Tag: the presence of Christ

I am not a Perfectionist….most of the time

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I’ve always said, “I’m not a perfectionist; I’m a pragmatist.”

My goal is usually to get things done. I’m willing to let some things go as long as I have a viable product by the deadline.

That’s what I say.

ephesians2-8b

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Mostly, it’s true.  Pragmatism trumps perfectionism for me in a million ways every single day.

But I stood there in a bustling classroom on Open House Night and realized that maybe perfectionism has been lurking its ugly head in my heart after all.

Turns out, you don’t have to be a perfectionist about everything to struggle with perfectionism in some things.

My stuff doesn’t need to be perfect, but I need to be perfect.

(And maybe I want my kids to be perfect, too.)

I chatted with my daughter’s teacher and loved her.  She has this elegant air of grace and gentle wisdom.

But I’m nervous around teachers.  They are like superheroes to this teacher’s pet of a neurotic straight-A student like me.  So, I found myself just saying things without thinking.

She said she enjoyed teaching my girl.

I said something about my daughter enjoying the year so far, but how sometimes if she gets a B on a paper that’s still a little hard.

She said in the quietest of ways, “Really, I don’t see that about her at all.  She seems to be so well-adjusted and not overwhelmed by things like that.”

Oh, right.

My daughter is the well-adjusted one.

It’s me with the problem.  It took a near-stranger to see right through me and call out the ugly I’m still holding onto like a security blanket.

She didn’t realize it, of course.  Yet, one simple conversation like that keeps nudging at my heart.

It turn out I have areas of my life where I accept imperfection and areas where I expect to meet impossible standards that set me up for failure and leave me desperate for grace.

You too?

Messy closets…..I can let that go.

Messing up with my kids, with my husband, with a friend…..unacceptable.

I

must

be

perfect.

Do not lose your patience.

Do not forget to sign the school agenda or the reading log or the quiz or the behavior sheet for any child.

Do not neglect or overlook anyone or anything.

Always say the right thing.

Always be there for everyone with wisdom and grace.

Yet, here’s the truth of the Gospel: Perfectionism keeps us from Christ.  Jesus came for the imperfect.

Perfectionism feeds into that prideful self-righteousness that says I can be right without Jesus.  I can be good enough.   I don’t really need a Savior.  Only sinners and mess-ups need rescue.

And while I say it:  “I need Jesus,” what I really mean is: “I need Jesus in a thoroughly acceptable and comfortable good-Christian girl kind of way.”

That rich young ruler found Jesus walking along the road and knelt before Him.  He made a show of humility: dropping his knee before a dust-covered-carpenter-turned-wandering-rabbi.

The man asked: “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17 NASB).

And when Christ listed off the commandments, the man said, “I have kept all these things from my youth up.” (Mark 10:20 NASB).

He’d spent his entire young life striving within himself to do and do and do the right thing, never breaking the rules, never faltering.

Yet, he still missed out on Jesus.  He couldn’t give everything up to follow after Christ.

And that’s what Jesus wants, not perfect self-righteous rule-followers who focus so hard on taking the right steps that they never walk forward.

He just wants our heart.

I’ve spent this whole year pursuing the presence of Christ, and here I am in December: the month when I “Abandon perfectionismPerfection.”

It’s fitting really.

Too often we stress over Christmas, the busyness, the rush, the show.  We need to fulfill every tradition.  Create beauty.  Teach our children about Jesus and about giving.

Pinterest tells me I need to make Christmas ‘magic’ for my children.

Yet, too often we make Christmas about do and do and do.

What if this year we Abandon Perfection and simply make Christmas about giving Jesus our heart?

I want Jesus.  I want His presence.  And that means coming now, before I’m perfect.  Coming as we are.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV).

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.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

Black Tea Strong and Sweet with a Drop of Milk

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“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
John 15:15

She always asks me if I’d like a cup of tea.

From visit to visit she remembers I like black tea, not those fruity teas or herbal teas.  She places the sugar beside my cup and says, “You like it strong and sweet, right?”  Then she sets the milk down on the table because she knows I pour in a little milk and not cream.22615807_s

Her house is a home.  It’s clean but not perfect with all the signs of family and love and growing.  Magnets of the kids’ artwork dot the refrigerator door.  I see toys and school papers and the book she set aside so she could sit with me.

I marvel at her because this gift she has, this hospitality, this welcoming friends into her home and making them feel cozy and relaxed, this is a gift I don’t have.

I always thought hospitality meant fancy party planning and expensive china.  It meant having a house straight out of a decorating magazine and the whipping up of gourmet dishes with names I can’t pronounce.

And here I am this simple girl.

Hospitality seemed so complicated.  So stressful.

But my friend shows me this, it’s really pouring a cup of tea and welcoming someone in.

She never makes me feel like an interruption in her day and she sits there and lets time pass without stress or bother and just chats in this easy way she has of talking open and honest.

It’s refreshing like cool water on a parched soul.

All this month, I’m pursuing the presence of Christ by investing in friendship because when I’m learning from His people, I’m learning from Him.

My friend reminds me that Abraham didn’t scramble to shove dirty dishes into the oven, toss the laundry pile into the backroom and stash papers into the closet when God showed up unexpectedly with two friends.

He didn’t shoo them away with a list of why he’s too busy that day to chat, but maybe they could schedule a lunch date next week….

He didn’t flick off the lights, close the curtains and duck in a corner, pretending he wasn’t home in hopes they’d back on out of the driveway and leave him be.

No, when Abraham saw the three visitors trudging up the distant path, he “hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground” (Genesis 18:2).

Then, he immediately (and without complaint) abandoned his plans for the day and made their comfort his sole focus.

He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by.  Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree.  Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant” (Genesis 18:3-5).

He showed hospitality to God.

Abraham begged the Lord to “not pass your servant by” and God didn’t.  He rested in that place.  Rather than delivering a divine message and being on His merry way, He sat in the cool shade of the tree, eating and chatting with Abraham.

God and Abraham “hung out.”john15-15

And when the visit was over, the Lord, having been shown hospitality, shared with Abraham the plan for Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction.  This was not the purpose of the visit, but it was a divine revelation borne out of intimate fellowship.

While we have the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives continually, still there are moments when He shows up in clear and powerful ways in the middle of our busyness.

He appears at the tent of our heart.  He inquires if we’re home, if we’re willing to spend time with Him.

Do we tell Him to come back tomorrow because we’ve already fulfilled our quiet time quota for the day?  Or do we usher Him into the center of our hearts and show Him hospitality?

Chris Tiegreen wrote:

When He comes to you in the heat of the day, do you bow before Him, offer Him the refreshment of your hospitality, and give of your possessions?  Do you aim to serve?  Then don’t be surprised if God lingers.  Don’t be surprised if He communicates with  you as with a privileged friend.”

And this is my heart, that God linger here and “not pass your servant by.”

So we make Him welcome.  We invite Him in.  We rest in His presence and rejoice in this miracle of friendship with Him.

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 ‘Invest in Friendship’?

 

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 © 2014 Heather King

How Pioneer Women Were Superheroes and Why I’m Baking Bread

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I measure out the honey, heap it onto the tablespoon and let it drip slowly (as honey does) into the warm milk.

I could have grabbed a loaf off the grocery store shelf.  One loaf in a plastic bag, pre-sliced, and BAM–bread.

Not this time.

I pour in the bread flour.  One cup, now two, now three.

Why not just keep this simple?  Why not a box of crackers from the store?  A bag of pita bread?

I can’t explain it exactly, but I want to push elbow deep into the dough and knead it with my own two weak hands.

Surely I’ve been kneading for 10 minutes already.

It’s been two minutes exactly.

I think maybe my clock is broken.

Those pioneer women were superheroes, performing muscular feats of miraculous strength everyday at the kitchen table.  Maybe not leaping over skyscrapers and flying through space, but baking that daily loaf of bread, that takes power.bethmoore

I’m a modern-day wimp, so this pounding out the dough and stretching it and pounding some more is breathless work.

But it gives me time to think about this:

In the Tabernacle that Moses and the Israelites packed up and toted around the wilderness, God set His Presence right in the midst of His people.

He told them how to craft the Holy objects, the washbasin, the altar.

And He told them to place fresh bread on the table once a week, the shewbread.  But I read in my Bible its other name: “the bread of the Presence“ (Exodus 39:36).

The priests placed that bread on the table and there it sat every single day, not in the Most Holy Place where the High Priest entered once a year.

No, in the Holy Place, where the priests came in day after day to worship before God.

They walked in that sacred space and there was the bread.  There it was.  There it always was.

The moment it started to crackle with staleness, they brought in fresh, warm bread, baked new and placed it once again, a daily reminder of the daily presence of our God.

This bread is to be set out before the Lord regularly, Sabbath after Sabbath, on behalf of the Israelites, as a lasting covenant (Leviticus 24:5-8 NIV)

I set my own bread dough on the oven to rise and sit down to my Bible study book and cup of tea.  That’s when I read it… Beth Moore tells me in her study on David:

The Hebrew term for presence is paneh, which means ‘countenance, presence, or face.’  The everlasting covenant symbolized by the bread of the Presence was a reminder of the pledge of God’s presence to His people.

That bread on that altar reminded God’s people that He was with them, yes, even there in the wilderness.

Even there with David as he ran from Saul, hiding in caves, feigning madness, running for his life.  He used that same Hebrew word–paneh—when he wrote:

For he has not despised or scorned
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help (Psalm 22:4 NIV).

My bread is in the oven now, giving the whole house a domestic smell, a fresh and warm aroma.

As it bakes, I consider Christ, because He’s the Bread of Life—God in the flesh, God in our midst, the touchable and tangible sign of God’s presence, the way we could see the face of God.

And Jesus, when He broke that bread and passed that cup around the Passover table, said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

Every single time you eat the bread and you drink the cup, you remember Christ’s death.  But also His presence. 

“Christ is the bread of God’s presence to us” (Beth Moore, David).

Steven Furtick asks if this Communion we take could “also be an invitation to constant communion with Christ?  For each of us, everywhere, each day?”  (Crash the Chatterbox, p. 152).

So, if I’m feeling the staleness, the crusty or even moldy sign of old bread, then what I need to do is remember. 

I need to renew the Bread of His Presence right here in my life.

I slice off a piece of this warm, newly baked bread.

I pour out the grape juice in my tiny tea cup.

There I pray,  My Lord, I remember what You have done for me.  I am so thankful.  So unworthy.  Will You cleanse my heart?  Will You remind me of Your Presence here in my life?

Communion, this sacred act, becomes personal, a way for the holy to invade my daily: this home, this kitchen, this kitchen table.

God’s presence in this place.

How do you pray before taking Communion?

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 © 2014 Heather King