Turning Aside and Saying Yes to God

August 21, 2013January 23, 201417 Comments

I wasn’t ‘supposed’ to be there or so I thought.

Shopping off schedule, not on my normal day, shifting things around to accommodate other schedule shifts, cramming activity into the overstuffed container of life. And now here I was, shopping at a Wal-Mart in the middle of the afternoon instead of during my normal morning jaunt through the store with a shopping cart and a coupon book before the crowd arrived after lunch.

I pushed my way through the sale items at the front of the store with my focus on my mission—shop, gather the items on my list without distraction, save money, and leave.

But then I saw her, a friend at the pharmacy counter. Stopping for a quick ‘hello,’ the kind of cheerful greeting we small-town folks exchange in the Wal-Mart all the time, I pushed my cart to the side of the aisle hoping not to be in the way of other annoyed shoppers on mission.

This friend, though, didn’t need just a cheerful chat, but a sharing-the-heart kind of talk, a prayer right there in the middle of Band-Aids and Tylenol.

God sent her to the Wal-Mart at just that moment and then He rocked my world all crazy, turning my schedule upside down and sent me right on into that Wal-Mart at the exact same time she would be there.

I like to hold this white-knuckled control over my calendar and my agenda, fitting everything in just right and not being willing to bend, to flex, to rearrange and adjust, not without whining and complaining at least.

Yet, here is what happens when I release, open my palms and offer up the plans, saying ‘yes’ to God even in the daily.

A few days later, God over-turned my normal routine again with special school events and unexpected trips to the post office. There I was driving down the Main Street of town when I ‘shouldn’t’ have been and I was thinking of the to-do list items to cross off, the errands to run, the destination and the mission all over again.

But He opened my eyes to see ‘her,’ a woman I knew limping along the sidewalk painfully slowly.

I didn’t even debate over my plans. Instead, I zoomed into the nearest driveway and she climbed into the mini-van (after I shoved aside the napkins, papers, and other Mom mess) so I could drive her to work.

A little blessing for her.

A huge blessing for me, this reminder of God’s divine agenda, the appointments He sets for us and the way I can miss them so easily in my stubborn addiction to having my own way.

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 does have this way of being unexpected. Like Proverbs 19:21 says:

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

Yes, I’m a ‘many plans’ kind of person who learns slowly to yield to this God with a perfect purpose.

God interrupts, intervenes, and now I must choose—whine and complain, reject and insist on my way, or submit and adjust and trust His plans, like Moses in the wilderness outside Mount Horeb as he tended his father-in-law’s sheep.

Moses wasn’t meandering along, aimless and purposeless. 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).

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

What if Moses hadn’t stopped? What if he waited until later, choosing to finish his own plan and then return to check out the curiosity? Or if he’d ignored the interruption, adamantly determined to do things his way, in his own timing, and in his own strength?

Oh, how Moses would have missed out on God’s glory and God’s purposes for his life and his people!

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

This turning aside is what God teaches me in this walk of obedience, the willingness to be interrupted, the trusting Him with my agenda and not worrying and fretting over the unexpected and the out-of-control.

Turning aside when I see God at work, I join Him there and give Him praise.

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.

Having Faith When I Don’t Get My Way

August 16, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

My one girl gets grumpy.

I arrive to pick her up at the end of an activity and I find her huddled on the floor, back turned to the crowd, face hidden on her knees or maybe she’s hiding under a table or in the back of a bathroom stall.

She’s not screaming or crying, but she’s definitely pouting.

With arms crossed, with feet stomping, with loud harumphs for emphasis at the end of her sentences, she tells me the crisis: Others disagreed, someone else wanted the same thing, another person got to go first, that person got something better.

But this is the bottom line: She didn’t get her way.

And now, she’s grumpy.

I understand. I can be grumpy when I don’t get my way, too, wanting to sit out and let everybody know that I disagree with the decision and I’m sure not happy about it.

Another of my girls argues her case when she doesn’t get her way. She argues….and argues….and argues her point until you’re knocked over by the powerful wave of her emotions and opinions.

And I understand this. When I don’t get my way, I want to form protest marches and fight, fight, fight, too! Instantly I think of who I can rally to “my side” and how I can convince others that my way is the right way, the best way, the only way.

Maybe if I just give the best speech, argue the best (or loudest, or longest, or most convincingly), use the best evidence and form the largest coalition I’ll win the day after all.

And my youngest girl simply cries over disappointment, not a temperamental tantrum on the scale of the hurricane tantrums we’ve seen in this family. More like the desperately sad wail of a child who realizes the world doesn’t revolve around her…doesn’t always do what she wants or turn out the way she expects.

That’s a lesson that always stings painful and I’ve mourned myself with frustrated hurt that the world doesn’t bend to my whim or orbit around my convenience or comfort.

I don’t always get my way.

And, selfish creature that I am, I sometimes react all ugly.

Yet, while faith allows us to stand up for what is right and to speak truth in love, it demands something else.

Faith means trusting God even when things don’t go our way, when plans don’t work out, when others make decisions we disagree with, when life isn’t perfect or even when life is hard and obstacles loom large and hope doesn’t come easy.

Believing in God’s providential care isn’t faith until we’re blinded by circumstances and still trust.

Hebrews 11:1 tells us this:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Faith: That’s when we can’t see the end, can’t see how God could possibly work this out for our blessing and benefit, can’t imagine what God could possibly do to make this better much less make this the best.

But we trust Him anyway.

Faith means resting in the knowledge of God’s power over everything we face, even when our senses and circumstances tell us that people are in control, not God.

It seems like we rely on a boss, or a leader, or a committee chairman, or a judge, or someone in human resources ….but faith declares that it’s God, always God, only God who directs our lives.

In The Faith Dare, Debbie Alsdorf reminds me that God is my Good Shepherd, trustworthy, wise, caring, knowing, powerful. I read the familiar promises:

God, my Shepherd! I don’t need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
you find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word,
you let me catch my breath
and send me in the right direction.
Even when the way goes through Death Valley,
I’m not afraid
when you walk by my side (Psalm 23 MSG).

Yes, God my Shepherd leads me to places of rest and sustenance, providing what I need, sending me in the right direction, walking by my side even in the shadowy depths of the valley.

And my response can be fighting or pouting…but all my grumpiness, my protesting, my tears reveal where I’m not trusting God’s ability to control the tiniest detail of my life in His hands.

Isaiah tells me,

In repentance and rest is your salvation
in quietness and trust is your strength… (Isaiah 30:15)

Enough of the ugly reactions, the crisis, the conflict. Better to seek my God—-what now, Lord? What is your will here in this place? What will you have me do and how would You have me respond?

I choose resting in Him.

I choose a quieted heart.

I choose trust.

I choose Faith.

Declaring Dependence and the Faith Dare

August 9, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

Right now, he’s linked to me, soaking up nutrients and oxygen from my very blood, connected to me by a stranded cord that is his very grip onto life.

But there’s the delivery room and suddenly we’ll no longer be one tiny human and one mom adhered together into a cohesion of flesh and blood. He’ll be held by the doctor and I’ll grab for my glasses to see this separate person, this tiny creation who has been nudging at me all these months and growing inside of me all this time.

For nine months you can only imagine his face, imagine what gymnastic feats he’s performing as he knocks your pregnant belly from side to side.

Then I’ll see him. Then I’ll hold him. Then we are two.

Right there in that moment when the doctor holds up a baby and announces, “it’s a boy,” right then he is on a journey to independence and I’m the one who is supposed to train him for that.

I have time to cuddle, to pray, to advise and teach, to tussle blond hair and put the Band-Aids on the scraped knees, but only for so long.

Enjoy it. Don’t miss it by blinking too long, my older and wiser mom-friends tell me. Independence comes soon enough.

My eight-year-old daughter announces she wants to home school for college so she doesn’t have to leave home.

My four-year-old daughter declares that she’d just like to keep this family and not have one of her own.

But my seven-year-old daughter says it with this wild excitement, “I’m going to go live at college! I can make my own rules and do what I want to do.”

It began in the delivery room, the separation from me, the first breath of their very own lungs taking in that air all on their own and so it goes.

This is my job as a mom, to love them into independence, teach them how to do and what to do on their own.

But that’s not God’s desire for me as my Father, not His parental mission or responsibility. He’s doing the opposite, wooing my independent heart into trust and showing me the lesson of the vine:

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me (John 15:4 NASB).

This abiding life, the never separating from God, never stepping out on my own and depending on my own strengths or abilities sounds so simple.

It’s not.

It takes effort to remain in Him.

Dependence after all can feel so uncomfortable, so helpless, so out of control, so uncertain.

In Faith Dare, The: 30 Days to Live Your Life to the Fullest, Debbie Alsdorf challenges readers to a “fasting of self.” She says,

for thirty days you will be placing your self and what you want to do aside, replacing them with the truths in each day’s dare, and concentrating on what God is saying to your heart that day (p 15).

Maybe it’s normally food (chocolate or soda for me!), or media, or social media that makes up our fast. Denying self means this sacrifice of what we want in order to pursue God’s heart, throwing down idols and strongholds and choosing Jesus, just Jesus, only Jesus.

But maybe for me “fasting of self” means a denying of self-reliance, self-assertion, self-direction. It requires that submissive gentleness, the willingness to follow God’s lead wherever, whenever, without worry or anxiety about the journey’s destination or timetable.

Control, worry, anxiety–remove the deceptive disguise and what lurks there?

Pride.

Peter surprises me when I read his words:

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you (1 Peter 5:6-7 NASB).

Humble yourselves.

How?

By casting all your anxiety on Him.

John Piper writes:

One way to be humble is to cast all your anxieties on God. Which means that one hindrance to casting your anxieties on God is pride. Which means that undue worry is a form of pride (Future Grace p. 94-95).

It’s my stubborn independence borne from this ugly pride that stirs up worry, after all. I fret because I’m trying to make every detail fit together just right, every problem solved, every conflict resolved, every decision made just perfectly.

I’m trying to do it. I’m reasoning it out, planning in the night, charting possibilities on paper.

Me, me, me.

John Piper continues: “Faith admits the need for help. Pride won’t. Faith banks on God to give help. Pride won’t. Faith casts anxieties on God. Pride won’t.”

Daring faith is denying independence and choosing dependence, throwing over the pride that says, “this all relies on me” and purposefully resting in Him.

Setting Curls, Setting Faith: Taking the Faith Dare

July 31, 201315 Comments

My grandmother took me to the beauty shop to have my hair permed for the first time when I was in third grade. I needed a booster seat to sit in the chair.

It’s such a distinctive smell, the scent of perming hair, but they covered over it (or tried to) with coconut-scented solutions and apple-scented conditioners, and this is what brings back the memories.

One whiff of coconut or apple beauty products even now and I’m still thinking of curlers, cotton wraps over the forehead and behind the ears, a plastic bag holding it all in and tied in a knot to the side, and time with my head stuck in a huge bubble of a dryer with the roar of hot air drowning out the gossip from the stylists and their customers.

Every six months to a year through college and even a little into my married life I went back and watched the experts roll my hair into tight curls.

Then I stepped into a salon in New Jersey in my 20’s and told them I wanted my hair permed, needed my hair permed in fact because I couldn’t take the boring straightness of my boring hair with its boring style one more minute!

The lady sat me down in the chair, snipped a little with her scissors here and there and staged an intervention, refusing to perm my hair. She said I’d look better if I just learned to blow dry my straight tresses. Then, she pointed to a super model photo on the wall and promised that I could look like her if I could just get over my aversion to blow drying my hair.

I left the shop and cried in my car.

My hair had always been curled; it’s what I knew, how I thought I looked best. I couldn’t handle all that hair without bounce and body, weighing down on my face, getting in my way, and just ending up in a ponytail by noon.

And I ….hate…blow….drying….my…..hair.

I hate everything about it. My hair is porous and retains water like a pregnant woman. It’s long and heavy. It takes what seems like a million years to really dry it.

I could end world hunger and find homes for all the world’s orphans if I had all that time.

Really, I’ve got better things to do than stand there with a noisy machine pointed at my head like a wind simulator.

Beauty takes effort, though. Hours spent in a salon with chemicals and curlers for a perm, an eternity in front of my mirror holding a blow dryer, either way it’s an investment. It’s an effort.

For some, it’s manicures, for others it’s eyebrow waxing or plucking, tanning beds, vitamins, exercise sessions, hair coloring and wrinkle creams.

I’m a simple girl, really. Most of that is far beyond me and most days I’m a rebel and ditch the hair dryer in favor of “the wet look.”

That’s a real style, right?

But all those years of perming my hair taught me this: If external beauty takes the effort, the intentionality, the investment of time and resources, then surely internal beauty should require as much.

And I should be willing to pay a costly price and willingly sacrifice for faith like that, the kind that roots itself deep in my soul and blossoms out so full it pushes out all the ugly, the doubt, the worry, the anxiety, the selfishness, the bad attitudes, and the sin.

Faith–that’s a gift from God. It’s not something we work for or earn.

But I can choose to look to God for faith or reject His gift.

In her book, The Faith Dare: 30 Days to Live Your Life to the Fullest, Debbie Alsdorf talks about establishing the groove of faith spoken of in Psalm 84:

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs…
They go from strength to strength
till each appears before God (vv. 5-7)

These pilgrims set their hearts on a God-destination. They purposed to journey to Him, transforming valleys into springs of refreshing life and fulfillment and joy along the way until they finally appeared before God–strengthened from the traveling, not fatigued and worn frail from the task.

Debbie Alsdorf writes:

I have to set my heart on the pilgrimage, which is an extended journey with a purpose…And I have to set my heart and mind on faith in God for the journey, the life he purposed for me alone (p. 12).

Here we begin, making this decision: No more distractions, turning aside for easier paths, growing disheartened and taking refuge in tents along the road, following short-cuts that lead us astray, pursuing other destinations, and allowing others to talk us out of it.

We set our heart and mind on faith in God and we get going.

**********************************************************************************************************

During the month of August, I’ll be joining with several hundred women in a study of Debbie Alsdorf’s book, The Faith Dare: 30 Days to Live Your Life to the Fullest through the Women’s Bible Cafe. This week, we’re just making introductions and getting started, so there’s still time to grab a book (or download it to your Kindle or nook) and join in!

The Adventure of the Cherry Pie

July 3, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

It began with a bag of cherries.

Cherries truly are the gold of the fruit world, so I’ve only bought them twice in over thirteen years of marriage. This time, a super sale had enticed me to carry home a bag of this sweet and juicy treasure.

My daughters tasted them once and mostly were done. Only one daughter and I continued to enjoy them day…after day….after day….until I knew I needed a plan to use the cherries before I had to toss rotten cherries.

Obviously, the answer in such a fruit crisis is to bake a pie. So, domestically inspired, my daughters and I made the pie crust from scratch and left it in refrigerator to chill before rolling it out into the pie pan. Then, we carefully followed the recipe for cherry pie filling. It said I needed four cups of cherries to fill the pie.

I had exactly four cups. Not 4-1/4 cups or 3-3/4 cups. Four cups absolutely on the line.

It was a sign, a heavenly smile on my cooking project.

So, my eight-year-old and I pitted those four cups of cherries (without a cherry pitter) and felt thoroughly proud of our pioneer selves.

Yet, as we stirred the filling on the stove, I felt that first quiver of nervousness, that nagging thought that maybe, just maybe, this wouldn’t be enough to fill the pie.

I was right.

Once the dough was rolled out and the absolutely delicious homemade filling that we were so proud of was poured in, we knew the truth. We only had enough for half of a pie and I was all out of cherries.

This began the series of minor annoyances that disrupted all of my homemaking tranquility and left me stressed, bothered, tired and frustrated within an hour.

Like how I pulled out all the ingredients for my homemade chicken and barley soup and couldn’t find the chicken stock I needed, not anywhere in any cabinet in the entire house, although I knew for sure I bought it at the store that week.

And how I put the homemade bread dough into the oven in the same bread pan I always use at the same setting with the oven rack positioned in the same place as always—-and started to smell burning after 15 minutes. The bread had risen so high it was actually touching the top of the oven and burning.

So, I pulled the bread out quickly and placed it on the counter while trying to reposition the oven racks only to smell more burning. In my haste, I had put the bread down on a stove burner that was still on from my failing soup. The bread was burned both top and bottom now.

It was at this point that I started crying out to Jesus…over cherry pie, lost chicken stock, and burned bread.

A week later, of course, the bothersome kitchen disasters had passed. I bought a can of cherry pie filling that night and finished off the baked goods. We ate the middle of the bread and I found a way to make soup anyway.

Then, I opened up the kitchen cabinet doors and found the chicken stock that had been missing just days before. There it sat exactly where I remembered placing it, exactly where it should have been, exactly where I had looked over and over in one desperate rumble through the cabinet after another.

So, why? Why, God, all of that unnecessary drama over things as simple as soup and bread and pie?

Maybe I don’t meet with recipe disasters and random kitchen mishaps every day….and yet every day there are the distractions: The yanking on our hearts to worry here and bluster with frustration there. The nudging us off our faith foundation and the pecking away at our peace.

In Psalm 86, David prays over his own litany of troubles. Eugene Peterson notes:

There are fifteen petitions in these seventeen verses: concentration is weakened by the distraction of clamoring needs (Praying with the Psalms, June 24).

Fifteen reasons for David to fall to his knees, one pesky annoyance after another, one overwhelming crisis upon another.

And it’s all just so much, so difficult to focus on Christ and to claim peace, so hard to ignore the circumstances and insist on faith.

So, David prays:

Give me an undivided heart to revere your name (Psalm 86:11).

And this becomes our prayer when life is overwhelming or when days grow difficult, when we’re hit wave after wave with bothersome trifles and knocked flat over by the powerful current.

One heart….one mind….united and unwavering in my intentional focus on Christ. This is what we need.

Amen.

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.

A Sleeping Lion is Still a Lion

July 1, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

All of them seemed ready to show off that day.

The morning was cool, that one break in the summer heat and the chance to enjoy outside without dehydration, heat stroke, headaches and fatigue. So, we packed a picnic lunch and visited the zoo, even zipping up jackets at the start of the day because of the chill in the air.

On a cool enough day, the animals in the various habitats are willing to leave dens and the burrows under the earth that protect them from the sun.

The prairie dogs bobbed up and down. The giraffe paced back and forth, his nose barely missing the walkway for zoo onlookers where we stood. The elephant tossed his hay and the baby monkey swung on ropes and tumbled all over his ever-patient parents.

But the lions.

Always the lions sleep on the highest rock in their habitat, hot day or cool day or whatever. They lounge and stretch and only occasionally blink their eyes open long enough to yawn and maybe reposition their mass to ease into a more comfortable position or soak up more sun.

Years and years we’ve been visiting this zoo, and I’ve never seen the lion climb down from the rock, never seen him roar or shake his mane. We’ve never seen the female lion dash across her habitat, stalk imagined prey, or be alert for danger.

Still we marvel at their sheer magnificence, the mightiness of their demeanor. How their muscles still display power even when they look just as lazy as my two house cats asleep on the arms of our sofa or the foot of my bed.

And we take pictures them, of course. I have just about six years of pictures of these lions resting on the rock.

I’d think perhaps that their lack of care or nonchalant attitude is simply the fate of the captive lion. They feel safe in their man-designed haven, provided for and comfortable.

But today I read in Isaiah:

When a strong young lion stands growling over a sheep it has killed, it is not frightened by the shouts and noise of a whole crowd of shepherds. In the same way, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will come down and fight on Mount Zion (Isaiah 31:4 NLT).

And this I read in the Daily Bread devotional, as the writer describes lions lounging in Kenya’s Masai Mara game reserve:

Their serene appearance is deceiving…the reason they can be so relaxed is that they have nothing to fear–no shortage of food and no natural predators. The lions look lazy and listless, but they are the strongest and fiercest of all. One roar sends all the other animals running for their lives. (Our Daily Bread, JAL).

They have nothing to fear.

That’s why the lions don’t stay alert and awake on that rocky cliff. It’s why they don’t take shifts of standing guard or pace around their zoo enclave with nervous awareness.

It’s why the same beasts out in Kenya feel free to lounge and linger as they drink from a stream and slowly stride through the grass rather than run, stalk, or pounce.

Isaiah writes that this is true of our God, this Mighty Warrior as He leads the armies of heaven, undaunted by opposition.

Oh, but how I tremble and pace with anxious uncertainty! How one phone call or email, one personal confrontation, one malicious bump into my carefully planned schedule, one interruption, one comment by another can leave me feeling so shaken and, yes, afraid.

And why, I wonder at times, am I reacting this way? Isn’t this in God’s hands? Even the decisions of others, the way they seem to hold power over my future or the ability to hold sway in my life, is just a ruse.

And why, I wonder, does it seem like God is lounging on the mountain rather than roaring and shaking His mane and displaying His might? Why can I be in a nervous tizzy of reactionary emotion and He’s not flustered or bothered? He’s calmly in control.

It’s because our God has no reason to fear. No need to tremble at the noisy clamoring of our enemies, our frustrations, our annoyances, our worries and obstacles.

And it is our Lion of Judah, our all-powerful God, who gave Isaiah “a strong warning not to think like everyone else does. He said, ‘Don’t call everything a conspiracy…don’t live in dread of what frightens them. Make the Lord of Heaven’s Armies holy in your life. He is the one you should fear, He is the one who should make you tremble. He will keep you safe” (Isaiah 8:11-14).

We aren’t to worry because we fear only God–no other crisis or threat or shaking of our life–and we know He keeps us safe.

Clash of the Agenda

June 26, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

Clash of the Agenda or I could call it an Agenda Conflict (capital letters for emphasis). That’s what it was.

My plan: Get my family dressed and presentable QUICKLY and then run out to register kids for swim lessons QUICKLY, then rush home, accomplish a million things and leave for other to-do list items shortly thereafter.

My daughters’ plan: Enjoy the full benefits of a summer morning. Fight over a television show and insist that each child choose one entire program to watch before eating breakfast. Arrive at the breakfast table one….at……a……time. Carry around clothes for the day rather than actually putting them on and generally move through the morning at a slow and easy pace.

It wasn’t just them, of course, sabotaging my agenda. Unexpected phone calls and email messages sidetracked and distracted me. Finally, I decided we simply needed to leave so we drove to swim lesson registration leaving behind unwashed dishes, a pile of pajamas on the sofa, unfolded laundry on the loveseat, and general mess.

I even tried not to stress over my daughters’ hair being combed with fingers and not arranged into ribbons, bows, barrettes and headbands, but I gave in and swept their hair into whatever hair accessories were floating around my Mom Bag before actually going inside to register.

Agenda Conflict is a fact of life. We can’t plan out every detail of every day of every life season and expect success.

Especially as moms.

It’s a stressor, a reason for my heart to race as I try to balance accomplishing my goals and remaining relatively sane while negotiating life with people whose agendas conflict with mine.

But it’s also a flex-or. It’s a way for God to gently or even not-so-gently nudge us out of the driver’s seat of our lives once again. And it seems a perpetual process for me, this becoming flexible enough to hand over control even to a Trustworthy God.

Because I’m not a go-with-the-flow person. I’m not an arrive-whenever and do-whatever-works, leave-the-dishes-in-the-sink and change-direction-when-necessary kind of girl. At least not naturally. Not unless God demands it.

Which He does.

Because He alone can be God of our lives. He has the prerogative to interrupt plans and redirect our course. He has the option of taking the three-year-plan and deciding He’s ready to move here and now, this moment! Or, He could choose to abandon the plan all together, crumple it up, toss it and maybe even leave us without an agenda at all as He whispers, “Trust me and that is enough.”

We can’t pray super-spiritual prayers of devotion to God and promises to submit to His will and then throw a stressed-out tantrum when the phone rings, the email comes, and the kids drag their feet on a busy morning.

Instead, those prayers for His Lordship in our lives require that we mean it in the everyday frustrations of Agenda Conflict and the unexpected U-turns in life that leave us hanging on breathless.

We must pray with the Psalmist, “My times are in your hands” (Psalm 31:15 NIV) and “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails” (Proverbs 19:21 NIV).

We could press our agenda, of course, determined not to abandon the plan for anyone or anything. We could demand it make sense on paper and make decisions on statistics, facts, and appearances alone.

But we could miss out on God’s blessing.

When Abraham began his journey to the Promised Land, he traveled with his nephew Lot until their shepherds began battling over prime grass and watering holes. Finally, they knew they had to separate and travel in two different directions.

Abraham was on a God-directed mission to a land of promise, and as the senior member of their relationship he could have demanded “first dibs.”

Instead, he trusted God enough to leave the direction and the timing of his journey in God’s hands. He allowed Lot to choose first, saying simply, “Separate from me: if you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you go to the right, I will go to the left” (Genesis 13:9 NIV).

At best, that seems like a coin toss to me, a fifty/fifty chance of getting the blessing.

At its worst, it feels like trusting your future to a fallible human, a selfish one at that.

But surely Abraham’s life, times and future were in God’s capable hands regardless of Lot’s choice.

Had Abraham pressed his own agenda for his own benefit, maybe he would have chosen as Lot did, to pitch his tents outside of Sodom. Instead, God led Abraham on to blessing, all because he ceded the right to decide, to direct, to lead, to push, and to stress and left the agenda and itinerary up to God.

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.

Invisible Grace That Now I See

June 24, 2013January 23, 20144 Comments

My oldest daughters were still preschoolers when our library hosted a dance party for kids. We decided to see what a dance party for tiny tots looked like.

There was some Hokey Pokey and something like Sweatin’ to the Oldies. My kids jumped into the middle of the room and boogied down with the best of them while I sat criss-cross applesauce on the edge of the circle and smiled.

And I marveled at one of my mom friends, who hokey-pokied with the best of them, dancing with her only son.

How does she do it? I wondered.

People asked me the same question for years as I worked from home with young kids, balancing work production with Candy Land breaks, juice cup refills, baby doll changes, and searches for Barbie’s perpetually missing shoe.

But I told them that it wasn’t so amazing for me as a momma to three. My kids played with each other (with periodic fights, of course). How much more amazing was the mom with one child!

Besides, somehow we made it through despite the hard days. The kids ripped the house to shreds and pieces while I worked and I couldn’t come behind them and clean up or cajole them all day to pick up their own blocks, Barbies, babies, Little People, dollhouse, movies, crayons, and dress-up.

Some days I felt like capital-F Failure mom for too much TV time and too little creative play. There were times I rocked a tiny screaming baby while crying from fatigue myself and I thought: I….can’t….do…..it….all. That’s a realization that hurts.

Some nights I coached myself in preparation for my husband’s call on his way home from work: Good wives don’t explode about their day to a weary husband stressed with his own stuff. Good wives don’t complain about fighting children and the two-year-old who dumped a bar of soap in the fish tank. Good wives don’t cry on the phone while they are making dinner in the kitchen, hiding out from the living room that is covered in princess dresses and tiaras, with a screaming baby on her hip and two preschoolers in the play room battling out who had the doll first.

But of course, my husband would ask the question: How was your day? And what do you do then but explode into an unintelligible mess of tears while you stir the spaghetti?

We worked through those tough days, and it took discipline, a schedule, planning, a dose of humor, reasonable expectations and grace, such incredible grace.

So often, we miss this grace, this invisible presence of God and the way He helps us through. We think grace is only the obvious, only the easy, only the deliverance from and not the deliverance through.

Yet, sometimes there’s nothing simple about it. Sometimes even grace is messy and difficult.

Occasionally, grace is God stretching our miniscule faith. We feel the aches and pains of growth, the throbbing in our souls and we think, “I can’t do it, not one minute more, not one single day.” But there we are, rising with the sun again, giving it another try, and leaning hard on Jesus, somehow making it through.

This past week, I paused for thanks, amazed that somehow God helped me have a productive day even with three daughters home on summer vacation.

That’s when God shone light on the invisible grace from all those past years. In the blindness of the moment, I’d missed it.

He used almost seven years of me typing medical reports at my computer with kids at my feet to prepare us for the here and now of me writing with young children.

God doesn’t waste the tough days, difficult seasons, dry spells, or training times for any of us. He’s a Redeemer of each season, a recycler of past refuse, a Creator of all things beautiful in their own time, and He is surely working in you today in preparation for tomorrow.

That’s how God worked in David:

He chose David His servant
and took him from the sheepfolds;
He brought him from tending ewes
to be shepherd over His people Jacob—
over Israel, His inheritance.
He shepherded them with a pure heart
and guided them with his skillful hands (Psalm 78:70-72 HCSB).

God didn’t need a palace-trained king. He needed a shepherd for His people, so He taught David out in the fields, long before this shepherd donned the crown and the robe and ruled as King of Israel.

God had a plan all along.

We may only see the now-invisible grace in the looking back.

For now, we have to grip on with white-knuckled determination, knowing that He’ll use this for His glory, knowing it won’t be wasted, knowing somehow He’ll prepare us for the future with Him.

…Knowing grace is here even when it’s invisible.

VBS for Grown-Ups: Trusting God Helps Us

June 20, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

All week long I’m thinking about the Bible points for our Vacation Bible School and what they mean for adults. This week will be a mix of some old and some new as I share these lessons.

Today at Kingdom Rock VBS (Group Publishing), we’re learning: Trusting God Help Us…Stand Strong!

“Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock” Isaiah 26:4
Adapted from “Present and Accounted For,” published 10/31/2012

“Where are you going, Mom?”

My three-year-old has a radar system that rings alarms and sets off alerts if there is a possibility that I am going out…and leaving her at home.

That morning, she had caught me slipping on my socks. I reassured her, though, “Just putting on my socks because my feet are cold, baby girl. I’m not going out.”

“You’re staying here?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not leaving?”
“No, sweetie. Mommy’s staying with you today.”

Snuggling in close to me, she pressed her cheek against mine and cooed, “Mommy, I stay with you.”

Of course, she can’t, not all the time, not forever, not every minute and each second of day after day after day. But for this moment, here I was snuggling with her and remaining present.

We sing it occasionally at church, declaring, “You are My Shield, My strength, My Portion, Deliverer, My Shelter, Strong Tower, My very present help in time of need.”

This is our way of singing Psalm 46 back to God:

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging (Psalm 46:1-3).

Normally, I sing this song imagining God as my Tower, my Shelter in the most fearsome storms.

But what good is a tower-of-brick if it isn’t nearby when you need to hide? And what is the point of a refuge that is too far away to reach in times of distress?

It is God’s constant, faithful presence that makes Him effective as our Refuge and our Strength, our Defense and our Deliverer.

That is why “we will not fear,” not during storm or raging sea, or mountains crumbling or news reports of flooding and fire and disaster.

Because He is present. Not just here in this moment and maybe leaving us later in the care of others while He slips out for a meeting or relaxes with friends or fills a cart with groceries at the local store.

We needn’t trip to His feet in alarm when He pulls on His socks or takes His jacket down from the pegs in the closet.

He is always, ever, constantly, faithfully, never-changing, perpetually, every second of every day present with us.

This means He didn’t close His eyes, turn His head, blink, snooze, or simply grow too distracted to care when the mountains crumbled and the waters roared.

No, our God doesn’t promise us a world without frightful shaking and uncertainty. It’s a sin-plagued planet, aching and groaning for the perfection of eternity. Hurting and death and sickness and tears are part of life here.

Jesus Himself struggled with the pain and the death, earth’s inheritance, as He prayed alone in the garden before being hauled off for trial, persecution, and the cross. Sacrifice didn’t come easy for Him just because He was God here in human flesh.

He wrestled with His emotions, with His human weaknesses and the temptation laid at His feet to just abandon us all to eternity in hell. And who could blame Him? How could we ever be worthy of God’s great sacrifice?

But God was with Him in the garden, and Jesus trusted that God would give Him the courage and strength to declare, “It is finished” after walking in and out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

And God promises to be with us, to be the strength and shelter we need for whatever rages outside or inside our lives.

Moses came down from Mount Sinai and plead with God simply for this presence. Days on that holy mountain, shining with reflected glory, and Moses still longed for more of God.

The Lord Himself promised: “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” (Exodus 33:14)

His presence. Our rest. Without Him, turmoil and worrying and stress.

Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?” (Exodus 33:15-16).

Like Moses, we pray, knowing that without God’s presence, we are a mess and a disaster, and we are alone and lost, no different than those who don’t know Him at all.

His presence is what sets us apart. That’s what gives us hope for each new day and peace. That’s what others should notice about us–Christ in us, the hope and glory.

Today is a day to praise God for His presence, to thank Him for being eternally faithful, the Rock we can rely on, our Refuge in times of trouble, a Fortress of safety in the storms we face.

Trusting God in that way helps us stand strong.

Finding God While Folding Clothes

June 5, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

I was crying and laughing at the same time.

All these years, I’ve heard about that, how you’re spilling over with overwhelming emotions and your body just doesn’t know what to do. Cry out the tears? Burst out in laughter?

There’s Sarah in the Bible, who waited month after month, year after year, decade after decade for a baby…and then when God said she’d have a son, she laughed. She just couldn’t hold that in, that joy….that disbelief…that incredulity….that moment of shock when your whole life changes in one second and you’re thrown off balance and grabbing onto a furniture or to an outstretched hand to steady yourself.

Me? A son?

Sarah had her moment; I had mine. Lying there on an exam table while an ultrasound tech rolled a wand expertly over my pregnant self. She tells me these are kidneys, this is the stomach, there are the chambers of the heart….My baby looks so beautiful and healthy, and I’m already exhaling that big held in breath and each of my muscles slowly relaxes just hearing the good news.

Then she says the words, “It’s a boy.”

This momma to three daughters laughed through tears. I can’t even remember what I said, but it was something like: No way! I can’t even believe it. Are you sure? Are you sure your sure?

My husband asks me later if I’m disappointed, but it’s not that. I’m excited, yes, just still in a bit of shock.

All these years, I’ve become a girl’s mom. I’ve learned all things girl and prayed over all things girl, read the books and considered the truths about being a mom to girls.

Truth be told, I’m feeling pretty confident most days, not always but often, thinking maybe I’ve gotten the hang of this. Maybe I know what to do.

Bringing up girls is what I do and being a mom to daughters is who I am.

Now I’m reading blog posts and books and listening to podcasts about raising boys. I’ve watched sons with their moms in the store, in the park, at the school. I’ve leaned in close and listened to friends and made mental notes about being a mom to boys.

And I’ve prayed.

Maybe that’s the point.

Nine years ago, pregnant with my very first baby, I thought I’d have all boys and thought I’d be a great boys’ mom. That was when the news of a daughter first shook apart any foolish confidence I had.

How I had prayed then when God gave me this unexpected gift of three daughters, and my Mom-life still holds together simply because of my worn-out knees from constant prayer.

So here I am now, stumbling down onto my knees again and I’m reminded: I am insufficient. I don’t know. I don’t have it all together and I’m not sure how to do this right.

I start by dragging out bag after bag of girls’ clothes from the Rubbermaid containers in the garage and sorting them into piles to give away to friends.

Then I remember how over the years some people mis-heard the news and thought we were having a son when we were having another girl, so they gave me gifts for boys. Then there were those who worried that ultrasound techs got things wrong, so they gave me gifts of yellow, green and white just in case.

I pull out the collection I’ve amassed over 9 years of having babies.

And right there God meets me. Right there as I’m folding these tiny boy’s clothes and watching the pile grow.

I had no idea how long He’d been at work preparing me for a son. I didn’t realize how much abundance He’d provided unexpectedly and beyond all reason. Blue outfits, blue t-shirts, little boy washcloths and towels, hats, blankets, mittens, sleepers, and socks: it all piled up on the back of my sofa as I folded the clothes until the piles were about falling over.

God had been at work all along, making room for grace.

I still feel insufficient. I still feel overwhelmed with all that I don’t know and amazed that He would trust this gift to me when I feel so incapable.

Paul said it, though:

He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

This grace of God’s is sufficient.

But we don’t realize it, don’t rely on that, don’t allow Him to be fully sufficient until we realize just how insufficient we are. The more we are driven to our knees by our unworthiness, the more we declare Him worthy of all praise.

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.

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

"He's solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul" Psalm 62:1-2 (MSG).

Tag: trusting God

Turning Aside and Saying Yes to God

Having Faith When I Don’t Get My Way

Declaring Dependence and the Faith Dare

Setting Curls, Setting Faith: Taking the Faith Dare

The Adventure of the Cherry Pie

A Sleeping Lion is Still a Lion

Clash of the Agenda

Invisible Grace That Now I See

VBS for Grown-Ups: Trusting God Helps Us

Finding God While Folding Clothes

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