Author Archives: Karla Jo Wasion

I love Jesus and His Church. His Word is Truth, His heart is good, and His return is sure.

Marriage Matters—Honor

In the beginning, we do things simply because we know it will make our spouse happy. We want to please them, so we listened attentively to their stories and laughed at their jokes. We cooked their favorite meals, wore that shirt they liked, and put the toilet seat down. Because in the beginning, we did things with them in mind.

But life happens and if we aren’t watchful, we stop honoring our spouse. We start doing things with us in mind instead of them. The shift can be subtle, but it packs a punch.

Kids can create another shift, because kids are consuming. They can, if you let them, take over a marriage. Life will revolve around the children to such a degree that you are no longer husband and wife, you are only mom and dad. This isn’t good for your kids or your marriage.

So, today:

Think of one thing you can do that will make your spouse happy. Clean the house before they get home. Watch the game on tv with them. Put the toilet seat down. Laugh at their joke, even if you’ve heard it a million times. Just do one thing, one thing that will honor them. One thing that will put them first. Tomorrow, rinse and repeat.

Remember the beginning. Remember the feelings you had for your spouse, and why you fell in love with them. Remembering is like blowing on an ember to bring it back to a flame. Get your spouse back on your mind.

Save some time and energy for your spouse. If your kids’ activities are consuming, then cut them back. Children need to see their parents spending time together, and having fun together, even if it means the kids don’t get to play every sport or go to every event. You are their example of marriage, so let them see that marriage is about loving your mate, putting them first, and doing things simply because it will make them happy. Let them see honor.

Repent. Go to your spouse, apologize for your part in what has happened, and commit yourself to them again. Yes, I know they’ve shifted too. I know they are just as self-consumed as you are. I know they don’t think about your happiness all that much either. But playing the ‘you-go-first’ game never ends well. Waiting for them to wake up and smell the coffee means nothing will ever change. You’re here. You’re reading this, so, tag, you’re it.

Perhaps the problems in your marriage are so overwhelming that you can’t see how any of this can help. Maybe it won’t fix everything. Maybe you’ll have to push past a lot of resentment in order to do any of it. So push. Take the small step. Because not doing it means nothing will change. In fact, not doing it means things will likely get a lot worse.

And doing it defeats what the enemy is trying to do to your marriage.

A Fascinated Heart

It was just a line in a prayer, but it has not let me be. Once I heard it, I knew it was the prayer that I had been unable to find the words to pray.

Lord, may our hearts be fascinated with You again.

Yes! Over and over again I have been saying yes and amen to that prayer. Because after much time trying to figure out what I have been missing, there it is. Fascination with Jesus.

I remember it, this fascination. Unable to get enough of Him. The complete wonder of who He is, and how He is. His heart. His ways. His overwhelming goodness. I couldn’t wait to get alone and pray. Waking up at 2 a.m. and spending an hour or more in prayer and worship, because when I was awake, I wanted to be with Him. Losing my breath everytime He answered my prayer, because it stunned me that He heard and He moved on my behalf.

My heart was head over heels fascinated with Jesus, and I didn’t care who knew it and I have been wanting that fascination back. He’s not done with me and I am most certainly not done with Him. I want Him to occupy my thoughts, to be the One my eyes continually search out. I want to stand back and watch Him at work and feel the smallness that comes from seeing His greatness. I want to look back and look around and look up and see Him in all the places I couldn’t see Him before, and let it flat out overwhelm my heart. I want to look at what He’s done that only He could have possibly done, and whisper “I see You, Lord, I see You.” And then I want to cry at what I’ve seen.

I want my heart and mind to be absolutely distracted by Jesus, and nothing else. Like the woman who broke the alabaster jar at His feet, undistracted by the stares and thoughts of those around her. Like John, who remained at the cross when all of his friends left. Like Mary, who sat at His feet, unmoved by the accusation of Martha.

It was a line in a prayer, spoken by a conference speaker who had no idea that God was about to use his prayer as oxygen on an ember. And isn’t it just like God to only need a few words to rekindle a heart? To make a woman in her 60’s fascinated with Him again? 

Yes, it is exactly like Him to do such a thing!

So here I am Jesus. Choosing You again and again. Longing for Your presence, staring in wonder at who You are, breathless again that You have answered a prayer that I didn’t know how to pray.

You can have all this world, just give me Jesus.

Marriage Matters—Remember

It’s so easy to forget. When the warm glow of “just married” turns into the “iron sharpens iron” of everyday life together, we forget two important truths about our spouse.

They’re human…

Weak. Broken. Flawed. Perhaps still carrying wounds from a less than ideal childhood. Prone to doing what they know better than to do. Sometimes (maybe more times than just sometimes) they are self-centered and self-serving. They walk in pride, or maybe it’s shame. They have bondages yet to be broken. They don’t always play nice with others.

Basically, they’re just like us, and God remembers that.

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him; for He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust.” Psalm 103:13-14

Who they really are…

In the heat of a moment of stress and frustration, it’s easy to forget who we are really married to.

We forget they were created in the image of God and He loves them completely. If they are saved, then we are married to a new creation in Christ, still being sanctified. If not, then they are someone God desires to draw near, someone He wants.

To us, they may be the person who is making life difficult or at least driving us crazy with frustration.

But to God, they are the reason He gave His Son up to crucifixion.

Don’t forget to remember. Take a step back. Show mercy. It can make a difference.

When It Was New

Those early days of walking with Jesus. Where have thirty-five years gone? Sometimes, it felt so hard to keep following, but that’s because trust was so hard for me then.

Following gets a whole lot easier when you trust the one you’re following.

He laid a track record for my untrusting heart so that I could find my way to His faithfulness. Comfort in the hard places, answers to prayers I said in desperation, little by little shifts of my heart toward Him. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to follow Him, or didn’t want to give Him my whole heart and my whole life – I just didn’t know how and I didn’t know what He would do with what I was giving.

Thirty-five years of learning to trust Him more than I trust anything else in this world. Discovering that He is more than I ever could have imagined He would be – more loving, more kind, more merciful, more trustworthy. Once I discovered the goodness of God, I mean really tasted it, it was game over for anything else that would fight for my affections.

God has no worthy opponent for my heart.

I remember the newness of discovering His voice. That God would speak and I could hear Him in my heart, well, that never gets old, I’ll tell ya that. Today, He is still speaking. Through His Word, but also through a still small voice in my heart, and often through pictures. From time to time, He has grown quiet, but never silent.

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

John 10:27

I remember the hunger of when it was new. The insatiable desire for more of Him. To just sit with His people in prayer and worship for hours sometimes. I only wanted to talk about Him, nothing else. Every other topic of conversation became frivolous. I had a death grip on the hem of His robe in those days, wanting to just attach myself to Him and never let go. Some people, mostly family, just didn’t get it and thought I was off the deep end, but you know what? God planted me in a church full of people who got it. People who were hungry with me, and when you have people around you who share your hunger for Jesus, man, nothing can touch that. But I have also experienced the opposite, and it’s heartbreaking. Being part of a community of people who are content to stay where they are, not really interested in knowing Him more, in changing, or in walking out what the scriptures describe as the life of a follower of Christ. They like the company of fellow Christians, but they aren’t hungry for anything more than what they have. That’s a hard place to be for anyone who hungers for God.

Find hungry people and be with them. There’s nothing else like it.

When it was new, I wept over His Word, wept in worship, wept in prayer. It wasn’t the whipping up of emotions, it was a born again spirit responding to a realm I had never experienced. People get so scared of being emotional in church, but when you come to the realization that God is near, that His Spirit is living on the inside of you, that Jesus is real and His love is real and His goodness is real… I mean, how can you have all of that swirling around you and remain stoic? Unmoved?

Thirty-five years have changed a lot of things about my life. But I think what prompted this post is realizing that today, I’m as hungry as I ever was. I still want to be with Him every minute of every day. I still long for hours of conversation about Him, and prayer with His people. I still long for Him to change me, teach me, and lead me into the things and places that I have yet to go. And I still weep over Him, and I never want that to stop. Walking with Jesus has never felt old. Not once.

There is no other love that is worthy of being our first love, and first love never grows old.

And I want that for you, whoever you are. I want you to be crazy about Jesus no matter how long you’ve walked with Him. He is so worthy of a hunger that won’t quit, a desire for His nearness, and emotions that run free in His presence.

I pray that for you, and for us all, walking with Jesus will always feel like when it was new.

Genesis 50—Let It Pass

“When the days of mourning had passed… “

Jacob died and the mourning began, because loss almost always has mourning to keep it company. And we all have loss.

Loss of loved ones. Loss of love. Loss of what we thought our life would be. Loss of time and chances, both frittered away before we knew they were there.

Mourning comes to us all because loss comes to us all.

And then the days of mourning pass, and we must let them.

But before they pass, God will keep His promise – “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)

“And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.

So Joseph went up to bury his father. All Pharaoh’s officials accompanied him—the dignitaries of his court and all the dignitaries of Egypt… Chariots and horsemen also went up with him. It was a very large company.”

Joseph did not mourn the loss of Jacob alone. Nor are we ever intended to mourn alone. No matter what kind of loss we are experiencing, we are part of the family of God, and He teaches us to be with one another, including in our places of loss and mourning. We can experience the comfort of God when we are alone with Him, but we experience it in a very tangible and extended way when we allow His people into our mourning.

If you are mourning a loss of some kind today, let people in. Let the comfort of God blanket you through the comfort of His children.

And when the time of mourning has passed, let it pass. God has life for you on the other side of loss.

This concludes our time in the book of Genesis. Oh, not that there isn’t so much more we could talk about from this amazing beginning! We will run out of time before we could exhaust the riches of this book. But for now, I’m going to move on to the book of Exodus and see what God might speak to me there. Whatever it is, I will surely share it with you, because I just can’t help myself.


Genesis 49—The Struggle

What struck me first in this chapter were the words in verse 2:

“Come together and listen, sons of Jacob; listen to your father Israel.”

He referred to himself with both names – the one he was born with, and the one God gave him.

The name Jacob means supplanter (one who purposely takes over, or takes the place of someone else). However, the literal translation of Jacob’s name at birth was “He grasped the heel”.

“After this, his brother came out grasping Esau’s heel with his hand. So he was named Jacob.”

In essence, Jacob did not let go of Esau until he had supplanted Esau’s position as first born, by gaining both Esau’s birthright, and his blessing.

The name Israel means he struggled with God. And it was after Jacob’s wrestling match with God (Genesis 32) that God changed his name from Jacob to Israel, saying “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” He said. “It will be Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.” He prevailed in his struggle with God by refusing to let go until he had received the blessing he was after.

And so all of this is swirling in my mind and I begin to wonder…

I know who I was before I encountered Jesus, and I know who I am since. It’s been a lot of years in the learning, but I do know who and how God has called me to be. But I still struggle from time to time between who I was and who I am. I bet you have that struggle too.

This chapter in Genesis is about waaay more than that, but this is what caught my eye, and what I think God wanted to speak to me about on this particular day. A gentle reminder that who I was is not who I am. An invitation to see the difference, and marvel at the work of God in my life, and to be thankful, even in the struggle. But there is something else I’m seeing as well –

Jacob took his blessing from man, living up to the meaning of his name. But he received a new name because he held on in the struggle for his blessing from God.

Hold on. Don’t let go of God, no matter what. Don’t settle for the blessings of men. It’s worth the limp you may have by holding on for God’s blessing in your life. And one final thought-

What I can take in this life pales in light of what I can receive from God when I choose to not let go of Him.

Marriage Matters—Criticism

One of the most difficult things for me to do in my own marriage is to not try to change my husband. I used to fool myself into thinking I was pointing out flaws, or correcting him for his sake, but that just isn’t true. I’m doing it to make me more comfortable with who he is. The truth is, my correction (criticism) rarely has the desired outcome. It makes him defensive, not compliant, because he, just like me, is human and humans balk at being changed by someone through critical words.

Only God can truly change us, change our hearts so that our behavior and our thinking changes. I remember the day I learned this lesson (a lesson I am still struggling to learn well!). It was the day God spoke something to me that cleared up any misconception I had that I was doing something good by pointing out my husband’s flaws and mistakes.

“I have a Holy Spirit, and you are not Him.”

It is not easy to just let someone, especially someone we share life with, to just be who they are. But we must be honest enough with ourselves to realize that we need to change just as much as they do, and then we have to turn our attention back to God, the One who changes a person without criticism. I promise you, life with your spouse will get much easier, more peaceful, and more fun if you will stop trying to do what only God can do.

“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:3-5)

Then there’s that.