25 Bible Verses About Trust

October 31, 2014Leave a comment

2 Samuel 7:28 NIV
Sovereign Lord, you are God! Your covenant is trustworthy, and you have promised these good things to your servant.
Psalm 9:10 ESV
And those who know your name put their trust in you,
for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.
Psalm 13:5 ESV
But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
Psalm 20:7 ESV
Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
Psalm 22:4-5 NLT
Our ancestors trusted in you,
and you rescued them.
⁵They cried out to you and were saved.
They trusted in you and were never disgraced.
Psalm 31:14 ESV
But I trust in you, O Lord;
I say, “You are my God.”
Psalm 33:21 NLT
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
Psalm 37:3 NLT
Trust in the Lord and do good.
Then you will live safely in the land and prosper.
Psalm 37:5 NLT
Commit everything you do to the Lord.
Trust him, and he will help you.
Psalm 40:3 NLT
He has given me a new song to sing,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
They will put their trust in the Lord.
Psalm 40:4 NLT
Oh, the joys of those who trust the Lord,
who have no confidence in the proud
or in those who worship idols.
Psalm 56:3 ESV
When I am afraid,
I put my trust in you.
Psalm 84:12 ESV
O Lord of hosts,
blessed is the one who trusts in you!
Psalm 91:1-2 NLT
Those who live in the shelter of the Most High
will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
²This I declare about the Lord:
He alone is my refuge, my place of safety;
he is my God, and I trust him.
Psalm 112:7 NLT
They do not fear bad news;
they confidently trust the Lord to care for them.
Proverbs 3:5-6 ESV
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
⁶In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
Proverbs 11:28 ESV
Whoever trusts in his riches will fall,
but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.
Proverbs 28:25 NLT
Greed causes fighting;
trusting the Lord leads to prosperity
Proverbs 28:26 ESV
Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool,
but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.
Isaiah 12:2 NLT
See, God has come to save me.
I will trust in him and not be afraid.
The Lord God is my strength and my song;
he has given me victory.”
Isaiah 26:3-4 NLT
You will keep in perfect peace
    all who trust in you,
    all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
⁴Trust in the Lord always,
    for the Lord God is the eternal Rock.
Daniel 6:23 ESV
Then the king was exceedingly glad, and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.
John 14:1 NLT
Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.
Romans 15:13 NLT
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Revelation 21:5 NLT
And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.”

When the One Thing You Really Needed to Get Done….Doesn’t Get Done

September 15, 20142 Comments

I had one thing written on my agenda for that day.

One. Thing.

Every other day was packed with wall-to-wall to-do list items.

But not that day. I had just one thing I needed to do and I needed to be efficient and productive so that I could spend all the other days doing all the other things.

My list read:

Writing.

But by 2:00, what I just wrote on this screen so far….that was the extent of my progress.

Amazing, huh?

So, what exactly did I do all day?

A million things, just not that one thing.

I had four sick children with coughs and runny noses.

I cleaned up tissues.

I discovered piles of them next to beds and overflowing from bathroom trashcans. I found a plastic bag full of them on the counter. I saw miniature mountains of them here and there where we had chased my baby with a Kleenex.

It felt like the full extent of my productivity was wrapped up in this: Tissue Clean-Up.

And yet, I had wiped noses. Made cups of tea. Cuddled a crying baby who couldn’t figure out why his nose feels like a faucet he can’t turn off.

I wrote cards and notes responding to prayer requests and answered messages.

I scribbled nonsensical slivers of ideas down here and there all morning so I wouldn’t forget what I wanted to write about later.

I washed dishes and washed clothes and somehow cleaned a house that still looks messier than when I began.

What have I done?

A million things. Nothing. Certainly not that one thing I intended to do.

Somehow when you’ve spent all day doing and doing and yet haven’t crossed that one thing off that to-do list, you feel like a failure.

The dam of condemnation cracks and shatters and spews it all out.

How can you have spent all day doing absolutely nothing? What in the world are you doing with yourself? Are you lazy? Are you inept? How is your house not spotless and your work not done?

And yet, what good is an agenda, really, if it’s my agenda and not God’s?

We can make these perfect plans and miss out on God completely. We can push right through the disruptions and the distractions to accomplish our goal and end up lost and far from Him.

C.S. Lewis wrote:

“the great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant (or unexpected) things as interruptions in one’s own life, or real life. The truth is, of course, that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life.”

God’s involvement in my agenda isn’t always painful or unpleasant, but it’s usually unexpected. Like Proverbs 19:21 says:

“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”

I am a ‘many plans’ kind of girl and I’ll shove my way right on through the obstacles to make those plans happen.

And yet, here I am this month, Learning When to Say ‘Yes,’ and I’ve found that saying yes to God starts with being flexible.

It starts with offering Him my to-do list and it includes yielding willingly, gently and without complaint to the twists of the day and the altering of the path.

I stink at this.

But, Moses the shepherd out there in the desert got it right. He had a plan to lead “the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God” (Exodus 3:1).

That’s when God lit a fire within a bush and captured Moses’s attention.

Moses had to decide. Stick with his own plan? Or follow the unexpected.

He chose to bend.

He said, “I will turn aside and see this great sight” (Exodus 3:4).

In The Power of God’s Names, Tony Evans writes:

God didn’t reveal Himself to Moses until Moses turned aside from His ordinary routine.

And that Samaritan that Jesus described in Luke 10…he was traveling the road for a reason. Others had traveled before him: a priest, a Levite. They saw a dying man on the side of the road and pressed right on past because he wasn’t on the itinerary.

But the Good Samaritan turned aside. He stepped off the road. He took the time.

He walked right out of his own agenda and right on into God’s.

May we always be flexible enough to turn aside and to exchange our agendas and plans for His perfect ones (even if they are unexpected).

What is God’s plan for you today? Have you asked 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 ‘Learn When to Say, ‘Yes?’

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.

It’s 3:00 AM, Give or Take An Hour

September 10, 2014September 10, 20142 Comments

It’s 3:00 a.m., give or take an hour. I didn’t look at the clock when I heard my baby’s cry in the night.

When I slip into the room, I hear him sniffling through his stuffy nose. He’s been up several times already tonight. After this, he’ll probably continue to wake every hour or so until morning.

His cry is weary and sad, like he’s asking me to fix what I’m unable to heal. Like he doesn’t understand why he feels so rotten. Like he’s apologizing for waking me up yet again.

He scrambles to sit up. Then he tucks himself into my chest and his head drops down ever-so-slowly onto my shoulders.

I feel his breathing ease into that slow rhythm of rest. His body radiates warmth and I gently stroke my hand across his forehead and feel the slight fever.

He has this fine, blond dusting of hair on his head. I comb it down with my fingers, slow….gentle….the lightest touch.

He’s asleep.

With four sick kids, I’ve been up about 4 times already that night. I know my future, no crystal ball needed. I’ll likely be up every hour from now until sunshine and the rush of the day begins.

So, the practical side of me knows I need to ease that baby boy back into the crib and slip out of the room again.

Get as much sleep as you can, ’cause, girl, you’re going to need it.

The practical side of me is so smart.

But this baby boy snuggles into me and makes this busy, rushing, speedster of a momma pause, rest, breathe in and out and really listen to the rhythm of breath and the rhythm of life.

Usually, he’s on-the-go (like me). I try to cuddle him, and he pushes away to pester the cat or crawl after his older sisters or grab at the TV remote, cell phone, or Kindle or whatever catches his attention, which is pretty much anything and pretty much all the time.

I almost never get to hug him.

When he starts walking, what then?

When he’s off to school….off to driving…off to life? What then?

Better to sit right here in the black of 3:00 a.m. (give or take an hour) and hold my son just a few moments longer.

I think of what I’d been reading that day in Pathway to Purpose by Katie Brazelton. How she said,

“I now know that the most important stuff that happens in life is often challenging, rarely exhilarating, and frequently frightening.”

and this:

“It is not God’s plan for you to spend today chasing after your future one thing when your many things are right in front of you.”

Surely in this moment, this is the most important thing.

We sure can get caught up in searching from some grand revelation of God’s great plan for our lives. We want to know His will for us, His purposes for us, how He’s going to use us, not just today but long into the future.

Yet, here in the night, sleep-deprived, zombie-brained momma that I am, I feel that God sees me cuddling a sick child.

I think how too often we miss this truth:

God’s great purpose for us is to serve Him humbly, sacrificially and obediently in the here and now of life.

We don’t have to search beyond that.

I think of Lydia:

On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. ¹⁴One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us. (Acts 16:13-15 NIV).

Lydia was the first European Christian convert recorded in Scripture, a woman who accepts Christ, shares it with her family, and offers Paul a place to stay while he shares the gospel.

But it began because she said “yes” to God in the ordinary.

“Yes,” to showing up to work.

“Yes” to listening to a missionary.

“Yes” to responding to the gospel.

“Yes” to sharing it with her family.

“Yes” to opening her home as a missions base and church.

Maybe this month, as I’m learning when to say ‘Yes,’ it’s less about joining programs, committees, and ministries, and more about starting with simple obedience and faithful service day after day.

Looking for purpose? Looking for God’s plan?

Look to today.

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 ‘Learn When to Say, ‘Yes?’

Announcing a Winner and Redefining Gentleness

July 18, 2014Leave a comment

Last week, I announced that I’d be giving away a copy of Mary Ann Froehlich’s book, Courageous Gentleness, and today I’m announcing the winner! I used a random number generator to chose the winner from the comments you shared and the winner is: Lisa Preuett. Congratulations! I’ll get the book on out to you!

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“Mom, why do turtles have shells?”

My youngest daughter draped herself across the sofa, seemingly inert and bored, but truly thinking about the great mysteries of the world.

“The shell keeps their soft body safe and protected.”

“Oh. Okay, mom.”

So far, so good. Her questions simple, her mind and heart trusting and easily satisfied by easy answers.

My middle daughter was never so quick to accept and move on. A conversation with her could go something like this:

“Mom, why do turtles have shells?”
“To protect their soft bodies from harm.”
“Why are they in danger and need protection?”
“Other animals might try to catch and eat them, or they might be stepped on or run over…“
“Why do some animals like to eat turtles?
“Some animals are herbivores and eat only plants and some are carnivores and eat meat. Turtles are meat.”
“Why do animals eat other animals?”
“Because after the fall in the garden of Eden….”

Falling back on theology or “because God said so” became my frequent defensive position.

This curiosity about the world, I love. This exploring and questioning and wondering “what if” and “how come”–while it occasionally makes me explode and bluster out “because God made it that way” or “because I said”– ultimately I appreciate.

Ultimately I understand.

I’m a questioner, too. I want to know “why” and “how come” and “what about” and “why not?” I want to pester God with question after question like a three-year-old first discovering the world around her.

More than that, more than asking God true and honest questions, I nag and whine and push and nudge.

Oh, and it’s even more than that. I’ve been Jacob up all night wrestling the angel of the Lord. I’ve locked my grip with God’s and fought hard for what I thought constituted a blessing, for a victory, for triumph over circumstances and over the Enemy who’s been battering at the walls of my life.

Yes, I’ve pummeled the chest of Christ with my fists, fighting and demanding, manipulating even, making promises, issuing threats, and crying for mercy, help, deliverance—for rescue.

I’m being honest with Him, I tell myself, and honesty is something God treasures in us. He never asks us to fake it or play happy-faced Christian when life is a mess and this mask we wear becomes increasingly ill-fitting.

God desires truth. Job, Habakkuk, David, Asaph, Elijah, Jonah, Mary and Martha laid their complaints before God, plead their case, and He listened and answered with awe-inspiring mercy.

He didn’t strike them down with lightning. He let them empty out hearts filled with fear, hurt and anger and then He answered, not always in the way they expected or wanted, but still He met them in the place of pain and questioning and carried them on out.

Now, though, I’ve been studying the fruit of the Spirit and found I didn’t really get it before.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23, NIV).

Gentleness is on that list. All those years of sermons and Sunday school lessons and I thought this meant “being nice, not hurting others with our words, kindness and tact.”

The Message translation however, describes gentleness as: “not needing to force our way in life.”

Is this Gentleness?

In Living Beyond Yourself: Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit, Beth Moore defines the root word here “praotes” as “the complete surrender to God’s will and way in your life. The term basically means to stop fighting God” (p. 178).

Gentleness is submission to God, His will and His way, His plan and His timing and all He has determined for us.

It means dropping to our knees and pouring out the honest struggles of our heart, but deciding at last, “Not my will, but yours be done.”

It’s singing with true conviction, “Have Thine own way, Lord,” and “I surrender all.”

No more fighting God.

How then can I still be honest with Him? How can a prize-fighter like me lower the hands and open the fists, cease fighting and nagging and choose instead to trust?

There is my answer in the verse itself, “but the fruit of the Spirit is…” not the fruit of my own discipline or maturity, strength or ability.

This is what the Spirit at work and alive within me does—the impossible, the new, the Christ-like—As I yield and grow in the Spirit, so slowly I trust more, believe more, fall in love with Jesus more and understand how much He loves me more.

And I stop fighting Him.

I drop the knee, I bow the head, I cry the tear, I confess the pain, I trust my God and the Spirit works out Gentleness in me.

He’s Got It, All of It–Yes, Even this…

June 2, 2014July 22, 20142 Comments

My times are in your hand…
(Psalm 31:15 ESV)

It all started two months ago with a casual conversation.

A friend of mine said, “Oh, if you ever need a good piano teacher, we found one that we love.”

Now, the conversation struck me as funny. We had never talked about piano teachers before. I personally teach my own kids piano lessons and really didn’t need a referral to a piano teacher.

Still, I jotted the info down. You never know, after all, when someone might ask me for a referral.

Fast forward about four months.

I’m chatting with this lovely Christian mom who has a special needs son with an affinity for music. He’s lost most of his vision, but he’s captivated by song. She tells me how she teaches him through music and how he picks out the tunes he hears on their piano at home.

She wants to reach this part of him, this music-place, this God-gift and passion. But how?

A traditional piano teacher all rigid with method books and recitals wouldn’t help him.

Wait, though…..hadn’t that friend given me the phone number of a piano teacher months ago? Hadn’t she mentioned the teacher’s flexibility, her gentleness, her faith, her willingness to work with each individual student?

Two weeks later, I’m hearing the testimony of God’s goodness. How the piano teacher lives on the same road as this family. How they walk past her house on family strolls. How she’s patient and perfect for this little boy.

How God is so good.

All the time.

And all the time, God is good.

It’s the reminder our souls need because life sure is ugly sometimes.

You know what God’s Word says and You know it’s truth.

He works everything out for the good of those who love Him…. (Romans 8:28).

He makes all things beautiful in His time…. (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

No plan of His can be thwarted…. (Job 42:2).

Yet in the here and now of today and this very moment of disappointment, hurt, and maybe even anger, well trusting is a choice, and not always an easy one.

So I marvel at this: Our God, who is “so big and so mighty there’s thing our God cannot do,” chose to send a little boy the perfect piano teacher.

What love is this, so amazing, so divine?

Our grand God never sits stony and unmoving on a ruthless throne of indifference, apathy and boredom. He’s a hands-on God. He’s involved in the details.

This morning, I read the prayer letter of a young missionary couple in Madagascar. They tell how one unexpected circumstances has them moving to another city just two months after arriving.

Still they declare that they trust God. He is sovereign. They know He is good and He is with them no matter what.

Right there in their email I read: “This news came as no shock to Him.”

Hadn’t I just typed out that same thought just days ago to a friend?

The thing I need most to remember about His sovereignty is that even what surprises me and throws me into frantic turmoil does not surprise Him. He doesn’t need to scramble to ‘make-do’ with tough circumstances or react to them with second-best answers. I forget too often that He knew and He knows and He’s got it.

It’s me that forgets how He cares for us. I scramble to react, stumble at news, and try to plant my feet firm again on that solid ground.

That’s what Paul prayed for the Thessalonian church:

Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions you were taught, either by our message or by our letter. May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal encouragement and good hope by grace, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good work and word. (2 Thessalonians 2:15-17 HCSB).

I read this in The Message version:

So, friends, take a firm stand, feet on the ground and head high. Keep a tight grip on what you were taught, whether in personal conversation or by our letter. May Jesus himself and God our Father, who reached out in love and surprised you with gifts of unending help and confidence, put a fresh heart in you, invigorate your work, enliven your speech. (emphasis mine)

God wasn’t surprised by Jonah running away from Nineveh, or by slavery for Joseph, the lion’s den for Daniel, the stoning of Stephen, or imprisonment for Paul.

He knew.

He knows.

He’s got it, all of it, the smallest details, the biggest needs, the obviously beautiful and that which takes time and His hand to transform into beauty from ashes.

A Curtain, Alice, Cinderella and God’s Custom Design

May 9, 2014May 9, 2014Leave a comment

She wanted to be Alice, she said.

This year, they celebrated Dr. Seuss’s birthday by dressing as their favorite literary character at my kids’ school.

We have the world’s largest dress-up collection. This should have been easy.

But we do not own a pre-made costume for Alice during her whimsical Wonderland adventures, which meant we needed to make one.

Creativity, sewing, costuming—not my best things.

But surely, I thought, someone in my town must have once owned a white pinafore-style apron perfect for an Alice costume and large enough to fit a third grade girl.

And surely said person wanted to pass that on to someone else by donating it to a local thrift store or selling it at a consignment shop or yard sale on the very weekend when I needed such an apron.

So, we shopped. Copyright: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/profile_wolfelarry'>wolfelarry / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

All afternoon I shopped.

I did not find an apron.

I did, however, find a curtain with white eyelets and ruffles reminiscent of an Alice apron.

Many women could have snipped and sewn that curtain into an apron in about 15 minutes.

I took an hour or more. It was an extended evening project complete with ripping out the seams where I messed up and re-sewing what I got wrong.

But in the end, I held up that custom-made curtain-to-apron (complete with a pocket!!!) and felt real and true pride like I may never have felt before in my life.

I had overcome my allergy to crafts and my sewing machine phobia. I had labored and been found worthy. I had toiled and reveled in my success.

Or something like that. I was super proud.

Last week, my second daughter announced she needed a pauper Cinderella costume for her song in the school talent show and that meant she needed an apron.

But not an Alice apron. A Cinderella apron.

See the difference?

Dear children, have mercy.

So, I adjust the original design and adapt, turning the curtain that had become Alice into Cinderella.

At some point in the 9 years of being a mom to daughters, I have become a seamstress who produces custom designs; not a good one, perhaps, but after all, we all have our limits.

And while I’m still apt to prick my finger with the needle and still have to pull out the instruction manual every time I have to re-thread my sewing machine or my bobbin (wow, I know what a bobbin is!!), still I sew.

Still I stumble along into creativity so that I can draw near in the presence of the Creator.

Because God, He is this expert artist.

I read in Colossians:

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him (Colossians 1:15 ESV)

In He is My All, Debbie Alsdorf writes:

“By Him and for Him. Those few words give new meaning to my life. They are my personal slogan. They explain what I love for and who I live for….those words—by Him and for Him—-simplify my purpose and meaning. They simplify my choices and help me focus on what’s important (He is My All, p. 82).

God teaches me between stitches and threads that He is the Custom Designer.

You and me—Alice, Cinderella—whoever we are, we are by Him and for Him, handmade.

Not just who we are, either, but He weaves in this also: what we’re placed here to do.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

You are made by Him and for His purposes and what you’re doing right here and now, it may not seem life-changing, world-altering, stage-worthy, award-winning, or crowd-gathering, but it is of value to Him.

This home…this husband…these children….this ministry….this friendship….this job….this calling….this waiting….this service….

He has designed You for this…

and this for you.

So, feeling insufficient? Feeling restless? Feeling unworthy? Feeling unnecessary? Feeling uncertain? Feeling overwhelmed?

Remember His custom design and the way He creates perfection, and the way He creates beauty all in His time.

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 ‘Create Beauty’?

Twist, Wrap, Glue….Trust: Pursuing the Presence of Christ Through Creativity

May 7, 2014May 7, 20142 Comments

I don’t really create so much as I copy and adapt.

Those pictures on Pinterest, the photos in that project book, the links on Facebook, all entice me to pull out the hot glue gun, some fabric or paper scraps and make a huge mess, take up far more time than I expect, and finally gaze with pride on what I created…..I mean copied.

I’ve been wrapping strips of fabric into flowers and covering my hands into a hot mess of “Liquid Stitch” and stabbing my fingers with the needle when I try to sew the button into the center.

I’ve taken someone else’s ideas and made them my own.

I’ve wrapped the fabric too loosely now and my flower unravels. I begin again. Twist, wrap, glue, twist, wrap, glue.

As I try and try (and try) again, I mediate on this:

God started from nothing.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (Genesis 1:2 NIV).

No McCall’s pattern. No Pinterest. No step-by-step directions on the DIY channel. No classes at Michael’s or demonstrations at Jo-Ann Fabrics.

He takes that void, that nothingness, and He brings the fullness of His plans and design with the power of His Word alone. Then He “saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:25 NIV).

In May, I’m continuing my 12 months of pursuing the presence of Christ by sewing and baking, gardening and gluing. I’m ‘creating’ because this is who God is. This is His nature. His character.

If I want to know the joy of His presence, then I join Him in His activity.

Sally Clarkson writes in The Mission of Motherhood:

Creativity is such an integral part of the image of God within all of us… Whenever we adapt an idea or try a different approach to an issue or give our personal spin to a particular endeavor, we are learning a little more about our God-given nature and the nature of our creative God.

God….He’s Creator. God…He’s creative.

He creates beauty. He brings light into the dark places and hope into the hopeless situations. He brings order into chaos and joy from mourning.

I pause and examine the flower I’ve made with a critic’s eye. It’s not exactly like that Pinterest picture. Nothing I make ever really is.

But the beauty of its originality grows on me. Maybe I like it well enough. It’s perhaps a little unexpected, maybe a little unplanned, but it’s a flower and it’s fabric and in it’s own particular way, it’s created for beauty.

So, why do I insist that this Creator God who is able to do “far more than all I ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3) and can speak a few words out into a formless universe and create a planet of complex life and intricate and breathtaking beauty….

Why do I insist that He do things my way?

I do this. I pray, “God, here’s my need. I’m hopeless here without You. Please reach right here into this pit and save me and here’s how….”

I’ve given Him agendas, to-do lists, blueprints, and step-by-step instructions. I’ve given Him 5-year plans and 10-year plans and custom orders for the needs I face that day.

I cling to my plan and argue like a lawyer in a courtroom before an unyielding judge, and then with just a few simple words He creates and I am stunned into silence and worship.

What God does over and over is create an entirely unexpected solution for the mess I’m in.

Yet, it’s perfect. It’s exquisite.

I think of Mary, loving Jesus as she did, the mother who rocked Him and sang to Him in the night.

She brought to Him a problem in John 2 at the Cana wedding feast. No more wine for the guests, she told Him. The host of the party would be so embarrassed, she told Him.

And that’s where she stopped.

She didn’t tangle Him all up in her expectations, her solutions, her suggestions or demands.

No, she laid that problem right into His hands and trusted Him to care for it in His own way.

She gave Him the opportunity to create.

I look at the stack of fabric flowers I’ve made and they form for me a prayer:

God, help me remember that You are the Masterful Creator and I can trust You. You make all things beautiful in Your time. Whatever need I have or problem I face, I leave in Your hands.

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 ‘Create Beauty’?

Finding Room to Breathe: A 12-month pursuit of the presence of Christ
January: Be Still and Know
February: Pray Simply
March: Unplug
April: Enjoy Beauty
May: Create Beauty

This is All His Story (A Lesson from The Theater)

March 14, 2014Leave a comment

Looking at that stage, you would have thought that there were 40 little stars in the show.

From gingerbread cookies, to a mysterious gypsy, from village peasants to silly hobgoblins, forest sprites, and a bridge troll who wants payment from forest travelers, you couldn’t tell at a glance who was telling the main story and who was telling an aside in the performance of The Story of Hansel and Gretel.

My husband says that everyone on the stage has the job of telling their story. Some get to have a name and some dialogue. Others don’t. But no one is simply there for background noise.

Every actor acts as if his character’s story is the main story.

But this is the life lesson that stings as it tramples down over our pride—We aren’t the main story in this world. None of us are.

This story isn’t ours at all; it’s God’s.

Chris Tiegreen wrote:

All of our life is a struggle between self-centeredness and God-centeredness. We know our lives are supposed to revolve around Him and His will, yet we have so many personal dreams and goals.

It’s not that our story doesn’t matter to God or that He views us as just “one of the crowd,” a random human in a sea of human need.

To God, each person matters. Each of us is a treasure. Each of us is beloved and worthy of sacrifice.

Our personal story always matters to Him.

But sometimes we think we know how our story should go, never considering how our life connects, overlaps, and intertwines with the lives of those around us.

This self-centeredness, thinking it’s my story and that God needs to bend His weighty will to my own personal plan, always shows up in my prayer life.

I tell God, “Here’s what’s happening to me and it’s yucky. I’m hurting. I need you to answer my prayer and provide…..and here’s how You can do that.”

I’ve given God three-step strategies to provide for me or rescue me. I’ve created mental timetables, agendas, and budgets and called out to God as if I presided over a boardroom meeting and He was the lackey in charge of production.

Foolish me, prideful me, self-centered me…I forget. I forget that He is always the main event. He is the hero. He always knows my need and the best way and time to provide. He knows how my story fits into His story.

You can pray for that specific job, at the expense of someone else who needs it and who God designed for it. Or you can pray for the perfect job God has planned for you.

You can pray for that specific spouse you want to marry. Or you can pray God brings you the perfect husband or wife at just the right time.

You can pray that God blesses your ministry efforts here. Or you can pray that God directs your steps to the ministry He has designed for you.

We bring to Him our problem.

We leave the solutions up to Him.

That’s how we yield our story to His and allow Him full reign over our life’s direction.

This is why Paul told us more than just this verse that we like to quote so much: “in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28)

The verses immediately before that say:

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God (Romans 8:26-27).

Then, yes, when we’ve allowed the Spirit to intercede for us according to God’s will, He works everything out for our good.

And not just for our good.

But for the good of the person to our left and the one to our right and even those so far off to the side of the stage we can’t even see them.

He sees us all and knows the perfect plan that will work for our benefit and for His glory.

But we yield our story to Him, we lay it low at His feet and let Him take center stage in our life, in our dreams, in our needs, and in relationships.

Trust the Director (A Lesson from the Theater)

March 12, 2014Leave a comment

Lesson Two: Trust the Director

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

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

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

And they had to trust her.

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

We have to trust Him anyway.

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

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

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

Oswald Chambers wrote:

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

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

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

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

Yet, God told Moses,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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