Author Archives: Karla Jo Wasion

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

Living His Truth: Unbusy

To my own disgrace, it was only within the past year that I began to take a serious look at what it meant to honor the Sabbath, and begin to learn how to obey the commandment. It’s harder than it might seem, and I’ll tell you why. Because we honor busy way more than we honor rest.

We give honor to those who run the hardest and do the most, and now, if we don’t run hard, do more, or have a lot of hustle, we feel lazy and then guilty. But we’d rather feel exhausted than lazy, yes? Anxious and stressed but, praise the Lord, not unproductive.

We live in a time and a culture where productivity is king and if our calendar isn’t full, then we are doing something wrong. And the saddest part of that? We are teaching it all to our children, who will grow up to match our depression and anxiety and feelings of guilt for not being or doing enough.

Is that really what we want? No. I am sure the answer to that question is no. So what does truth look like in this area? How did Jesus model the hustle?

Jesus basically did one thing, but that one thing did many other things.

He obeyed God. Everything Jesus did and said was in obedience to what He heard God saying and what He saw God doing. (John 5:19)

He went from place to place, preaching the gospel, healing, and casting out demons. In other words, He ministered to people. And within the act of doing ministry, disciples were made and taught, relationships were built, people were loved, God was worshipped, and the souls of men were purchased for God. All because Jesus did one thing. He obeyed His Father.

There were times when He was tired, and He was hungry, but there is no indication that Jesus ever felt like He wasn’t doing enough. He never looked around for what else He could do, never chased a side hustle. He just kept doing what God called Him to do.

Unbusy means we are not busy doing what God hasn’t asked of us. It means not looking for the more that we could be doing, and instead seeking God for what He wants us to do, and then just doing that.

And in the act of obeying God, who knows what other things will be getting done? The gospel may be coming to life, someone could get healed, feel loved, or realize their destitute state apart from God. Demons could be fleeing, oh my. Disciples could be made and taught, relationships formed. You could get tired, or hungry, but I would bet it all that you would be less anxious. Less depressed. Less restless. Feel less guilty and less stressed.

There were times when Jesus retreated, and called His disciples to retreat from doing to rest, other than on the Sabbath. Other times, He reclined at a table of food, invited to break bread with sinners. That too was obedience to what He saw and heard from His Father.

In our busy-ness, the art of listening for and hearing God has become, if not obsolete, then certainly less common. We are moved less by the sound of His voice and more by the push and pull of a culture that does not know Him, but has pushed and pulled its way into the Church nonetheless. And now we’re all pushing and pulling to get more done and I just have to ask…is it in obedience to God, or to our own need to be productive?

I pray that you will be encouraged to stop. Listen for His voice again. Listen for what it is that you are actually supposed to be doing, and then just do that.

Raise your kids without rush. Teach them what it looks like to just do what God is telling you to do without the need to add more so that your days are full.

Get tired from the work of love and prayer and moving in the Spirit in the world around you. Go hungry so that you can continue to feed others. But don’t do any of it from a place of worry or anxiety, or control. Ignore the need to keep up, to impress, or to prove something.

It’s a tall order, isn’t it? In fact, I think it’s much more challenging to live an unbusy life of obedience than it is to live a busy life of doing more, because it goes against what culture has instilled in us. It goes against our flesh.

And isn’t that a good thing?

Living His Truth: Unoffended

Skandalizō is the Greek word for offend, and it has a number of meanings.

  • to entice to sin (Matthew 5:29; 1Corinthians 8:13)
  • to cause a person to begin to distrust and desert one whom he ought to trust and obey; to cause to fall away; to stumble (John 6:61; Matthew 26:33)
  • to be offended in one, i.e. to see in another what I disapprove of and what hinders me from acknowledging his authority (Matthew 11:6; Mark 6:3)
  • to cause one to judge unfavorably or unjustly of another (Matthew 17:27)
  • to cause one displeasure at a thing (Matthew 15:12)

I think it’s safe to say that the opportunities for us to become offended at others or at God are many. I can count, using both hands at least, the people I have known throughout my walk with Jesus who have become offended, using most if not all of the definitions above.

Watching people stumble, enter a life of sin, or walk away altogether, is hard, especially since it is avoidable. Our offenses spring from our flesh and we have been given the Holy Spirit, who does not get offended.

Offended is our choice, not something that happens to us, or something we do that we just couldn’t help.

Mary and Martha could have chosen to be offended when Jesus did not come to heal Lazarus. They may have been hurt, but they did not become offended. (John 11)

In Matthew 11, John the Baptist is in prison, and asks what is now a very well known question:

“Are You the One who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

The same man who said “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” (John 1:29) is now saying “are You the one?” Jesus’ answer seems puzzling.

 “Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

I believe John the Baptist knew who Jesus was, but doubts crept in when Jesus didn’t do what John thought He would do. Like many others, perhaps he thought Jesus was there to start a revolution and overthrow Rome. Instead, He was going to “the least of these”.

It seems to me that Jesus’ pronouncement of blessing on anyone who doesn’t stumble because of Him, was also a warning to John. It’s Me, John. I am still the One. Don’t get offended because I am not doing what you expected of Me.

I think we need to hear the same warning because so many of us are waiting for Jesus to “restore to us the kingdom” by overthrowing a government and leading a great political revolution. Or perhaps we’re waiting for Him to give us what we want. To make our lives comfortable, fulfill our dreams, and help us succeed in all of our plans.

Instead, Jesus is still going to the least of us. Healing, bringing us back to life, and telling us the good news that we can be saved from our wretchedness. He is sanctifying us, often by fire, to rid us of our impurities, our selfishness, and our idolatry. Turning our ways into His way. And sometimes, as in the case of Mary and Martha, it can look like He’s not doing anything at all, when in fact He is about to show us the glory of God!

It’s Me, Church. I am still the One. Don’t get offended because I am not doing what you expected of Me.

We may get our feelings hurt. We might get angry at God and for sure one another. But when we choose to be offended we have chosen something far more serious, and dangerous, which is why I think Satan’s goal isn’t hurt feelings in the people of God. It is to encourage us to be offended. And the deeper the offense, the better.

The truth is, Jesus is still the One, His Word is still true, and His ways are still higher than our ways. He is still the head, and we are the body.

We cannot be offended at the body, without being offended at the head. I’ve known people who have said “I love Jesus, I just can’t stand Christians.” Or, “I love Jesus, but I don’t want anything to do with the Church.” The truth is, Jesus will never separate Himself from His Church. We do that, and it is always based on an offense.

We are His Church and the command still stands to walk in love toward one another, to forgive one another, and to consider others above ourselves. To pray together, walk together, serve together, and worship God together.

Bottom line: The whole world is offended these days, and the enticement to join them in it is strong. But we are not the world, we are the Church.

We can choose to live unoffended.

Living His Truth: Undistracted

I’ve done all the tests and connected a lot of dots. On the Myers-Briggs I’m an INFJ. My enneagram number is a 7. Or maybe a 3. Tests clearly indicate that I am a high introvert, and I’m either sanguine or phlegmatic, depending on the day. I’m a middle child so there’s that whole ball of wax. I’m definitely not a type A so I fall somewhere on the alphabet chain under the infamous A’s. And yes, I’m fully aware that the color yellow makes me look washed out.

My conclusion, finally, after all these years is that the tests have done one thing really well. They’ve kept me very focused on me.

What’s a good way to keep God’s people from going after God? Get them to go after themselves. Keep them looking for their true selves or the source of their broken or the reason they are the way they are. Convince them that if they can know themselves better they can be better or at least be ok.

Our enemy is not stupid and perhaps we are quite predictable. But there is a way out of this house of mirrors.

Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord…” – Jeremiah 9:23-24

And this is eternal life, that they know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. – John 17:3

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. … – 2 Peter 3:18 (all emphasis mine)

We are distracted from our pursuit of knowing God by the pursuit of knowing ourselves and we are not better for it. Look around. For all of the testing and self-acceptance, self-care, and self-love being thrown around, we still feel like we are falling short of something; some invisible standard that has been set, a bar we can’t quite reach. We are still straining for something that makes us feel ok with who we are. Still feeling left out and left wanting.

The endless pursuit of self feels like the promise of a secret code that will unlock our happiness and let us breathe a sigh of relief at last. It’s a lie. We are not our best pursuit.

Jesus is our sigh of relief and the only reason we are ok at all.

Oh, that we might be a people wholly uninterested in ourselves, with our attention riveted on God. But in order to be that, we will first need to tell ourselves to get out of the way and quit blocking our view of Him.

#liveundistracted

Living His Truth: Crucified

When a woman sat in front of me last year wrestling with her life, she said that someone kept telling her that she needed to live her own truth. Man, that just got my hackles up and they still haven’t gone down. Angry, is what it made me, because that “live your own truth” thing is a lie from hell sent to mess God’s people UP. So I’m going to address it the only way I know. A screen and my keyboard and the Word of God opened up in front of me. This series will be called Living His Truth.

And He said to all, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. – Luke 9:23

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. – Galatians 5:24

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. – Galatians 2:20

In all honesty, if I live my truth, I’m going to avoid any hint of denying myself or being crucified. My truth tells me to avoid pain, to avoid discomfort, to avoid not getting my own way. My truth is to live in whatever way feels good to me, whatever agrees with my flesh, my feelings, my emotions, my whatever. Because the heart wants what it wants. The problem is that our hearts are wicked and deceitful above all things. (Jeremiah 17:9)

Living my own truth is why I needed to be saved.

Let’s visit the garden, just for a moment.

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. {Genesis 3:4-6}

See what he did there? He convinced her that God’s truth wasn’t her truth. And he’s still doing it today because why fix what works?

I don’t get to live however I want to live, if I call Jesus Lord. Following Christ means I follow Him to the cross and I crucify whatever my own will calls truth, and I choose to live according to His truth.

Let’s recap.

My truth will lead me to live my way, not His. Therefore, I can conclude that my truth is not actually true, because if I am walking in the truth, I will walk in the ways of God, who is Truth.

If my truth is not actually true, then I do not have my own truth, I have my own lie.

Moral of the story? If someone is telling you to live your own truth, they are telling you to live a lie. Don’t do that. Deny “your own truth”, pick up your cross every day, and follow Jesus.

We are His people and part of that privilege is that we choose to be crucified with Him so that we no longer live, but He lives in us.

And Jesus will never live our truth.

Genesis 39—He’s With Us Either Way

{The story of Joseph resumes, and the buying and selling of humans is nothing new.}

“Now Joseph had been taken to Egypt. An Egyptian named Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and the captain of the guards, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him there. The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, serving in the household of his Egyptian master.”

Son of Jacob. Grandson of Abraham. Hebrew royalty, so to speak. Favored son of his father. He was no down and out. This ain’t a rags to riches kind of story.

It’s a God was with him story.

The Lord was with Joseph. With him as everything he did succeeded. As he found favor upon favor, being put in charge of his master’s house. As he experienced the blessings of God over everything he had.

And when Joseph underwent the temptations of a woman throwing herself at him, God was with him. With him in the false allegations and his fall from Potipher’s grace. With him in the prison. With him in the loneliness; while he was missing his father’s house.

We are well to remember that Joseph didn’t know his story as it unfolded. He couldn’t skip to the end and see the redemption that was coming. There was nothing easy about Joseph’s story, but there is something so good in it.

We’ve all had, and are having, hard stories. But when we learn to believe that God is with us in the hard places, we will also learn that just because something is hard, it doesn’t mean it isn’t very good.

But here in the middle of our story where we can’t see how it all shakes out, or the redemption that’s coming, we are trying to figure out the God with us parts. And sometimes, maybe we get confused. Like, we think that surely God is with us when our church is full and everyone likes us. Or when people are getting saved at our altar calls and the sick are healed at the laying on of our hands. When our marriage is good and our job is good and our ministry is good and it’s just raining goodness.

But not when we’re binge eating again because we still haven’t learned how to stop eating our emotions. Or when we fight with our spouse for the third time this week. Not when we barely make eye contact with people because we just don’t want to have to engage one more time today. Not when we have crawled into a hole with our depression and just don’t have the strength to crawl back out.

When our water gets shut off because we can’t pay the bill. When our character is being questioned. When none of the dreams we had are coming true. When this sickness won’t leave, or the diagnosis is a shock to our system. When the loss feels like it might break your heart so hard it will never recover.

Those aren’t the signs that God is with us, right?

But this is what He really said…

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” – Isaiah 41:10

“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” – Deuteronomy 31:6

“Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for He has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” – Hebrews 13:5

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” – Psalm 23:4

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” – 1 Corinthians 3:16

The evidence that He is with us is simple. He said He would be, and He doesn’t lie. His faithfulness is all the evidence we need.

Let’s lift our vision higher. Stop measuring God by earthly standards. He is with us, always. Redemption is our story and heaven is our home. Whether you are in the penthouse or the prison, look up. God is with you.

Our Tree of Life: Suffering and Redemption

It was late. I needed to sleep but couldn’t get my brain to agree with my body. It’s become that thing that I do. Go to bed and not sleep. Lately, my brain’s aversion to sleep has been leading me to the secret place and middle of the night sessions with the Holy Spirit. This night was that kind of night.

Suddenly, a picture showed up in my mind. A tree. Large, lush, very green, and full of fruit. It was the tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.

And then I saw the cross and Jesus hanging on it. And suddenly, scriptures came across the screen of my mind.

“Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” – John 6:53

“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written: Everyone who is hung on a tree is cursed.” – Galatians 3:13

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” – John 14:6

 “…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” – Philippians 3:10-11

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” – Galatians 2:20

And these thoughts pole vaulted into my brain –

The cross is now our tree of life, and Jesus is the fruit of that tree.

We no longer have access to that original tree of life. The one that came without suffering. The one that required no death.

Ours is a different tree.

We must be reminded of this tree and what it means, beyond “Jesus died for my sins”. We must take of the fruit of this tree in order to know life. We must partake of what Jesus suffered so that we too can obtain His resurrection.

For most of us, our suffering looks different than His. None of the people in my immediate circle, or in any of the circles near me, are being killed for the gospel. But there is certainly that suffering taking place in other parts of the world, and for those ones I pray Godspeed and mercy.

But here, in my world, there are other sufferings, as the death to our flesh is called for on a daily basis. A laying down of our own will in order to fulfill the will of the Father. A death to dreams and wants and our 5-year plan for our lives. The tearing down of idols that seems unending as the light continues to expose what has been hidden in us. A giving of ourselves when we would rather keep, remaining when we would rather leave, being emptied of our own selves so that we can be continually filled with Spirit of God.

Letting mercy triumph over judgment in our own hearts toward those around us. Giving grace that hasn’t been earned. Showing compassion, not just for the least of these, but for those who are against us. Speaking mercy instead of condemnation. Dropping stones that feel like justice in our hands.

Please tell me you’re getting this, because I can go on all day.

The cross is not just the place Jesus died a long, long time ago. It is where we die every single day. It is our tree of life.

And I have said all of that, to say this:

Oh, what a God! He looked through time and knew that we would go astray. Knew we would leave Him and claim our lives as our own. So He made a way before we even knew we needed one.

When He set flaming swords in front of the tree of life in the Garden of Eden, He knew there would be another tree, in the fullness of time, and it would bring eternal life to all who would partake of its fruit.

To taste the suffering of the cross is to taste the redemption of the tree of life.

I find it all a little mind-blowing.

Genesis 38—Women Are Scappy & Sometimes God Kills People

In the middle of Joseph’s story, there is a detour that is chapter 38, about one of his brothers, Judah. He had a son named Er, who married a woman named Tamar. Er died, and then his other brother died, leaving only Judah’s youngest son, not of marrying age.

Tamar. She could teach us girls a thing or two about survival in a harsh world. She had strategy instead of self-pity. She took a risk because it was necessary, not trendy. She was strong and she was bold. It wasn’t a cause or a headline, it was who she was and what she had to do.

Her father-in-law, Judah, had promised her his youngest son, with no intention of keeping that promise. He left her as a widow in her father’s house out of fear that his last son would die as the first two did.

Those first two sons were evil, and God killed them, but perhaps it was easier to think it had something to do with their proximity to Tamar.

{Maybe we would all like to think that bad things happen because of someone else.}

Tamar waited. For a long time, she remained in her father’s house, waiting for a promise to be kept. And then she took a risk. Did something scandalous. Pretended to be a prostitute and slept with her father-in-law, unrecognized by him. He promised her a goat in return. Overwhelming generosity was not his strong suit, apparently.

She demanded security until the goat came. Not because she was excited to get a goat, but because she was a smart chick with a plan. He gave up his signet ring, his cord, and his staff. Bad move, Judah, bad move. It will come with a hard lesson.

Tamar is now pregnant by her father-in-law. When he finds out she’s pregnant, not knowing that he is the father, he orders her to be burned to death. And then Tamar delivers the coup de grâce – the signet ring, cord, and staff of the man who got her pregnant. He repents in shame, and the story concludes with Tamar giving birth to twins.

I don’t know about you, but I am left wondering why this story was given to us. What did God want us to know from it? I don’t know those answers, all I can do is share what I learned from it –

First, women can be scrappy. We have a limit to how far we can be pushed before we come out swinging, and if it means survival, we will dig deep. We will risk and be scandalous and we will beat you at your own game if you give us half a chance. And in a world where women have been treated as property, used and discarded, oppressed and dismissed… this instinct for survival is often our ace-in-the-hole. But my point in all of those words is this: we are God’s creation and this ability to rise up and come back, to be strong and courageous and fierce, did not develop over time. This is how we are made.

We cannot use it as a source of pride, nor should we pretend it’s not there. It isn’t feminism. We are not better than men, and in many ways, we are not even equal. We cannot do everything they can do, and they cannot do everything we can do. That’s not how God set it up. But we are also not less than. We are not things to be owned, traded, or sold. We are co-heirs with Christ. We are part of the whole that is the image of God. We are strong and we do hard things and we will fight hard, for our own survival, but also for our families and our communities, because that is how God created us. On purpose. We don’t have to insist the world acknowledge it for us, we can simply walk it out.

Second, sometimes, God kills people, and we need to stop pretending that He doesn’t. Both of Judah’s sons were evil in God’s eyes, but perhaps not in anyone else’s eyes. Judah may not have been able to see the evil in his own sons’ hearts, but God could, and the scriptures tell us God killed them for it.

Can we be ok with that? And if we can’t, then can we acknowledge that our inability to be ok with it doesn’t really change anything? I know the need to explain it all is strong, but honestly, sometimes the best explanation is simply that God is God and we are not. We can either trust that He is good and right and just and merciful, or we can choose to believe that our own sense of right and wrong and justice is where the bar rests.

I choose the former. And I choose to let it reaffirm that I serve an all-powerful God who is the God of both heaven and earth, who sees all and knows all and does what is right whether I understand it or not.

A God who has created me to fight when I need to, for myself and for those I love.