“Facts” About Mom and “Facts” About God:

May 15, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

It seems to be a Mother’s Day staple for elementary school children. Both of my older daughters made these projects and, according to my Facebook feed, so did the kids of most of my mom friends.

On Mother’s Day, my daughters presented their handmade creations: An ice cream cone picture with six adjectives to describe their sweet momma and a worksheet with “Facts About My Mom.”

Mostly as various moms posted their own kids’ responses to similar projects on Facebook, we laughed over the outrageous things kids say about us.

Like when they get our names wrong (!!!) or guess that we’re either 15 years old or 100.

But I opened the handmade gifts on Mother’s Day and didn’t read silly, mistaken or perhaps outrageously funny comments from my kids.

Somehow my daughters got it right.

Sweetly right, but maybe painfully right, too.

(Well, other than the “fact” that I’m probably 20 feet tall and probably weigh 45 pounds. That’s a little off.)

Yet there were other “facts,” too.

There was the objective data, of course. Adjectives to describe her mom? “Married” and “pregnant” made it on the list. Undeniable truth.

My other girl included “musical, gardener…..and competitive.”

What second grader diagnoses her mom as “competitive?” My girl. The one who has heard me apologize for my struggle to her face, and the one I held close while confessing how wrong I was to fret and worry over foolish competitions and how sorry I was that I ever put even one ounce of pressure on her shoulders when I’m so proud of her just as she is.

What does your mom like to wear? Pants and a sweater.

Simple and sweet truth-telling right there. Those are my happy clothes.

What is something your mom always says? Do your homework. Play piano. Hurry up. Go to bed.

Oh, here I pause. Because last year on this same little assignment, she wrote that her mom always says, “I love you.” And now here it is in pencil on paper, how I’m always giving instructions, always directing, always focused on getting those daily tasks done. Why is it so hard to make the words, “I love you” ring truer and louder than the drill sergeant commands of everyday necessity?

What makes your mom mad? When everything is out of control and no one listens.

When everything is out of control…..

Yes. Isn’t that what smashes down all of my hold-it-together personal strength? Isn’t it what makes me grumpy, short-tempered and anxious?

When I feel like I’ve lost control so therefore there must be no control, always forgetting that God is in control…. yes, that’s what makes me “mad.” That’s what God uses to plow right through my heart and break up all of that well-tended ground covering over my insecurities and my deep-down sin attitudes and misplaced trust.

Second graders can be so wise at times.

But I wonder, given a worksheet like this, what would I say about God?

Would I get the “facts” right and answer the questions correctly? Not giving the dictionary facts or the Bible study answers. Not the good church girl responses or the pat Christian phrases that tie Mighty God up in neatly packaged paper with a perfect bow on top.

No: Would I know Him? Would I know His heart? What makes Him happy? What makes Him mad? What do I love about Him the most and why is He the perfect Father for me?

Or would I get it all wrong?

In the book of Job, one man lost family, friends, servants, status in the community, riches, property, and physical health. And without sinning, he questioned God. Why this seeming injustice, he wondered, why this tragedy and pain for a righteous man?

Job wants to call God into court and question Him on the witness stand.

Yet, God remains silent. He waits. He listens and doesn’t answer. Finally, after almost 40 chapters of Scripture, God speaks.

In her book Wonderstruck, Margaret Feinberg writes,

Instead of focusing on the Why’s of our life circumstances, God calls our attention back to Him and reminds us of the Who that controls everything (p. 37).

That’s God’s answer to the incessant questions. He never answers “Why,” but He tells who He is in one thundering declaration of sovereignty and power over all creation after another.

It isn’t until the taking away, the sorrow, the mourning and the grief that Job doesn’t just know about God; He knows Who God is.

And that is enough.

Job says, “I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you” (Job 42:1). Yes, now he knew, not about God, but now He had seen God with his own eyes (Job 42:5).

Intimacy in silence. Intimacy in the listening, the waiting, the mourning. That’s how we know Him, too.

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.

How Was Your Day?

May 8, 2013January 23, 20146 Comments

“How was your day?”

It’s my husband’s first question to me at the end of his work day every single evening.

This answer used to be easier. How was my day? Mostly that depended on work. How much I accomplished, how difficult the tasks were, how successful I was, how many goals I’d met, and how well I juggled Mom-life with the job.

But now he asks, and I stumble and stutter. How to answer a question that’s always been objective and quantifiable?

What makes a day good now? Do I share my excitement over a new homemade bread recipe or the smell of the from-scratch spaghetti sauce bubbling away in the crock-pot? Does vacuuming count as an accomplishment (it is, after all, on my to-do list)? Do grocery store savings and coupon clipping validate me as a home manager? Should I count the number of socks I matched and folded?

And beyond that, beyond all the tasks and tedium, how was my day relationally? How many squabbles did I break up between my daughters? How many lessons did I teach, conversations did I have, kisses did I bestow, Barbies did I undress and dress?

And even beyond that, if I close my day without any measurable way to evaluate my productivity at all, could the day still be “good?”

If I’ve listened to a hurting friend spill out all the ugly and the pain on the phone or if I’ve collapsed at the kitchen table with tea and my Bible and lingered there out of desperate dehydration and an aching hunger for His presence….does this mean today I have failed?

This slide into a works-based life tricks and deceives. I don’t feel the gradual move from grace to law, don’t sense that I’ve shifted from relational priorities to measurable productivity.

But then someone asks about me, about my day, and I hear my own words and I know it for what it is: My value has become dependent on the items crossed off my to-do list.

It’s the pitfall for working moms, the trap for single women in the workforce, and the snare of stay-at-home moms whose identity becomes tangled up with their children and the cleanliness of their home.

We all fall in the pit some time.

In her book, Stumbling Into Grace, Lisa Harper reminds us that God “cares far more about the posture of our hearts than our productivity. Even “good” things can become the enemy of God’s best for us” (p. 114).

It’s not that busyness itself is sin. Sometimes busyness is just life with a job, a ministry, a husband, or kids. Chances are you’re busy. Chances are you get tired sometimes.

When Jesus commissioned the disciples for activity, they traveled for weeks of uncomfortable, on-foot missionary service to towns where they weren’t always well-received (Luke 9). They weren’t overloading themselves with busyness; they were serving in obedience, following Jesus’ specific instructions about the journey.

Yet, they were tired.

When they returned home, “Jesus took them away, off by themselves, near the town called Bethsaida” (Luke 9:10, MSG). He knew they needed time away, alone time with Jesus.

Our need is the same.

But it begins here. Not what did I accomplish, do, or achieve? My good day begins with simply this: Did I do what God wanted me to do today?

The Lord promised, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28), but if we just keep throwing on the same burdensome loads, we’ll never feel truly rested. That’s the weighed-down fatigue we choose when we do and do and do rather than obeying Him whether He’s sending us out or asking us to rest.

Oswald Chambers wrote:

An active Christian worker too often lives to be seen by others, while it is the innermost, personal area that reveals the power of a person’s life.

We must get rid of the plague of the spirit of this religious age in which we live. In our Lord’s life there was none of the pressure and the rushing of tremendous activity that we regard so highly today, and a disciple is to be like His Master. The central point of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship with Him, not public usefulness to others

God alone can determine the value of our day, the need for productivity at times or the requirement of rest in other seasons.

If He has told you to rest, are you resting? If He has asked you to work, are you working?

Others might glance at your calendar and think, “She’s too busy” or “She’s such a slacker.” But it’s not up to them.

It’s up to Him.

Garden Devotions: Seeds, Identity and Gideon

April 27, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

Originally published May 16, 2012

The Lord answered, “I will be with you”
Judges 6:16a

She stands under 3 feet tall, this baby girl of mine. With one hand tossed up to her hip, she stomps her feet on the ground twice, three times perhaps for emphasis, and screams, “Never Again!!!” in a voice that commands attention, if not respect. If she’s really upset, she might even engage in some finger wagging.

My husband and I stifle grins at the sight of her: two years old and she could command an army.

When she was born, a woman we’ve never met heard the name we chose for our baby and declared, “Oh, a woman of authority.”

I’ve pondered this as I watched my baby–so assured of her own mind—turn into a toddler—set on sharing her mind. I can see the hints of leadership, yes, even authority crammed into the body and soul of a toddler.

My Catherine reminds me so often of the seeds we planted in pots on our deck this year. They appear so small and yet inside an explosive force lies dormant, ready to break out of its shell and grow and grow and grow . . . and hopefully produce much fruit.

Holding that ordinary seed in our hands, we can’t begin to imagine the potential for beauty and nourishment within once it receives proper care and tending. The only hint we have of the future is the picture on the package.

Sometimes even then we’re surprised.

When we planted this year, we set aside one long planter for carrots and covered over about 20 seeds with 1/4 inch of dirt. Within a few days, shoots of green appeared.

But strangely enough, they didn’t look like carrots. In fact, they looked identical to the radish sprouts now growing up in other pots.

Maybe my daughters sprinkled some radish seeds in places I didn’t expect.

Sometimes we look at others or ourselves and see plain, brown, ordinary, small, and insignificant specks. Mystery seeds.

If we’re particularly imaginative, we might even think we see the potential for carrots, only to learn later that God really designed us to be radishes.

Surprise!

Ultimately, God sees what we cannot. He recognizes all our potential for growth. He sees beyond our insufficiency and the trappings of our untrained immaturity and chooses circumstances, people, and training that will nurture, prune, and tend us into fruitful vines.

This is what God did for Gideon. In a time when the nation of Israel was oppressed by the Midianites and foundering without a king or judge to lead them, God raised up a teenager to save his people.

Scripture tells us:

The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior. ” (Judges 6:11-12).

Mighty Warrior? Who could the Lord be talking about? Surely not this youth doing chores for his dad! We read later that Gideon destroyed his dad’s altars to the false gods, Baal and Asherah, so Gideon wasn’t even a child of a faithful and righteous man.

Even Gideon thought God meant someone else, answering, “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family” (Judges 6:15).

He said, “I’m a nobody from a nothing family. I’m no Mighty Warrior. You’ve got the wrong guy.”

We may think he was right as Gideon puts God to the test repeatedly, asking for signs and reassurances of God’s command (Judges 6). Then on the eve of the battle, Gideon still feels afraid and God offers him further comfort and confirmation by allowing Gideon to overhear the enemy and how assured they were of defeat (Judges 7).

In fact, even when the battle is over, won with only 300 Israelite soldiers against an overwhelming Midianite army, it still seems odd that God could call Gideon “Mighty Warrior.” After all, there’s no question at all who was the Mighty One. The battle was the Lord’s; Gideon was just yielded and usable.

The truth for Gideon and the truth for us is that God looks at us and sees beyond all of our failings and fears. Not only that, but He’s also not limited by our skills and talents.

He doesn’t see the potential of what we can do on our own; He sees the potential of who we are with Him.

With God, Gideon was indeed a mighty warrior. That’s why when Gideon asked how any of this would be possible, “The Lord answered, ‘I will be with you” (Judges 6:16).

That is the promise He has for us–His presence, His help, His guidance, His reassurance when we are afraid. All He requires from us is trusting obedience and the willingness to embrace His plans and His designs for our future.

More Devotions From My Garden:

It Got Ugly

April 26, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

This is going to get ugly.

That’s what this momma was thinking when my oldest daughter was picked for a Sunday morning sermon illustration…and my middle girl wasn’t.

And it was ugly. I prayed for most of the Sunday while she hunched in the pew, unresponsive to touch or kisses or comforting words. And I prayed while she shuffled slowly with slumped shoulders down the hall to Children’s Church. And I prayed as she stretched out on the floor face down while the other kids sang the songs and listened to the lesson.

What else to do but pray?

We’ve had these discussions relentlessly, trying to love on this girl and pull those roots of bitterness plain old out of her heart’s soil.

Telling her that she’s loved, totally loved, for who she is and how God made her. How she doesn’t have to be like her sister or compete with her sister, not in any way, not in what she wins or earns or the recognition she receives or the hobbies she pursues.

Sending her out for time alone with her Daddy, giving her that attention and that feeling of special, unique and beloved.

Praising her for moments of triumph and leaning in close to look in those blue eyes so deep and say, “I love you. I am proud of you.”

But it always comes down to absolutes with her. She cries that her sister “always” and she “never.” She keeps tallies and totals, and ongoing score sheets, and how does she remember all this anyway?

How many gift cards Victoria has received: A Million!!!!
How many gift cards I have received: Two.

How Victoria earned first place.
How I failed and lost….(translation: won second place).

How unfair it is that Victoria got a trophy AND a medal
How I only got a trophy.

We try to reason it out, reminding her of truth and shutting down the lies, and so much of it is just lies Satan is dumping like refuse down on her heart and mind. Trash load after trash load of lies.

So, we do our best, of course we do, loving, encouraging, speaking truth, building up.

How beautiful, though, that God loves our children with a heart bigger than ours and wisdom much greater. Despite all I can give even when I am giving my all, still He gives more; He gives exactly right.

A few days after the Sunday morning disaster, it was my middle girl they called up to receive a prize at Awana for best behavior in her club that night–a gift card, of all things, more coveted than any trophy or medal.

And she beamed.

And I gasped, absolutely lost my breath sitting there on that wooden bench watching her run up for that prize. I was all teary-eyed and I could have fallen down right there on that dirty gymnasium floor and lifted hands to God and just cried at His feet in thanks.

Didn’t He know best that she needed a moment to shine?

And didn’t He give her exactly what she needed, something I couldn’t really give on my own, something as a mom I desperately needed Him and only Him to do?

Yes, He worked in her heart that night. But He also worked in mine.

He reminded me right there that He hears the prayers for my children and they are so safe in His hands.

And so am I.

Because I may not be a middle child, but surely I can act out with all that bitterness and envy and self-pity too much of the time.

Middle-child faith. That’s what I have sometimes.

We all have things we covet: Someone else’s marriage, ministry, looks, relationships, money, possessions, whatever. I surely have mine.

And when I’m all wrapped up in what someone else has or does, so focused on keeping some kind of tally or score, then I’m missing out on God’s goodness to me.

That’s what Harold Coffin said:

Envy is the art of counting the other fellow’s blessings instead of your own.

The Psalmist, Asaph, wrote:

No doubt about it! God is good— good to good people, good to the good-hearted.
But I nearly missed it,
missed seeing his goodness.
I was looking the other way,
looking up to the people at the top,
envying the wicked who have it made,
Who have nothing to worry about,
not a care in the whole wide world. Psalm 73:1-5 MSG

No doubt about it: God is good. Good to our children. Good to us.

No doubt about it: I don’t want to miss seeing His goodness by looking the other way, looking at others and not at Him.

No doubt about it: I can trust Him to care for my family and for me.

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.

What I’m Complaining About…

April 17, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

I’ve been trying to teach her just to say, “No, thank you.”

It’s simple. It’s polite.

Really, I don’t need an Oscar-worthy performance every time I serve mashed potatoes.

“EEEEEWWWWWW. I HATE potatoes. They are GROSS. This is DISGUSTING. Don’t put ANY on MYYYY plate!”

I’m beginning to wonder if the child has ever even eaten a single potato. I have this sneaking suspicion that she just screams about hating potatoes because she’s decided to hate potatoes and because the rest of the family happily eats them.

The complaints are always prolonged, noisy, and accompanied by a pantomime of a wrinkled nose and contorted face. When she’s really inspired, she might even gag a little. Just for effect.

I’ve gone the spiritual route with her. “Do everything without complaining and arguing,” I quote (Phil 2:14 NLT).

Everything?

Yes, everything.

Eat potatoes without the side show?

Yes. Or at the very least, give a simple “no, thank you,” as you pass the potatoes on to the next person.

So far, that has been unsuccessful.

So, I tried the empathy route.

How would it feel if you shared something you made and people publicly whined and complained for at least 5 minutes about how terrible it was?

The empathy route isn’t working either. Lately, she’s taken to shrugging her shoulders and lying to my face: “I wouldn’t care. My feelings don’t get hurt like that.”

Right. Whatever.

But the spiritual route and the empathetic route work for me. Her mealtime complaint festivals make me realize just how grating and ungrateful whining really is.

And unfortunately, I’ve been thinking about how often I’m the one doing the complaining.

We all have our weaknesses, the things that set us off and the people who get stuck listening to us complain.

You can ask my husband to be sure, but I don’t think I’m a complaining wife, per se. It’s not really like me to nag or pester or pick him apart and I don’t really complain about him.

But it might be to him.

And it’s usually about truly annoying things:

Like the dentist’s office forgetting to send reminder cards out about our appointments so I completely forgot when I had to drop everything else in my insanely busy schedule to get my teeth picked at by sharp metal objects.

Like our house phone and Internet connection constantly cutting out on me at the most inconvenient times.

Or the store not keeping their shelves stocked so week after week after week I go to buy what I need and it’s not there AGAIN and how hard is it anyway to order more of something when the shelf is empty for goodness sake?!

Things like that.

Too often, though, we’re fooled into thinking that as long as our complaints are justified, then they’re allowed. Or that “venting” is acceptable, even if it involves calling friend after friend not for wisdom or prayer, but so they can fuel our anger and annoyance.

It’s complaining, but it’s justified complaining. That’s how we explain it.

Yet, when I’m being honest, I have to confess that if I’m continually complaining …then I’m a complainer.

And when we think about the negative and talk about the negative, pretty soon all we can see is the negative…in people, in life, in situations.

God knows that sometimes life is painful. We’re not always complaining about grocery store shelf-stocking policies or bad drivers. Sometimes our hearts are filled with deeply painful disappointment, even betrayal.

And He’s not asking us to fake it or shrug it off our shoulders and paste on happy-faced masks.

But he does ask that we bring it to Him.

Like David, we don’t complain about everything and we don’t complain to everyone around us. Instead, we drag that cumbersome burden of cares and troubles to the feet of the only One who can carry it for us:

I cry aloud to the Lord;
I plead aloud to the Lord for mercy.
I pour out my complaint before Him;
I reveal my trouble to Him.
Psalm 142:1-2

Maybe we need a trusted friend or counselor (or husband) at times to listen well, but “they should not be where we go first” (Linda Dillow, What’s It Like to Be Married to Me?)

We run to God before any other, and even when we bring these needs to Him, C.H. Spurgeon reminds us:

We do not show our trouble to the Lord that He may see it, but that we may see Him. It is for our relief and not for His information, that we make plain statements concerning our troubles.

When I’m complaining, is it just to be heard? Or is it so I can see God more clearly in my circumstances?

I can’t truly say that all my complaining is an invitation for God to show me His glory,

But, oh Lord, may it be so today.

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.

More than a Lucky Charm

March 18, 2013January 28, 20142 Comments

Normally, I hear her sprint across the house around 3 or so in the morning, and I open my eyes into the darkness and ask my daughter, “What do you need, baby?”

Most nights, it’s something to drink. Or perhaps her blanket had fallen off the bed or somehow ended up scrunched up and tangled in a mesh of other blankets in the night. So, she needs me to embark on a kind of “Blanket Recovery Mission.”

I plod along after her into the darkness, filling the cup, finding the blanket, and tucking her back into bed.

But last night she dashed across the house in the darkness and climbed right up into my arms. When I asked her what she needed, her eyes flickered open for the briefest moment.

She whispered, “I need Mom” and then fell asleep.

My little one needed me for me, not for what I could do or provide, find or fill, but for my presence and love and the safety of that relationship.

It’s so hard to say when it’s easiest to start taking our relationship with Mighty God for granted.

Perhaps it’s when times are hardest and our conversations with Him can become an endless litany of our need and pleas for His help and intervention. We too often want Him only for what He can do for us.

We need that job, that financial deliverance, that health, that relationship, that restoration, that guidance, that intervention, that advocacy, that victory. Maybe we even search the Scriptures filtering out everything that doesn’t seem to fit or speak to our particular circumstance or situation.

Or perhaps we value this time with Him the least when everything is going well and we have our needs taken care of, so we have very little to say to Him besides an occasional, “thanks, God.”

Yet, while God always invites us to bring our requests and needs to His feet, surely the desire of His God-heart isn’t that we only ever ask for the drink of water or the blanket in the middle of the night.

He wants us to sit at His feet and say, “I need You, God.”

I need Your provision, yes. Your strength. Your help and wisdom. All those things.

But even beyond anything You can do for me….I simply need You. “I need Thee every hour…every hour I need Thee.”

And this is the simple truth of this life: That we need Him like breath and food and water, the very life-sources of this physical body.

Perhaps you forget this like I do at times: Taking Him for granted….forgetting my dependency and trying to act all foolishly independent.

Like the Israelites in 1 Samuel 4, sometimes we treat God as little more than a good-luck charm that we slip out of our pocket on test days for a little extra help and good fortune.

God had promised to be with His people, deliver them, protect them from their enemies, and provide them with abundant harvests and a life of plenty…IF they obeyed Him and stayed faithful to Him.

They, of course, had wandered and strayed, disobeyed and worshiped other gods.

But when they faced a vast army of enemy Philistines, Israel was quick with a solution:

Then they said, “Let’s bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from Shiloh. If we carry it into battle with us, it will save us from our enemies.” (1 Samuel 4:3b NLT).

They didn’t revere the Ark of the Covenant as the earthy dwelling place of God’s glory and they didn’t begin by repenting of all the sin that had driven them to this place of near-defeat.

To them, it was a rabbit’s foot, a pair of lucky socks, a token or totem, no different than the idols of rocks and stone carried around by the enemy. So, they decided to drag the Ark out and carry it into battle, assuming that God would take it from there, carry the day, and fight on their behalf.

Even the Philistines revered God more in that moment. They were terrified by news of the Ark’s arrival, knowing full well that if the One True God decided to fight that day, they had no chance of defeating the rag-tag Israelites. The enemy knew of this God by His reputation–the Deliverer from Egypt and the God of the Plagues.

Yet, God, doesn’t allow Himself to be used and abused like that—not then, not now. The Israelites lost the battle and the Philistines carried off the Ark like a war-prize, not because God couldn’t defend His people. Because His people forgot that they needed Him, all the time, every day.

They forgot.

Today we remember to pray: God, I need You and You alone, not for any thing, but for who You are. You are all I need.

When It Seems Too Hard…

March 11, 2013January 28, 20141 Comment

I sorted through the papers in her school take-home folder: homework, tests, notes and announcements, and pictures from her friends.

When I held the unfinished math paper in my hand, I turned it over, around and even upside down trying to figure out the mystery.

The paper was covered top to bottom in multiplication word problems, hard ones like: “Sam bought 21 cookies from the store every day for a week. How many cookies had he bought by the end of the week….” or something like that.

This wasn’t simple 1×1 = 1 and on up the single-digit line, the kind of multiplication you learn through sing-songy repetition, simple songs, and homemade flash cards.

This was 64 x 6 and the like, problems I would pull out the scratch paper (or the calculator) to figure out.

So, I asked my daughter, “Who gave you this paper?,” thinking to myself her teacher had missed a few lessons in the math book.

But no, not her teacher. Another school staff member gave the kids a challenge with the promise of free ice cream from the cafeteria as a reward.

To my daughter, free ice cream in the cafeteria was enough incentive to make her don hiking boots and climb Mt. Everest.

Yet, reading through the problems, I just kept thinking that it was all too hard and maybe a bit unfair to offer the incentive of free ice cream and then make it unattainable.

I grabbed the paper at the top in order to fold it down and quietly slip it into the trash can, hoping my daughter would forget it and the disappointment.

But I stopped.

Suddenly, I saw beyond the questions and started reading my daughter’s scribbles and answers. She had made charts and graphs, tally marks grouped together, tens columns and ones columns and rows and rows of addition.

And she had answered the questions correctly. (I pulled out my calculator to be sure.) Then I called her over to explain it all to me.

She spoke in a whirlwind. Why she had arranged the numbers this way. How if you did things like this or that it would work it all out. I couldn’t understand it, these complex and abstract ways to think math.

And I had thought the paper was too hard.

I do this in life and call it being “practical” or “realistic,” writing off tasks as too difficult, promises as too out of reach, dreams as too unattainable. And I take words like “hard” or “difficult” and turn them into “impossible.”

Sometimes I even give up.

Maybe it’s just that we all have a way of complicating the simple.

We try to make issues of statistics and timelines, resources and probabilities, and God cuts through all of that:

“Trust and obey.”

When Moses gave God’s commandments to Israel, it could have been all so overwhelming. God was practical. God was specific. He seemed to have something to say about every aspect of their lives from skin diseases to eating habits to relationships with their neighbors.

But God summed it all up for them: “Do not add to or subtract from these commands I am giving you. Just obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you” (Deuteronomy 4:2).

No matter how confusing and complicated we try to make this holy life, it’s always as simple as this: “just obey.”

Yes, God says,

Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach….No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it (Deuteronomy 30:11, 14).

And yet, they failed. Years and years after Promised Land living, the book of Judges tells us how many tribes “failed to drive out the people living” in the land, failed to take possession of the promise (Judges 1). They were living a compromised life without victory.

They didn’t fail because it was too hard, though, and not because God was unfaithful or incapable or too weak or bested by the false gods of the enemies.

They failed because they looked at the task and decided it was just too difficult and wasn’t it better to stay safely out of the way rather than try at all?

Maybe if they’d been promised free ice cream….

Or maybe if they had realized that if God promised it, He could do it.

If He gives the vision, if He calls you out, if He assigns the task, if He creates the passion, if He directs Your steps…. then conquer those tendencies to make it so complicated and excuse-laden, so bogged down in the overwhelming and the fear-filled.

“Just obey.”

Keep it that simple. Let Him handle the rest.

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.

Tucked Under the Pillow

March 6, 2013January 28, 20143 Comments

When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.
Psalm 94:19

I remember her telling me, “Don’t let fear steal your joy.”

And I do, too much of the time.

Like with my first pregnancy and all the exciting rush in the first few days of knowing we were going to have a baby.

It lasted a day or two before quickly being replaced by fear. A million what-if’s and hypothetical situations, dangerous unknowns and general uncertainty left me tossing and turning at night. It doesn’t help when you open up the pregnancy books and find the necessary-but-terrifying information about miscarriages, risks, statistics, tests and more.

I probably didn’t have so much a mother-to-be glow as a ghostly shade of I-can’t-sleep-at-night.

But my mother-in-law told me not to let fear steal my joy, and that is what I thought about in the weeks between a positive pregnancy test and the first time I actually felt the baby move or saw a healthy little life on an ultrasound screen or even held her in my arms in a hospital bed.

I bought two little newborn sleepers (neutral green, of course, not knowing yet whether we’d have a boy or girl) and I folded one up and slipped it under my pillow. In the moments I was tempted to fear at night, I slipped my hand underneath the pillow case and felt the joy.

And even if I didn’t “feel” it, I knew the joy was there; it was the determined refusal to be afraid.

You really can’t enjoy the gifts God has given, you know, if you’re fearful at the same time. They are mutually exclusive conditions.

As Kay Warren wrote in Choose Joy:

“Joy is not about happy feelings. It’s a settled assurance about God. A quiet confidence in God. And a determined choice to praise God in all things.”

That “settled assurance” and “quiet confidence” that God can take care of us no matter what and that no circumstance is outside of His control, negates all those fears that somehow the worst possible thing could happen.

Because even in the worst thing:

God is with you.

He will carry you.

He is still in control.

He remains mighty.

Yet, somehow we move so quickly from gratitude over a gift and that one brief moment of rejoicing into an anxiety ridden fear that “the other shoe will fall” or somehow it’s “too good to be true” or that there must be something terribly wrong hidden in the silver lining.

Or God comes through for us and relieves us of one fear, and we just so quickly replace it with another.

“Great! Now I’m worried that…..” or “I’m glad that’s over. Now I’m just afraid….”

Take the time to rejoice.

Truly pause the whirlwind of thoughts and give thanks, praise, breathe in and out the freedom of joy….and refuse to trade that in for the suffocation of fear.

When those twelve spies walked out of the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan and stepped foot on that Promised Land soil for the very first time, they had a choice to make.

Did they remember all of those miraculous victories, rescues and provisions on their journey and confidently trust that God would continue to care for them?

Or did they throw out a quick, “Thanks, God, that was all great. But now I’m just too afraid that the giants here are undefeated and the obstacles insurmountable?”

Ten of those spies rushed past joy, practically leapt right over it, and scrambled quickly into fear.

And the fear was contagious:

Then the whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night. All the Israelites complained about Moses and Aaron, and the whole community told them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to die by the sword? Our wives and little children will become plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” So they said to one another, “Let’s appoint a leader and go back to Egypt.”

Joshua and Caleb tried to tell them truth: The Lord is with us. He can do this. “Don’t be afraid” (Numbers 14:9).

But when your heart and mind is set on fear, it’s hard to hear the truth. So, they didn’t listen, just closed their ears right up to the promises of God and spent an entire generation wandering in the desert and missing out on God’s very best as a result.

Fear is costly that way. It always steals joy.

Here’s the promise for us, though.

When your heart and mind is set on truth, it’s hard to feel the fear.

Tuck that under your pillow tonight and remember the joy.

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.

More Than a Spoonful of Sugar

February 22, 2013January 28, 20146 Comments

I keep checking the tickets that I printed off weeks ago. Do I have the day right? The time? Have I forgotten something?

Every time I unfold the creased sheets of paper and read over the details, I’m amazed by God. Really and truly in awe.

It started with such a simple thing, the Broadway show, Mary Poppins, coming to good old Virginia twice in four months.

The first time I missed it. Life was too crazy, too expensive, just too much. But I dared to hope and even just pray a little around Christmas time this tentative request:

Lord, I know this isn’t something I need and I do need other things instead and this is crazy and extravagant. I’m not even asking that my whole family gets to go. If you could just maybe provide the money for two tickets for me and my husband, that’d be awesome. Or even one ticket; that’d be okay. Maybe I could go with a friend? And I understand if you say, ‘no,’ because I know it’s a silly thing anyway.

It felt so selfish to even ask. Normally I stick to the basics: car repairs, bills, car tax payments…that kind of thing.

But then we received unexpected Christmas money, enough to pay for exactly five seats to see the Broadway show for my whole family.

I had sheepishly asked for one ticket.

God gave me five.

And I’m struck by this kind of extravagant grace, the way our God loves to bless His children, enjoys giving them good gifts, promises to give us what we need and then sometimes just indulges us in the whims and desires of our hearts.

Why then, knowing His character, do I treat Him like such a stingy Scrooge of a God so often? I hesitate to even ask him for another coal for the fire. I avoid His gaze and stammer out requests as if I’m a burden, a pest, and ashamed to even ask.

Even when it’s a Need and not a Want, I pray and ask, but give Him an out, not truly trusting that He will do this, that He could do this, that He would want to do this for me.

“Well, I guess if you don’t provide it’s just Your will and Thy Will Be Done,” that’s what I pray in a sort of hyper-pious acknowledgment of His sovereignty without any confidence in the might and mercy of His character.

But what would have happened if blind Bartimaeus had been hesitant about his need, reluctant to ask, limiting his request and thereby limiting his Savior?

Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”

“Lord, I want to see,” he replied.

Bartimaeus didn’t try to give Jesus an easy out. “Lord, I’d like to be a little less blind than I am. Jesus, if you could just correct my vision a little bit I’d at least be able to walk around. Could I see in just one eye? Could you maybe provide me with a guide or seeing eye dog to help me out?”

No, Jesus asked what he wanted and Bartimaeus wanted to see—see all the way.

And Jesus didn’t just open his eyes to the minimum amount necessary to just barely survive. He made the blind man see, truly see, 100%, abundantly, without reservation or drawback…see.

Sometimes our God tells us “no,” out of love and His infinite wisdom. He’s no over-indulgent parent giving into the whims of spoiled children. And He’s no prayer request vending machine, automatically dispensing answers indiscriminately to whoever puts in the coin.

But there are times it just gives Him so much joy to give us not just the daily bread, but the Krispy Kreme as a special treat.

Paul wrote:

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us (Ephesians 1:7-8 NIV)

and

Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that (Ephesians 5:1-2 MSG).

He’s no miser, this God of ours, rationing His gifts to us and frowning grumpily when we need….or even sometimes when we want. And while we trust His “no” when He declines a request, one of the reasons we trust His love and best intentions for us is because “no good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11 ESV).

If He knows it’s good, it blesses Him to give it.

And it blesses us to receive it as the lavish, rich, and extravagant grace it is, not what we deserve or have earned, but what He has given anyway simply because He loves.

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.

Dealing With Gnats and Other Problems

February 8, 2013January 28, 20142 Comments

She stood at the top of the slide pointing them out to me and I stood at the bottom of the slide smashing the gnats.

When it’s over 70 degrees outside in the middle of winter, you play hookie from chores and pop your preschooler into the minivan for an afternoon at the park. We had rushed up the hill to the playground and she tried the swings and the sandbox and the seesaw (which exhausts this mommy who has to do all the see-sawing with my own muscles).

When she climbed to the top of the slide, though, she complained about all the bees…or were they ants?

“Gnats,” I tell her. Fifty of them at least dotted all along the yellow slide. The closer you looked, the more you saw.

“They’ll bite me,” she whined.

I reassured her. Gnats are a pesky, annoying nuisance, but hardly a health hazard or a reason to fear the slide. But she stood there paralyzed, so I wiped them away.

When she climbed up again for another slide down, though, they were back. Or, to be more accurate, fifty other gnats had landed.

We repeated it relentlessly. I smooshed bugs. She slid down. She climbed back up. I smooshed more bugs.

In between, I swatted the pests away from my face.

Like most kids, I spent a week during several summers away at camp and the line for the dining hall there at this camp along the Potomac River stretched outside. We lined up morning, noon and night for our meals, knowing one thing for sure:

The gnats would drive us crazy.

They swarmed in tiny black clouds around us. Some of the other girls started walking around with one hand raised up on top of their heads, looking like a rooster with feathers all fanned out.

“Gnats always go to the highest part of your body,” they explained, all-knowing as sixth grade girls always are.

I never was sure if walking around with a hand on top of my head really kept the gnats from swarming around my face.

Perhaps it really was as ineffective as squashing the gnats on the playground slide over and over again only to watch more land within seconds.

But when you’re bothered or stressed, anxious, annoyed, pestered, worried and troubled, solutions are what you seek–no matter how ridiculous or sane.

Unfortunately, sometimes God is the last solution we seek to the messes we find ourselves in.

Certainly for Pharaoh, the pattern of the plagues was clear (at least to us) and yet he was desperate to find a solution outside of God.

Over and over, Moses asked for the deliverance of God’s people.
Pharaoh refused.
A plague of boils, blood, frogs, gnats or worse descended on the Egyptians.
Pharaoh asked Moses to pray.
The plague ceased.

So, when “gnats infested the entire land, covering the Egyptians and their animals. All the dust in the land of Egypt turned into gnats,” the solution to us seems obvious (Exodus 8:17).

Pray Pharaoh. Pray hard. Step down off that mighty Egyptian throne, throw yourself on God’s mercy, so abundant, so longsuffering. Bow that head and bend that knee in humility to God and God alone and obey His Word.

But that turning aside from self, that relinquishing of personal programs and plans and the solutions you’ve charted out so carefully takes humility. It means confessing the hard-to-swallow truth.

I can’t do this on my own.

God, please help me.

Even Pharaoh’s magicians exclaimed, “This is the finger of God!” But he resisted. That proud earthly king would rather breathe in gnats and swallow gnats and swat gnats away from his face and sleep with gnats rather than rely on the mercy of a Merciful but Mighty God.

Oh, the humbling. For Egyptians who prided themselves on hygiene and personal cleanliness, the perpetual buzz of pests must have been the ultimate pride destruction.

Still Pharaoh resisted.

Still we resist at times, too. We’re puzzling out our problem and feeling the shame of broken relationships, broken marriages, broken finances, broken lives, broken ministries, broken hearts, brokenness.

And what God wants is for us to just ask Him, to turn to Him first, to confess that we’ve messed up and to do things His way this time.

To pray and pray hard. To bow that head and bend that knee. To lay it all out at His nail-scarred feet and say what’s true:

I can’t do this on my own.

God, please help me.

Oh yes, we pray: “Let Your mercy, O Lord, be upon us, just as we hope in You” (Psalm 33:22 NKJV).

Kyrie eleison. “Lord, have mercy.”

Amen and amen.

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

“Facts” About Mom and “Facts” About God:

How Was Your Day?

Garden Devotions: Seeds, Identity and Gideon

It Got Ugly

What I’m Complaining About…

More than a Lucky Charm

When It Seems Too Hard…

Tucked Under the Pillow

More Than a Spoonful of Sugar

Dealing With Gnats and Other Problems

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today: