Broken ornaments and letting go of perfection

December 6, 2017December 5, 20171 Comment

The first crash of that shattering glass hit and it was just the day after Thanksgiving. We were only one day into the Christmas season and only about 1 hour into Operation Decorate the House.

‘Twas an accident of course.

The penguin soap dispenser hit that floor and ended in a puddle of hand soap and broken glass.

Accidents happen, you know.That’s decorating with kids.

An hour later, another crash. Our box of special, keepsake, treasured ornaments hit the floor and a daughter cried with remorse.

Still, a little sweeping, a little mopping, a little gluing, a little comforting and we slipped back into the decorating groove, crooning along with Bing Crosby to White Christmas.

Stuff is stuff. Things break (especially when you’re clumsy like me, especially when you have four kids like us).

Look at our Christmas tree from afar and it still has that glow of perfect.

Look up close and you’ll see the ballerina’s feet are glued on, Noah’s ark is missing a dolphin leaping up out of the ocean waters, and the three kings no longer carry a sign: “Wise Men Still Seek Him.”

Brokenness can still be beautiful when we look with eyes of grace.

But when we squint up close to critique and criticize….when we look right past the glory and seek out the flaws…..suddenly that’s all we see.

Perfectionism is a bully.

It muscles in and takes over our perceptions.

It demands that we see only brokenness and faults.

It insists that we remain chained to the past, obsessing over mistakes, battering us over past sin, beating us up with shame.

Lysa TerKeurst writes:

My imperfections will never override God’s promises (The Best Yes).

The promise of Christmas is “God with us.” The promise is that when we were farthest from Him, He came to us.

The promise is that we didn’t have to get it right on our own or check the boxes of the law until we’d met some prerequisite to grace.

We didn’t come worthy.

We came needy.

And He came down.

Our imperfections never negated the promise of Emmanuel’s presence. Not then. Not now.

He still promises us this, “And surely I will be with you always” (Matthew 28:20 NIV).

He is with us always, but not to leave us there in the brokenness.

Sometimes we stop right there at this thought: “Beauty in the brokenness. We’re all a mess in need of a Messiah.”

Sometimes we stop right there and, dare I say it, glory in the broken? We cling to our mess instead of releasing it to Him.

But the glory is in the Healer. The glory is in the redemption. The glory is in the One who puts His own pure robe of righteousness over our shaky shoulders.

He doesn’t leave us naked and ashamed. He “has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10 NIV).

We’ll never be perfect in our own striving and strength. True. But we don’t have to remain stuck there in the mud. He grips us with the hand of grace and pulls us out of that pit so we can move forward with Him.

Those disciples on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection didn’t have it all right. They didn’t have perfect understanding. Their belief was delicately trembling and about to topple their whole foundation of faith.

They thought Jesus had been the Messiah, yet He had died. These rumors from ‘crazy women’ about an empty tomb left them confused and alarmed.

But Jesus walked alongside without them recognizing him, going back to the beginning, telling the story start to finish.

When He was about to leave, “they urged him strongly, ‘Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.’ So he went in to stay with them.”

There at the dinner table, He broke the bread and their eyes opened wide to the truth: This was Jesus. This was God in their midst.

As I consider these searching followers, these disciples who didn’t have it all figured out and didn’t know all the answers, who were hurting and confused, I realize this:

God’s presence doesn’t hinge on perfection.

God’s presence doesn’t demand perfect understanding or faith without fail.

But if I want God’s presence, then I have to invite Him in, urge Him strongly, “stay with me…..”

He can only make us whole when we trust Him with the pieces, all of them:

God made my life complete
when I placed all the pieces before him. Psalm 18:20 MSG

We bring all the pieces. We don’t hold any back.

We lay them at His feet, not running away or hiding from Him. We come into His presence, broken as we are, and He makes us whole and holy, and He stays with us.

Originally published 12/10/2014

Letting Go of What I Didn’t Do This Summer

August 9, 2017August 8, 20177 Comments

“Can we make brownies?”

That’s what my daughter asks when I tell my kids we’re going to an outdoor concert along the riverfront.

She asks about brownies because this is what we do.

We tote lawn chairs to an open area on the lawn, spray on some bug spray, and settle in to listen to the music while munching on our two favorite “outdoor concert snacks:” popcorn and brownies.

Sometimes we bring cookies instead or skip the popcorn.

But not often.

Outdoor concert = popcorn + brownies.

It’s an equation we know and love.

My kids love traditions and they eagerly hold me to them. That’s why we poured the ingredients for brownies into a mixing bowl this morning to make our treat for tonight’s adventure.

Because what would summer be without outdoor concerts? And what would outdoor concerts be without popcorn and brownies?

Tragic, that’s what! Full of despair and disappointment!

Of course, that’s just silly talk. But somehow it can feel that way.

Unmet expectations can push our weary souls right to the ground.

I love our family traditions as much as my kids do, but I also bear the burden of them and I’ve felt that weight a little this summer.

It’s not just traditions, though, that can keep me dancing on the edges of guilt.

It’s mostly what I expect of myself. Roles I need to fulfill. Tasks I need to accomplish. Must-do’s, should-do’s, and have-to’s.

It’s endlessly seeing ideas and reminders that I could do more and I could do better.

It’s comparing myself with others and not feeling like I measure up.

Those other moms have their kids accomplishing all these cool activities this summer. Look at how many books they read, places they went, projects they made!

The pressure!

It comes from comparing ourselves with our own past.

I used to be able to read more books, get more done, finish more on my to-do list, keep my house cleaner, manage more projects.

But that’s not this year, not this summer, not this season.

This summer has been teaching me more and more that it’s okay to let some things go. We don’t have to do every good thing or every familiar thing.

I carried around guilt well into July this year about what I wasn’t doing.

We hadn’t picnicked out at our favorite playground yet.

I’m failing at this summer.

We’d barely made it through one audiobook.

I’m failing at this summer.

We did not run around the yard with an empty mason jar at twilight and catch as many fireflies as possible, just to release them all at once before going to bed.

I’m failing at this summer.

I haven’t written a book, pitched a book, edited a book, or in any way spent one second thinking about a new book.

I’m failing at this summer.

Maybe this all looks differently for you. Maybe our seasons are different and are expectations vary.

But maybe we can all identify with this feeling of just not doing enough or being enough or being able to keep up with all our own ideas of perfect.

After all, does summer have to be “perfect?” Maybe it just needs to be beautiful in its own unique and personal way.

Maybe any day can be beautiful without being perfect.

Does it matter to Jesus if I have the brownies for the concert?

Nope.

Is i t nice to have the brownies? Sure!

Is it worth stressing over or beating myself up over for not making brownies?

No.

What else can we let go of?

Are those projects another mom is doing great?

Sure!

Am I a failure as a mom if I don’t do the same thing as her?

Not at all.

Oh–whisper that again to your soul: You are not a failure for not doing every good thing you see around you.

You don’t have to do it all all the time.

Don’t you just love that when Jesus fed the crowd with a few fish and loaves as they sat expectantly on a hillside, He didn’t demand that the disciples come more prepared?

He didn’t demand that they provide the supply or that they be enough in themselves.

They offered him a little boy’s lunch and He did the rest.

Lisa Harper reminds us of this lesson:

“Just use what you have and do the best that you can” (Lisa Harper, The Gospel of Mark).

Tonight I have the brownies to take with us to the concert, but if I didn’t, that’d be fine, too.

I don’t need to spend the whole evening feeling guilty for what I didn’t do.

I can be oh so grateful and oh so joyful for the day Jesus gave me.

This is why I need a Savior

October 7, 2015October 6, 20158 Comments

I was a freshman in college when an older friend took me for a walk and confronted me about the deathly sharpness of my tongue, how I could cut another student to pieces and leave them in shreds on the campus floor.

Since then, there has been grace.

The Holy Spirit dug out mounds of trash and began growing kindness, gentleness, and self-control in me.

I started to think that this new ‘me’ is the real me, the gracious and gentle me who loves others and keeps her tongue in check. I thought I had learned the lesson:

There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts,
but the tongue of the wise brings healing (Proverbs 12:18 ESV).

But it was pride, foolish pride.

Now, the Lord is breaking that self-righteousness right down. It stings and aches, and I’d just like Him to finish the construction project already so I can stop feeling so bruised and laid bare.

I’ve been losing my ‘cool,’ snapping back when I felt challenged, flashing to defend myself.

One time felt like a fluke, just a bad day. But then it happened again. And again.

Every time, I’d think, “What’s wrong with me? That’s not who I am!”

I’d spend days, weeks even after each incident rehearsing the scenes in my mind, wincing at my words, embarrassed and ashamed.

I resolved to try harder next time. Be calm. Stay in control. Take deep breaths. Don’t talk when provoked. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry.

Not that I’m cursing or yelling, of course. It’s just that temporary loss of control, speaking now and thinking later (with regret).

That’s not me. I’m sweet and kind. I’m patient and slow to speak.

That’s what I kept telling myself.

But the truth is even when I kept control of my tongue, the trash was in my heart–the criticism or judgments, the flashes of self-protective wit and anger.

Now God seems to be letting the trash of my heart come pouring out my mouth so I can’t hide it, not even from myself.

I keep entering the boxing ring and beating at myself with the same commentary.

I can’t believe I said that.

That’s not me. That’s not who I am.

What’s wrong with me?

Why am I so easily provoked?

I am an idiot.

I’m so embarrassed.

I review my day as a mom and realize I blew it here and I messed up there. I hear how my tone of voices loses gentleness even with my own kids.

I’ve spent months carrying around a load of shame and embarrassment because I just can’t seem to shake my reactivity.

What’s wrong with me?

Then this weekend, I read Simply Tuesday by Emily P. Freeman and she pinned me to a display board when she said this:

Shock and shame are my most natural and immediate responses when I make a bad choice or have a bad reaction….If I feel shocked and ashamed when I snap…, maybe I’m assuming I can handle life on my own and I don’t really need redemption, not really. And so when my soul has a bad idea, I can’t believe it.

Shock and shame. That’s been me.

Why am I so shocked by my own sinfulness? Every. Single. Time.

It’s because I’ve been leaning so heavily on my own self-righteousness that I’ve failed to collapse in the arms of grace.

It’s because I’ve been assuming I could be perfect and am angry when I’m not.

I have messages I tell my kids over and over, hoping they’ll ring true in the deepest parts of them.

I love you.

You’re beautiful.

I believe in you.

And this:

No one is perfect. We all mess up. We sin. That’s why we need a Savior. If we could be perfect on our own, we wouldn’t need Jesus.

Maybe in this season of humility and the breaking down, I find myself learning the lesson I’ve been preaching—

Accept the grace. Be loved.

Stop being shocked and embarrassed because I need a Savior.

Be humbled and live in awe of the One who Saves.

I don’t receive mercy because I’m perfect; I receive it because I’m imperfect and relying on Christ.

Aren’t we all?

The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
    slow to anger, abounding in love.
⁹He will not always accuse,
    nor will he harbor his anger forever;
¹⁰he does not treat us as our sins deserve
    or repay us according to our iniquities.
¹¹For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his love for those who fear him;
¹²as far as the east is from the west,
    so far has he removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:8-12 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 available now! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

That Time I Did Spontaneous

July 15, 2015July 14, 20153 Comments

I did spontaneous.

This miracle happened right here two weeks ago. Yes, this Planning-Mom-Extraordinaire did spontaneous.

My son woke up from his afternoon nap and I loaded my kids into the minivan for a trip to the beach. The library’s summer reading program is hosting a ‘drum circle’ every Wednesday evening along the beachfront.

So, we went.

They had drums of every size and variety, egg shakers and rain sticks, tambourines, maracas and more. My son claimed the upside down 5-gallon bucket that he could beat on with a drum stick.

We played music. My kids climbed on the playground. We explored the library truck and found the exact book we’d been looking for since summer began.

Spontaneous trip success.

Then we headed on to our evening activities at church, driving through the KFC to grab a quick dinner first.

Now, I have yet to master the drive-thru ordering at KFC. The options seem endless and I’m an overwhelmed soul feeling rushed by the mystery voice on the other side of the order screen. “Hi! May I take your order?'”

“Ummm…..”

I squint my eyes because they have all these meals with chicken and biscuits and sides and half gallons of lemonade and who knows what else and I can’t see the tiny little print underneath all of that. I want chicken. I just want a bunch of pieces of chicken to feed all the people in my family.

Try ordering that through the little noise box, though.

Finally, I collect myself enough to order food, but I realize as they hand it out the window that I forgot to order a large lemonade for my kids to share.

Still, I had taken them to the beach.

I had let them play on the playground.

I had ordered them food from a drive-thru.

Surely, I still had some claim to supermom status. I had Caprisuns and cold water. Would that do?

No. Not hardly.

A child (who shall remain nameless) could not get over the fact that I hadn’t ordered a drink.

Could. Not.

She glared. She huffed. She whined and complained and confronted me with my oversight.

Nothing makes you feel like a Mom-failure so much as an ungrateful child.

Really, it’s a struggle for me anyway. Maybe it’s that way for all moms. No matter how much we are doing, it just never feels like it’s enough.

It seems like others are doing better. Other moms are more….more fun, more wise, more crafty, more creative, more gentle.

I’ve been working really hard this summer to improve my spontaneity, flexibility, and effort at playdates.

But every single time I do something spontaneous, flexible, fun and playdate-ish, they want to know when they can do it again. What about tomorrow? What about a sleepover?

However much I’ve done, it’s just not enough.

Today, as I read Hope for the Weary Mom, I suck in my breath because she’s describing me:

“Communication is her best asset, but she often feels like she’s not good enough at having fun or coming up with creative ways to laugh and be spontaneous with her children” (Brooke McGlothin).

And, she tells me the best way to combat that weariness and insecurity is to stop focusing on my weakness and start recognizing my strength. She says, “Live freely in who God made you to be.”

I’m still thinking about this as I read the Scripture. Right there in the middle of 2 Chronicles of all places, I find it:

Ahaziah also followed the evil example of King Ahab’s family, for his mother encouraged him in doing wrong (2 Chronicles 22:3 NLT).

I’m not the perfect mom. None of us are.

But we also don’t have to be perfect. God doesn’t expect that of us or require it.

I read about Ahaziah’s mom, how she actually encouraged him to do wrong, and I breathe deeply of grace. Because if there’s one thing I do, it’s love Jesus and His Word. Spontaneous might not be my thing, but encouraging my kids to do what is right—yeah, I’m totally into that.

So, I’m working on teaching my kids gratitude and appreciating what they have instead of greedily demanding more, more, and more….

But I’m also teaching myself that I don’t have to be the mom their friends have or the mom on Pinterest or Facebook. I have to be the mom God has called me to be.

When the woman broke that alabaster jar and poured the perfume down over Jesus’ head, those at the table criticized her offering. It wasn’t perfect, right, acceptable.

But Jesus said this, “She has done what she could” (Mark 14:8 NLT).

Dear Mom, God isn’t expecting you to be perfect; He finds your heartfelt, all-in offering beautiful. He knows when you’ve done what you could and that is indeed enough.

Heather King is a busy-but-blessed wife and mom, a 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.

How to know what really matters

February 18, 2015April 12, 2018Leave a comment

Some days, you must choose grace.

Not just choose to give grace, but choose to receive it, take it in, soak it up past the superficial skin and let it seep down deep into your soul, into the places of self-condemnation. Let it erase the records of wrongs, mistakes and imperfections.

Like when you shop at at the grocery story and you forgot your coupons. And they don’t have the chicken you need, which messes up your meal plan for the week.

So you skip out on exercise because you had to trek to a second grocery story to find said elusive chicken.

And during the rush to put away the groceries, all you can see is the dirt in the corners of the kitchen floor, the apple juice splatters, the toothpaste splotches in the bathroom sink, and the laundry piled in the basket.

At the end of the day, what’s on your mind is mess and failure, what you didn’t accomplish….how your kids didn’t practice the piano, your toddler threw a tantrum every hour, and you didn’t finish the project you’re working on.

I collapsed onto the sofa after having that day and read to my daughters quickly. When we finished the chapter, my daughter reached over and turned down the corner the page to hold our place.

And I felt the full rush of failure.

I’m a page-turner-downer from way back. Despite a lovely, inspirational, unique and extensive collection of bookmarks, I fall back on a long-established bad habit. I just dog-ear my page and snap the book shut.

Unfortunately, it’s a bad habit I’ve unwittingly passed along to these daughters of mine. In fact, it’s so extreme they’ve even coined a term for it, transforming the word “chapter” into a verb.

“Mom, don’t close the book until we ‘chapter it!” they say and I dutifully slip the corner of the page down.

Watching my daughter turn down that page without hesitation, I heard that voice in my head: I’m passing along my bad habits to my children, handing them down like ill-fitting jeans and worn-out shoes.

Unfortunately, some of them aren’t as immaterial as dog-eared book pages–like stressing perfection too much, having too little patience with ourselves and others, always wanting to be in control, and not accepting grace in the wake of messy failure.

Don’t we all have days where it seems we meet with more failure than success? Where Satan can barrage us with reminders of the mistakes from long ago and the crazy mishaps of today?

Where every mom on Facebook seems to have it all together: gourmet meals for their family, a spit-n-shine house, Martha Stewart-like crafting ability, time to bake, snazzy Scrapbook pages, award-winning kids, and time for family service projects….”

Or maybe you feel it at your job or in your ministry or with your friends. What you should be doing. What you failed to do. What you said that was wrong. How you fall short. How you could be better.

The pressure of perfection is far too much for our imperfect selves tripping along in an imperfect world.

And that’s the point, sweet friend. It’s not to get everything right. It’s to get what really matters right. It’s to do our best and just lay it all out, insufficient as it is, as an offering before a gracious God who just wants our heart anyway.

Paul told Timothy:

“The whole point of what we’re urging is simply love—love uncontaminated by self-interest and counterfeit faith, a life open to God” (1 Timothy 1, MSG).

Sometimes we have to stop and ask, “What’s the point? What is it that really matters here?”

Is it a chicken? Missing coupons? Apple juice splatter or the pages of a book turned down at the corner?

What matters is living “a life open to God.”

So, we choose to receive that grace and rest in it. We silence that self-condemning prattle in our mind and heart and decide: it’s okay if we didn’t get it all perfect today and if our life got a little bit messy.

Doesn’t God love us?

Didn’t we try our best to walk in that love?

That’s the point and that’s enough.

Now, it’s your turn: Do you have any bad habits?

Originally posted November 2, 2012

What Can Make You Lose Every Time

December 29, 20143 Comments

I watched as this college friend pulled clothes from her suitcase and packed them into a duffel bag for the Thanksgiving weekend at home.

She still had an empty dresser and a full suitcase 3/4 of the way through the college semester.

I am not like this. I am an insta-unpacker. The moment I arrive at a hotel, I nest. I empty every bag, tuck every item away, fill the mini-kitchen and set up the bathroom sink.

When we return home, I’m going to unpack no matter how late it is. I’m going to start that load of laundry and pull out the toiletries because it cannot wait until morning, not if I want to get any sleep.

Maybe I looked lost in confusion as I watched my friend move clothes from one bag to another because she stopped to explain it to me.

It wasn’t procrastination or laziness.

It was perfectionism. It was that ugly enemy that paralyzes us with the lie: If you can’t do it perfectly, then why do it at all?

“I was so busy,” she said, “I knew I didn’t have time to put my clothes away just right, so I left them in the suitcase.”

Beth Moore wrote:

Perfectionists always lose (Esther).

It’s the same way my son chose to crawl rather than walk for weeks and weeks. People asked me, “Can he walk yet?”

Yes, he could walk.

Did he always choose to walk?

No. It amused him to walk a little from room to room or place to place. But when he wanted to get somewhere with certainty and with speed, he dropped to all fours and crawled like a rocket.

Perfectionism does this; it paralyzes us into this one place of development. We’re comfortable here. We move along well enough. This is what we know.

Why choose stumbling? Why choose uncertain steps and potential embarrassment?

This is what we lose when we demand perfection from ourselves: We lose the journey of grace, the way God walks alongside, the way He steadies us with His strong hand and smiles at our progress. The way He cheers us along and encourages us on the weary days to persevere and not give up, to get up and try once more because He is with us, after all.

Jesus said these words to His disciples and it could have broken over their weary souls like the cracking of a whip, so they felt trampled and beaten and hopeless:

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48 ESV).

Be…..perfect?

It’s tucked in just one tiny verse after the beatitudes and after Jesus tells them not to retaliate against their enemies, not to get divorced, not to lust, not to sin when they’re angry, and to love their enemies.

Yes, do all this. And be perfect.

That would have caused me some religious whiplash. If I were taking sermon notes on that hillside, I’d have written it down on my bulletin with exclamation marks and references to look up later in case the preacher was wrong.

Hadn’t the Pharisees preached legalism and works-based faith? The religious elite told them to be perfect, be perfect, be perfect and if possible, be more perfect, because that’s what it took to please God.

Here I am at the end of my 12-month pursuit of the presence of Christ, and I’m ending the year with this: Abandon Perfection.

But how do you move on past a verse like this?

Be perfect? That’s impossible. I’m a mess some days, broken and faulty and prone to sin.

So, Jesus, does that mean we’re hopelessly blocked from Your presence and Your favor because this perfection just trips us all up?

Oh, but here’s the grace we perfectionists need.

Ravi Zacharias writes:

Perfection, then, is not a change in the essential character but the completion of a course...We can never be who God is, but we can complete the task he assigns us to do” (The Grand Weaver).

Jesus didn’t mean we had to attain that holiness on our own or get everything right and never falter or sin. He knows we can’t.

He asks us, though, to move forward. Take those steps. Make progress. Obey Him.

When He tells us to move, move. When He plants us, bloom. When He leads us, follow. When He prompts us, go. When He nudges us, yield.

Perfectionists lose because we get so focused on the end that we despair in the middle and simply give up. Or we never begin in the first place.

But God asks us to just take a walk with Him, rest in His presence, trust His direction, enjoy His company. Then we’ll be where He wants us to be, with Him….and that’ll be perfect.

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 ‘Abandon Perfection?

Christmas Devotions: Try Not To Gash Your Head Open on the Kitchen Cabinet

December 15, 2014December 15, 20141 Comment

I found a $1 treasure at a summer yard sale, an oak step stool to solve my problem.

Picture by daphoto; 123rf.com

My kids had been scaling the counters to reach cups and bowls from the cabinets, a heart-stopping feat if ever there was one.

They carried the bathroom stool out to the kitchen and left it there where it didn’t belong. It was a step stool in demand, actually. Every time we needed the stool, it was inevitably hopelessly lost in whatever room in the house we didn’t think to look.

I spotted that “new-to-us” wooden stool in that yard sale and my heart skipped happy beats of victory and accomplishment. With just a simple coat of paint, I’d have a sturdy new stool that belonged in the kitchen, kept my kids off the counters, and matched my home décor.

Score!

The first time it wobbled, we dismissed it as our own clumsiness. That’s easy to do in our house.

But the offending stool failed us again and again, causing bruises, bumps, scrapes, tears and accusations.

I gave lessons to my kids on how to keep from smashing your head on the kitchen counter. Surely, they simply needed to know “How to Stand on the Stool” and “How Not to Stand on the Stool.”

The problem, though, wasn’t our technique. The stool itself was faulty in a way a coat of paint couldn’t cover. It was treacherous and off-balance.

Finally, I admitted defeat and threw it out with the morning garbage before I added an emergency room visit to my daily agenda.

This year in our church cantata, we sang that “Christmas Makes Everything New.”

More than that white covering of snow that sparkles in the moonlight and hides the wilted grass and un-raked leaves, Christmas offers us a fresh start.

But do we believe it? Do we treat ‘newness’ as little more than cosmetic refurbishing? A coat of paint, perhaps, and God sends us on our merry way with a façade of Christian niceties covering over a truly treacherous human condition?

Scripture is radical in its promise:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come(2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV).

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26 NIV)

God’s work in us isn’t just life with a Christian ‘varnish.’ He promises to remove the diseased and petrified heart that plagues our life with sin and transplant in us a new heart of flesh, a heart where His Spirit dwells.

It’s complete. It’s not refurbishing a $1 step stool and hoping you don’t gash your head open when you use it. It’s not ‘settling’ for a little bit of God in a big pile of mess.

More than this. Oh, so much more.

It isn’t God handing us a 12-step instruction sheet with complicated diagrams and a paint kit and telling us to go make a new heart.

That’s the law. That’s us trying to get it all right. Trying to be perfect. Trying to reach heaven on our own tip-toes (maybe with a faulty step-stool).

That’s us landing on the ground again, worn and weary, exhausted from trying so hard to stop the wobbling, the failure, the mess the brokenness.

That’s us trying to hold it all together and still finding that it falls all apart.

I’ve been spending this month learning to Abandon Perfection in my 12-month Pursuit of the Presence of Christ. And here’s what I find while standing on a church stage with a choir singing away:

Christmas is God come down; not us reaching up high enough to touch Him. Christmas is God’s gift, God at work, God-with-grace, God-with us.

Too often, we make it all about us. What we have to do to make Christmas perfect. What we have to accomplish in our homes and in our hearts. The projects, the parties, the get-togethers, the programs, the traditions, the attempts to pack more meaning into something so deep-down meaningful.

And we almost miss it. For all the to-do, we almost miss this:

Christmas is about Him.

He will take us as we are and He will make us new. It’s all in His big hands, big enough to hold us all together, big enough to heal, strong enough to carry us right on through.

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 ‘Abandon Perfection?

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.

Christmas Devotions: How many ornaments have we broken so far?

December 10, 20141 Comment

The first crash of that shattering glass hit and it was just the day after Thanksgiving. We were only one day into the Christmas season and only about 1 hour into Operation Decorate the House.

‘Twas an accident of course.

The penguin soap dispenser hit that floor and ended in a puddle of hand soap and broken glass.

Photo by jeka81, 123rf.com

That’s decorating with kids.

Accidents happen, you know.