God – Page 8 – Karla Jo Wasion

pieces

One song played in my house all weekend. It’s called “Pieces”, sang by Steffany Gretzinger at IHOP’s One Thing 2015. These words got down deep in my soul…

“Your love’s not fractured, it’s not a troubled mind

It isn’t anxious, it’s not the restless kind

Your love’s not passive, it’s never disengaged

It’s always present, it hangs on every word we say”…

For two days this song thumped it’s beat on my heart until my heart began to respond. At first, it was just background music while I did other things, but before long…I couldn’t do other things and I couldn’t stop thinking about Him.

About this Love that I had gone back to earning. As if.Continue reading “pieces”

pearls

“Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” – Psalm 116:7

My soul gets restless. It wanders through the mundane places and the places of need and want and longing and becomes dissatisfied.

My soul gets overwhelmed. It feels the passing of time and the adventures not yet lived and all of the undone things and my soul wants more.

This morning, this scripture called out to my restless, overwhelmed soul and peace was mine again. Return to your rest, my soul. Remember His goodness to you. Remember that you are loved. Come, my soul, and consider all of the ways your Father has lavished you with love and blessings.Continue reading “pearls”

those six days

Before there was anything there He was, hovering over the darkness. Breathing holy breath while all that was not, waited to become. Waited for His command.

With His words the brush of a skilled artist He began to create. Light rushed in at the sound of His voice. Then the waters obeyed and with a surge they parted and the sky was born. He gathered them and named them seas and land came forth as it was told. With every word of His mouth that which was not came to be. And it brought Him pleasure.

He chose light to separate the darkness and scattered the skies with the stars He had named. Having touched the hand of God they still burn bright in the darkness.

And then the creatures came to be blessed by their Creator and life was in motion and He was pleased. Pleased, but not satisfied.

God bent low and in His hands took dust from the ground and formed a man in His own image. And lower still, He came face to face with the man and breathed him to life. And from the man He took a bone and made the rest of His image and now, He could rest. He had made a place for His image bearers to dwell and care for all that He had created. He would walk with them and they would know Him. He would love them and care for them and be their God.

I am endlessly fascinated by the story of creation. The power of the voice of God to call forth that which does not exist. The pleasure He took in creating. The intimacy with which He made those who bear His image. His very breath bringing man to life.

The power of the One who makes something from nothing.

But you see, He separated the darkness but He did not extinguish it. Not yet. So the liar crept out of that deepness with a lie on his lips and death and despair came with him.

Because the lie has power too.

So I think of those six days on my days when the lie has found my heart and doubt settles like ancient dust across my soul. On my nothing days when the lie is on repeat.

“You are nothing of value. You have a nothing life. Nothing you do matters. Nothing will ever change. Nothing will make this go away. There is nothing you can do about it.”

Those six days are more than a story, more than a topic for debate, more than just the beginning. They are the sword that has far greater power than the lie that pierces my faith. They speak truth to the nothing lies.

God made everything from nothing.

And that ancient dust finds no place to settle on the soul that chooses truth. It makes no difference what kind of nothing I’m facing. My God will make something of it. Something good. Something that pleases Him. And I remember that He took a woman who had nothing to offer Him and He gave her everything in exchange for her nothing. And it brought Him pleasure.

Those six days matter to me.

dearly beloved

Dearly Beloved,

I am praying for you. I don’t know why you feel the way you do. I don’t know why your mind is dark and your heart is heavy. I wish I could fix it but I can’t. I am not your healer. So today I approach the throne of grace with boldness on your behalf. Because your Healer is on that throne and He is good and He is mercy and He loves you.

Beloved, you were not made to tread water, gasping to get the air you need as you go under again. This going under and barely making it through each day is not the destiny your Father has for you. Today I pray that He will call you to walk upon the waters that are threatening to drown you. And when He calls, I pray you will stand up and walk.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Dry bones are not your portion. That valley is not your home. So today I ask for the breath of God to blow upon your soul. I ask that life would stir in your bones and in your heart. Today I declare that the thief cannot have you, for you are not his to take. You belong to God and God breathes life and not death because He is alive and has called you to life. Beloved, God Himself is your portion and He holds your future and He is good. I pray that every scheme set against the life God has called you into will be brought down by His mighty hand. Today, I call out to dry bones to come alive.

“Contend, Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me.”

As David cried out, so I cry out. Because you see, I know that your God fights for you. You don’t feel it, may not even believe it, but I know it to be true. Because you are His and your enemy is His enemy and when He arises, that enemy scatters. So I cry out for you and I ask your Father and mine to rise up on your behalf and contend for you. I pray that His presence will be felt by the darkness, and by you, setting the enemy to flight and giving you rest in your Father’s shadow.

“He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.”

Today I am asking that the Healer of hearts will heal yours. I pray that the wounds that have led you here, to this place of despair, will be exposed to the Light and covered by the healing hand of God. I pray that whatever is holding you captive would hear the voice of your Savior pronounce freedom over you today and that darkness would be compelled to release its’ hold. Because the Son of heaven was sent for you and all authority was given to Him. That leaves none for the enemy of your soul.

“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.”

So right here, before the throne of grace, I declare the truth of God. You are not defined by your feelings, but by God’s heart for you. You are chosen and you are holy and you are God’s. I pray that today you will break your partnership with the lies of the enemy that tell you anything other than what God has spoken over you. Beloved, you are not who you think you are, but who God says you are.

You were not made to despair. You were not made to feel hopeless. You were made to praise.

So today I pray that despair and hopelessness will be overcome by praise rising from the heart of His beloved. I pray that by the Spirit of God living in you, praise will erupt and lies will break and truth will overtake the darkness that hovers over your mind. Because praise is a weapon and it shuts the mouth of the liar and opens the heart of the downcast.

Dearly beloved….

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

John 10:10; Ps 35:1; Isaiah 61:1; 1Peter 2:9; Romans 15:13

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.

God in the middle east

While having no time for mundane things like dusting because my life was, quite frankly, a little out of control in the fast lane – God carved out two weeks to stop it all and go away to a place where getting the house dusted is not on anyone’s to-do list.

Beauty and pain…

The Middle East awaited me with a beauty that took me by surprise.

Everywhere I looked, I saw Him, because everywhere I looked I saw those made in His image, and I felt the pain of Love.

I felt the pain of begging for whatever man would give because there was no hope for what God longed to give her.

And I remembered that I too was once such a beggar.

The real hard…

It was hot and humid and sometimes harder than I thought it would be. The sixth floor and no elevator kind of hard that made me angry for not taking better care of myself so that I could make it to the top without fear that I would stop. breathing. Mosquito (or some other evil insect) bites that covered legs with a blistery, itching-until-I-wanted-to-cry mess kind of hard. No air conditioning and windows closed to keep out the mosquitoes so sleep is impossible kind of hard.

And then God showed me what hard really is and my heart bowed in gratitude and repentence as I realized that uncomfortable is not the same as hard.

Living can be uncomfortable, but living without the hope of Christ is the real hard.

That’s the hard place that God sends us into so that we can forget what is uncomfortable, and weep for the hard that surely must break His heart. It’s the hard ground He asks us to tread on to bring Love that softens and changes and sows and waters and pushes back darkness so that Truth takes hold.

Beloved, hard is everywhere and God is inviting us into it with Him.

High places and low places…

Twice we went to the high places in two different cities for the purpose of praying for those cities.

And there’s just something moving about taking to high ground to cry out to the God on high.

Because the heart of God is moved by the prayers of His people.

And it was in the high places praying for cities and in the low places of a refugee camp praying for destinies as I held tiny hands while I painted tiny fingernails, that God called intercession forth from a dormant place in my heart. And in that calling forth He answered a question I didn’t realize I had asked. “What is my purpose in this place, on this team?”

In high places and low places, I found my place as an intercessor as the stirrings of His Spirit moved my heart in familiar ways, renewing something I thought was gone.

While climbing to heights and bending down to touch small hands, this truth became fire in my bones…the question is not “will God answer?”, but “will I cry out?”

Thankfulness…

Our travel-weary selves, with, various pains and sickness and the uprising of flesh, worshiped Him and He spoke.

My blood is enough. My grace is sufficient. My glory is worth it.

And I was reminded again that we do not live for us but for Him and He is worth every pain of crucifying our own flesh and that in our dying, He is bringing life. And with all of this, I became thankful. Thankful that He is a God of community and that He calls us to go together, to live together, to love together, and to die to ourselves together. I found myself then, and even more so now, so very thankful for the team I was so honored to be with in this adventure. A team that loved well, honored in incredible ways, died to themselves in hard places, called each other out and up when it was needed, and allowed God to have His way. There were no fingers pointing, just hands offering to carry burdens and love covering and people pressing through hard places with tears and laughter and comfort and encouragement.

I am thankful because I saw God in His Beloved. I am thankful for blood and grace and a Glory that is worth it all.

I am thankful that He allowed me the privilege of going to the Middle East to find Him there.

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.

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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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Beauty and pain…

The real hard…

High places and low places…

Thankfulness…

My blood is enough. My grace is sufficient. My glory is worth it.

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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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