Blog – Page 27 – Karla Jo Wasion

the way love moves

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.

{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.}

“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.

And 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.

bringing down an idol

It came unexpectedly, as it often does. She was praying a prayer of repentance for her idolatry. I was agreeing with her turning away when suddenly her voice faded and I was hearing God. And now, days later, I am still hearing Him and He is not speaking of her and her idolatry but of me and mine.

It began with a picture and the story of a king who demanded a bow. (Daniel, chapter 3)

“Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.”

” Therefore, as soon as they heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp and all kinds of music, all the nations and peoples of every language fell down and worshiped the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.”

And in the midst of someone else’s prayer, God spoke to me. “They did not bow because of what they could gain, they bowed to avoid the consequences of not bowing. Fear, not the statue, was their idol.”

And the story was but a shadow of things to come. A shadow of the things God’s people would find themselves facing, and the fear that would compel them to bow. A shadow of the enemy that would speak to our deepest fears with the lie that bowing would keep us safe from those fears.

And they are everywhere, these fears. I see them in me and I see them in you.

Being alone Poverty Rejection Death Pain Going without A lack of comfort

Being known and not being known Loss of control Being controlled Disappointment

These are the fiery furnace that threatens us.

And so we bow.

And we call our idols by the names that are most familiar. Substances, marriage, people, money, plans, fame, isolation. We name them and determine to bring them down, to render them powerless in our lives.

And still, we bow. And the guilt and shame just about does us in.

But I have heard the voice of God, and my heart has been bruised by Truth.

“Beloved, it is easy enough for my people to shout about how I am their deliverer. The words ‘God will’ come forth quickly, almost mechanically, and with much bravado. And yet, my people still bow.”

“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and He will deliver us from your majesty’s hand.”

“My child, stop shouting at your idol about how your God will deliver you. The idol of fear does not fall with those words. It will fall with these:”

“But even if He does not, we want you to know, your majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

Those words. Those are the ones that stick in the throat and reveal the truth of our devotion. And in this revelation, I am connecting the God dots, following the trail He has been leaving for me. Tracing bread crumbs back through everything I’ve written and finding the treasure of His love for me. And now here I am and His words are painfully sweet and crushingly beautiful, once again.

“I did not hang on a cross so that I could get something from you, but so that I could be with you. My devotion to you has never been about your performance, but about who you are.”

And I know what He is asking me with these words.

Are you devoted to Me because you believe I will perform for you, or because of who I am?

He has pursued me over and over again, into this place of surrender. He has loved me beyond reason. And bread crumb by bread crumb He has led me to the knowledge that He will love me and pursue me and act in absolute devotion to me…even if. Even if I bow to fear and run away, He will pray that my faith will not fail. Even if I head off to wallow in the pigpen until I want to come home, He will wait and watch and run to me. His kindness toward me has left me shaken so many times. I have given Him every reason to turn away, to wash His hands of me, but He has remained. And I weep with the knowledge that it was not Him performing for me, but Him being who He is. I weep because I just don’t get it and I don’t think I ever will. I weep because His devotion to me is unmerited and I can’t get away from that truth. I weep because I have spoken words of faith and then bowed to the idol of fear too many times to count.

I weep because I’m tired of bowing.

I’ve read the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego many times, and every time was struck by the fact that Jesus was in the fire with them. I loved how they came out of the furnace without even the smell of smoke on them. I cheered at their deliverance. But the trail God has left for me leads me not to their deliverance, but to their devotion. In His love, He has led me to what brings down an idol.

Even if.

It is not a white-knuckled performance. It is facing the consequence of not bowing, feeling the heat of the fire, and being devoted enough to God to say “even if I have to go through that fire, I will not bow”. That will bring down our idol. That’s when we will know that we have put nothing above God.

Father, I pray for deeper devotion. Take hold of my heart and sift it again and again until all that remains is wholly devoted to You. Strengthen me with a devotion that will refuse to bow, no matter what fire threatens me. Lead me always to the cross and may there, and only there, be the place that I bow my life until I am bowing before Your throne.

Oh, but deeper in me is something else, almost a shadow it’s so vague. But it’s there and I am compelled to give it my voice.

Beloved, there are days of another Nebuchadnezzar swiftly coming to us. In those days, it will not be her determination to perform, but her pure devotion, that will keep His Bride from bowing. When Jesus told Peter he (and the others) would be sifted (Luke 22), Peter spoke these words – words that sound like devotion:

“Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”

But he bowed to the idol of fear, and he suffered the grief and sorrow of that bowing. The sifting revealed the limits of Peter’s devotion, and when he turned back, he turned with a devotion that strengthens us today.

And so I speak to all of us, to His Church, may we not simply utter words that sound like devotion, as we continue to bow to the idol of fear. May we allow a sifting to reveal the limits of our devotion so that we can know the sorrow of our bowing, repent, receive His forgiveness, and go into the days ahead refusing to bow to any but God.

bad tap dancer

“Will God be mad at me if I…”? She was being pressured to convert to another religion to please the man who says he loves her. As I waited for the oil change I had come there for, she sat on the floor, waiting for her own car to get whatever it came there to get. She listened to me and my friend talking to each other about Jesus and then timidly asked her question. I could feel my heart breaking.

Or maybe that’s what God’s heart feels like when it breaks.

So we moved from our chairs to sit down on the floor next to her. As the story came out of parents pushing her to find a husband online and a man she’s never met from another country who promises love and marriage, she assured us that Jesus is her Savior and that would never change, it would just be to appease the man’s family. But she kept coming back to her question. “Will God be mad at me?”.

I wish I could say that I told her all that her heart really wanted to know in those few moments, but I didn’t. Truth was spoken, we prayed for her and invited her to church and then the oil was changed and our car was waiting. Just a few minutes of time with a woman with a question. And I wondered if hearing that God loves her and has so much more for her than what she wants to settle for would be enough to change anything for her.

But I think that encounter on the floor wasn’t so that I could give a woman the answer that would change her life. It was so that I could recognize the question that has haunted my own heart and that led to God’s purpose for me this past year.

“Is God mad at me?”

Beginning last August, this year brought a sifting, which brought that question to the surface, revealing what I believed about God after 25 years of walking with Him.

Because the lie that always answered my question was “Yes”.

And I feel like a newborn calf, trying to walk out of a lie and into truth. It’s awkward, and I fall down a lot but one baby step at a time my legs are getting stronger.

Soon I will run and not look back.

I will leave behind me the lie that I am the child of an angry God…

…a God who loves me if I act right but who will turn away from me if I sin.

Left in the dust of my feet will be the constant weight of feeling that I have disappointed God and must perform well to gain His approval again, only to lose it the next time I step out of line.

But I am not running yet. I’m still stumbling,trying to get my footing in this place of grace.

Still tap dancing for God, trying to earn His favor and love by performing well.

And in the dancing and turning and circling and walking on wobbly legs, I am learning and God is teaching and fresh truth is filling my lungs and I am taking real breaths for the first time.

God’s love for me is wide and deep and it doesn’t move. His affections are for me, all the time, and He always wants to be with me. He knows me better than I know me and still loves me and wants me and calls me His own.

I am my Father’s child and my Father’s heart is good. His love and affections are mine forever and nothing will change that truth. He sent His Son to die in my place because He wanted me to be with Him. His desire is not that I tap dance for Him, but that I trust Him with my whole heart.

And I am breathing deep this revelation of love that silences questions and the sounds of tap shoes.

Trusting God is an endless journey through the heart, I am finding. I did trust Him. I do trust Him. In many ways, for many things. But with the sifting, has come new revelation. Revelation that everything is an issue of trust.

Because Adam and Eve did not trust God’s goodness and that has passed into the hearts of all of mankind.

The root of sin is a lack of trust in God. Unbelief.

God allowed my heart to be sifted to separate out the unbelief that was keeping me from abundant life. To reveal that although I knew He loved me, I didn’t really trust His love to stay put even on my worst days, when I couldn’t tap dance to save my life.

And that is God’s point to this story. Tap dancing didn’t save my life in the first place. Love saved my life. Dying saved my life. His love, His dying.

He died because He loved me in the midst of my sin. He died because I couldn’t tap dance my way to Him and He wanted me then and He still wants me now and the desire of His heart is that I would trust that truth.

And to finally realize that I can’t dance anyway.

on my way to unearthly things

“As Jesus was on His way, the crowds almost crushed Him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her.” Luke 8:42-43

He was on His way and I think of how often I am on my way. He stopped and I think of the times I haven’t. And then I’m not reading anymore, I’m thinking and then I’m pacing because I don’t like these thoughts but He is the one bringing them up and you can’t stop Him. You just can’t. Like a dog on a bone, He is relentless.

It’s a small house and I quickly run out of rooms to go in and back out again. When there is no way out from under His gaze the pacing stops and I let Him teach my heart what it needs to learn. Because as much as I want to run (pace) away from seeing what is about to be exposed, I want to be like Him.

Life as a Jesus follower can’t be lived on my way to something else.

He was on His way but He stopped for that one. That needy one who was looking to get something from Him. The beggar with her hand out to grab onto hope. Living like Him means stopping like Him. Stopping for the one in front of me. The one desperate for something I have.

But I’m always on my way. Work, class, errands and a life that can’t wait. Sometimes I’m just on my way to the couch because I’m tired from being on my way all day. And true to form I try to argue my point with God. Life is busy and my plate is so full and there are just some things, things that aren’t a couch, that can’t wait while I stop. Important things.

Lesson: Don’t sit down at the table with God no matter how good you can shuffle. He will always have the trump card.

“I was on My way to raise the dead.”

I want to be like Him. I want to follow Him where ever He goes, because I just can’t live without Him. I want to run my race slow enough to stop when He stops for the one in front of me. I want to see the needy, the hungry, the desperate ones that are on my way to somewhere else.

I sat down to spend time in His Word and I ended up with the thoughts on this page. Thoughts that I need to slow down, take notice. And then I laugh right here and now as I realize what God was really after. This one final thought that sinks in past my mind and into my heart.

I want to be on my way to raise the dead.

I don’t want to be on my way to work anymore. I want to be on my way to speak life to someone at my workplace. I don’t want to be rushing to get to class, I want to be on my way to speak encouraging words to someone in that class who needs to hear them.

I can stop going to the grocery store to buy groceries and be on my way there to tell the weary woman in the check-out line that Jesus loves her and has strength for her.

And now I find myself not pacing but clinging once again to His feet making a mess with my tears. He always goes so deep when He encounters us, you know? He didn’t show up in my bible reading moments just to tell me to slow down and pay attention.

He showed up to teach me that while He was on this earth, He was always on His way to something unearthly. And to invite me to follow Him while I’m on my way.

i have to stop drinking

It was an off-handed comment, really. She and I were discussing God things, and “love your neighbor” came up. Without thinking I added “as yourself” and I saw a look pass across her face and I knew, so I said it. Looking into her eyes, I said: “you haven’t loved yourself, have you?”. And we both began to cry. Since then I can’t stop thinking about it, those words Jesus said… “love your neighbor as yourself“.

agapaō

“to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly”

Because what was true for the woman across from me, is true of me. Neither of us has loved ourselves well…I was just better at hiding it.

But we both live in a world that drinks down self-loathing that goes deep into hidden places.

So she and I are not alone but it is my story here on this page and I tell it in the hopes that we can all stop drinking what is killing us. Because God doesn’t let things hide forever, you know. He is light and those hidden things can run but, well, you know the rest. And when what is hidden is hit by light it can take our breath away with this realization…

If I loved my neighbor as I love myself, I would find their every flaw and never let them forget them. I would remind them of them every. single. day.

I would not be kind… to their bodies or their emotions. I would call them names. Not truth names, but lie names. Instead of “beloved, chosen and forgiven”, I would call them “unworthy, messed up, and incapable of going one stinking day without stepping in sin.”

I would make them work harder and harder to try to get it right, and every day I would judge them for getting it wrong.

I would berate them for not being better. I would compare them to others, and they would always come up short. And sometimes I would wish they were someone else.

But now that light has shot into deep places, what was hidden in the dark squirms in discomfort. I can no longer be comfortable telling someone else they are worth loving if I cannot say it to me.

And right there God draws His bottom line in my sand of self-hatred and unworthy thinking. And if I am to step across the line, I must be willing to speak truth to me before I can speak it to you.

I am worth loving because God loves me and He does no unworthy thing.

He is good to me. He is kind to me. He is oh so merciful to me, and gives grace in abundance. He does not finger point but lovingly corrects me. He delights in me, sings over me and surrounds me with Himself. I was forgiven, I am forgiven, I will be forgiven because the blood of Christ leaves a stain sin cannot wipe away. I am called to imitate my gloriously good Father, and live a life of love and that means loving and not hating me. It means calling myself names that are true and not lies, treating me kindly both body and soul, giving me grace when I fail, taking His correction and refusing my condemnation. It means looking past all that I am not and seeing ahead to all that He has destined me to be.

It means I have to stop drinking what is killing me.

i have to leave

“Come, follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

That line makes it sound so easy, like all they left was nets. But I know better. We who have done some leaving to follow Jesus, we know.

I know they didn’t just leave behind their fishing gear, but their way of life. I know, because the call from Jesus for me to follow Him wasn’t just to leave drugs, but to leave a life of drugs. And then it went deeper still. Following Him meant leaving a life of numbing my pain. A life of seeking my own comfort. None of that leaving was easy, but all of that leaving was worth it.

But there are some nets that are harder to leave than others and I find myself wishing and waiting for Him to just take the stupid nets because then I could leave. Then I could follow.

As much as I want Him to just take this pride away from me, to relieve me of the burden of carrying around my selfishness and desire to have things my own way…I am going to have to face the truth.

Jesus didn’t take their nets and He won’t take mine.

And I remember the last time I had this conversation with Him. Feeling like I just couldn’t keep going and wondering why following Him was so backbreaking hard. Finally getting brave enough to tell Him that it was just too hard. I didn’t get shamed by Him. He didn’t turn away from me. He just spoke hard truth.

“It’s hard because you’ve tried to follow without leaving.”

Following Jesus means we have to leave something. Every. Time.

Two years ago I, along with my husband, left our home, our church and our friends to follow Jesus to someplace we’d never been. I left the comfort and security of earning a living doing what I know, to go into full-time ministry doing what I’d never done. Leaving those nets was scary hard but I’ve never regretted leaving them.

Another year is coming to a close and I’m looking forward to what is coming, but I am also looking at what needs to be left behind so that I can follow Him into a new year. What are the nets I’ve held onto, continuing to cast them out to try to meet my own needs? What self-comforting, self-centered, self-sustaining ways do I need to walk away from so that I can walk in His ways?

I want to leave these insecurities that keep me from following with my head up and not down.

This comfort zone living keeps me from new places of trust.

Old ways and habits that smell like death keep me from following Him into the fullness of life.

{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.}

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

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

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And so we bow.

Even if.

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agapaō

But we both live in a world that drinks down self-loathing that goes deep into hidden places.

If I loved my neighbor as I love myself, I would find their every flaw and never let them forget them. I would remind them of them every. single. day.

I am worth loving because God loves me and He does no unworthy thing.

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