Author Archives: Karla Jo Wasion

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

Truth: Day 6—I Am A Witness

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Acts 1:8

I have a testimony. A story to tell.

The story of my rescue, of the way He reached into the darkness and pulled a wretch into the light. It remains a spectacular mystery to me.

The many ways He saved me, mostly from my own self-destructive ways, but from cards dealt from a stacked deck too.

The grace that never got winded from chasing me down.

The love that healed a heart that was in pieces.

The mercy that brought my rebellion to its knees in surrender because He didn’t deal with me as my sins deserved.

I could tell of how nothing made sense until He let my blind eyes see Him. Then it all made sense and nothing would ever be the same.

His Word set me free. His love healed me. His grace let me stand. His mercy brought me low.

His death gave me life that will never end.

In a thousand ways He changed everything and became everything and now everything I am is His.

But I forget the story. Forget to tell it. To let it fall on someone else and give them hope.

So I declare truth because I want to live the truth.

He has given me a story to tell about Him.

Where ever I am, I am His witness.

Truth: Day 5—I Am A Servant

 “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them. It must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

Matthew 20:25-28

It’s part of who I am now. Servant. Like Jesus.

Even when. No, especially when, it rubs my flesh the wrong way.

When it feels like all I do is serve.

When noone seems to notice.

When it goes unappreciated.

When I’m tired and when I’m ready for someone else to do the serving.

Even when serving others isn’t serving me. (sit with that one for a minute. it will start to sting.)

I am a servant of Christ and that just rolls off my tongue easy like, until I’m treated like a servant. I don’t mind the title of servant, I just don’t want the duty of a servant. The title lets me keep my pride but the duty forces me to lay it down.

But the truth is the truth and there isn’t some secret meaning to the word servant. It is what it sounds like it is, and Jesus declared it over Himself.

So I declare the truth to help me live the truth.

I am here to lay down my life for others. And when I live this way, I am most like the One who layed down His life for me.

I am a servant.

Truth: Day 4—His Yoke Is Easy

 “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

We make following Jesus hard.

Because we think freedom doesn’t come with a yoke.

Hard is trying to follow our own dreams and follow Jesus at the same time. They are rarely ever going in the same direction.

I think following Jesus would be so much easier if we could just stop following us.

It feels hard to love people we don’t want to love.

To forgive people we don’t feel we can forgive.

To say no when saying yes feels so much better.

Following Jesus doesn’t always feel easy, but we all know that if our feelings had pants, they’d be on fire most of the time.

That’s why we need a yoke, not a feeling.

His yoke is risky. Dangerous, even. But it isn’t hard.

Because He’s in the yoke with us. Close. Presence.

So on the days when it feels so hard, I will declare the truth.

His yoke is easy.

Truth: Day 3—Alone Is Not Good

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.“

Genesis 2:18

Two were created because man alone was the very first thing God declared to be not good. So He made a woman.

{And a woman alone is also not good. That’s implied, don’t you think?}

Humans were not created for isolation or aloneness. We were made for togetherness.

It is a truth to declare because otherwise we will fall for the lie that we are better off on our own.

That being an introvert means my desire to be alone is God given.

When what is actually God given the most is a need for others.

I don’t think He meant that times of being alone are not good. Those, I think we can all agree, are absolutely necessary for our mental health. And the health of the others. At least my others.

He meant a life alone. An existence spent isolated. Separated.

Not just a life without people around, but a life disconnected.

We can be in a room full of others but still have a heart that keeps itself alone.

That is part of the not good.

We can be surrounded, but still insist on doing it ourself. Not asking for help. Needing no one. Being the strong one so that we don’t look like the weak one. Or the one who imposes on others. Bothersome. Needy.

And I am prone to the not good. I am drawn to that which is not good because I prefer alone, where the expectations are really quite low. Alone feels safe to me.

But I was not made to be that kind of safe. I was designed for the risk. Literally designed to make what was not good, good. To end the aloneness of someone else, and keep me from what is not good for me.

So I must declare truth because it reminds me to live truth. To let others in. To press past what feels safe, and into the risk. To move toward when I want to step away. To open my heart even when it wishes to be left alone.

To embrace the truth that it is not good be alone.

Truth: Day 2—New Life

I have a new life

We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Romans 6:4

So I don’t have to live the old life.

I don’t have to do things just because that’s the way we’ve always done them.

I don’t have to live according to what anyone spoke over me when I was young.

I don’t have to live according to what the world’s culture says about me.

I don’t have to live holding onto old wounds.

I don’t have to live with generational issues and sins.

I don’t have to continue going the way I’ve always gone, thinking the way I’ve always thought, believing what I’ve always believed.

Because Jesus died and rose from the grave and I now get to live new life. His way, not mine, not theirs. His.

I can live in new freedom. New ways of thinking and believing and seeing.

I can live a new life.

Thank You, Jesus.

Truth: Day 1—I Am His Friend

I am His friend

I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father. 

John 15:15

I have a best (human) friend. I can tell her anything, trust her with any secret. When I need to laugh or cry or vent about the way people drive or the growing shadow of evil in our land, she’s there for it. I never feel the need to impress her, because I know she loves me at both my best and my worst. It’s an easy relationship she and I have together. Friendships like that aren’t all that common, and I am thankful to have her.

It’s harder to be friends with Jesus.

He is God. Holy. Perfect in every way. I know He sees me at my worst and still loves me, but that doesn’t make me feel comfortable, it just makes me want to hide my worst parts. I only want Him to see me in my most put togetherness (which means He would hardly ever see me). And I know that He knows all the secrets, but still, I don’t speak of them with Him. I just know that He knows and He knows that I know He knows, so we leave it at that. I leave it at that. This silliness is not a “we” thing with me and God. It’s all me.

But I would like to be done with all of that now, and start declaring the truth. When I am tempted to hold back. When I want to turn away because I feel ugly on the inside. When I start to relax in the shallows of faith, rather than push through the resistence of going deeper, because going deeper means more expsoure of what I don’t want to see, or be seen. When I fall back on performing for Him instead of just sitting with Him.

I am His friend, and He is mine.

Think about it—

What a friend we have in Jesus! Do you believe that? Do you experience it? What does it look like for you to be a friend of Jesus? What does it look like to receive His friendship with you?

confessions of a rebellious soul

This is a repost of a previously published blog post. I’ve dusted it off, added and deleted and tweaked, and now I’m reposting. Because I’m still going through this thing, and I needed to feel the weight of that. I also needed to encourage myself with the fact that I’m still in the fight. That I still want, and believe, that I can walk free from bondage. 

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True confession:  I’ve always hated the word ‘obey’. In all of its forms. In any kind of sentence.  Obey seemed oppressive. Controlling. Demeaning. Surely there was a softer way to put it. A gentler call to do what God wanted.

Surely it isn’t rebellion that feeds these thoughts. Surely. 

The change began a few years ago. That’s when I stopped arm wrestling my bondage to food and admitted that it was stronger than me. Much stronger. Overwhelmingly stronger. And I wept and wept because dammit I was tired. Tired of needing to be free of yet another thing and wondering when the last shackle will fall from my soul and thinking this one will be with me to the end.

Then I read  this book. Really, you should read it.

Turns out, it was step one. I had to stop pretending that I didn’t have an idol. Seriously, how can you be this overweight, this miserable, this unhealthy and think idolatry isn’t your deal?  I say you but don’t be offended. We all know I’m pointing at me. I just like saying you more than I like saying I. I think a lot of us are like that. I think it’s a thing we do. But I digress.

Another confession: I have an idol. Actually, my idol has me. Ha Ha. Get it? Yeah, I know, but if I don’t laugh I’m gonna cry and no one wants to see that. Trust me.

I saw the idol. Admitted what it was. Wished I could just wrestle it to the ground and then kill it. But that’s never going to happen. I don’t know about your idol, but I didn’t pick a weak one. No sir. This thing is the Incredible Hulk of idols.

Anyway. Then, I read about Abraham.

{Did you really think I would tell you a story that didn’t include some reference to the Old Testament? You’re new here, I can tell. It’s ok.}

“The Lord said to Abram:  Go out from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” {Genesis 12:1-3}

Blessing flows through obedience. From one generation to another it flows through people who obey God. 

Next confession:  While I avoided the word obey, I’ve always known that obedience was a good thing. Something a Christian is supposed to do. And I did. I obeyed the easy parts. But if you’ve been following Jesus for more than an hour, you know there are hard things and mostly I just turned my head from those and pretended to be busy doing something else. Can I get a witness? It’s ok. Don’t raise your hand. This is about me and as much as I want company right now, I think you’d just distract me. Sooth something in me that shouldn’t be soothed. Excuse something I can’t keep excusing. But thanks for offering.

We’ll just move on to the next step in a process that has actually been harder than it sounds. And not nearly as glamorous.

“For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” {Romans 5:19}

Adam so disobeyed and I so disobeyed, but God so loved the world and Jesus so obeyed His Father and now I am saved. Because of obedience that comes from love.

Love and obedience are holding hands and they can’t be separated and salvation flowed through obedience. From a cross made bloody by a Son who loved  and obeyed His Father, it flowed to me.

Confession number (what number are we on?): I’ve had a number of bondages, but none of them were my fault.  That’s not the confession. The confession is that I believed that lie because it was so much easier than the truth.

Every bondage I’ve had came through disobedience. Not through generational blood lines. Not through curses or entrapment or some kind of disorder. I wasn’t born that way. It is true that food addiction, and addiction in general, runs wild and free in my family line, but that fact does not remove my ability to choose differently. I became addicted to things because I didn’t say no to them. I had a stronghold of anger in me because I disobeyed the scriptures on forgiveness and dying to self. I let the sun go down on my anger for years. Seriously. Years. 

I believe it is not generational sins that caused my bondage to food, it is the fact that I have gone to something other than God to find comfort and solace.

Disobedience brings bondage. And the truth will set us free.

“I will always obey Your instruction, forever and ever.   I will walk freely in an open place because I seek Your precepts.” {Psalm 119:44-45}

Freedom flows through obedience and that’s the truth.

And finally, we come to this…

“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil.” {Matthew 4:1}

You know the story. We all know that Jesus overcame temptation by speaking the word of God to Satan. Except He didn’t.

Let’s be honest. It’s just us here, so why not? It is not a lack of knowledge of the Word of God that keeps us circling the drain of defeat. It’s our lack of actually doing what that Word says. Disobedience, not ignorance, is our issue, wouldn’t you say, just between you and me?

Jesus overcame temptation and defeated Satan not just through speaking the Word of God, but by obeying it. By refusing to make bread when He was –no food for 40 days– hungry.

(I would have made the bread. I would have made bread out of every rock I could find. I would have surrounded myself with rock biscuits.)

Power and victory flow through obedience.

And that’s where He got me. Because apparently, dying from a bondage to food wasn’t enough motivation. But if you tell me that obedience is warfare that will break the back of the enemy, I’m in. Well, I’m interested in being in. I’ve long ago learned that I tend to over commit.

Confession # whatever: Here I go again. Choosing steps of obedience. I will fall and flail about while doing it, because I know me and I know this thing that is gripping me. I will not beat my idol. The only way to be free is to walk away. To obediently walk away from self-soothing and self comfort. From feeding my emotions. From trying to escape by way of the fork in my hand. (I have no idea what I’m even trying to escape, but if you know my story at all, you know that escape was my very first addiction, and that horse is very much still in the race.) I know from experience that it is harder than it sounds on paper. But I also know Jesus, and that alone gives me the advantage.

So if you think of it, pray for me. However God leads you, pray.