Tag: Sacrifice

Returning to Bethel

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I heard rumblings from the laundry room several times that morning and wasn’t overly suspicious.  We have these kittens, you see.

The dryer wasn’t on and I knew the dryer door was opened, so I wasn’t afraid, just mildly amused that they must have been wrestling (again) and bumping up against furniture and appliances (again).

But it wasn’t the kittens.  It was my son, who apparently was awake and moving without me knowing.  He had tossed through the clothes upstairs in his dresser and couldn’t find his new favorite shirt.  So, he’d slipped down the stairs unnoticed, snuck into the laundry room and was hunting through the clean clothes in the dryer.

When that failed, he headed back upstairs again and finally started crying in rage.  That’s when I ran upstairs to find him standing in a mound of clean clothes that did not include the shirt he wanted.

I had put his shirt in the wash when I started laundry around 7:30 that morning.  It was soaking wet and still spinning around in soapy water.

It was a rough start to the day.  Sometimes you can just roll with the punches and sometimes your favorite shirt is in the washing machine and you just can’t handle that kind of disappointment.

The day improved, of course.  He shook off the disappointment eventually and later the treasured shirt came out of the dryer, not just clean but warm and cozy, too.

I’m a “favorites” kind of person also.  I have favorite socks , sweaters, flavors of tea and mugs to drink my tea in. I re-read favorite books (five and six times),I order favorite meals from restaurants, and listen repeatedly to favorite songs in my car.

When I have to do hard things (like go to the dentist), I deck myself out in cozy socks, comfy shoes, well-worn jeans, and my fuzziest jacket.

Sometimes we just need to go back to what we know and some days are simply better with your favorite shirt.

I’ve been reading  about Abraham’s journeys recently and treasuring the reminder that he “traveled in stages.”  He didn’t bolt from calling to fulfillment, from vision to completion, or from home to the Promised Land overnight.

This was a process, a long step-by-step movement from one place of faith to the next place of faith and then onward again.

Abraham’s journey looked like this:   Arrive at a new place, encounter the Lord, receive God’s  promise, and build an altar.

He responded to the Lord in every place and every season with sacrificial obedience and worship.

May this be me.

In hard places and comfy places, in every season, in each situation my response should be an altar:  A commitment.  A laying down.  An act of sacrifice.  A devotion to worship.

So I do this: I seek out mementos and build memorials, choose a Scripture, write a prayer, repeat a song.  I set my heart on re-dedication and re-commitment to follow the Lord wherever He calls me to go.

Here’s something else I see about Abraham, though–he returns.

In Genesis 12, it says:

The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent…. He built an altar to the Lord there, and he called on the name of the Lord. 9 Then Abram journeyed by stages to the Negev (Genesis 12:7-9 CSB). 

From there, Abraham encountered some difficulties.

There was a famine, so he left the land of Promise and headed to Egypt.  He was afraid. He lied to Pharaoh about Sarai and said she was his sister.  After Egypt,  Abraham is plagued with family drama.  Lot’s servants and Abraham’s servants couldn’t work together anymore, so they separated.

So much had happened since Bethel:  fear, sin, wandering,  strife, separation.

That’s when Abraham goes back:

He went by stages from the Negev to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had formerly been, 4 to the site where he had built the altar. And Abram called on the name of the Lord there (Genesis 13:3-4 CSB). 

Maybe sometimes a favorite mug with my favorite tea is a pick-me-up for a dreary day….but also a favorite verse, devotional, worship song, prayer practice, or spiritual discipline helps to pull my heart back to the Lord.

It’s because I wander or get lost or grow weary.  I certainly am forgetful.  I sin.

So I travel back to my “Bethel,” the place where I’ve encountered the Lord.  And I seek Him there again.  I call on His name once more.

 

Giving without holding anything back

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Proverbs 21

We have entered birthday party season.

That’s when school is in swing and the invitations start coming home rapid fire, weekend after weekend.  With my three girls all in school now, birthday party season has become a significant family investment.

We now have ground rules.

My kids announce the latest invitation before the minivan door even closes at the end of the school day, and I ask this all-important question:

Is this a real, actual, true friend?

This isn’t just a peripheral acquaintance whose last name you don’t know.  This isn’t the kind of ‘friend’ who sits across the room from you, one you never play with on the playground, and someone you’ve never actually seen eat lunch.

This is an actual friend.  You can tell me her full name, her likes and dislikes and something she might have in her lunchbox.

Once we’ve passed the true friend test and the calendar test (does this even remotely work with our crazy schedule), we’re on to planning a gift.

My kids love picking gifts for their friends.

Now, they sometimes lose a little perspective.  It happens.  We scan the aisles of the local Wal-Mart and they pick out gifts in the $50 range.

I re-direct them until we finally find IT: the perfect gift for the true friend.  Into the cart it goes and we tote it home with excitement.

Then, my kids spend the next week gazing longingly at this present as it sits on my dresser waiting to be wrapped.

It’s a good present.

In fact, it’s now exactly what they themselves would like for Christmas (hint, hint, hint).

My youngest daughter asks me, “Mom, did you happen to buy two of those?”

Now, I know full well my Mom-intentions.  I will surely buy this same prize gift, wrap it up for her and set it under the tree for Christmas morning.

But she doesn’t know that…and I don’t promise her that.

Maybe I want her to be surprised.

But maybe also this—I want her to give away the very best without knowing if she’ll get it back.

Sometimes we’re reluctant gift-givers.

We give out of excess.  We give from confident positions of wealth and security.  We give what we know we can do without.

We clear out cabinets of unwanted canned food during food drives and sometimes we don’t even look at the expiration date.

We clean out closets and send on clothes that are worn, outdated, faded, and even stained.

Yet, our offerings to God and our gifts to others should require sacrifice, not just out of our more-than-enough; we should give our best gifts to a God who has given His ALL to us.

And when we give, we let go.

We don’t hang on tight, trying to dictate how our gift is used, making sure God makes the most of it, making sure the sacrifice was worth it, making sure we’ll get it back.

I read this week what God asked His people to give:

You are to give them the firstfruits of your grain, new wine and olive oil, and the first wool from the shearing of your sheep (Deuteronomy 18:4 NIV).

I’ve always thought about their sacrifices to God needing to be unblemished, needing to be pure, needing to be worthy.

But what God asked here was for the gift of the first: the first grain, wine, oil, and the first wool from a newly sheared sheep.

In her book Scouting the Divine, Margaret Feinberg describes how the first shearing is a once-in-a-lifetime offering:

Each sheep’s best wool comes only for its first-ever haircut, with every subsequent shearing decreasing in value.  I was intrigued by the idea that God asked for…a shearing that could never be recovered.”

They had to give God what they knew they would never ever get back from Him.  They had to trust that He’d care for and provide for them anyway.

We also have to give and trust God with the results.

For me, it means giving God my best writing and not telling Him what to do with it.  Just laying it down and leaving the results up to Him.

As a mom, it means skipping sleep and sometimes missing meals, certainly giving up moments of peace and my own personal agenda (and so much more).

We sacrifice as wives, as friends, as moms, as leaders, as teachers, as caregivers.

We give and give and give and give.  We pour out.  We take our greatest gifts, the very best of our offering, and we lay it right down, and we sacrifice without knowing if we’ll get anything back.

Because this is our offering to God: Not just the gifts themselves, but how we trust Him to care for us even when we’ve given our best away.

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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.

Copyright © 2015 Heather King

How Gray Hair is Worship

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I was 24 years old and headed home from the hospital after having our first baby.

My husband took me through the drive-through of a fast food place to compensate for 48 hours of hospital food and I popped the passenger’s side mirror down for a look at my new Mom face.

Two days ago I was an ordinary woman.

Now I was “Mom” to a tiny pink creature snuggled into her carseat.DSCF2165

Did I look different?  Could the miracle be reflected on my face, not just in my postpartum body?

I looked into my eyes, examined the reflection critically and hopefully, and then I found it.

My first gray hair.

No one told me about this.  They promised that my brown locks might change after delivering a baby, but I was hoping for curls or at least some waves in my stick-straight hair.

No one said I’d begin to go gray the moment I gave birth.

Dear women, we need to keep each other informed about these things!

So, I just had to absorb the shock right there while staring into the car mirror.

There have been other moments since then, of course, the slow acceptance of the changes that Mom-life brings:

More gray hairs.

The putting aside of jeans that do not now and will likely never fit me again.

The loss of sleep and “me” time.

The inability much of the time to finish sentences, remember why I came in the kitchen, or call my children by their rightful names without first running through every other child’s name.

And the hardest of all, the accepting of the post-C-section body in the full-length bathroom mirror.

But after mild shock (or perhaps a private cry) and the eventual resignation, there’s something deeply beautiful about this idea:

That Christ gave His very own body up for me…..

Surely I can give of my very own flesh to others.

It’s not just a mother’s privileged sacrifice, but this is ministry and this is Christ-love.

That’s what Paul tells the church:

Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well (1 Thessalonians 2:7-8).

How do I care for my son in 2 a.m. feedings and all through the day every day?  I’m nurturing him with my very own self, putting aside my own agenda and desires to satisfy him, love him, pour health and growth and well-being into him.

Paul says he did this, cared for the church so much that he tended to their needs and nourished their faith with spiritual food brought forth from his own unselfishness.

He didn’t just share the gospel of God.  No, it went beyond that, to the very giving over of his life also, all because he loved them.

Yes, Paul laid his body down for the church, for the lost, and ultimately for Christ, enduring the beatings, stonings, shipwrecks, storms, imprisonment, snake bites and more that came with His calling.

Our calling likely requires sacrifice, too.  Maybe not the same as Paul’s.  Maybe not the same as a mother’s.

But God calls us to lay self down and pick up that hefty splintered cross daily to follow Him.

Sometimes I want self-protection instead, comfy ministry without sacrifice or self-denial.  I want my rights, my privileges, my agenda and my plans.

Yet, here is my calling, a ministry to my family, a ministry to others…..

Long ago, a man named Darrell Evans sang:

I lay me down…

I lay it down…

I lay my life down…

A living sacrifice to You

In order to lift up Christ, I lay this down.

All of it.

And you?  Has God asked you to do this, to care for another as attentively and sacrificially as a nursing mother pouring in life to an infant in her arms?  Has He asked you to share, not just the Gospel, but your very own life, as well?

Perhaps for your husband, for your children.  Maybe for the struggling young mother in your church, the single mom, the homeless and hurting, the young children sitting in your Sunday School class?

This is our daily worship, the sacrifice we lay on the altar for God’s glory and for Christ’s name.

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

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Soul-Suffocating: When Good Things Become Bad Things

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Most of the children in our town don’t watch the Christmas parade from the sidewalk.  They are proud participants in the parade itself.  Almost every child ends up on a float of some kind, for church or school, daycare, ballet, karate, Scouts, band, or chorus.

It’s the moms, dads and grandparents who wave from the sidelines.

Two years ago, my oldest daughter rode all the way down the Main Street of our town, pulled behind Cinderella’s carriage.  Mostly her view of the parade itself was limited to either the folks lining the street or the few floats before and behind her in the line that she could see.

It was enough.

After we had climbed into the car and turned the heat on full blast to thaw the chill we felt deep in our spines and down through our toes, she asked a question that had apparently been on her mind during the whole parade route.

“Mom, there were Boy Scouts in the parade, right?”

“Yup.”

“So….does that mean there are GIRL Scouts.”

I sucked in my breath.  “Yes, absolutely there are Girl Scouts and yes, they are totally wonderful and great and fun.  But you can’t do everything, my love.  Some things we have to let go.”

Even good things can become bad things.  Like when your five-year-old child wants to do ballet, piano, Awana, theater, Girl Scouts, gymnastics, horse-riding and anything and everything else represented by a float in our town’s Christmas parade.

We’re soul-suffocators, too, cramming so much into our lives we don’t have room to breathe.

And it’s not just time.  It’s things, and media, and noise, and friendships and just about everything that’s not necessarily bad, but which ultimately crowds out room for Jesus in the heart that’s supposedly His cozy and welcoming home.

I’ve grown sadly familiar with the phrase, “Everybody else ….” or “My friend has…” and “The other girls at school watch this TV show…”

Sometimes, I’m not just listening to this mantra, I’m the one delivering the whiny sermon to God.

“If others can have this, couldn’t I?”  “If she can do this, it’s okay for me, too, right?”

We’re sold by the advertisers and the infomercials and wooed by the parade of life that incessantly marches past good causes and activities and projects and the latest and greatest in home kitchen gadgetry.

And sometimes God asks us to lay it down.

These aren’t “Issacs,” we’re talking about, the areas of radical obedience that require us to trust and exercise extreme faith.

As Kelly Minter writes in her book, No Other gods: Confronting Our Modern Day Idols, “before Abraham could ever offer up the child born of the miraculous, he first had to offer up the child born of his flesh” (p. 128).

Obedience to God begins with Ishmael.

Long before Abraham’s heart-wrenching journey to the mountain where he lifted his knife over his beloved son Isaac, Abraham had to let his other son go: Ishmael—the baby boy of Abraham and the maidservant Hagar.  For 13 years, Ishmael had been Abraham’s only child and while it turned out that he wasn’t the heir of promise, still he was loved.

And when Sarah demanded that her maidservant Hagar and the teenage boy, Ishmael, be thrown out into the wilderness, Abraham begged God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!” (Genesis 17:20).

Our prayers echo his at times.  “If only you’d bless this, God!”  “If only this would be okay with you.  Isn’t this great and good and wonderful and won’t you bless it?”

We ask God to bless or at least tolerate our “Ishmaels,” those good things that aren’t holy things or the extras and objects of our affection that have never been part of God’s plan or design for us, but that we love and hold on to so very tightly.

Or maybe our Ishmael is the way we’ve tried to force God’s promises into being, impatiently rushing ahead of God’s timing and doing things our own way.

Kelly Minter reminds us, “He has grace on our Ishmaels, and yet he is unwilling to allow them to ever take the place of Isaac.  No, what is born of flesh can never substitute for what is born of the Spirit” (p. 127).

That’s no less a step of obedience than the radical sacrifice of Isaac.  It’s the letting go of Ishmael.

It’s submitting to Him our habits, our committees, our involvement, our activities, our parenting, our expectations for our kids, our relationships, our spending, our eating, our five-year-plan for our lives, our ministry, and the way we are pursuing His call.  Even if it’s good or right for others, even if it seems necessary or like it will help us reach his promises faster, even if we love it…we let it go if He asks.

We’re holding out for God’s best here; not missing out on the promise because we’re distracted and satiated, tired out, filled up, and content with everything else–everything less.

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

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

Weekend Walk, 07/28/2012: Olympic Dreams

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Hiding the Word:

Last night I watched the opening ceremonies for the Olympics for the first time in my life.

Yes, I did say, “in my life.”

Shocked?

We let our daughters stay up a little later than normal and watched the London extravaganza as a family, which meant I watched for two minutes and then explained for a few seconds what was happening on the TV screen.

We didn’t need network commentators.  We had our own running commentary/question and answer time right in our living room.

When I first mentioned the Olympics to my older daughter she declared without a second’s pause, “I want to be in the Olympics!” as if it’s little more than signing up for a relay race at a Fourth of July picnic.  I tried explaining repeatedly that these are the best athletes in the world, but I still don’t think she fully understands.

So we had the same conversation we had when she announced that the girl who got many lead roles in community theater productions was “lucky.”

Yes, there’s talent, but not really luck.  Mostly there’s hard work, discipline, training, starting small and reaching goals and then setting new goals.  It involves daily sacrifices of what you’d rather be doing, what everyone else is doing, what is more fun and seems temporarily more satisfying.

Sometimes we similarly assume that someone with a deeper relationship with God is “lucky.”  She’s not as busy as we are.  She doesn’t like TV as much or is more of a reader naturally so Bible study isn’t such hard work.  Her life isn’t as crazy and stressful.

It’s a myth.

Wherever you have depth of Bible study and prayer and intimacy with God, you have discipline and sacrifice, yes daily sacrifice for the sake of what matters eternally.

Here’s a Scripture verse to meditate on all this week, reminding us that while physical feats of strength and skill at the Olympics are laudable, we are all told to train for godliness.

“Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come”
(1 Timothy 4:7-8)

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

Devotions from my Garden—Sacrificing Violets

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Just over eight years ago, my husband and I packed a UHaul with our belongings and made the long drive from New Jersey to Virginia, settling into our new home.

At the time, a towering oak tree stood in front of our house with English ivy spilling over the roots and along the base.  It was a sad day when they told us the tree had to come down; too close to the house, too close to the septic system, too dangerous in a hurricane.

Such a lovely, stately tree.  Such quaint and romantic English ivy.

But we made the sacrifice to avert future disaster and the tree company hauled its branches down and then the trunk itself.  But they left the stump in place, which still sits even now as the centerpiece for my front garden.

Over time, I realized that the tree had produced offspring before the men attacked it with their chainsaws.  On the corner of my front garden grew a baby oak, not a tiny sapling easily yanked out by bare hands.  A thick sprout of a tree with roots down deep.

It was ugly there.  It was off-center and inconvenient.  After each rain it seemed to grow exponentially overnight, overshadowing the blooms of nearby calla lilies and violets.

It annoyed me.

I tried pulling it up, but I’m no Goliath.  I couldn’t even budge the stubborn baby oak an inch.  So, I compromised, cutting it down every few weeks so it was slightly less conspicuous and ugly than before, but never fully uprooting it.

Today, I stared at the towering leaves of my garden enemy once again in disgust and frustration—and determination.  It just had to come out!

I attacked it with my shovel, digging deeper than I ever had tried before and hurting my back while yanking and twisting its roots every few minutes.

Then I realized the sad truth.  In order to dig down to disengage the tree’s roots, I had to dig up my sweet violets growing nearby.

I had to make another sacrifice in order to accomplish the work.  After a tiny moment of sadness, I sunk the shovel deep once again and finally heard the roots snap before I pulled the tree free from the ground.

It took me about five years of battle with stems, roots and offshoots, but I finally won the day and victory was sweet.

Despite all the assertions to the contrary, the Christian life is and should be a life of sacrifice. It’s not a guarantee of abundance or comfort, coziness or material success, health, wealth, prosperity and all the trappings of “the good life.”  Jesus never promised the American Dream.

Of course, the sacrifices we make are almost always greater than digging up violets in order to oust an inconvenient tree.  Yet, they do often involve uprooting and turning over our hearts.

That’s what sacrifice does—it demands that nothing else at all matters more to us than God–not sin, not personal comfort.  Sacrifice ensures that we can give any of that up, even if it’s painful and difficult, for the sake of His name.  It’s a way of knocking over the idols and false gods that take precedence in our time, resources, and priorities.

It’s acknowledging that He is God alone.

But it only happens when the sacrifice is truly sacrificial, when it actually costs something.  Anyone can give to God out of our abundance and excess and we might feel an ugly sort of righteous pride about it.  Look what we did for God.  Look how generous we are.

Yet, when King David longed to build an altar and give an offering to God, he searched for land on which to build.  The owner of the chosen plot, eager to help out the king, promised the land as a free gift to David.

David refused, saying,

“No, I insist on buying it from you for a price, for I will not offer to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing”  (2 Samuel 24:24—HCSB).

In the same way, after rich and powerful men paraded into the temple and loudly plopped their tithe into the box, looking for praise and accolades from the bystanders, a widow walked behind them.

Without showiness or shame, she gave her offering of two coins and Jesus noticed.  Others fawned after the wealthy who had done little more than give to God what was leftover after they paid their dues to the country club.

Jesus said, “she, poor as she is, has given everything she had to live on” (Mark 12:44).

This isn’t a devotional about money.  Sacrifice isn’t limited to cash and coin.

This is about giving to God every part of us, every stronghold, every dream, every luxury, every need and trusting Him with it.

Maybe it’s how we spend our time.  Maybe it is about money.  Maybe it’s about what we watch, read, and download onto our iPod.  Maybe it’s being willing to lay a dream at His feet and walk away, leaving it in His hands instead of your own.

How are we giving to God in a way that costs us?

After all, Christ gave His very life to us.  Surely we can give more than violets in return.  Surely we can refuse to sacrifice to God an offering that costs us nothing.

More Devotions From My Garden:

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

And the Answer Is . . .

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Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me . . .But I call to God,
    and the Lord will save me.
(Psalm 55:5, 16)

I failed my driver’s test at least twice.  I say “at least” because I might have blanked out and actually failed it three . . . possibly four times.  It’s hard to say.  It’s enough to tell you that I still refuse to parallel park 16 years later.

So, when a friend of mine in college said that sometimes he just needed to drive, I didn’t get it.  Driving was stressful for me, parking even more so.  For him, though, it was like therapy.  Overwhelmed and overcome, he’d just cruise down the highway with an unimportant and undefined destination.

Today, for the first time, I understood.  Kissing my older girls goodbye and waving to them as they left on the school bus, I walked my toddler to the minivan and helped her into her seat. Then we drove.

As a mom, I’ve generally lost all control over the music in the car, so I let my two-year-old sing for a while about numbers, pirates, monkeys and queens.

Then I announced, “Mommy’s turn” and flicked a switch, only to hear:

Send me a sign: a hint, a whisper
Throw me a line ’cause I am listening
Come break the quiet; Breathe your awakening
Bring me to life ’cause I am fading . . .

Shine Your light so I can see You
Pull me up, I need to be near You
Hold me, I need to feel love
Can You overcome this heart that’s overcome?
{David Crowder *Band singing SMS (Shine}

That’s when I knew why I was driving.  Just like my friend, I was overwhelmed and overcome.

It’s been one of those seasons of ministry and of life when you’re surrounded by death, cancer, divorce, adultery, abuse, child custody battles, the loss of babies, alcoholism, financial crisis, and unemployment.  I’ve been praying for many miracles these days.

In her book, Knowing God by Name, Mary Kassian wrote about El Oseh Phela or The God Who Works Wonders, focusing on the fact that “The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders” (Deut. 26:8). 

She notes the phrase “outstretched arm . . . implies a work not yet fully completed–a work in progress.  The image of a mighty hand and an outstretched arm illustrates that God is intentionally involved in history on an ongoing basis” (p. 66 emphasis mine).

It’s part of God’s character, His name, a promise based on who He is that He sometimes chooses to deliver us with all of the glory of signs and wonders.  And it’s now, not just thousands of years ago for Moses or Joshua, for Elijah and Daniel.  It’s for us, too, which gives me hope when I’m praying for “impossible” requests.

Yet, at times we’re looking for the fireworks, lightning bolts, and parting seas of miraculous intervention, only to overlook the answer He’s already given to our prayers of desperation—through the ministry of others.

That’s why God fed Elijah once miraculously with food carried in the claws of ravens and then fed Elijah miraculously through the generosity of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17).  It was God’s way of meeting Elijah’s needs and blessing the widow at the same time by allowing her to be part of God’s activity.

Sometimes we are the miracle God is sending to another.  We are the blessing He has offered; we are the provision; we are His answer to the tearful prayers in the night.

Not that it’s because of our own ability or volition.  It’s God’s generous way of allowing us to be used in service and His gracious method of linking people together, knowing that we need the connection and relationship that it brings.

At the start of this year, I read Billy Graham’s book Nearing Home and I wrote this in a devotional:

We tend to give when it’s convenient.  We often make decisions based on what’s practical.  We give what we can afford.  We get together when we’re “free.”

But Jesus served others when it was inconvenient and impractical.  He skipped meals, changed plans, took the long way around, gave up time away for those who needed Him and died to save them.  He didn’t stay up on the cross for the sake of a theology or a plan.  He did it for love of people.

My husband said, “often what is important isn’t what’s practical” in our relationships with others.

So, this year I want to major on the important, even if it’s impractical, hard, or downright crazy.”

Starting in my own home and moving out from there, I’m challenged again to follow Christ’s example and make people my priority and passion.

The Message says it this way:

Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?” That’s exactly what Jesus did. He didn’t make it easy for himself by avoiding people’s troubles, but waded right in and helped out” (Romans 15:1-4 MSG)

Maybe we’re praying for God’s intervention in situations and it really is going to take His mighty hand and outstretched arm to deliver.  But maybe we’re praying for the miracles and God’s already given the answer . . . and the answer is us.

So, I’m ending today with the words to another of my favorite songs, a prayer of sorts for God’s people to love people.

Where there is pain, let us bring grace
Where there is suffering bring serenity
For those afraid, let us be brave
Where there is misery, let us bring them relief
And surely we can change . . . Something
(David Crowder *Band, Surely We Can Change)

You can watch the video for SMS (Shine) by clicking here or by clicking on the image from the blog.  Please take the time to watch and listen today!!!

And here’s the link to Surely We Can Change.

You can read other devotionals on this topic here:

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

Everyday, Ordinary Life

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“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life–your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life–and place it before God as an offering” (Romans 12:1, MSG).

I love that verse in Romans and I came across it again today in my reading. The thing is, there are so many parts of my “everyday, ordinary life” that don’t seem really offering worthy.  I don’t mean because they are mundane.  I mean because they’re ugly and messy and well, failures really.

Like when your daughter decides to take the ballet shoes that you placed next to the front door, hide them and then forget where they are 5 minutes before you have to leave for ballet class and you lose it.

Maybe that kind of stuff only happens to me, but believe me, my reaction to this “irritation” wasn’t really an offering worthy of God.

To be honest, how I react to the big crises in life is much more holy and Christian.  I lean in to God and I grow in my faith in the process because I have no other choice really.  I know fully well that I’m not able to handle any of the big stuff on my own.

It’s the daily annoyances, interruptions, and irritants that bring out the worst in me, partly because I forget to look to God for any help or input at all.

So, how—-how do I turn my everyday, ordinary life into an acceptable sacrifice and a way to give God glory?

I’m reading this fantastic book by Eugene Peterson called A Long Obedience in the Same Direction and he drew my attention to something I had ignored before in this verse.  Three little words: “God helping you.” In the NIV translation, the verse reads:  “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”

With God’s help and in view of God’s mercy, I can make my life–my whole life, not just the “important” parts—an offering to God.

In Romans 9:16, Paul writes, “It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.”  I don’t know about you, but I’m so thankful to know that my salvation, my joy, my future don’t depend on anything other than God’s great mercy.

That means when I mess it up and lose it over hidden ballet shoes that actually don’t reappear until 3 days later (hidden behind the chair in my room), I can have a fresh start.  As it says in Lamentations 3:21-24:

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning;  great is your faithfulness.  I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.

We fail, but His compassion doesn’t fail.  He gives us new grace every morning.  He is our portion.  He is all we need in every difficult, annoying, frustrating moment of our everyday lives, just like He’s faithfully with us in every crisis.  It is only with His help that my reactions to the daily can be placed before Him as an offering.

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Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King