Author Archives: Karla Jo Wasion

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

Exodus 6: We Are the Messenger, Not the Message

But the Lord replied to Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: because of a strong hand he will let them go, and because of a strong hand he will drive them from his land.”

God’s first words in this chapter are in response to Moses’ last words in the previous chapter – “…why have You brought trouble upon this people… You have not rescued Your people at all.”

God sent Moses to Pharaoh with a message, and the message didn’t work. In fact, it made things worse. At least that’s what it looked like from Moses’ vantage point, and it caused him to despair. Moses didn’t know that his assignment was never intended to be the solution, it was only meant to prepare the way. Moses was not the message. In other words, it was never going to be Moses who changed the heart of the king and freed God’s people.

I wonder if someone needed to hear that today. What you perceive as failure on your part, may simply be a misunderstanding of the mission.

Moses brought the message of God to Pharoah, but what was going to move the ruler was the power of God. And yet… I still don’t think that’s the full perspective of this chapter, and here’s why. God could have simply brought a deadly plague on every Egyptian, leaving the Israelites free to walk away from their bondage. He could have, with a thought, wiped out their oppressors, if their freedom was the primary goal. But it wasn’t, and we know that because of the next message God gave Moses to take, not to Pharaoh, but to the Hebrew slaves.

Therefore tell the Israelites: I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians and rescue you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment. I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians.” 

You will know that I am the Lord your God.

I will dare to say that Moses being sent to Pharoah wasn’t about Moses, or even about the oppressed or the oppressor. It was about God being known.

There would be no misunderstanding as to how the Hebrews were rescued from their slavery. No way to chalk it up to good fortune or coincidence, and certainly no way they could ever think that they freed themselves. Everyone involved in this story would know one indisputable fact – God had done this. Not a god, but the God.

You and I, as Christ followers, are in the service of our God, but let us never mistake our assignment to be the solution. Sometimes we will deliver the message, maybe even raise our staff over the water, but it will always be the power of God that parts the sea, turns a heart, heals a disease, or sets someone free – so that they will know that He is the Lord. May we never allow our limited perspective to make any of this about us.

May we (the Church) stop endeavoring to be known. Stop making it about our great preaching, great worship, and great ministries. The number of seats filled and the number of people following us is meaningless as long as it remains about us.

I pray the Church shifts her gaze, and the quest of her heart becomes to simply make Him known.

Because we are the messenger, not the message.

I pray that my gaze shifts off of me – my failures and successes, my not enough or too much, my abilities or inabilities, my have or have not, my following or the lack thereof.

I pray that the quest of my heart becomes to make Him known, even if (when) it means that I am unknown.

Because I am the messenger, not the message.

40 days of truth: day 26—The Enemy Will Try To Call Me Away

“So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing important work and cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you?” Four times they sent me the same proposal, and I gave them the same reply.

Nehemiah 6:3-4

Quick review: Nehemiah was a Hebrew living in Persia, and received permission from the king to return to Jerusalem to rebuild her wall. This work was opposed by the Samaritans, under the leadership of a man named Sanballat. In today’s verses, Sanballat sent messengers four times to get Nehemiah to meet him outside of Jerusalem. But Nehemiah knew it for what it was – an attempt to not just harm him, but to stop the work.

Lord, open our eyes to see the scheming of our enemy!

  • Prayer
  • Fasting
  • Giving
  • Discipleship
  • Serving
  • Evangelism
  • Meditating on His Word
  • Forgiving others, bearing burdens, encouraging others

Just some of the work of the Kingdom that the enemy schemes to call us away from, using apathy, busy-ness, fear, disappointment, guilt, offense, and all manner of such things.

I can search my pockets and find plenty of excuses. My plate is too full as it is. I’m worn out. I’m an introvert (my go to for most things that involve other people). It’s not my gifting. I’m not called to that. I feel inadequate. Seriously, my pockets are quite full.

But I need to know truth so that I can walk in truth.

There is an enemy who is always trying to call me away from the work of the Kingdom.

But on a practical note, walking in this truth will take discernment, and an ear that hears the voice of God. Because I need to know whether it is the enemy calling me away from the work, or, if God is saying “that is not the work I have for you to do right now.”

So I pray for you and for me, that the whisper of God will be louder than the shouts of the enemy.

40 days of truth: day 25—He Came for the Broken Me

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick… For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” 

Matthew 9:12-13

For the Sick. For the Unclean. For the Lost.

I wasn’t ready. Before He came to rescue me, people did their best to get me to come to Him, but I was never quite ready. For some reason I thought I needed to clean up my life first. Ha. As though.

I could have scrubbed for a decade and still would not have been clean enough to stand in the presence of God.

Only blood can make us clean and only one blood at that. The blood of Jesus has more power to cleanse us than 10,000 years of doing good things ever could.

He came for me because I was not righteous. Because I was sin-stained through and through, sick as a dog from my guilt and shame. He came for me because I had no way out on my own.

He saw me. Had compassion on me. Loved my whole broken self.

He didn’t come for the good girl I thought I needed to be. He didn’t come for the girl that dressed right and talked right and knew how to behave herself.

He came for the broken me.

And He still comes for me and this is the truth I need with every sunrise. He has cleansed me and He is cleansing me. He has forgiven me and He is still forgiving me. He has freed me and He is still freeing me.

Because He still loves me. He still chooses me. He still has compassion for me.

And for you.

From Have to Have Not

I have a cute house. Nothing fancy, but a very decent house in a very decent neighborhood. Know what I don’t have? Nice carpet.

I have a cute truck. I’d been wanting one for years and now I have one and I love it to death. But it doesn’t have the back up screen, so I have to twist myself around to see what’s behind me when I’m backing up.

I’m kind of smart, but I don’t have a degree. I’m a writer, but I’m not published (yet). I’m fearfully and wonderfully made, but I’m not very tall, or thin, or…

Do you see my problem? My haves always lead to my have nots. But I’m not the first.

Genesis. First chapters. God made everything, called it good, gave it all to the man and the woman, which He had also created. He told them they could have it all, gave them dominion and told them to make lots of babies (be fruitful and multiply – same thing). To everything, He said yes, except for one thing. One tree.

And then chapter three happened. The devil came, as the devil always does. Here is that conversation –

“He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’” “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”

First, he asked a question that was a lie. God never said they couldn’t eat from any tree, He said they couldn’t eat from one tree. So he drew the woman into the conversation by giving her something to correct.

Then, he contradicted God and made Him out to be a liar, planting the seed that He was withholding from her.

And finally, she saw the tree as something it was not – good for her. It took one conversation with the enemy to convince her that something deadly was something good (and boy ain’t that a sermon for another day). And in all of this, I see one important thing that relates to this conversation we’re having today.

The devil shifted the woman’s focus from her have, to her have not. From God, to herself. And he has never changed his methods, because why change what works?

So now I’m trying to take my focus back. To enter my home with a thankful heart rather than a critical eye. To look around in wonder at the many ways God has blessed me and refuse to believe He has held back from me anything that is good. To trust that if He hasn’t given me something, then it would not be good for me to have it. I’m trying to shift my gaze off of me and back to Him because that is how I will see the goodness of God in the land of the living. By actually seeing His goodness, instead of seeing what I don’t have.

Who we are, what we have been given, it is abundantly good, until the enemy is able to shift our focus from have to have not.

Don’t let him do that. Fight back. Be thankful. Trust His goodness.

The Narrowing

It was subtle, so I didn’t notice it at first. And then one day I looked around and realized that most of the things I wanted when I was much younger, I no longer want. But it goes deeper than that.

I was having breakfast with a friend recently and she asked me what I’m looking for in community. I told her that I had come to a place of wanting to be around people who just want to talk about Jesus, that not much else interests me, and I wasn’t sure why. She nodded in understanding and dubbed it “a narrowing” and that term just felt so perfect. A narrowing.

When I was in my young decades – 20’s, 30’s and 40’s, the space of my life was filled with oh so many things. Family and work. Fears and pain and wants and dreams, and a past I was trying to outrun. At the far end of my 20’s, Jesus moved into that tattered, crowded space, and I had no idea of the narrowing that had begun and now, three and half decades later, I see it, and it is a joy to behold.

My narrowing is still in motion, and it’s painful at times, but man do I find it to be beautiful. I wish for a narrowing for us all. Instead of the wideness of everything this life has to offer, I want us to find life in the narrow space of the one thing, and to feel utterly satisfied in that space.

“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple.” Psalm 27:4

It is the space of His presence, where the need for company narrows to just the One, and the desire to be with Him eclipses every other desire.

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” He said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” Mark 10:21

It is the culling of our idols. Letting go of the one thing most of us lack—the giving of it all, especially that which is most dear. The ability to lay down what we have held so close. Everything that gives us our sense of security, or allows us to feel in control. What provides our comfort and gives us value. It is a painfully necessary narrowing, this one.

“The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41-42

When the many things get crowded out by the one thing. In this narrow space, we find the value of being, over doing and we finally understand that doing must flow from being, or it will wear us out.

 He answered, “Whether or not he’s a sinner, I don’t know. One thing I do know: I was blind, and now I can see!” John 9:25

My thirst to know the ins and the outs and the greek and the hebrew and the what the when and the where has been narrowed to one thing. I was blind and now I see and I want to know the God who did that. This has been the continual, sweetest, narrowing for me – the pursuit of the heart of my Father, who pursued my heart first.

Sometimes I still strain to make space for other things, only to find that those things do nothing to satisfy the true longing in my soul. So I pray for the narrowing to continue in me. And I pray it for you.

May you find that God has been narrowing your life in all the best, even painful, but beautiful ways.

The Weight of a Life That’s Not Mine

Life gets heavy when it becomes about you.

It was a Holy Spirit whisper that won’t go away, so I know I need to talk about it, because I think there’s a lot of heaviness going on.

I remember how life felt so many years ago. Like I was perpetually bent over from the weight of what I carried, and what I carried was my imploding life with a marriage that was in pieces, and chidren that were hurting. What it was and what it wasn’t. What I wanted, felt I needed, thought I should have, deserved. Why was I here, was I good enough, was I doing it right, did I ruin everything.

I was strong, but not that strong, and eventually I ran out of stubborn. So I quit. Threw in a towel and said no more. I fell under the weight of a life that was mostly about me, and God caught me in a fire that my flesh sorely needed.

I came out of that fire knowing one thing more than anything else: Every inch of my life is from Him, to Him, and for Him. Everything is about Him.

It’s hard though. Seeing everything through a lens that isn’t focused on us takes getting used to, but it is the road to freedom. When our lives are our own, with that comes the stress of doing it right. Comparison. Being enough. The fear of failing. The pressure of succeeding and of living a life of purpose and leaving our mark and pretty quickly we are bent over with the weight of a life that isn’t even ours.

I’ll (maybe) end with this question: Is it possible that at least some of the high levels of anxiety and depression that we are experiencing might be caused by the weight of lives that are mostly about us?

Oddly enough, there is great freedom and healing in the untangling of ourselves from our lives, averting our eyes from the mirror, and letting Him be the main character in our story.

Questions to start asking:

God, what do You want? What will bring You glory? What are You doing in this place, at this time, and how can I obey You here? How can I cooperate with what You want to do in me, with me, and through me in this season?

Where has my life become my own and how do lay it down again?

Exodus 5: Their Story Is My Story

I can see it so much clearer from here than from where I was when I first started inching my way toward God. Life got harder. The rope I was holding onto started slipping through my hand a little faster. Hope got smaller and despair got bigger. And from here, 35 years down the road, I can see that it was what both God and the enemy wanted, but for different reasons. I think the enemy saw God coming and wasn’t about to let me go without a fight. And I think God wanted me to come to the end of myself, to see that I just couldn’t keep living my life on my terms, because my terms were destroying me.

When God began His movement toward delivering the Israelites from their oppression, life got much harder for them. The demand given to Pharaoh to let them go into the wilderness so they could worship God served only to rouse his anger.

That day Pharaoh commanded the overseers of the people as well as their foremen,  “Don’t continue to supply the people with straw for making bricks, as before. They must go and gather straw for themselves. But require the same quota of bricks from them as they were making before; do not reduce it. For they are slackers—that is why they are crying out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ Make the work harder for the people so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies.” (Exodus 5:6-9)

And so it had begun. God was moving and the grip of oppression tightened. The only word I can think of to describe my very first reading of the book of Exodus is stunned. I was seeing my spiritual rescue story in the shadow of their physical rescue, and I think I fell in love with the Old Testament right there, as I wept.

Once Pharaoh made the work harder, the Israelites did what we all do. They blamed and complained. Who could expect any different from them? It’s part of our frailty, don’t you think? To want someone to be accountable for our suffering. To rage at something or someone for the pain we’re in.

They didn’t know that their Deliverer was coming for them. They didn’t know that He was about to do things they could not have imagined. God was doing a glorious thing, but it couldn’t be seen from this side of the veil, from this side of hard things that just got harder.

So Moses went back to the Lord and asked, “Lord, why have you caused trouble for this people? And why did you ever send me? Ever since I went in to Pharaoh to speak in your name he has caused trouble for this people, and you haven’t rescued your people at all.” (Exodus 5:22-23)

Right here is a good place to release a good word to someone who needs to hear it –

You can’t measure God’s faithfulness by whether or not He moves at the pace you set for Him to move.

When we trust God, our reality is this: If He said He will do it, He will do it.

What I have said, that I will bring about;
    what I have planned, that I will do. (Isaiah 46:11)

He does not change. He is still the faithful God who rescues us from an enemy who does not want to let us go.