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 1: Who Is Afraid of the Men?

It started in Genesis when Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and taken to Egypt. Then God sent a famine, which brought the rest of Joseph’s family to Egypt seeking food. Tears, forgiveness, and grace all flowed freely, as did favor. Because Pharoah favored Joseph, he also showed kindness and favor to his family.

And then Joseph’s generation died, a new king came to power, and everything changed.

And this is where we can learn an important lesson.

 He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and powerful than we are. Come, let’s deal shrewdly with them; otherwise they will multiply further, and when war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.” 

Exodus 1:9-10

Oppression doesn’t always come from a desire to have more power and control. Sometimes it comes from fear. Maybe we try to hold down and control the thing (or people) we fear the most. And maybe when it works, we feel powerful, and we want more of that feeling. Maybe.

But sometimes it backfires. Egypt’s king was afraid of the large number of Israelites, so he had them oppressed and what do you know? The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied, and I wonder if that’s what happens when we try to push down and control the thing we fear. It just gets bigger.

So the fearful king tried a different strategy. He tried to control their population by killing off the boy babies, because boys become men and that was actually the fear the king was trying to hold down.

“…otherwise they will multiply further, and when war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.” 

Women didn’t go to war, men did. So the king needed to stop boys from becoming men.

And that right there is a rabbit trail I wish we had time to explore. Instead, the conspiracy theorist in me is just gonna throw out a few questions to ponder –

Why is our culture trying so hard to keep boys from becoming men? Why are they being encouraged to become girls? Why are they calling masculinity toxic and encouraging men to suppress who they were created to be? Who is afraid of men being men?

Thankfully, the midwives feared God more than they feared the king, and the plan to eliminate the growing population of boys who would become men failed.

What is your fear? How are you handling that fear? Is it working?

Do you fear God more?

As the Church, have we adopted the fear of our current culture and bought into the lie that men are bad, or toxic? God forbid. I pray that we will be the ones who fear God enough to speak the truth and who encourage men to be men. Godly men, but by all means, men.

But Some Doubted

Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had directed them. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted. Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations…

Matthew 28:16-19

Judas was gone, so they were down to eleven. Eleven would eventually become twelve when they add Matthias. All but one of these twelve men would be martyred for their faith. Only John would survive, but would be exiled to Patmos, an island inhabited by criminals and political prisoners.

But as they stood here on this mountain, looking at the man they watched die and be buried in a tomb, some of them waivered. Some of them were uncertain as to what they were seeing. Some of them wondered if it could really be true. Some doubted. And yet, Jesus commissioned them all to go and make disciples.

At some point, their doubts became faith. How can we know this? Because people don’t risk, and ultimately give, their lives for something they doubt ever took place. I mean, I wouldn’t, would you? Would you go into a place that kills Christians and share the gospel, which includes the resurrection, if you doubted it happened?

Here’s my point with all of this –the doubters weren’t disqualified.

We all doubt, at some point. We may not doubt the resurrection, but maybe we doubt when we’re told that someone was completely healed of an incurable disease. Or when someone gives a testimony of seeing a deformity become undeformed in front of them. And don’t we often waiver between doubt and belief when we hear the stories that come out of places like Mozambique of dead bodies being raised to life? We want to believe it’s true, but doubt shows up anyway.

Some of us doubt things a little closer to home. Maybe we think our church is too dead to revive. Our bank account is too low to pay our bills. Our health is too far gone to be healed. Maybe our loved one has wandered too far to be brought back or we’re too broken to be of any use to the Kingdom of God. See what I mean? We are some who doubt.

He knows our doubts just as surely as He knew the “some” of His own disciples who doubted. But like them, He commissions us anyway. Calls us to go, to make disciples, to lay down our lives. He still fills us with His Spirit and His gifts and puts us into His body in whatever way He sees fit. Our doubts do not deter Him from calling us to keep following and keep going.

If Jesus doesn’t disqualify us because of our bouts with doubt, then who are we to disqualify ourselves?

Some doubted. Some still doubt. It’s ok. Let’s tell one another, pray for one another, and then go make disciples anyway.

The Servants Knew and So Did I

The man in charge tasted the water; it had now turned into wine! He did not know where it had come from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew. 

John 2:9

The words are in here. Waiting for me to set them free in the form of coherent sentences. The words, though, are swirling around like dust in a shaft of light, mixed with the emotions of what I see in this story. And not just this one, but every where in the gospels that I look at Him. *Sigh.* I’ll do my best to herd the words into a story of sorts.

This man, the one in charge at the wedding, he thought he was just tasting good wine provided by the bridegroom. (yeah…I caught that. Did you? Jesus. Our bridegroom. New wine.) Anyway.

The servants knew all about that wine that used to be water. They had seen it, participated in it. These were the hired help. Waiters. Seen, but perhaps unnoticed by the people eating and drinking and being merry. But they saw what Jesus did and I wonder what they thought of it all. Did they want to just fall down at His feet and never get back up?

I remember when it happened to me. My daughter was a teenager. That sweet girl is now, well, edging close to 40, but let’s not get sidetracked. Back then she was young and she was running wild from her pain with people that were not good for her. That sounds kind of generic, so let me see if I can put it another way. Her friend group was not just not good for her, they were actively bad for her, destructive in so many ways. As her mother, I was wringing my little hands half to death with worry and prayers that felt like they were hitting my ceiling and bouncing off the walls. And then Jesus told me how to fill the waters jars, so to speak. But instead of water jars, I would be filling bowls.

When he took the scroll, the four living beings and the twenty-four elders fell down in front of the Lamb. Each one held a harp and gold bowls filled with pieces of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people…

Revelation 5:8

“Ask Me to remove them from her life.” (this generated not a small discussion on – a. is that legal, you know, spiritually speaking, and b. what exactly did He mean by “remove”. We worked it out.)

So right there, in that two story house, I began to fill the bowls. And two weeks later the first friend left her life. And then another, and another, until they were all gone for various reasons. But here’s the thing. My daughter didn’t know, and those friends didn’t know that there was glory all over this thing. But I knew. In that house, where I often felt like the servant that wasn’t seen, I knew where the wine had come from, and it put me at His feet never wanting to get up. As one by one He removed the danger from my daughter’s life, I knew I was seeing glory. I knew He was there and it undid me in ways I can’t describe. He knows and I know that I will never be able to thank Him enough. We both know the glory He has spilled into my life and the lives of my family and how it has all become a fire in my bones that I pray will never burn out.

Words and thoughts like dust particles, but I want to capture them for you. To say to you that there is glory all around you. Bowls being filled as you pray for something that seems too big to be answered. Ordinary water being turned into not just something better, but into the best thing. Glory that may go unnoticed by others, but you will know, because you have done what He asked of you, so you’re in on it. You’re a witness to the miracles of what He’s done, and what He’s doing. You are filling bowls with what looks like unglorious water, but oh, just wait. He will bring forth wine. The very best wine. And you will know.

Let it be a fire in your bones. Let it bring you to His feet and may you never want to get back up.

I Am Not The Anointed One

He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Christ.”

John 1:20

John the Baptist had been sent by God to be a witness, to testify of the Light, to carry a message of repentance and baptism, and to call people to turn back to God and to prepare the way for His Messiah.

But John had no Savior complex. He knew who he was, and who he was not. He was not the Christ, (anointed one).

And I thought of the people that have come in and out of my life over the years. The ones I thought I could change. Fix. Be the solution they needed. These people have included my husband, my kids, family members, friends. All the people. I wore their problems and their hurts like they were my own and in the end, they were still broken and I was exhausted.

Through a long process I am learning to do things differently. To untangle myself from things that are not mine to hold or carry. To have compassion without needing to have the answers. I still don’t do it well, which may be why God needed to give me the words I need to speak to my own soul.

I am not the anointed one. I am not the Savior.

We are His witnesses, and we carry the message of salvation through the gospel, but we are not the Christ.

We cannot save anyone. We aren’t anyone’s greatest need. We cannot fix what is broken. But if we don’t remind ourselves of who we are, and who we are not, before you know it we are neck deep in someone else’s brokenness, trying with all our might to save them, change them, or convince them.

We can invest ourselves in the lives of others, but doing it without taking on the weight of their lives requires that we know the difference between bringing them to Jesus, and trying to be Jesus for them.

I am not alone. Many of us are fixers by nature. Helpers to the core, because helping someone else, having, or being the solution to their problem, meets some kind of need in us.

We can help, but we can’t be their hope. We can walk with them, but they cannot need us more than they need Jesus. We can speak truth, but we can’t obey it for them. For their sake and ours, we have to freely make our confession:

I am not the anointed one.

Marriage Matters—Honor

In the beginning, we do things simply because we know it will make our spouse happy. We want to please them, so we listened attentively to their stories and laughed at their jokes. We cooked their favorite meals, wore that shirt they liked, and put the toilet seat down. Because in the beginning, we did things with them in mind.

But life happens and if we aren’t watchful, we stop honoring our spouse. We start doing things with us in mind instead of them. The shift can be subtle, but it packs a punch.

Kids can create another shift, because kids are consuming. They can, if you let them, take over a marriage. Life will revolve around the children to such a degree that you are no longer husband and wife, you are only mom and dad. This isn’t good for your kids or your marriage.

So, today:

Think of one thing you can do that will make your spouse happy. Clean the house before they get home. Watch the game on tv with them. Put the toilet seat down. Laugh at their joke, even if you’ve heard it a million times. Just do one thing, one thing that will honor them. One thing that will put them first. Tomorrow, rinse and repeat.

Remember the beginning. Remember the feelings you had for your spouse, and why you fell in love with them. Remembering is like blowing on an ember to bring it back to a flame. Get your spouse back on your mind.

Save some time and energy for your spouse. If your kids’ activities are consuming, then cut them back. Children need to see their parents spending time together, and having fun together, even if it means the kids don’t get to play every sport or go to every event. You are their example of marriage, so let them see that marriage is about loving your mate, putting them first, and doing things simply because it will make them happy. Let them see honor.

Repent. Go to your spouse, apologize for your part in what has happened, and commit yourself to them again. Yes, I know they’ve shifted too. I know they are just as self-consumed as you are. I know they don’t think about your happiness all that much either. But playing the ‘you-go-first’ game never ends well. Waiting for them to wake up and smell the coffee means nothing will ever change. You’re here. You’re reading this, so, tag, you’re it.

Perhaps the problems in your marriage are so overwhelming that you can’t see how any of this can help. Maybe it won’t fix everything. Maybe you’ll have to push past a lot of resentment in order to do any of it. So push. Take the small step. Because not doing it means nothing will change. In fact, not doing it means things will likely get a lot worse.

And doing it defeats what the enemy is trying to do to your marriage.

A Fascinated Heart

It was just a line in a prayer, but it has not let me be. Once I heard it, I knew it was the prayer that I had been unable to find the words to pray.

Lord, may our hearts be fascinated with You again.

Yes! Over and over again I have been saying yes and amen to that prayer. Because after much time trying to figure out what I have been missing, there it is. Fascination with Jesus.

I remember it, this fascination. Unable to get enough of Him. The complete wonder of who He is, and how He is. His heart. His ways. His overwhelming goodness. I couldn’t wait to get alone and pray. Waking up at 2 a.m. and spending an hour or more in prayer and worship, because when I was awake, I wanted to be with Him. Losing my breath everytime He answered my prayer, because it stunned me that He heard and He moved on my behalf.

My heart was head over heels fascinated with Jesus, and I didn’t care who knew it and I have been wanting that fascination back. He’s not done with me and I am most certainly not done with Him. I want Him to occupy my thoughts, to be the One my eyes continually search out. I want to stand back and watch Him at work and feel the smallness that comes from seeing His greatness. I want to look back and look around and look up and see Him in all the places I couldn’t see Him before, and let it flat out overwhelm my heart. I want to look at what He’s done that only He could have possibly done, and whisper “I see You, Lord, I see You.” And then I want to cry at what I’ve seen.

I want my heart and mind to be absolutely distracted by Jesus, and nothing else. Like the woman who broke the alabaster jar at His feet, undistracted by the stares and thoughts of those around her. Like John, who remained at the cross when all of his friends left. Like Mary, who sat at His feet, unmoved by the accusation of Martha.

It was a line in a prayer, spoken by a conference speaker who had no idea that God was about to use his prayer as oxygen on an ember. And isn’t it just like God to only need a few words to rekindle a heart? To make a woman in her 60’s fascinated with Him again? 

Yes, it is exactly like Him to do such a thing!

So here I am Jesus. Choosing You again and again. Longing for Your presence, staring in wonder at who You are, breathless again that You have answered a prayer that I didn’t know how to pray.

You can have all this world, just give me Jesus.

Marriage Matters—Remember

It’s so easy to forget. When the warm glow of “just married” turns into the “iron sharpens iron” of everyday life together, we forget two important truths about our spouse.

They’re human…

Weak. Broken. Flawed. Perhaps still carrying wounds from a less than ideal childhood. Prone to doing what they know better than to do. Sometimes (maybe more times than just sometimes) they are self-centered and self-serving. They walk in pride, or maybe it’s shame. They have bondages yet to be broken. They don’t always play nice with others.

Basically, they’re just like us, and God remembers that.

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him; for He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust.” Psalm 103:13-14

Who they really are…

In the heat of a moment of stress and frustration, it’s easy to forget who we are really married to.

We forget they were created in the image of God and He loves them completely. If they are saved, then we are married to a new creation in Christ, still being sanctified. If not, then they are someone God desires to draw near, someone He wants.

To us, they may be the person who is making life difficult or at least driving us crazy with frustration.

But to God, they are the reason He gave His Son up to crucifixion.

Don’t forget to remember. Take a step back. Show mercy. It can make a difference.