Author Archives: Karla Jo Wasion

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

soldiers

In 1981 I joined the Army, and after basic training went to Germany to serve my three years. It was peacetime, and I was one of thousands of soldiers helping to maintain an American presence in Europe. While there, I observed three types of soldiers.

The first type were the young ones who had never been to a foreign country before. They were like kids in a candy store – all hopped up on sugar. They wanted to see, taste and experience everything they could in this foreign land. They learned enough of the language to get around and communicate with the locals, and even their living quarters took on a German look, as they surrounded themselves with the things of the land. Their military mission was more of a side-line in this adventure in a foreign culture. They talked about home mostly as a place they will eventually go back to, but in the meantime, they are enjoying this strange, foreign place.

The second type of soldier became completely immersed in the culture, and usually ended up making it his home after his time in the military was over. They usually end up retiring in Germany, often marrying German wives, and live out their lives there. They rarely, if ever, talk about home, because this place has become their home.

But then we have the third type of soldier. They are usually somewhat older, but not always. They rarely venture off base, learn little of the language, and are generally unbedazzled by this foreign land. They are there to do a mission and then get back home. They know it is important that they be here, but they also know they won’t be staying. When you talk to them, they always talk about home, and you can hear the longing in their voice. They are focused on the task they are there for, but you can tell that their hearts are somewhere else. They don’t hate this place, and even find enjoyment in the good things it has to offer…but they have no desire to stay here.

It all just begs the question…”which one am I?”. Which one are you? Have you accepted the gift of salvation offered by Christ, yet still want to taste, see and experience everything this world has to offer? Have you been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God, but remain fascinated with the things that belong to the darkness? Has the work of the Kingdom taken a backseat to your desire to enjoy life here to the fullest?

Have you made this place your home, becoming completely immersed in the culture around you? Has this place so captured your heart and mind that no one would know that you are a foreigner here? Do you ever talk about home, or is this place now home for you?

Or are you the one who keeps these things in mind:

“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.” Hebrews 11:13-14

“Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.” 1Peter 2:11

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” John 14:1-3

Fellow soldiers, it is not peacetime in this foreign land. We are at war. We cannot make ourselves at home here, and allow the enemy to distract us with what surrounds us. Nor can we allow the devastation brought by war to cause us to retreat in fear and despair. We must stay focused. We must remember where we are and why we are here. And we must keep our hearts turned toward home.

“Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” Psalm 73:25

the writing in the dust

Twenty-two years and seven months ago I surrendered my life to Christ. I was an emotional wreck, my marriage was a mess, I had a 3 year old daughter and was 9 months pregnant with my son. I was in crisis and, for the next twenty years or so, I remained in crisis. My marriage went from bad to worse to dead, while at the same time my daughter went spiraling out of control into self-destructive darkness.

In the midst of all of that, I discovered God. He taught me how to fight, and how to run for cover behind Him while the enemy assaulted my family relentlessly. I came to know His faithfulness, His power, and His own relentlessness to protect and defend that which is His. I came to know my all powerful, ever faithful God through a very long time of crisis. And now, my marriage is restored, and both of my kids are living lives sold out for Jesus. The dust has settled, and God stands victorious over the enemy who sought so hard to destroy a family. So for the past two years I have been trying to figure out what this nagging feeling deep inside of me is about. Why do I feel like I am wandering aimlessly around, looking for something I cannot define? This morning I figured it out. Actually, God figured it out and then told me about it.

I don’t know how to do relationship with God without a crisis.

For two years I have blamed this emptiness, this total dissatisfaction inside of me on everything from empty-nest syndrome to menopause, and my latest one…depression. All of those things are true in my life, but they are simply words to describe my behavior. They don’t explain the ache deep inside of me that co-exists with complete numbness. My empty nest isn’t the real reason that I feel more lost than found, or why the scriptures that gave me life all those years now look like just words on a page. This is me, being real. Because I can’t be anything else right now. I don’t have the strength for it.

But at least I know what it is now. I feel as though God just wrote it in the dust on my dining room table (because depressed, menopausal women who live in empty nests don’t dust very often), and He and I just are staring at the truth in that dust. Now what? Do I introduce myself to this omnipotent Being who just pulled my family from the wreckage of hell, as we both stand here in the after-the-war silence? What do I say, when shouting and declaring His promises over my family seems out of place now?

It was the voice of my daughter that God used to write the truth in that dust. We had a conversation this morning…her in Africa, me here in this very quiet house in Illinois. As I told her a little bit of my “empty-nest” woes, she matter of factly said this, in so many words:

“Being a wife and mother is a gift God gave to you, but it is not why He created you. You were made for relationship with Him, so maybe that’s what you need to concentrate on now.”

That’s what I heard my daughter saying to me. But what I saw God writing in the dust was, “You don’t know how to be in relationship with Me outside of a crisis”.

So, here’s the deal. I love God. I love His Word. I know His faithfulness and His power to heal and restore the most broken things. I know Him as a victorious God that puts the enemy to flight, chases after prodigals until they chase Him back, and turns hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. I know Him in the rage, chaos and deafening sounds of battle. I know my place and my purpose in the war.

I’m just unsure of what to do in green pastures, beside quiet waters.

Standing across from Him, staring at the truth, I could think of only one thing…

“My heart says of You, ‘Seek His face!’ Your face, Lord, I will seek.” (Ps. 27:8)

banished no more

For some reason, I landed in 2 Samuel 14 today.  As I was reading about people I don’t know, in the middle of a story that I knew nothing of, the words of verse 14 glowed like neon lights…

“But God does not take away life; instead, He devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from Him.”

wandering-in-desertBeing a woman attracted by bright lights and all things shiny, I became captivated by that sentence and my thoughts wandered away from Absolam, Joab and the woman from Tekoa. A paintbrush begins to move across my mind, and a picture is emerging.

God, beautiful and holy, watching as His beloved falls under the deception of evil. Then, banishment. Wanderings and sacrifices. Rebellion and repentance. Love, calling out through His prophets, “Return to Me!”.

God, beautiful and holy, stepping down to the fallen earth to be among His beloved. Healing and hope. Light and life. Love, coming to rescue.

God, beautiful and holy, now bloody and beaten, hanging between His throne and Hell. Life and death.  Love, paying the price.

God, beautiful and holy. Calling, drawing, pursuing. Capturing, cleansing and captivating. A people, once estranged, now brought near. Love, calling a bride.

Redeeming Love. Beautiful and holy.

A way for the banished to be banished no more.

exposed expectations

Who is like God? “No one!” I shout without hesitation. I’m smart enough to know the right answer to a question like that. So then let me rephrase it.

Who do I expect to be like God? 

And that’s the question that makes my heart start to squirm.

Before I go on, let me just say something up front. I intensely dislike this business of “being honest with myself”. But I’ve learned two things concerning this annoying process:  First, God is ruthless when it comes to exposing the things that keep me from changing. He’s not put off by my squirming, my whining or by my obvious attempts to avoid this process. He just keeps coming. Second, it brings revival. At the end of the process, my heart is changed, something has been healed, and my love and knowledge of God have had a sweet explosion. So I’ve learned to say “yes” to something I’d rather say “no thank you” to, which actually brings up a third bit of learning…

My “yes” to God, even in the hard things, will always be worth it.

So let me go back to the question. “Who do I expect to be like God?” To find out, I need to recall a few things I know to be true of God. The scripture references I will list is not by any means exhaustive. The questions I ask are the process I go through in allowing God to expose my heart.

His is an unfailing love. (Ps. 13:5; Ps. 33:18; Is. 54:10)

In my humble estimation, every slight we feel, every offense, every rejection, every betrayal is, at its core, a love that has failed. Who has failed to love me? Spouse? Children? Parents? Friends? The Church? Has it brought an offense that I just cannot get past, unforgiveness that I can’t turn into forgiveness? Has it made me run away and hide? Has it hardened my heart?

The answer is yes..to all of it. The unmet expectation of an unfailing love from people has been a set-up for my heart, and my heart responded accordingly. The damage was great, both to me and to others.

When the scriptures speak of unfailing love, they always point to God, never to man.  My head knows it, but my heart has a bad memory. It still looks to be loved no matter what, by people who are not like God. In all of my unlovliness, my unfaithfulness, my selfishness and my all together unlovableness, God will not fail to love me. People will. I want that to be ok with me.

He is my Healer and my Deliverer. (Ps. 103:3; Ps. 147:3; The Gospels; 2Samuel 22:2; Ps. 40:17; Ps. 70:5)

Where is the first place I turn when I need healing, whether it’s physical, mental, emotional or spiritual healing? Where do I go when there is something I just can’t get past…a wound, an offense, a sinful habit? In my early days of faith, I went to people. Lots of them. And I would love to say that today I no longer place my expectations on other people to bring me healing, or deliverance. But one look around my house at the stacks of books and cds I have bought tell a different story.

stack_of_books-300x199Deliverance and inner-healing ministries; Christian counselors and psychologists; schools of healing; books galore. Most of these resources that the Church has access to are good and very helpful.  But this is what I have observed in the Church lately – “Oh, you’re struggling? Here, you need to read this book. It’s amazing.” Or, “you need to go see so-and-so”. It’s like watching the Church on auto-pilot, sending the sick and wounded to people, rather than sending them to Jesus. Is it intentional? I don’t believe so, but none the less, it has set people up with expectations that will often bring disappointment, because we are frail and weak, and we succumb to the temptation to expect others to be like God for us.

I was recently speaking to a woman who called me for help with her marriage. Near the end of our conversation, I felt overwhelmed by what she was dealing with, and do you know what I said to her? “I think you need professional help”!! Yes. I said that, all the while knowing that the Word of God held her answer.  The Body of Christ is well equipped to help people, because we know Christ, we know His Word and we (should) know His power. But we are not their healers or their deliverers. I believe we need to get back to telling people that their help is in Jesus…not in a book, not in a ministry, not in a pastor…in Jesus.

No one heals like God. No one delivers like God. He must be the first place I go in my time of need. And because God so often works through His Body, He may choose to have me go to His Body to get counsel, but I am to go knowing that the power to heal and deliver is found only in God.

He alone is sinless. (Hebrews 4:15; 1John 1:8)

This one took some digging, but one thing I can count on is that God will dig until He finds what He wants me to see. What takes place in my heart when someone has the so-called “fall from grace” (a term I do  not like, nor agree with)? What does my heart feel when I find out that a Church leader, or the person I looked up to,  has been caught in adultery, pornography, or an addiction? Do I become a little jaded? Do I lose faith in people, or worse yet, in Christianity? Does my heart become fearful, thinking that if it can happen to them, then what’s to become of the rest of us? Do I lose respect? Is it all because I have an expectation that Christians, especially those in leadership or in public ministry, should be like God? I would not have thought so, but now I’m not so sure. Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard, Richard Roberts (son of Oral Roberts)…the list goes on, even down to one of my own former pastors. At the sound of their fall from the pedestal they were on, my heart felt disappointment, and the more it happens, the more hopelessness creeps in. Not grace, not mercy, not prayer nor indignation at the enemy’s schemes…disappointment, anger, hopelessness and even fear. Why? Apparently because people who were not supposed to sin did what they weren’t supposed to do. They failed to be like God. And I excelled in my sinful response.

An exposed heart is a crazy kind of scary. But I firmly believe that if I am willing to expose mine, it will help you have the courage to expose yours. To yourself. To God. To allow Him to be ruthless in going after the things that keep you from knowing Him more, from going deeper with Him, and then deeper still.

“With whom, then, will you compare God?
To what image will you liken Him?”

““To whom will you compare Me?
Or who is My equal?” says the Holy One.” Isaiah 40:18, 25

Father, forgive me for ascribing to others the love, power and perfection that is found in You alone. Help me to gather all of the expectations of my heart and lay them only at Your feet, not the feet of another. For I know that You alone are God, and there is none like You. You, my God and my King, are beyond compare.

the process of purpose

“For when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep…” Acts 13:35-37 

He was a shepherd and a King.  He was a murderer, an adulterer, and  a man after God’s own heart.  He was loved and he was hated.  Disobedient and repentant.  He knew sorrow and joy, failure and victory, fear and trust.

It all served God’s purpose.

Plan-DesignIn the midst of a most painful, flesh killing time of learning to walk His way, I remember asking God a question. “When are You going to bring about Your plan?”  I knew He had a plan and I was trusting Him for the plan…but I was anxious for us to actually get to the plan.

“This IS the plan.”

One huge hissy fit later, I picked myself up off the floor and let Him continue to teach truth to my stunned heart.

God’s purpose is as much about the process as it is about the outcome.  I was waiting for the restoration of a marriage, but it was in the process of restoration that I saw and learned so much of God’s heart and character. I became an eye witness to His mercy, His love that won’t quit, and to His undeniable, undefeatable power.

And yet, He remains a mystery.  How does He do what He does?

Turn hatred into love?         Bitterness into compassion?

Rebellion into surrender?        Fear into trust?    Unbelief into faith?

How does He heal a heart that was so wounded? Transform a mind that was so contrary? How does He peel back our fingers and loosen our grip on our own lives and our own plans?

Bring beauty from ashes?                   Turn mourning into dancing?

I don’t know, but He does it through the process of our circumstances.

I was so anxious to get to the end of the place I was in, to the outcome of what God was doing. It wasn’t until He floored me with “This IS the plan” that I learned to stop longing for the destination and start looking for Him in the journey.

Pain, grief, defeat, lonliness…joy, victory, love…they all make up our lives. And in all of it with us is God, making sure none of it is wasted.

Making sure our lives serve His purpose.

“In Him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will…” Ephesians 1:11

What is your circumstance…your process? Has pain blurred your vision of God? Are you backed into a financial corner with no way out? Are you in a struggle to have hope? Is your life in the fire right now?

God is in it with you, and it will serve Him.

Your life…the purpose of God in your generation.

my cinderella story

I had been a Christian for some time before I learned the truth.  I had not chosen Christ. Instead, He chose me. For a girl who had never been asked to a school dance, and was among the last ones picked for any kind of “team”, let me tell you…this was big news.

The enemy had set up some nice strongholds in me from a very young age, and my own worthlessness was the lie I lived with, and lived out.  The majority of my choices were made from the belief that I had very little value.

So the sadness of it all is not that I was never chosen, but that I never felt worth choosing.  

And then one day, God gave me a vision, and it led me into a season of transformation that dismantled the lie the enemy had worked so hard to build into me.

            I walked into a large ballroom, filled with people. They were beautiful people, especially the women. They were all much taller than me, dressed for a ball, hair done to perfection. They all looked like porcelain dolls. I, on the other hand, looked very much like a street urchin. Small and dirty. Dressed in what looked like something made of burlap, and no shoes.

            The beautiful people were all gathered around something, or someone, and I was in the back of the crowd unable to see what they were looking at. Then, the crowd began to separate, and I saw the object of their attention. There, on a throne, sat the most handsome of princes. He was smiling, and most amazingly, looking right at me. My head dropped in shame, assuming He would question how I got in and why on earth I was there, among the beautiful ones. Suddenly, he pointed at me and said , “I choose you.” 

I call it my Cinderella story. Even as I write it here, I can feel the emotion I had when God gave me the vision. It was so deeply personal because God had painted a picture of exactly how I felt as a new Christian, and I was overwhelmed by the fact that He knew it. He knew how unworthy and out of place I felt around other Christians, even though I was working hard to hide it. And He set me free by renewing my mind with His word.

” For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love  He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will—” Ephesians 1:4-5

I wasn’t chosen as an afterthought. The choice was made before He ever spoke the foundations of the world into existence.  Nor was it a reluctant choice. It brought Him pleasure to choose me, and it was exactly the choice He wanted to make.

“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.”  1Peter 2:9

I am not a street urchin who happened into God’s Kingdom. I am the chosen, special possession of God.

 He called me out of darkness.  He called me. On purpose. So that I could make much of Him, declaring His goodness and His majesty to a lost world.

“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?”  Romans 8:31-33

Who is it that beats me up the most? Who chastises me, tells me that I’m not good enough, tells me that I’m a failure, that I don’t measure up? Who tells me that I don’t belong, that I don’t fit in? Who is it that brings a charge against me the most, and tells me that God is against me? Me. Oh, I know what you may be thinking. Those are the lies of the enemy. Absolutely.

Satan may be the one talking, but I’m the one believing him. 

 His talking isn’t the problem. The problem is that God’s people believe what he has to say.  And then we begin to repeat it, to ourselves and to others.

This time I choose. I choose to stand on God’s word and believe that I am His choice, and that choosing me brought Him pleasure. I am not an urchin among the beautiful, I am royalty among royalty.  I am not worthless, I am His special possession.  I am His, not be default, but by choice. His choice.

And finally…

“They will make war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will overcome them because He is Lord of lords and King of kings—and with Him will be His called, chosen and faithful followers.” Revelation 17:13-15

cinderella2

 

I have been chosen for something magnificent!

 

distracted

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  

After pulling apart the words used to describe how Martha was feeling in this passage, I discovered two important definitions.

Distracted and drawn away

Martha loved Jesus too, that much is clear. In fact, I think she would have loved to just sit at His feet and drink in His every word. But ‘so much to do’ was pulling at her, too-busynipping her heels and making a lot of noise. People are depending on her, needing her, demanding her attention. Her days get consumed with needs and have to’s and should’s and no-time-for-that’s. I think maybe she would need to get up at 5:00 a.m. if she wants to be a Mary and good gravy that’s early.  And things start to feel no fair and I think Martha was just tired. And a little cranky.

Or maybe it’s just me.

Distracted. Drawn away. Pulled and tugged and nipped at and too tired to get up that early. But then I hear His words and I take the comfort they offer.

Few things are needed. Only one, really. Choose the better thing.

Because in all the pulling and nipping and noisy demanding…I’ve still been choosing. It just hasn’t felt that way. Sometimes, a  lot of times, feelings are liars. What feels like no choice is, in reality, the choosing we are doing.

Getting up early is not a mountain, it’s a choice. Ignoring the pull of need to, ought to and have to long enough to sit at His feet is not a wish, it’s a choice.

One of my favorite lines in the bible is simply this — “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”  I love that line because of what it reveals of Jesus.

He will fiercely protect my choice to sit at His feet.

Quiet_TimeI want to be just as fierce in choosing to be with Him.