan for her rescue and I was right on time, not a second too late.

So, all her fretting had been unnecessary drama.

And when is fretting not?

I started this year with intentionality: 12 months of pursuing the presence of Christ in the middle of the noise, mess, and busyness of life. Today, I finish January’s journey, learning to be still and know that He is God.

For months, I dreaded this start to the year, knowing it would be the busiest and craziest of our busy and crazy schedule. I feared the stress—-as in, tearful eyes, breathless suffocation just thinking about it.

But here we are. We made it. God is gracious. When I felt that familiar strangulation of fear, I heard that still and small reminder: Don’t worry about that. Just think about today.

So I did.

And, as much as I whine perhaps about winter, the overload of snow days has given me unexpected rest when we needed it most.

God planned the perfect rescue at the perfect moment for me all along, but I had been fretting and worrying.

Why?

Because I didn’t trust Him.

So often, we read that familiar Psalm—-BE STILL and know—and we focus on the stillness (Psalm 46:10).

Yes, stop with the flustered activity, the desperate attempts to fix things on our own, the frantic search for help from everyone except the only One who can truly save….

“Cease striving” it says in the NASB.

So, for a moment we pause.

Here’s what I’ve learned this month, though—“Being still” is not enough. It simply tells me what not to do.

I can’t forget that after I’ve ceased that striving and calmed my heart, God tells me what I should be doing in the stillness:

Know Him, Know He is God, Know that He’s got this under control and I can rest in the knowing that He cares for me.

Ann Voskamp reminds me of this….to remember He is I AM. His very name is the reminder of His Presence here in this present moment.

Like Moses, I’ve asked in the boldest of ways that God will show me His Glory this year. And, like Moses, I’ve told God that I don’t want to move from this place until His presence will go with me.

So, like Moses standing there on a holy mountain before a Holy God, I pray this also:

If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you (Exodus 33:13).

Because, God, in order to dwell in Your presence day after hectic day, I must be still and know You more, know You as I AM, know You as God present with me.

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me next month as I focus on Praying Simply?

Finding Room to Breathe: A 12-month pursuit of the presence of Christ

January 3, 2014November 6, 201465 Comments

I’ve waved the white flag and retreated to the kitchen table this morning.

It was the unexpected nature of the rush and stress that did me in and led to my defeat. I woke up without major plans or a busy schedule, determined to soak in the joy of winter break for just a few more days.

But then ‘it’ happened.

And by ‘it,’ I don’t mean one crisis. Not an accident or disaster or tragedy. No, more like life trampling all over my garden of peace and tranquility.

Like four children all needing help at the same time, calling out “mom” (or the newborn equivalent thereof) in harmony from all four corners of the house. Suddenly I was off on missions of finding and fixing and feeding and changing and breaking up fights.

And that, my friends, is when momma gets grumpy. My vision of winter break rest turned into sorting through the cabinets and cleaning out drawers and discovering where children had hidden the missing top to my water bottle (behind the television cabinet) and the missing Xbox game (in the very back of the DVD cabinet) and various other long-lost treasures.

All before mom had her cup of tea and time with Jesus.

Have mercy.

Life can suffocate us at times, slam right into our sides and knock the very life-breath out of our bodies when we’re not looking. Pretty soon we’re panting on the sidelines, injured, weary, and defeated.

Yet, Psalm 62 says that God is “solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul” (Psalm 61:1-2, MSG).

I need the reminder.

In a few days, I’ll be back to zooming around town in the minivan, picking up children, dropping off children, passing sandwiches to the kids in the back because we won’t make it home for dinner and coaching them on homework all from the driver seat as we bounce from school to ballet to church to play practice and back again.

And right there, in the middle of the ‘mess, noise, and busyness’ of life is where I need God to manifest His presence and to breathe life back into my hyperventilating soul.

God promised this to Moses:

The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exodus 33:14).

A promise like that might leave me in a blubbery mess of tearful gratitude and peace—His presence and the promise of rest. Yes, Lord, Amen!!

The promise of God’s presence and rest didn’t come at the end of the journey or on the edge of Canaan either. It was right there at a mountain in the middle of the wilderness.

So, Moses got a little bold. Or a lot bold.

He said,

“Now show me your glory” (Exodus 13:18).

God did just that.

Here I sit at the beginning of a new year praying the same thing. Please, Lord, show me Your glory on the mountain, in the wilderness, along the journey, in the everyday travels. Let me know the heavy weight of Your presence as I go.

This year I’m choosing one word to focus my faith-journey and I’m making it a year-long pursuit.

I’ll be writing each month about how I’m pursuing God’s PRESENCE in a particular way.

Here’s what I’m thinking for each month (although I reserve the right to change my mind, move things around, alter, delete, and improve this list as time goes on!!)

January: Be Still and Know
February: Pray Simply
March: Unplug (Turning off TV, social media, and other distractions and tuning into God)
April: Enjoy beauty (Gardens, walks, nature, and more)
May: Create beauty (Dabble in the arts and get to know the nature of our Creator God)
June: Invest in Friendship
July: Retreat and regroup (Why we need to get away and how to make it happen)
August: Learn how to say ‘no’ (Because you can’t do everything)
September: Learn how and when to say ‘yes’ (Because you have to do some things)
October: Find sacred in the ordinary
November: Practice Sabbath-Keeping
December: Abandon perfection

Will you join me?

Will you share with me in this pursuit of the PRESENCE of Christ?

I’d love for you to comment, write your own blog posts and share them with me, email me and give me tips, ideas, failures and success stories as we pursue His PRESENCE.

Ask Me Anything: Giveaway Winner and “You want me to do what?”

November 1, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

It’s time to announce the Giveaway Winners!

Thanks to all those who participated. I absolutely loved hearing the book titles you’d choose to tell your own story and am reminded of how much we can learn from one another.

I used a random number generator to select the comment number of the winners and they are: Mary Reese and Betsy Marmon!

Congratulations! I’ll contact you privately about getting these signed copies of Ask Me Anything, Lord to you.

If you didn’t win, you can still get a copy of the book here:

Visit me at Discovery House Publishers to read a sample chapter and order online!

Follow these links to find the book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and also at Christianbook.com.

Or click here to order an autographed copy via PayPal.

The book will also be available on e-readers (like nook and Kindle) and in some local Christian book stores in November 2013.

And now, for the final excerpt from Ask Me Anything, Lord. Enjoy!

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

You want me to do what, God?

You want me to parent these children? You want me to stay in this marriage? You want me to lead this ministry? You want me to start this program?

When God calls us, it isn’t about us at all; it’s all about Him. We’re the ones looking at our qualifications and feeling mismatched for the job He’s assigning us, whatever that calling looks like in your life.

Moses reacted that way at the burning bush all because he focused on himself. He asked God:

“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’” (Exodus 3:11 NIV).

It was his way of saying he wasn’t qualified for that. “It’s all about me and ME isn’t good enough.”

God, on the other hand, focused not on Moses, but on Himself. He said:

“I will be with you . . . I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ . . . ” (Exodus 3:12-15 NIV).

There are moments and days when I fell like Moses, when I begin to wonder how I could possibly minister to others when I’m working so hard at basics like keeping calm with misbehaving children and not stressing about my calendar.

When I feel so empty, how can I pour out to others?

It’s one thing to serve and encourage when we’re overflowing; God’s goodness just sploshes over the tops of our lives and refreshes all who cross our paths. But, what about when our cup seems dry? What happens when a thirsty neighbor lifts up needy hands in our direction and we ladle out empty air?

In some ways, that’s where Moses was. He felt enthusiastic to the point of foolishness about leading the Israelites decades before when he was still in Egypt. Unfortunately, he was oozing confidence and overflowing with a vision of leading a slave revolt that depended on his own strength. He believed then that if it all depended on him, well then he was enough.

Then he murdered an Egyptian in his enthusiasm. His own people rejected him. Pharaoh sought to punish him. That’s what happened when he served in his own strength.

At the burning bush, however, Moses clearly recognized that if this deliverance thing depended on him, well then he simply didn’t cut it.

And that’s what we say sometimes when we tell God that we can’t possibly do what He wants us to do.

In My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers wrote:

“Jesus was saying, ‘Do not worry about being of use to others; simply believe on Me.’ In other words, pay attention to the Source, and out of you will flow ‘the rivers of living water’” (John 7:38 NIV).

Similarly, the Psalmist wrote, “Then those who sing as well as those who play the flutes shall say, ‘All my springs of joy are in You‘” (Psalm 87:7, NASB).

God is the Source, the Spring from which comes all our joy.

He’s not an immovable Fountain either, located at only one place or accessible at only certain times of the day. He is our Portion and Provision every moment of every day.

When we find ourselves carrying our cups back to Him like Oliver Twist in the orphanage, asking shamefacedly, “Please, Sir, can I have some more?” we’re forgetting that we serve a generous God, who longs to pour out His grace on us. He isn’t stingy and doesn’t want us thirsty or starving.

The more times a day we lift our cups to Him, the more times He will fill them. If that means we’re having a quiet time every five minutes all day long, then that’s what it takes that day to fill up at the Fountain of God.

I know that when I’m running back to the well every few minutes, it’s because I’m a needy and leaky person, with holes punched all in my heart from stress and busyness.

Yet, it’s also because I’m pouring out to others and God is willing, even joyful, to replace what I’ve spilled over into the cups of my husband, my children, my friends, my Bible Study girls, my church members, the Wal-Mart cashier and the girl who cuts my hair.

The frequency of our visits to the Well doesn’t reveal our weakness or failure. It reveals our dependency on Him and how much we pour out to others.

So when we peer into an empty cup and think we’re too dry to walk this Christian life, too empty to share with another, then we’re forgetting that It’s All About Him.

That’s the mistake Moses made. He assumed the ministry depended on himself. Truthfully, though, none of the ministry we perform in our homes or outside of them is contingent on our ability, brains, beauty, education, character or godliness (thank goodness!).

It’s really all about Him, and He promises: “For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you” (Isaiah 41:13 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 book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is now available! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Not the Other Mom

April 8, 2013January 24, 2014Leave a comment

Her Other Mom cooks yummy pancakes.

Her Other Mom bought all of her clothes (although I clearly remember shopping myself).

Her Other Mom has a big house with a pink toilet in it.

Her Other Mom owns a dog.

Her Other Mom tells her when to eat, when she can have a snack, when she can go outside to play, what shows to watch on television, and whether or not it’s bedtime.

Her Other Mom has that book, that Kindle app, that game, that movie, and every toy that’s ever been advertised on television…ever.

We’re not exactly sure when it happened or how, but at some point my three-year-old transitioned from a mini-van full of fairly typical imaginary friends to an imaginary “Other Mom.”

Eventually the Other Mom had an Other Dad and Other Sisters and even Brothers, and she chats about this entire Other Family all day long.

We laugh most of the time (quietly to ourselves, of course) and let her chatter on about this pretend family.

Once I mistakenly corrected her, reminding her at dinner that it wasn’t the cape-wearing superhero Other Mom who gave her a birthday gift, but it was in fact me.

She cried.

So, I mostly leave it be and certainly don’t use the words “pretend” or “imaginary,” “not real” or “fake” whenever she launches into one of her Other Mom fairy tales.

But the other day, I leaned in close to my little one and whispered, “Who loves you?”

Without a second’s breath, she blurted out “My Other Mo……” and then she stopped. She put down the crayon she was coloring with and let it roll on the table, concentrating on my question. She pushed back the flyaway hairs escaping from her ponytail.

Then she looked right into my eyes and said, “You!” and giggled at me like we had just shared the best knock-knock joke ever heard by a preschooler.

“And who else loves you?” I asked her, pressing in on the moment.

“My cats….and Lauren and Victoria and my Dad.”

Not her Other Dad, not those Other Sisters, or the Brothers or the imaginary dog…

We love her, this real family who takes care of her real needs and buys her real clothes and cooks her real food.

It’s innocent, of course, this imagination of hers. Most days, I try to marvel at it rather than question too much whether deficiencies in me gave her reason to create an Other Mom (I don’t, after all, have a pink toilet in my home).

But then there’s God and then there’s us and it really isn’t innocent much of the time, forgetful, yes…apathetic at times…generally oblivious in some moments.

Like Israel just a short hike from Egypt, not long enough for a generation to develop spiritual amnesia about their miraculous deliverance out of slavery, still they were forgetful beings. Moses delayed on the mountain with the Lord, so Aaron threw some gold into the fire and pulled out a golden cow.

The people looked at that man-made object and declared, “Israel, this is your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!” (Exodus 32:4).

And they did it again generations later. King Jeroboam decided it was too difficult for the people to trek to Jerusalem to worship in the temple. It required too much sacrifice, too much effort.

So, “he made two golden calves, and he said to the people, ‘Going to Jerusalem is too difficult for you. Israel, here is your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.'” (1 Kings 12:28).

How?

How could they give any fake god or false idol the credit for miraculous salvation?

How could worship be so fickle?

How could they forget who God is and what He had done?

How could we?

We’re not three-year-olds with active imaginations. We’re His children who forget to thank Him, forget to worship Him, forget to give Him glory for what He’s done, forget today what miracle He did for us yesterday, forget to look for Him in the middle of our everyday lives.

We too often just accept the gifts without pausing to see, really see, the way they drip with grace.

Praising Him one day; forgetting the next; overlooking His goodness; blaming Him for what is wrong and not thanking Him for what is good….so we fall and so we fail, and so we end up worshiping golden calves of our own making.

But God reminded His people: “I am the Lord your God, who brought your out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery” (Exodus 20:2).

Yes, He is the God worthy of our praise. He is the God who rescued us. He is the God who loves us.

Yes, He is God and God alone.

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.

When It Seems Too Hard…

March 11, 2013January 28, 20141 Comment

I sorted through the papers in her school take-home folder: homework, tests, notes and announcements, and pictures from her friends.

When I held the unfinished math paper in my hand, I turned it over, around and even upside down trying to figure out the mystery.

The paper was covered top to bottom in multiplication word problems, hard ones like: “Sam bought 21 cookies from the store every day for a week. How many cookies had he bought by the end of the week….” or something like that.

This wasn’t simple 1×1 = 1 and on up the single-digit line, the kind of multiplication you learn through sing-songy repetition, simple songs, and homemade flash cards.

This was 64 x 6 and the like, problems I would pull out the scratch paper (or the calculator) to figure out.

So, I asked my daughter, “Who gave you this paper?,” thinking to myself her teacher had missed a few lessons in the math book.

But no, not her teacher. Another school staff member gave the kids a challenge with the promise of free ice cream from the cafeteria as a reward.

To my daughter, free ice cream in the cafeteria was enough incentive to make her don hiking boots and climb Mt. Everest.

Yet, reading through the problems, I just kept thinking that it was all too hard and maybe a bit unfair to offer the incentive of free ice cream and then make it unattainable.

I grabbed the paper at the top in order to fold it down and quietly slip it into the trash can, hoping my daughter would forget it and the disappointment.

But I stopped.

Suddenly, I saw beyond the questions and started reading my daughter’s scribbles and answers. She had made charts and graphs, tally marks grouped together, tens columns and ones columns and rows and rows of addition.

And she had answered the questions correctly. (I pulled out my calculator to be sure.) Then I called her over to explain it all to me.

She spoke in a whirlwind. Why she had arranged the numbers this way. How if you did things like this or that it would work it all out. I couldn’t understand it, these complex and abstract ways to think math.

And I had thought the paper was too hard.

I do this in life and call it being “practical” or “realistic,” writing off tasks as too difficult, promises as too out of reach, dreams as too unattainable. And I take words like “hard” or “difficult” and turn them into “impossible.”

Sometimes I even give up.

Maybe it’s just that we all have a way of complicating the simple.

We try to make issues of statistics and timelines, resources and probabilities, and God cuts through all of that:

“Trust and obey.”

When Moses gave God’s commandments to Israel, it could have been all so overwhelming. God was practical. God was specific. He seemed to have something to say about every aspect of their lives from skin diseases to eating habits to relationships with their neighbors.

But God summed it all up for them: “Do not add to or subtract from these commands I am giving you. Just obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you” (Deuteronomy 4:2).

No matter how confusing and complicated we try to make this holy life, it’s always as simple as this: “just obey.”

Yes, God says,

Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach….No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it (Deuteronomy 30:11, 14).

And yet, they failed. Years and years after Promised Land living, the book of Judges tells us how many tribes “failed to drive out the people living” in the land, failed to take possession of the promise (Judges 1). They were living a compromised life without victory.

They didn’t fail because it was too hard, though, and not because God was unfaithful or incapable or too weak or bested by the false gods of the enemies.

They failed because they looked at the task and decided it was just too difficult and wasn’t it better to stay safely out of the way rather than try at all?

Maybe if they’d been promised free ice cream….

Or maybe if they had realized that if God promised it, He could do it.

If He gives the vision, if He calls you out, if He assigns the task, if He creates the passion, if He directs Your steps…. then conquer those tendencies to make it so complicated and excuse-laden, so bogged down in the overwhelming and the fear-filled.

“Just obey.”

Keep it that simple. Let Him handle the rest.

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.

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

"He's solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul" Psalm 62:1-2 (MSG).

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Not the Other Mom

When It Seems Too Hard…

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