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—to the sons, from a daughter

“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love.” (1Corinthians 16:13-14)

 To the sons of the King, from His daughters. To those who have embarked, or are preparing to embark on the journey of marriage, allow me to speak to your heart, from the heart of His daughters everywhere.

~ Be on your guard. (This means be alert, and more literally, be awake.)

Life can become routine, and at times mundane. Please don’t let it lull you to sleep, which will lead to indifference and apathy. Stay hungry for Jesus. Keep watch on the wall with us, and for us. The devil never ceases to prowl, but you pose no threat to him if you are not awake. He is your enemy. We need you to be his. 

~ Stand firm in the faith. (To persevere. To be steadfast in the faith, by adherence to it.)

We beseech you – when compromise beckons you to step down from the high ground…stand firm. When the enemy tempts you to walk the easy, less demanding life of lukewarm faith…stand firm. When the winds of adversity are at gale force, making you want to turn and run…stand firm. We have committed ourselves to you, so where you go, we go with you.  We would much rather stand with you.

~ Be men of courage;  (The original language means “play the man”.) be strong. (That word means…be strong.)

Our world applauds men who think they are women. People pay money to see men  dress and act like women, and dedicate talk shows to men on their way to becoming women. The attack on masculinity has been vicious.

You are men, and we want you to be men. We want you to walk, talk, dress and act like men. Be brave and be strong. Be protective. Be fierce. Be warriors. Be secure enough to let us see you cry. Be nice to kittens and ruthless to spiders. Play the man.

~ Do everything in love.

You are watchful, fully awake. Your feet are firmly planted on the high ground of faith. You are strong and brave. And everything you do is governed by love.

You are the sons of the King, worthy of His daughters.

gung ho

I had a strange conversation with someone a little while ago and it’s messin’ with me. When things mess with me I blog about them. It helps.

The conversation was with a newborn Christian. Maybe a couple of weeks old. I think he may have been under the influence, evidenced by the smell of beer, the slurring, and a somewhat glazed look in his eyes (yeah, it’s hard to get anything past me). Yet, he still managed to say something that I found odd. He told me that he had been talking to a Christian couple recently, discussing the “Christian faith”, and that “they weren’t as gung ho about it as you guys are” (meaning my husband and I). I couldn’t tell if I was being praised or insulted, to be honest with you.

Gung ho. I haven’t heard that term since I was in the Army. Gung ho soldiers were the ones that were “all in”. They lived and breathed being a soldier. So I don’t mind being called gung ho for Christianity. I minded something else. I minded that this brand new baby Christian saw people who were less than “all in”, and thought that might be the better way to go. I minded that. A lot. I’m not judging the less than all in people (or maybe I am. I’ll think about that later). And can I stop saying “all in” now, and just call it lukewarm? Yes, I am peeved that someone played off their lukewarmth as being perfectly ok to someone who doesn’t know any better.

So I think I need to say something to my slightly inebriated fellow, and to the people, who I am sure are perfectly nice people, that may have messed with his baby-faith. None of them read my blog, so I’ll mostly be talking to myself. Again.

Jesus came to this earth to take upon Himself the punishment that was rightly ours. The whip they used tore open His back for us. He was spit upon and beaten for us. They made Him drag the heavy crossbeam, the instrument of His own death, up the hill to Golgotha…after the whip tore open His back for us. His hands and feet were nailed, yes nailed to that cross and then it was dropped into the ground. A crown of thorns…sharp, 2″ thorns, was shoved into His skull for us. He hung there, the King of Heaven, separated from His Father by our sin, until He finally died for us.

God came for us, and then died for us. And now you and I have been deemed forgiven. Forever. Why? Because He offered His death to us as God’s gift of life, and we took it.

So, do you think He was “all in”? Was every single moment of every single day of His life on this earth spent on us? Or were we just part of His life here?

He left heaven for earth and died a wretched death in our place. Because He wants us with Him.

Tell me, friends. Do you think Jesus is gung ho about you?

P.S. ~ I was right. Blogging helped.

flight of the bumblebee, a/k/a me on a walk

Today’s walk was an interesting revelation for me.  It brought new meaning to the following scripture –

1Peter 4:7 ~ “Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray.”

You’ll understand after you spend a few minutes in my head during my walk:
“Ahhh. Thank you Lord for this beautiful day, and this opportunity to pray for my neighbors. I want to lift up the family in that hou…” “Really? Dude. Buy a muffler.” “Sorry Lord.” “Mmm. This breeze feels so nice. I love trees. Your creation is so beautif…” “OMG…that guy really wore black socks with sandals to water his lawn! I wonder if it would be rude to take a picture with my phone. Maybe I could take it without him even notic…” “Sorry Lord. Oh…those birds sound so nice! It’s like they’re singing to each other.” “Wow my hips are starting to hurt”. “Lord, I pray for the family in that house. I see the mother sometimes, and she always looks so sad, and…” “Dang..stupid mosquitoe bites. It’s hard to walk and pray when I keep having to stop and scratch. Oooh. That would be a funny bumper sticker”. “Ohhhh, there’s a squirrel! Jesus, You know how much I love squirrels! You are so good to me…” “Whoa…lady. You apparently got interrupted while getting dressed, didn’tchya? Forget to go back to it?”…”Oh man, I just love that tree. It’s so majestic and beautiful. It’s a reminder of You, Lord, every time I walk pas…” “Oh gross. A dead bird. Aw man…someone should clean that up.” “Lord, thank You for summer. I love this time of year! The warmth of the sun on my face, it’s just so wonderf…” “Oh my…you’re a strange looking little dog now aren’t you? Poor thing.” “Whew. Almost home. I love taking these walks with You Lord! We’ll do it again tomo…” “Awww. Look at the cute little girl in her sassy pink flip flops! I can’t wait to be a grandma!”…

See what I mean?

the walk

The trees. The houses. The concrete beneath my feet. It’s a far different landscape than the one Jesus knew when He walked this earth.  This was my random thought on a recent walk through my neighborhood. Or maybe not so random at all. Because Jesus answered my thought, turning my walk into His classroom.

The landscape is different, but He wasn’t here for the landscape. He came for people, and they have never changed. Suddenly, I found my eyes straining to see what He sees as I walked.

Perhaps living on my street is a woman caught in her sin, struggling under the weight of her guilt and shame. My ears hear songbirds and rustling leaves in the breeze…but my heart hears a voice.

“Who will go to her? Who will tell her that God doesn’t carry a rock?”

Maybe in that blue house with the white shutters is a weary mother who weeps every day for the son who has walked away from God. Perhaps her own faith is growing weak as she loses hope that he will ever return from his self-destructive ways.

“Who will go to her with comfort? Who will cry out to the Father with her, and believe with her for the return of a prodigal?”

On the street behind me is a house that a wife and mother used to live in a number of years ago. Then she committed suicide, leaving a husband and two sons to cope with the devastation. A few doors down from there is a family who lost their son to a drunk driver a few years back. It was the second child they’d lost. Several families on my block have suffered a loss of income and are struggling to hold onto their place in the neighborhood. On another street nearby is a woman with two little boys. Her husband died about 5 years ago.  Now she has a boyfriend, and we can hear the yelling late at night. Sometimes the police come, and the boyfriend leaves. A few days later he’s back, and so is the yelling.

As I look at the houses that I pass every day, I get a momentary glimpse through the eyes of Jesus at the mission field I live in.

In 2007 I heard Him ask, “who will go for Me?”. I raised my hand and went to Africa. And then I went to India.  I have yet to go next door.

And then I went for a walk through a mission field outside my front door.

Marriage Matters—next time, i’ll just go ahead and die

It happened again. I lived when I should have died. And the livin’ got ugly, let me tell you. Everything I’ve learned about marriage ran screaming from the room. Ok, maybe that was me running and screaming. Either way, I am still suffering the repercussions of a dynamic marital explosion between two people who should have died, but chose to live. It feels somewhat like a hangover. All because he said something I didn’t like in a tone of voice that just yanked my chain. I should have just died. I’d feel a whole lot better today.

I’m a big fan of going into things with eyes wide open. That’s why I think preachers should say, “Marriage is good. You guys are gonna make it hard.” during every wedding ceremony.

Marriage was God’s idea, therefore it is good. We’re the ones that give it a bad name.

When God began the process of restoring my marriage, He started with me. I argued vehemetly against this tactic, since I was clearly the victim in this marriage. I mean, it was just so obvious. God saw things differently, and I lost the first of many arguments. To prove His point, He began exposing a lot of things. Ugly things. Anger, pride, rebellion, unforgiveness and a mindset that was based on self-interest. Just to name a few.

My story of restoration is a bit long for a blog post, so I’ll just give you a few of the lessons I learned. Of course, it comes with the disclaimer that what I learned isn’t always followed by application. If it was, I wouldn’t have this headache.

~ For a marriage, or any relationship for that matter, to be restored, people are going to have to change.  You may have to go first. In fact, I’d say it’s a probability. Don’t bother arguing. You won’t win.

~ What we want isn’t the issue. The real issue is “what does God want?”.

~ And the harder question to answer is, “do you want what He wants?”.

~ I’m much better off searching the scriptures for what God is saying to me, rather than what He may be saying to someone else.

~ Instead of stating the obvious, start stating the truth. For example, it may be perfectly obvious that someone is acting like a jerk. No need to announce it, or continuously mutter it under your breath. Instead, declare to your heart what God says about them…that they are dearly loved by Him, created in His image, etc., that He desires healing and restoration for them, that He wants to do them good and not harm. It will keep your heart turned toward them, which makes praying for them much easier. And they won’t have to sleep with one eye open.

~ God is our first love, our best love. He alone can completely satisfy our need to be loved. If we are not secure and complete in the love of God, then when the love of our spouse fails us (and it will), we will be devastated, which means marriage just got a lot harder.

~ Fix your eyes on Jesus. It’s easier said than done, trust me. Our tendency is to fix our eyes on the other person. I make you this promise:  If you are looking at what someone else is doing (or not doing), eventually, you will get offended. Guaranteed.

~ Actions and responses are weighed equally by God. He never gives us permission to walk in our flesh. (Galatians 5:19)

And finally…drumroll please…

~ You must die.

None of this happens apart from death to self. It’s what makes Galatians 5:19 possible.

I had to die to unmet expectations, unrecognized rights, unmet needs. Everything that was for me rather than for Jesus.

He wants to bring life to your marriage…but there has to be death  first. He won’t kill you. Death will be your choice to make.

Oh, and another thing. You’ll need to leave your spouse’s death to God. In answer to my “What about him, Lord? Doesn’t he have to die too?”, God sent me to the following scripture.

“Jesus answered, ‘If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.'” (John 21:22) Yes, God has both a sense of humor, and an answer for everything.

Lessons learned, not always applied. A restoration in process. Marriage. God’s very good idea, made difficult by flawed people.

die to self

Hopefully, next time, I’ll just go ahead and die.

feeling the pain

“I would like some morphine, please”. The dentist laughed, oblivious to the seriousness of my request. I managed to talk him into a few extra shots to the mouth and kickin’ up the dial on the laughing gas (which, by the way, has yet to make me laugh). He had no idea the lengths I would go to in order to avoid pain.

Years of drugs and alcohol and constant running, all in my endless pursuit to numb what is, in my opinion, the worst kind of pain. I buried my heart and then built an impenetrable wall around it to keep emotional pain at bay. It worked pretty well, until God pointed out that while I couldn’t feel pain, I also couldn’t feel anything else, including love. Especially His love. So began the difficult journey of dismantling my wall and digging up my heart, of learning to let pain in, and then bringing it to God for healing. It sounds simple on paper, but in real life it was…a painful process.

But this post really isn’t just about me and my pain.

“And when they had mocked Him, they took off the purple robe and put His own clothes on Him. Then they led Him out to crucify Him…They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.” Mark 15:20-23

Wine mixed with myrrh was a painkiller. Matthew says they offered him wine mixed with gall (Matthew 27:34). My study notes state that “Tradition says that the women of Jerusalem customarily furnished this pain-killing narcotic to prisoners who were crucified.”

“Crucifixion was usually intended to provide a death that was particularly slow, painful (hence the term excruciating, literally “out of crucifying”), gruesome, humiliating, and public…” (Wikipedia)

Jesus was given the chance to avoid, or at least lessen, the pain of His crucifixion, but He refused. He was fully awake and fully aware of what He was enduring. For you. For me. He refused to spare Himself even one moment of the pain and humiliation of dying for us.

We speak of His death on the cross, and what it means to us, to the world. But today, I am considering the dying that He did. The pain He took for me. The humiliation He paid for me. The hours He spent suspended between me and His Father, feeling every ounce of what separated us.

And then something hits my heart.

Jesus endured the scourging, the whips that tore His flesh, the crown of thorns upon His head, the great wounding of His body. He intentionally felt the nails pounded into His flesh, the burning with each breath He tried to take as He hung in mid-air. On purpose, He went through the torturous death of asphixiation, with nothing to make it less difficult, less painful. And along with the physical pain ravaging His body, He endured the emotional pain of separation from His Father. The separation that came from my sin being heaped upon Him, causing Him to cry out, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me!”

As I consider His dying, I am left weeping. Weeping and remembering. Remembering my own frailty and the great lengths to which I have gone to numb my pain.

Weeping, as I realize that Jesus went to great lengths to feel my pain.

moses is dead

“After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites.” Joshua 1:1-2

mosesMoses is dead. Their leader…the man who met with God for them, convinced Him not to kill them (a bonafide sign of a good leader, by the way), and spoke God’s words to them, was now gone. When a leader goes down, by death or any other means, things can quickly turn chaotic. People get nervous, and plans get put on hold while we figure things out. But not on this day. Moses is dead, and the plan didn’t miss a beat. God handed the reins to Joshua and said, “get ready”.

Disclaimer to the blog post:  From this point on, this post is not what I had in mind to write when I sat down at my computer. Believe me, I kept trying to take it in some other direction, any other direction, than the one it went in. But my fingers adamently disobeyed my instructions. I have come to understand that God wanted me to write it, because He wanted me to read it. Hopefully, no leaders were harmed in the making writing of this post.

So, here we go.

I’ve seen at least two ways the enemy gets at us in the area of leadership and God’s plans.

~ We get overwhelmed, thinking that we will somehow mess up God’s plan. We see our own flaws and weaknesses, and we struggle to believe we have what it takes to carry out what God wants done. Making decisions gets harder and harder, as we let fear lead us into doing nothing. We fear doing it wrong, and we fear what others will think and say about our decisions. Pleasing the majority becomes more important than pleasing the One (although we would never admit to that).

~ Or, we become prideful, thinking we are the only one who can do this thing and do it right. We won’t let anyone give us counsel, because we’re the one in charge. We forget that leadership is actually a servant position. Instead we start developing programs and projects, and eventually stop seeking God for His next step, because we have the next 10 steps already figured out. And because there isn’t anyone who can do the job the way we can, we begin to “manage” people instead of leading them. From there we easily become controlling, and the work becomes far more important than the people.

God’s plan does not depend on any one person, it depends on Him.

Moses was not perfect, but God still got His people out of Egypt. We are far too weak and flawed to be responsible for God’s plans coming to pass. And not a single one of us is indispensable. When Moses died, the plan didn’t stop. God simply chose His next leader.

Today, I am compelled to speak to leaders, as one who has been in leadership, and as one who is called to submit to leadership.

God has called you to lead, so lead. Meet with God everyday and then do what He tells you to do. Don’t be afraid to speak what God has told you to speak, regardless of whether you think it might hurt my feelings or offend me. Just speak it and let God deal with my response. Get counsel from godly people, and then make a decision. Even if the decision may turn out to be wrong, trust that God will correct it and His plan will remain intact, but for heaven’s sake…make a decision. Not everyone will like it, but make it anyway. Not everyone will like you. That’s ok. This isn’t a popularity contest. They didn’t all like Moses either, so you’re in good company.

On the other hand, God has called you to lead, but He can just as easily call someone else. Don’t abuse the authority He has given you. We are not your minions, we are God’s people. He didn’t hand you a scepter so you could rule over us, He gave you a staff and rod so you could shepherd us well. He already has a strong right arm, and it’s not you. Meet with God everyday, and then do what He tells you to do. Remember that God has a plan…so He doesn’t need yours. Speak what God tells you to speak, but bear in mind that God isn’t keen on people speaking words on His behalf that didn’t come from Him. Get counsel from godly people and then make a decision. And then be willing to admit it if your decision was wrong, and let God correct it…and you.

Being a leader isn’t easy. Neither is submitting to leadership. I don’t believe your leadership will be effective unless I do my part. That means I must honor the authority God has given to you, even if I don’t like or agree with your leadership style. I need to stop grumbling and complaining about you, and start praying for you. I have a voice and I have giftings, and I can use them to encourage you, and even to tell you when I sense something is off center. But at the end of the day, you are called to lead and I am called to submit myself to your leadership. If I do that well, your calling will be a joy and not a burden.

“Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.” Hebrews 13:17

follow the leader

 

The leaders and the led. We can both do what we’re called to do if we trust the One who is leading us both.