When You Can’t Do Over But Have to Move On

June 6, 2018June 5, 20181 Comment

We’ve been giving do-overs here at my house.

Snarkiness has been on the rise.

So, when we hear, “Move! I can’t see!”

We respond with, “You want to try saying that again in a kinder way?”

Or we hear, “Put that down! That’s mine!”

We say, “Try that again. I’m sure you could say that differently.”

I love do-overs.

I love the utter grace of it all, that even though you made a mistake, you can have another go at it. Maybe you’ll do better this time.

Learn from those errors. Make some corrections.

Maybe this time you won’t miss or forget. Maybe you’ll study harder or speak with kindness or choose not to gossip.

My hope is that the do-overs now will help those lessons sink in before it’s too late, because we all know you can’t always have a do-over.

Sometimes, bad things happen and once it’s done, it’s done.

A missed opportunity can’t be regained.

One day, those words will slip out and they’ll be said. You can’t take them back.

Sure, you can apologize. You can attempt restoration.

BUT WORDS ONCE SAID CAN’T BE UN-SAID, AND THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE FROM AN OUT-OF-CONTROL TONGUE CAN BE DEVASTATING.

In those moments when you can’t have a do-over, though, you have to learn a new skill: Moving on after you’ve messed up.

Shame from mistakes can drag us right down and bolt us to the floor. We can’t move forward. We’re chained to the past.

At night, I rumble through conversations I wish I’d handled differently.

I consider the mistakes I wish I could un-do and the decisions I wish I could un-decide.

It’s hard to let it go and just rest already. I keep thinking, “if only….”

If only this hadn’t happened….

If only I’d done this instead…..

I want a do-over. I want to rewind back to the start of the day and just try again.

But I can’t. So I replay the wrong over and over and over. I’m stuck in a perpetual loop of embarrassment and self-condemnation.

Paul makes this sound so easy:

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14 ESV)

Just forget what’s behind, look forward to the future and move on?

If only it were that simple!

Then I consider Paul’s words, how he’s straining forward and pressing on. This is discipline and endurance. This is refusing to get bogged down.

It’s falling down in the middle of a race and yet choosing to push to your feet and keep on going to the finish line even if you’re limping all the way there.

Surely this is how David felt after being confronted with his own sin of adultery and murder.

One bad decision led to another bad decision and now here he was, unable to have a do-over. He couldn’t un-commit adultery with Bathsheba. He couldn’t un-murder her husband.

But he prays for God’s mercy, for God to “blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! (Psalm 51:1b-2). He asks God to:

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me (Psalm 51:9-10).

This I understand.

When I’m weighed down by mistakes that I can’t do-over, I’m compelled to cry out for “mercy!” I rely on God’s grace to wash my soul and renew my heart for Him.

But then David does something more. He doesn’t just stand there in the cleansing flood of grace. He doesn’t keep re-hashing his need for mercy.

No, he begins to look forward. He talks of moving on.

This is where I lean in to David’s Psalm today, because too often I’m stuck in the cry for mercy and can’t shake the shame.

Yet, David prays:

Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you…

and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness (Psalm 51:12-13, 14b)

HE’S FINDING MERCY IN THE MESS, RECEIVING RESTORATION, LEARNING FROM HIS MISTAKES, TEACHING OTHERS, AND WORSHIPING GOD FOR THIS SALVATION-GIFT.

I have to choose to accept the grace, too.

I have to choose to forget the past. Every time my face heats up with shame, I remind myself that it’s done. Over with. Behind me. Forgiven.

I have to choose to move on, choose to learn and grow and worship and teach others.

And the next time I’m reminded of how I messed up, I make all of those choices all over again because even if I can’t do over, I can do better next time.

Originally published April 2016

Snow reminds me that this is all grace

January 5, 2018January 4, 20185 Comments

We didn’t need a snow dance this year; the snow just came and we rejoiced. We’ve been known to have a little fun with snow rituals in the past, though, especially when January ends and we haven’t seen a flake yet.

My kids have worn pajamas inside out before and flushed ice cubes down the toilet. Snow dances have been danced.

And then there’s the mysterious ritual, one we can’t quite figure out so we’ve never tried–placing a spoon under the pillow. Who knew?

We love snow days.

Even I love them, despite the fact that I prefer snow when it is outside and I’m inside.

I love them even though at least an hour of my day is spent suiting my children up in layers of clothes, finding missing gloves and snow boots that fit, zipping up coats, and more. Then I send all the children out, knowing I’ll just be unpacking them from all those layers soon and then serving up hot chocolate and sugar cookies.

I love the snow the most when it’s smooth and untouched, gently falling in the darkness of night. I flick on the porch light and stand a few minutes at the back door with my fuzzy socks and my mug of strong, hot tea.

I stand and marvel at the peace of it., this quiet covering over the world with white.

I like to pause just for a moment before noise and the busyness sweep me right along again, just pause and give thanks and marvel at this: Christ covered us in the blanket of His righteousness. He made us white as snow.

David wrote:

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

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

David reminds us that the action is God’s, not ours. We don’t cover ourselves with hyssop or dip ourselves down for a cleansing. We are not our own healers.

This is God at work. This is the beauty of His grace.

Isaiah tells us this also:

“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool (Isaiah 1:18 ESV).

This forgiveness, this overwhelming grace, is God’s work by God’s invitation.

Our God is an inviting God. He invites the thirsty to COME and the weary to COME and the brokenhearted to COME and the children to COME.

And to the sinners, He says COME.

Not, come when you’re white enough, clean enough, holy enough. Not come when you’ve merited salvation or proved your devotion through enough righteous acts.

He says, “Come. I’ll make you white. I will do it. And you’ll be white like the whitest snow, pure like the purest wool.”

We’re self-condemners so often—buying into Satan’s lies when he tells us we still deserve punishment for those sins of ours. The Enemy likes to remind us how unworthy we are. He likes to shout accusations in our face and beat us down with our past and present failures.

But God.

He simply says, “Come. Come and let me do the work of grace for you.”

Paul wrote to the Galatian church:

I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose (Galatians 2:21 ESV).

Nullify God’s grace? Destroy it? Treat it like nothing?

What could Paul mean?

Nullifying God’s grace is what I do when I reject God’s invitation to come.

I’d never say these words, and yet isn’t this what I’m doing when I demand perfection from myself, when I beat myself up over mistakes, when I let shame hold me hostage?

I’d rather keep the law. I’d rather bog my soul down in endless rules and regulations and then beat my soul down when I fail to be perfect (which is inevitable).

Thanks for grace, God, but no thanks. I’d rather wear this label:–SINNER –instead of accept my new identity in Jesus– FORGIVEN.

Oh, this is what I say without realizing it: Jesus, the cross simply wasn’t enough. My sin is too much. You died for no reason.

So the snowfall covers over the lies of Satan and the legalism and that old bully perfection. The snow covers over religious pride and self-righteousness. The snow covers shame and self-accusation.

And the snow reminds me that it’s all grace. Amazing grace. Jesus did the work once for all, and now we’re covered in the snow-blanket of His powerful, cleansing grace, a grace that is indeed “greater than all my sin.”

Renew, Revive, Restore Us Again

July 10, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

I could recognize the discouragement. The perpetual fatigue in the face and in the slumping of the shoulders, not extreme, but ever so slightly burdened down low.

It was clear in the mechanical activity, not the joyous friendliness of cheerful service like before. Now my friend moved from point A to point B, task one to task two, not smiling, just doing because doing is what needed to be done.

I recognized the discouragement because

Have

Been

There

Before.

We who have been weary can see the signs in others, the trudging, the exhaustion, the worn out soul fraying at every edge and held together with patches and slipshod stitchery.

So we come alongside our friends, our Christian sisters and brothers, those whose burdens we’re supposed to remove so they can walk free and unencumbered for a time. We remind them of God’s goodness, His grace. We encourage them in their efforts, cheering them on with reminders to persevere and not give up and yes, there will be a harvest in time, and no, it isn’t all in vain.

How do we know? That’s what they might ask.

Oh my friend, how I know.

Because contrary to what you might have heard or expected, the Christian life isn’t all easy and Christian service isn’t all joyfully inspiring and pouring out to others out of an overflow. Sometimes we’re emptying out the last few drops from our own parched souls, not knowing what to do when we’re dehydrated and depleted and still others hold out needy hands for more.

Yet, we know this also.

We pour out…everything….and He pours in anew.

You might think you’re alone in this, stumbling over your own weaknesses, serving to exhaustion, not seeing the reward or the gain or the purpose or the point.

Yet, the prayers of saints long before teach us that others have desperately needed to be renewed, revived, restored.

The Psalmists prayed:

Will You not revive us again
so that Your people may rejoice in You?
(Psalm 85:6 HCSB)

and

Restore our fortunes, Lord,
as streams renew the desert.
Those who plant in tears
will harvest with shouts of joy.
They weep as they go to plant their seed,
but they sing as they return with the harvest (Psalm 126:4-6 NLT)

and

God, create a clean heart for me
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not banish me from Your presence
or take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore the joy of Your salvation to me,
and give me a willing spirit (Psalm 51:10-12 HCSB).

Their prayers would be unnecessary, meaningless even unless they felt the need for the renewing, the reviving, the restoring work of God in us.

We need the grace again, the joy again, the steadfast spirit again, the life again. That’s what they asked.

That’s what we need, too.

Eugene Peterson wrote:

Nothing suffers from time quite so much as religion. The skeletal structure of obedience becomes arthritic, and the circulatory system of praise becomes sluggish. The prayer ‘revive us again’ keeps the body of Christ youthful and responsive to every new mercy and grace in God (Praying With the Psalms).

So we offer to help carry the cross for a time through this valley and we remind them of the hope and the promise as we travel along together.

We tell the fullness of our testimony, not just the revival, the renewal, the restoration after the fact…not the destination without the journey or the end result without the in between.

No, we remember that we were worn out and limping and God renewed us.

We were dead and hopeless and God revived us.

We had lost everything and God restored us.

God did this for me, that’s what we say. And He will do this work in you, too.

And we pray, of course we pray.

We ask God to fill them right up again, fill their own parched souls so they are overflowing. We ask for strength anew and energy for each day, for reminders of the vision and reassurance of the harvest.

God’s plan isn’t for us to walk through discouragement alone, not any of us. How could we ever survive it, after all, if we thought we were the only ones and that somehow we must be here because of our own fumbling and faltering?

But to know others have been there, have made it through, and have traveled back to tell us the good news and to pray for us along the way…that’s the grace God gives for a wearied soul.

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.

Weekend Walk, 1/26/2013: Snow

January 26, 2013January 29, 2014Leave a comment

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

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

Snow!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in November 2013! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Veggie Tales, a Rubber Duck, and a lesson on Grace

November 5, 2012February 1, 2014Leave a comment

We have a Veggie Tales system at our house.

My girls tumble all over themselves, hooting with laughter and interrupting one another, to explain to me the very funniest parts of a Veggie Tales video.

And then I tell them how very funny that really is and then how it’s kind of like the Bible account, but here’s “the rest of the story.” This, of course, isn’t nearly as funny as the way singing vegetables without hands have told it, but I give it my best shot.

So, when my daughters finished telling me yesterday how King George, the cucumber who collects rubber duckies, had stolen the only rubber ducky owned by his neighbor, a tiny asparagus…I told them (a slightly modified) Biblical version of King David and Bathsheba.

Skipping the more explicit issues of adultery, I emphasized that King David (err…George) didn’t have Uriah smacked in the face with cream pies. David essentially murdered him.

Why?

Because David wanted Uriah’s wife for himself.

My oldest, my everything-is-black-and-white-without-any-gray kind of girl, wrinkled up her nose in confusion. “But mom, I thought David was a good guy! I thought he loved God.”

Oh, and there is the heart of the matter. That, my sweet girl, is the whole point.

How desperately we try to categorize and define people, sorting them perpetually into good and bad, and ultimately we’re trying to decide who is the hero and who is the villain…who is worthy and who isn’t.

But grace demolishes all these overly simplified judgments, these definitions and categories we shove people into.

That we cram ourselves into.

After all, don’t we even do this for ourselves? We—I— begin to feel worthy of God’s affection and deserving of His pardon and His sacrifice. Like I’m one of the “good guys” in this epic story of salvation.

I’m a church girl, not a murderer, after all.

Nothing like David, lusting after a beautiful woman and killing her husband. Even his failure to take control of his sons and defend the rape of his daughter raises my eyebrows.

Oh yes, there’s ugly sin there, and if we just focused on those portions of his story, we’d easily define him as one of those ungodly kings, too self-focused and pleasure-motivated to be of any use to God.

And yet, he’s the hero of the Sunday School lessons week after week. The brave lad who conquered Goliath. The true and loyal friend of Jonathan. The God-anointed king of Israel. The poet and musician who penned the words we still sing in worship on Sunday mornings.

He’s a bad guy? He’s a good guy?

He’s a crazy messed up human, who chose right and chose wrong, but who repented before God. His testimony can’t be anything other than grace, grace, marvelous grace of a God who always calls the unworthy.

It is because of that realization that David wrote the song of repentance:

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
(Psalm 51:1-3)

It’s the sobbing out of a man who remembered, oh yes, I am unworthy.

In Luke 14, Jesus tells of a master hosting a banquet. Those wealthy and important enough to receive an invitation declined to come, too busy making excuses to consider the loss.

So the master invited “the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.”

‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’

“Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.” (Luke 14:21-23).

Joni Eareckson Tada writes, “in this parable, the master’s grace is not lavished on the deserving but on the undeserving. The unacceptable. Those who shouldn’t be invited…God’s grace is not a response to what men do. God’s grace is a divine initiative which is totally unconnected to a person’s merit. And not only is the grace of God an initiative but a radical one that most would consider outlandish if not mad” (Diamonds in the Dust, p. 355)

This is why Paul reminds us:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8)

and

He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy (Titus 3:5).

We too easily slip into complacency, overlooking the glory of the gift He’s given, assuming that we deserve it or somehow our “goodness” merits the affection He bestows.

But we’re the unworthy ones feasting at the banquet table.

And it’s all because of His mercy. It’s all a matter of grace. I’m determined to remember that today and to give thanks.

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, 06/16/2012: Happy Father’s Day

June 16, 2012June 16, 2012Leave a comment

Hiding the Word:

Happy Father’s Day weekend!

One of the things my husband and I have learned (and perhaps are still learning) in this whole parenting life is that each of our daughters is a unique original. Her gifts, talents and weaknesses don’t mimic her sisters’.

They don’t respond to the same discipline strategies either.

With our youngest, we’ve discovered that even the slightest remonstrance, a serious look and the word no, can catapult her into deep sobs. She’s just that sensitive.

The other night, she was perky and giggly at bedtime instead of the tired and obedient toddler we’d prefer to see at 8:00 or 9:00 or even 9:30 at night. Even her older sisters complained.

My husband called her out of the room and she emerged with a sheepish grin. He looked her in the eye and practically whispered the words, “It’s time to sleep. You need to go into your bed quietly. No more playing around or talking.”

She bawled. It was perhaps the most tragically despairing cry I’ve ever heard. So, he scooped her up and hugged her, stroked her hair and promised that he loved her, but that she needed to obey. Slowly, she progressed from sobs to sniffles to calm and toddled off to her bed . . . laid down quietly . . . and went to sleep.

Aren’t you thankful that God our Father has compassion on us, knowing exactly the grace, the guidance, the blessing, the provision, and the discipline we need?

Here’s a Father’s Day verse to meditate on this week that reminds us of God our Father’s abounding love for us:

‘As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him” (Psalm 103:13 NIV)

Weekend Rerun:

The Writing on The Wall
Originally posted on October 5, 2011

”There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake”
(Ecclesiastes 7:20, Good News Translation).

My two-year-old created a masterpiece with a purple marker and a piece of paper.

Then she made a masterpiece on my kitchen wall.

I caught her standing back to admire her mural, giggling with pride.

Walking her back to the paper, I reminded her where art belongs without yelling or even raising the volume of my voice a decibel. She took one look at my stern face, listened to my firm “no” and burst into truly remorseful tears.

I scooped her up to hold her, but she ran out of the room and I found her lying face down on a pillow, pouring out heavy sobs of brokenness.

All because she had made a mistake and done something wrong. All because she wasn’t perfect and because I had to correct her.

Surely we all can shrug our shoulders and say, “We all make mistakes sometimes.” Some of us can even get theological about it and quote “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

But then there is that moment when you need grace because it’s not “all” who sinned or “all” who made a mistake.

It’s you.

It’s me.

Please don’t tell me you missed that part of the blog where you discover I’m not perfect. The part where I sin. The part where I have a bad attitude sometimes. The part where I make silly mistakes and stupid decisions and act like I’m in an I Love Lucy episode.

And every time I’m the one in need of grace, I react like my two-year-old—-run away, bury my face and sob.

Grace sounds so wonderful when you’re explaining it to someone else or extending it to another. But when you are the one who needs grace, oh, how painful it is sometimes.

Grace addresses sin. Forgiveness always requires a wrong. Erasing always requires a mistake. Strength always highlights weakness just like perfection always reveals imperfection.

Admitting that we need a Savior requires personalizing the message of redemptive grace.

Ecclesiastes 7:20 says, “There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake” (Good News Translation).

So, that means we’re doomed to imperfection sometimes? Guaranteed to need forgiveness? Certain of mistakes and assured of being wrong occasionally (or often)?

Yup, that’s us. That’s you. That’s me.

So, when we mess up, we can engage in the horrors of self-condemnation. We can become weighed down by shame and guilt—

that we are a mess
that we’re stupid
that we’re an idiot
that we never do anything right
that we deserve whatever punishment we get
that God can’t ever use someone so broken

Or we can accept the gift extended to us by a God who specializes in forgiveness. As Emerson Eggerichs wrote, “Mistakes can’t be undone, but they can be forgiven.”

But how do we move on after a mistake? How do we walk humbly, yet not live paralyzed by shame? How do we serve gratefully rather than withdraw altogether, unworthy as we are? How do we let the past shape us and not destroy us?

David experienced this same struggle. He was a godly king turned adulterer and murderer. Faced with the magnitude of his sin, still he continued serving on the throne of Israel, still he wrote Psalms of praise to God.

It wasn’t easy. In Psalm 51:3, he says, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.”

But David acknowledged the need for grace, accepted forgiveness and moved forward in joy.

He brought to God the only acceptable sacrifice: “My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise” (Psalm 51:16-17).

God doesn’t desire our brokenness because He rejoices in our shame or needs our degradation. He wants us to remember that He is God, not us.

We can begin to feel perfect, strong, capable, worthy in our own strength. But if we really are all those things, then who needs grace? Who needs a savior? Our worship and ministry can become tainted with self-exaltation. It becomes all about us and not at all about Him.

But when we accept grace, we acknowledge that we’re never worthy, not now, not ever. Thomas Merton said,

“God is asking me, the unworthy, to forget my unworthiness and that of my brothers, and dare to advance in the love which has redeemed and renewed us all in God’s likeness. And to laugh, after all, at the preposterous ideas of ‘worthiness.’ ~Thomas Merton~

Yes, we advance in His love.

We don’t need to be shamed by our sin, by our foolishness, by our scattered-brains and accident-prone clumsiness. We should be humbled. We are reminded that even though we are not perfect; He is. Though we are not good enough; He is always sufficient. Even though we are never worthy, He is worthy of all our praise.

And so we ask Him to forgive us. We accept His grace. And then we, like David, ask him to help us move on.

David prayed:

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you”
(Psalm 51:10-13).

We pray this as well.

Weekend Walk: 12/31/2011

December 31, 2011Leave a comment

Hiding the Word:

What to pray? What to say? It’s the final day of 2011 and somehow that heightens the importance of the verse we choose to meditate on this week. It’s like setting the tone for the new year and there are so many powerful verses to choose from!

I just finished reading Billy Graham’s book, Nearing Home: Life, Faith and Finishing Well (click here for my book review). It reminded me of the days when I worked in an estate planning law firm. Most of our clients were seniors coming in to plan for their future.

We had clients like the lady who owned a bakery and always brought in trays of goodies when she visited our office.

We had clients like the wealthy grumpus of a couple who cut their son out of their will because he married someone they didn’t like.

I remember thinking then that I needed to choose what I would be like as I aged. Did I want to be sweet and giving? Did I want to be cranky and unforgiving?

If I left the end-result to chance, who knows how I’d turn out! Yet, if I prayerfully asked God to form my character and guide my steps, I had hope for my future.

Isn’t that a little like a new year? Instead of asking God for all the things we want Him to do for us in 2012 or all the things we want to get from Him, what if we instead invited Him to work on our hearts and transform us?

So, my verse for this week is a prayer to start the year:

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer
(Psalm 19:14).

What are you praying that God will do in your heart and life in the new year?

Weekend Rerun:

They Will See God
Originally published 03/25/2011

Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always.
Psalm 105:4, NIV

A few weeks ago, I waited in the line of moms and dads who were picking up their children from our church nursery. I could see inside the room where my daughter was playing, but she couldn’t yet see me. As the parents before me went into the room, my baby started craning her neck to see if she could find me in the crowd. She looked up as each new adult entered the room and kept searching every face to see if it was mine.

Then she saw me. I watched her face change from searching . . . searching . . . searching . . . to pure joy at finding Mom!! She beamed. She ran to me. She practically knocked me over with her embrace.

Really, there are few moments as a mom more precious than seeing a little person so excited just to see your face. To know that you are so very loved by someone sweet and innocent, even though you aren’t perfect or even the best.

That moment with my daughter made me think of how I should passionately and intently seek after God, for intimacy with Him and time in His presence, and for opportunities to give Him heartfelt adoration and praise and to show I love Him. After all, He is perfect and the best!

I want to see God. I want to do whatever it takes to have a closer relationship with Him. Just like David, I can say, “My heart says of you, ‘Seek his face!’ Your face, LORD, I will seek” (Psalm 27:8, NIV).

Sometimes all it takes to see God is persistently pursuing His presence. Jeremiah 29:13 says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (NIV). Also in Psalm 27, David said, “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27:13-14, NIV).

My daughter kept searching the crowd of parents in the church nursery and ultimately she did see me. I came at the appointed time. She was not abandoned and left alone. All that she had to do was wait and not give up.

Don’t stop searching for God’s face in the midst of your busy life, your family stresses, your ministry concerns, your health crisis, your financial struggles, your job disappointments, your heart-wrenching fears. Keep seeking with all Your heart. You will see God.

But, actively seek. Sometimes we wonder why we aren’t seeing God’s presence in our lives, but we are relegating Him to 10 minutes of our day as we skim through a devotional. Or we think that listening to a sermon and some Christian radio counts as connecting with God. Be willing to give God your time sacrificially. Invite Him into every part of your day and immerse yourself in His Word so that you know Him more fully.

There are other times, though, that finding God takes more than just pursuing His presence. Matthew 5:8 tells us, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (NIV). Seeking God also means pursuing purity.

Earlier this week, I took a day off from writing. It was partly out of necessity because the day was so hectic with appointments, work, family and ministry. But, it was also because I needed a time out. Someone did something in total innocence that frustrated me. It wounded my ridiculous pride and I reacted with some pouting and whining and, yes, I admit–a private little tantrum.

It was sin and I knew it. I needed some time to get right with God.

As much as I could, I spent the afternoon in God’s Word, letting Him sift my heart, reveal the sin and deal with it. I seem to have these pitfalls, these consistent sins that trip me up, hindering and entangling me (Hebrews 12:1). Do you have some of those—-lessons that you need to learn over and over and over and you wonder if you’ll ever get it right?

Unfortunately, these sins separate me from God and obscure His face.

Fortunately—or more accurately— amazingly, God extends abundant mercy and compassion when we confess our sins to Him and ask Him to make us clean. We are promised that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, NIV).

That day, I prayed through Psalm 51, which was David’s Psalm of repentance. He had committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed to hide the sin after she became pregnant. Adultery. Murder. It seems like a lot for God to forgive, and yet God’s grace is big enough for any sin we lay at His feet. Like David, I prayed, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10, NIV). I want a steadfast spirit, not my roller coaster reactions when I feel hurt or wronged.

Paul wrote, “Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God” (2 Corinthians 7:1, NIV). Purity of heart isn’t something we stumble on accidentally. It’s not a spiritual gift that God gives to some people and not to others. Instead, it means confessing sin and also actively pursuing purity and “perfecting holiness.” It means asking Him to dig deep in my heart to root out the ugly sins that have such a deep hold on me, even when it hurts, even though it embarrasses me to face up to what’s really lurking in my soul.

It’s worth it– Seeing God’s face and knowing that–not only am I lighting up at finding Him in the crowd, but that He’s grinning at the sight of me washed clean and anticipating His presence. I want a pure heart so that I can see God. I don’t want to miss out on His presence, His peace, or His activity in my life.

Are you willing to do whatever it takes to see God? Right now, that might just be holding on to hope with all your might. Pursue His presence and keep waiting with expectation for God to show up in all His glory. Do not give up. Or, it might mean getting on your knees and asking Him to cleanse your heart and forgive you. Then, with a pure heart, you will see God.

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Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?: Part II

October 19, 20112 Comments

For those reading Lisa Harper’s book, Stumbling Into Grace, along with my small group, today’s devotional will match up with her eighth chapter: “The Bride Who Tripped Down the Aisle”

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“Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me” (Psalm 52:12).

My first grader brought home a book from school to read over the weekend. For two days she followed me around the house giggling uncontrollably and reading me her favorite sections aloud.

“Mom, listen to this,” (she’s giggling already). “This kid just said George Washington was in his underwear. He said underwear!!!”

“Isn’t this hil-ar-i-ous, Mom? It says this kid put carrots up his nose and then he ate them!”

She could barely control herself on that one. Left to her own devices, she’d probably have spent a half an hour in hysterics on the living room floor.

It’s not humor I could understand. Me, I’m more of a Marx Brothers kind of girl.

In Part I of this post, I wrote that “we Christians should have a joy that people who don’t know Christ just don’t get.” It’s just as mysterious to them as my daughter’s humor is to me.

Certainly this incomprehensible joy comes from the goodness of our message, the very Gospel of grace itself. When life weighs us down with its humdrum dailyness, we must remember the great news we have received and that we share with the world. It’s reason enough for joy in every situation.

Yet, while we always have reason for joy, life isn’t always joy-full.

God never commands us to paste on perfect happy faces to convince the world that Christians never suffer hurt or sorrow. It’s a deception Christ Himself never engaged in. He cried out, He asked others to pray with Him, He wept, and He suffered pain. He assured us that this earth is a place of trouble.

Yet, Peter wrote:

Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world ( 1 Peter 4:13).

Does it sound like impossible truth? Being joyful in trials because God will be glorified? If we’re honest, often our prayers are more for our comfort and relief rather than for God’s glory.

So, was Peter a guy who preached impossible things that he never put into practice himself? No, not Peter.

His ministry had never been more powerful or full of impact. He and the other apostles were spreading the Gospel message and people were responding in droves. Their reputation for miracles spread, so the crowds lined the streets with the sick hoping that Peter’s shadow would fall on them as he walked by and they would be healed (Acts 5).

Reason to have joy? I’ll say! Wouldn’t you be celebrating such ministry success?

Yet, full of jealousy, the Sanhedrin and religious leaders imprisoned Peter and the other apostles. After hearing Peter’s astounding defense, the court determined to have him killed, but not immediately. For now, he and the other apostles were flogged and turned away . . . only to be martyred at a more opportune time.

Acts 5:41-42 tells us, “The apostles left the high council rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus. And every day, in the Temple and from house to house, they continued to teach and preach this message: “Jesus is the Messiah.”

Peter didn’t just preach joy in all situations. He lived it.

He had joy because of the message he had to share: Jesus is the Messiah!

He had joy because he knew that every trial was “for the name of Jesus.”

It’s not that God rejoices in our suffering, but instead His grace for us, the way He brings us through trials and redeems us from the pits we find ourselves in, the way He carries us through the fire and out the other side of the furnace—it all brings Him glory. It shows the world that our God is faithful, powerful, mighty to save, and merciful to save us.

This outlook requires continual perspective adjustment. We remember what matters in eternity. We consider what will bring God glory.

That’s how the Christians described in Hebrews, “suffered along with those who were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy. You knew there were better things waiting for you that will last forever” (Hebrews 10:34).

We likewise know that the eternal is what truly matters and that God’s glory is our ultimate goal.

Still, just being honest, that doesn’t make most of us want to kick our heels and break into song when we’re facing trials. It’s theologically sound, but practically difficult.

Is it any wonder, then, that the Psalmist has to plea for God’s help with this? David wrote, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me” (Psalm 52:12).

That is our prayer also. “Lord, we ask that You restore our joy. Help us to recall the excitement about Your Gospel of grace. In all circumstances, help us to submit to Your plans for us, because that is what will strengthen us and sustain us. We rejoice that You will be glorified and we ask that You will work in each situation we face so that we can give a testimony to the world of Your power and Your love. Amen”

The Writing on the Wall

October 5, 2011June 15, 20122 Comments

For those reading Lisa Harper’s book, Stumbling Into Grace, along with my small group, today’s devotional will match up with her sixth chapter: “Johnny Come Lately”

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“There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake”
(Ecclesiastes 7:20, Good News Translation).