Author Archives: Karla Jo Wasion

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

dearly beloved

Dearly Beloved,

I am praying for you. I don’t know why you feel the way you do. I don’t know why your mind is dark and your heart is heavy. I wish I could fix it but I can’t. I am not your healer. So today I approach the throne of grace with boldness on your behalf. Because your Healer is on that throne and He is good and He is mercy and He loves you.

drowningBeloved, you were not made to tread water, gasping to get the air you need as you go under again. This going under and barely making it through each day is not the destiny your Father has for you. Today I pray that He will call you to walk upon the waters that are threatening to drown you. And when He calls, I pray you will stand up and walk.

 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

dry-bonesDry bones are not your portion. That valley is not your home.  So today I ask for the breath of God to blow upon your soul. I ask that life would stir in your bones and in your heart. Today I declare that the thief cannot have you, for you are not his to take. You belong to God and God breathes life and not death because He is alive and has called you to life. Beloved, God Himself is your portion and He holds your future and He is good. I pray that every scheme set against the life God has called you into will be brought down by His mighty hand. Today, I call out to dry bones to come alive.

“Contend, Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me.”

 As David cried out, so I cry out. Because you see, I know that your God fights for you. You don’t feel it, may not even believe it, but I know it to be true. Because you are His and your enemy is His enemy and when He arises, that enemy scatters.  So I cry out for you and I ask your Father and mine to rise up on your behalf and contend for you. I pray that His presence will be felt by the darkness, and by you, setting the enemy to flight and giving you rest in your Father’s shadow.

“He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” 

 Today I am asking that the Healer of hearts will heal yours. I pray that the wounds that have led you here, to this place of despair, will be exposed to the Light and covered by the healing hand of God. I pray that whatever is holding you captive would hear the voice of your Savior pronounce freedom over you today and that darkness would be compelled to release its’ hold. Because the Son of heaven was sent for you and all authority was given to Him. That leaves none for the enemy of your soul.

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.”

 So right here, before the throne of grace, I declare the truth of God. You are not defined by your feelings, but by God’s heart for you. You are chosen and you are holy and you are God’s. I pray that today you will break your partnership with the lies of the enemy that tell you anything other than what God has spoken over you. Beloved, you are not who you think you are, but who God says you are.

You were not made to despair. You were not made to feel hopeless. You were made to praise.

Raining

So today I pray that despair and hopelessness will be overcome by praise rising from the heart of His beloved. I pray that by the Spirit of God living in you, praise will erupt and lies will break and truth will overtake the darkness that hovers over your mind. Because praise is a weapon and it shuts the mouth of the liar and opens the heart of the downcast.

Dearly beloved….

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

John 10:10; Ps 35:1; Isaiah 61:1; 1Peter 2:9; Romans 15:13

reminding my fear

“He reached down from heaven and took hold of me; He pulled me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too strong for me.”  

whisper

Fear speaks. We listen. It drums away at our heart until we find ourselves moving to its rhythm of panic and unrest in our soul.

And with each beat, something becomes bigger than God to us. Deep waters become too deep. Our powerful enemy become too powerful. Difficult circumstances turn into too difficult. Pain becomes too painful.

Fear talks a good game, but it doesn’t talk truth.

Fear does not remind us that God is greater. Than what? Everything.

So today, I will remind my fear…

My God is on His throne and I am under His care. He created the heavens and the earth and He created me. He knows my every move, my every thought and my every need. My Father is good and all that He does is good. He is for me and not against me because I am His. This earth is not my home and it has nothing for me. My life belongs to Him and my eternal destiny is to be with Him.

My Savior is Jesus. No one else. My hope is in Him and Him alone. He is my deliverer and He alone sustains my life. No good thing does He withhold from me, and there is absolutely nothing that can separate me from His love. He is my shield, my shelter, my provision and my strength…now and until the end. He will cause all things, all things, to conform to His will and to work for my good, because I love Him.

He provides, He heals, He rescues, He saves. He sends and He calls and He remains with me. My life and my times are in His hands. He is perfect and His word is true and His faithfulness cannot be measured.

Mountains melt and the seas obey and the sun rises and nations fall because He is in control of His creation and His power is unmatched.

deep water

The waters are not too deep. The enemy is not too powerful. My pain is not too painful. There is nothing in my life that is too anything for my God.

My rags have become robes, my sin replaced with righteousness. His death has become my life and His hope anchors my soul. My weakness is great but His mercy is greater.

He is my God. He is great and He is powerful. He alone is God and there is none beside Him. Nothing is His equal.

“ Let all the earth fear the Lord: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.“

Beloved, let us not allow fear to make anything bigger than God.

  2Samuel 22:17-18; Psalm 33:8

dear friend

Dear Friend,

I prayed for you last night and before I could really say much at all He showed me a picture and gave me words.

horse

“That horse was made to run, but he fights the narrow place that is the starting gate, because he can’t see beyond it.

He fights the narrow place because he can’t see that it is the gateway to what he was created to do. 

He fights because he’s afraid of the narrow place.”

I thought about this picture and these narrow places that some horses and some people fight. What I think, my friend, is that it’s mostly about trust.

So I have to ask…do you trust God? Do you trust that in the narrow place what hinders you will be stripped from you because He’s preparing you to run? Because narrow means nar.row. Pride and fear and the need to control just don’t fit in this place.

Do you trust that even though it feels like the sides of this place are pressing you hard and there’s no room to move here, God is in this narrow space with you and He brought you here for a good purpose?

Do you trust that the gate will open? Because it will. And you will run, because you were made for it my friend.

You were made to be more than afraid.

And friend, there is someone else who is afraid of your narrow place. Someone who will do anything to keep you out of it.

Someone who watched as Jesus went into a narrow place called Gethsemane, and watched as He came out of that narrow place headed for the cross and nothing was going to stop Him and just look at what happened.

So you aren’t the only one fighting that narrow place. But you are the only one who will come out of the fight victorious.

Because you have God on your side. He is for you, not against you. His plans for you are good and His plans will prevail and you will live your destiny.  He is before you and behind you and on every side. You will be victorious because the liar and his lies will bow to the Truth that lives in you and in the narrow place a stronghold will crumble.

You will go into that narrow place and there God will prepare you for what is on the other side of that gate and you will come out running.

Because you were made for this.

So anyway, just wanted to let you know I prayed for you last night. God showed up. It was good.

Love,

Your friend

broken and whole

She showed me her little clay pot that was a lovely shade of blue. I was surprised at how beautiful it was. Beautiful and cracked. Broken and whole. Jagged lines ran up and down and sideways all over it. It wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened.

blue pot

Because when something has been broken and put back together…it shows. 

It was therapeutic for her. She took the pot and smashed it and it helped something inside of her. And then she found the pieces and glued them back together and that helped too. Sometimes, we need to see something broken and put back together to really believe there is hope, you know? Hope that we can be put back together. Hope that even though our brokenness shows, we are still beautiful.

I saw the clay pot with jagged lines and I thought of my own jagged lines and I know God’s voice and He spoke that day.

 ‘Light shines best through vessels that have been broken.’

Trying to live this life on our own terms doing it our own way living far from God breaks our lives and our hearts and our very souls. And the prayer is that the breaking will lead to broken.

                              Because repentance is brokenness and it turns us from what is breaking us.

Brokenness is clinging to Jesus because we’ve discovered our greatest need is Him. Brokenness praises Him through pain and things we don’t understand because we know that no matter what He is God and He is good. Brokenness raises hands in surrender not fists in defiance and finally drinks in the grace that puts us back together with jagged lines.

And broken vessels are always amazed by the grace that makes them whole.

broken pot

Life can break us hard but grace leaves us sweetly broken and grace makes us whole. I’ve had the breaking and I’ve been broken and I want to see beauty, not shame, in my jagged lines. I want light to dance from these places put back together by grace. Places where the light shines best.

I am not enough

disciples

Reading the words of John and I knew I was missing a point somewhere. So I did what I do when I’m stuck in this age. I went there to that age, to that mountainside. I put myself among the ragamuffins and I looked at what they saw and I listened to what they heard. And the point I was missing found me.

 

Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with His disciples. The Jewish Passover Festival was near.

When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward Him, He said to Philip,“Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”  He asked this only to test him, for He already had in mind what He was going to do.

Philip answered Him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”

Oh Philip. Come stand by me because we both see the same thing here.

You and I see impossible. There’s just too much here to fix. Too many, too much and not enough. Pockets and heart are both kinda empty so how on earth can these ‘too many’ hungry ones be fed? How can so many be helped when there’s not enough to give?

When our eyes are on the great crowd of need and not on the Bread of Life, impossible is all we see.

 

Poor people in Ethiopia keeping their hands up.And sometimes we don’t realize that the testing of our faith is a test of Who we see in the midst of seeing impossible.  And I have been overwhelmed of late. My eyes have been fixed on the crowd with their heads down and their hands out and my not enough keeps getting bigger.

And Jesus took a little boy’s not enough and made it more than enough but I’ve stopped offering up my not enough. Because just like ragamuffin Philip all I see is the hunger while I am right there in the presence of the Bread.

I see broken and hungry and lost and hurting but I don’t see an answer and Jesus is wondering if I see Him.

Because every need I see is a need for Him, not me.

 

two-fish-300x200

I am not enough for the sea of needs around me. I am not enough for the outstretched hands and hearts that clamor for filling. I am not enough to fix what is broken or heal what is hurting.

But every need I see is a need for Him, not me. That’s the point that found me on that mountainside as I looked at the impossible with Philip.

Five loaves and two fish was not enough. It will never be enough. But placed into the hands of Jesus it will be more than enough.

 

John 6:5-7

the way love moves

Southern Ocean

Love is an ocean of a word. Big and wide and deep and too much to look at all at once and you can’t see its’ boundaries from standing in one place. Oceans and love are both hard to describe from the shoreline.

I will not plummet its’ depths in one lifetime, but I can stand in the waves and watch the way it moved on the earth that time when Love came down.

 

He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?”
Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. “ (Matthew 8:24-26)

 It was a furious storm, but even though fear was great and faith was small, the storm was calmed.  Love does not demand more faith than fear before He steps into my storm. I like that Love moves that way. I need Him to move like that for me because fear and faith take turns being king of the hill in my heart.

{I need to know that Love is more furious than the storm}

“While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Him and His disciples, for there were many who followed Him.” (Mark 2:15)

 Love didn’t tiptoe through dark places. He didn’t go out of His way to go around the worst part of town. Jesus ate dinner on the other side of the tracks. He walked through every place like He had the authority to be there because He did. He went across the lake to confront a legion of demons and had dinner with the sinner people the same way He went to the synagogue to preach. In Church or out, Love moved the same way and refused to avoid the worst of us.

sinners gathered

{When the sinners and the outcasts are gathered, there’s a good chance Love is their dinner guest. Try not to be offended. That’s just the way Love moves.}

 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42)
 

To her credit, she wanted to serve Jesus and maybe she wanted everything to be “just so”. He had come and there were preparations to be made and work to be done. No time for listening. Martha’s home had become her stage and she was distracted by her need to perform well.

Mary chose and no matter how much the performer complained, what Mary had chosen would not be taken from her. The place at His feet was hers because she chose the sound of His voice over her own performance.

{When Love walks in the room, there is a place at His feet that is so much better than the stage of our performance.}

 

crucified hand

“Carrying His own cross, He went out to the place of the Skull (…Golgotha). There they crucified Him…” (John 19:17-18)

 This is how love moved.

 {Love is an ocean big and wide and deep and too much to look at all at once. But I am moved by the waves.}

what do you do when the road bends?

Life is sweet on the straight road, even if the road is narrow. Yes, the straight and narrow is easy travelling. Pick up and put down those feet because I see where I’m going and the view is wide on this narrow road. The plan filled with all my “someday” things is in hand and I’m believing the Planner and all is well.

bend-in-roadAnd then the road bends. What do you do with a bend in the road? When God throws in a corner that you can’t see around? What do you do when your question of “what next?” falls at your feet all alone and no answer falls with it?

This is when anxiety knocks at your heart. It wants in and you want to open the door because frankly, you’d like the company. Road bends are lonely, quiet  places and sometimes even the voice of fear is a welcome sound.

(Did I say you? Sorry. I meant me. Or I. Definitely not you. Just me and I. But it feels better to say you so I’ll just keep doing that, k?)

And you know because you’ve heard that knock before so you just know better than to open that darn door. Because anxiety never comes to visit alone. It brings friends and they come for a party in your soul. Fear, stress, worry, depression all come in wearing party hats and carrying no chocolate.

So you ignore the knocking or maybe you don’t and before you know it there’s a monster bash going on inside of you.

Because road bends are hard. They are lonely and they are quiet places that feel like God is fasting from talking to you.

When the road bends the plan falls and flutters away and what do you do when the road bends before you arrive at your “someday”?  When you are too young for that ‘I’ve lived a good life’ thing and too old to believe the world is still yours to conquer. When you’ve held on to ‘someday’ so long you’ve got a hand cramp.

Well, I’ll tell you what you do. You listen to this song and you put that thing on repeat until you hear the words in your sleep. You listen to every word until the sound of anxiety knocking fades to silent.

Grander earth has quaked before
Moved by the sound of His voice
Seas that are shaken and stirred
Can be calmed and broken for my regard

What’s waiting around the bend may be ground shaking and stormy…not your ‘someday’ thing you’ve waited to come. And what we can’t see beckons fear to come to the door of our heart and shout ‘what if?’. True, no?

What do you do with the fear that comes with a bend in the road?

Let Truth answer the shouting of fear. God is on this side of the bend.  Everything else may be hidden but God does not hide from us. He may be quiet, but He is there. With you. Always. And whatever shaking, stormy thing that may or may not be around the corner must still bow to Him, will still be controlled by the loving hand that holds your life.

Far be it from me to not believe
Even when my eyes can’t see
And this mountain that’s in front of me
Will be thrown into the midst of the sea

Right here where the road bends is where we find our heart’s true bent. We will either answer the sound of anxiety and fear pounding at the door, or we will turn the music up and trust God. Pull out our mustard seed and move the ‘what if‘ mountain.

What do you do when you can’t see around the bend?

Let the bend in the road bend your heart to believe God is good no matter what and He is for you not against you and whatever comes, or doesn’t come, He is with you.

Through it all, through it all

My eyes are on You
Through it all, through it all
It is well

So let go my soul and trust in Him
The waves and wind still know His name

It is well with my soul

There is a bend in my road and God is not fasting He is speaking through a song. And it is finally well with my soul.