All posts by Kari

It was Sunday morning and we were having a little family worship gathering since our regular church service had been cancelled due to ice. I was already thoroughly agitated, feeling like it was wholly unnecessary to have cancelled corporate worship. The temps were rising, snow was melting, and I couldn’t help thinking of faithful believers all over the world who travel through far more treacherous and dangerous conditions in order to gather together. Why were we such wimps?

Please understand: I wasn’t pointing fingers. What bothered me was me. What bothered me was that I was willing to risk my neck in order to go wherever I wanted, but I was all-too-willing to cancel plans that didn’t directly serve me. I was eager to spend money on self-serving purchases, but felt livid when our power bill doubled or when an unexpected medical expense caught me off guard. Wasn’t I grateful for HEAT? For MEDICAL CARE?

I couldn’t quite articulate why I was so sad, but the whole morning just felt off. Then Heidi, sitting on my lap, opened her Bible at “random” and started reading aloud, completely unprompted. She just happened to read Ezra 9:5-15 and I could barely believe my ears.

This is the passage where Ezra discovers that the returned Jewish exiles “have not separated themselves from the people of the lands with their abominations.” That is, they were inter-marrying with the ungodly inhabitants of the land, even though God had clearly forbidden them.

Ezra’s response reflected how I felt.

“As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloack and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled … and fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the LORD my God.”

Ezra then goes on to pray, to repent on behalf of all the people who have mixed-in with the world, and asks God for wisdom on how to proceed, how to make it right.

The answer is one of the hardest, I believe, in all of Scripture.

The people of Israel had to go through, person by person, and make right the wrong they had done. The men who had intermarried had to separate from their foreign wives. Now this might seem harsh to us, or even bizarre, but this serves as a picture to us that God does not take worldliness lightly. He doesn’t just shrug His shoulders and say,

“Oh sure, why not. You can just do your own thing.” No. He says, “I have a better way for you. I want you for myself. If you have intermingled with the world, if you have “married” the customs and ways of this world, you need to go back and painstakingly separate again.”

Honestly, this story makes me uncomfortable. It took three months for the entire process of re-separating, and I cannot imagine the sound of weeping, the hurt and pain and disappointment and anguish that took place. Innocent children were probably devastated. Women were probably left destitute. And we are so quick to blame God and say, “How could you make their consequences so harsh? Don’t you care?”

Yes, He does. That’s why He gave them the prohibition in the first place. That’s why He said,

“Don’t go the way of the world. Don’t marry it. Don’t fall in love with it. It will only lead to unimaginable heartache in the end. Your family will suffer. Your loved ones will suffer. Please, my beloved child. Obey me.”

I knew, as we read those words, that God was highlighting areas of my own heart. Where I had let myself love the world. That’s why I was agitated. Something needed to be made right.

Something inside needed to be fixed. 

Just then our housemate, Michael, stuck his head in the door,

“Jeff! You’ve got a broken pipe in the garage!”

Oh no. We raced downstairs, and there it was spraying like a hose through the drywall and into our (converted) garage, soaking the couch and carpet. (Yes, we had kept the faucets running, but apparently the freeze from earlier in the week had weakened the pipe, and then it finally broke.)

Thankfully, the guys got the water off, the drywall torn out, and quickly found that the broken spot was small and easily repairable. (Grace!) But still, it would take time, money, work.

Fixing broken things always does. 

Jeff took off for Home Depot, and I came back upstairs, curled up under the quilt, and knew exactly what my next RESOLVE would be: Spirit-guided introspection to see where brokenness had caused an inter-marriage with the world. Then, painstaking re-separation from whatever wasn’t God’s way.

{I understand this isn’t the most exhilarating resolution out there. But our Father loves us so much He can’t let us go a way that will lead to heartache in the end. Let’s resolve to let Him show us what’s broken, and commit to making it right, by His strength, no matter what time, money, or work it may take. It will be worth it. Thanks for reading.}

What habits have WORKED? This is the question I was considering last week, as I both reflected on the past and gazed ahead into the future. Even as we considered our own personal failures (and learned from them) we are also wise to consider what has really worked for us, and why. This will powerfully inform our future decisions.

For me personally, there are three (simple!) daily habits I wish every person had. They are not impressive. You will not be wowed when you read them. But they are the 3 daily habits that have most helped me lead a simple, disciplined, healthy life that frees me up to flourish, love, serve, and give my time and attention to what matters most in life. Here they are:

• Read the Word and pray.

  The one simple habit that will truly transform your life, is simply spending time in God’s Word every day. Please.  I’m just starting my 19th time through the Scriptures, and every year there’s something new. Every year things make a bit more sense. Every year I can see the Story of God a bit clearer. Every year He speaks new life into my soul and brings fresh conviction and clearer guidance. I wrote more here about a RETURN to God’s Word. 

Many people ask me, “How do you read the Bible?” There’s no right or wrong way, but I suggest a simple 3-step process of thinking through:

–> What does this SAY? (Think or write, in your own words, what the passage is about.)

–> What does this MEAN? (What seems to be the spirit or essence of this passage? Why do you think the author wants you to know this? Why are certain details included? What is the purpose or intent of this passage being recorded for us?)

–> How will I RESPOND? (Simply praying Scripture, asking applicational questions (i.e. “Like Abraham/Sarah with Hagar, How am I tempted to get God’s promises in my own schemes? How am I tempted to use people to get my own way? Where am I doubting God’s provision?) and asking the Holy Spirit to bring specific conviction on how He wants you to obey or respond to the passage.

Again, there are lots of apps and plans and gadgets and things for helping you along the way. I’m a simple girl, so I just do 3/1. 3 chapters Old Testament, 1 chapter New Testament. All you need is 2 bookmarks and you’re good to go! If you do that you’ll finish by the end of October/early November, so that gives you a little wiggle room for those days you inevitably miss. I highly recommend the simple 3/1 plan!

• When hungry, eat whole food.

  This one is two-fold. I realize I’m treading on sensitive ground here so please hear my  heart: Most of our nation’s weight issues could be resolved if we only ate when we were hungry. I know that sounds obvious, but I know from past experience that many of us don’t even know what waiting for true hunger feels like. We eat when we feel like it, when it’s “mealtime,” and often obsess over what we eat without giving much to whether or not we even need to eat at all!

True hunger is very clear. It isn’t the same as craving. It is a burning, empty feeling with an accompanying rumbling or growling in your stomach, located just under your ribcage on your lefthand side. I find that if I simply surrender my body to how God created it, and only eat food when my body actually asks for it, I naturally land at a healthy weight. Then, when our stomaches do growl, we are wise to simply eat food, actual food, the kind that God created, that grows out of the ground or comes from nature. Again, we can get twisted up in the latest food fads or diets, and don’t get me wrong, I love nutrition and think that food-science is fascinating, but for the most part, if we eat whole foods when we’re hungry, we’d be good to go!

The great thing about just simply waiting for hunger is that it forces us to surrender control. For me, the hardest part of fasting is giving up control of doing and eating whatever I want whenever I want. By choosing to only eat when you are hungry you are acknowledging that God created your body with a God-given mechanism for determining when you need to eat, and that you will surrender your cravings to His will, and choose to submit to His design. It’s a way to worship God with our bodies!

• Walk.

Again, there are many exercise programs out there, and I’m all for you finding the one that works just right for you. But I’d also suggest, the most simple exercise, for any fitness level, that will keep you decently fit and able to be actively involved in life: WALK. True, you won’t get any medals or t-shirts, you can’t post pictures of yourself flexing, you won’t get ripped abs or a so-called Beach Body, but you will be putting into practice a powerful habit or moving every day, of getting fresh air and getting your heartrate up and blood pumping and breathing deep.

I make a simple habit of walking 40-minutes a day.  We have a hilled driveway, so it makes for a great workout, going up and down the hill. 10 laps is about 2.5 miles, and that makes a good amount for me. Again, I’m not knocking all those great fitness programs out there, but I find that many of them tend to be very self-focused. I don’t want to be focused on self or spend an inordinate amount of time or energy worrying about my body because Jesus told me not to! I want to exercise it enough that I have energy for the life He’s called me to live. Walking does that for me.

So there you have it. I told you it wasn’t impressive. 🙂 But perhaps there’s someone out there who needed these three simple things. I hope they can be life-giving and encouraging. You don’t have to be a Bible scholar, you don’t have to find the magic diet, you don’t have to do the hardest workouts ever. Spend time with your Father and ask Him for some simple guidance in what simple habits might help you this year. These have been my three, I hope you find yours too. Thanks for reading!

Happy New Year Friends! I’ve been chewing on some New Year thoughts, and wanted to share a brief series called RESOLVE, reflecting on some of the ways we can grow in a happier, healthy, God-honoring life. Just some food for thought as we intentionally determine the course of our days this year. Hope it’s helpful! Thanks so much for reading.

~

Sometimes my friends and I reflect on how different it is now that Google and smart phones and Pinterest are at our fingertips at all times. Back in the day, you learned from a person. If you were a young wife and wanted to bake a pie, you asked your mom, or aunt, or grandma. She probably slipped you a butter-stained well-worn recipe card, then showed you how to roll the dough and pinch the edges just so. At least, that’s how my grandma taught me to bake.

Nowadays, if you want to bake a pie, you thumb “Best pie ever” into Pinterest or Google and approximately 3 million recipes, all with professional pics, come flooding before your eyes. You probably choose one from an expert: Pioneer Woman, Martha Stewart, or Ina Garten perhaps. At least I do.

Then, when we want to get in better shape, we turn to Jillian Michaels, and when we want to lose a few pounds we fork out a fortune for the top-notch nutrition system, and when we want to get our finances under control we sign up for Financial Peace University. All of these are great, and there are most certainly some awesome experts out there and I commend any efforts to learn and grow in these areas.

But sometimes the onslaught of all these experts can leave us feeling a little overwhelmed. I remember reading a book on marketing and the author insisted that in order to make it big and sell lots of whatever you’re selling, you have to bake in the Wow. That is, it has to be beyond the best. It has to absolutely WOW everyone.

Ok, fine. But as I read that, I mentally sifted through all the different arenas where I am called upon for leadership or love. I thought about being a wife, I thought about my home, my meal-planning and cooking, cleaning and organizing, I thought about raising and discipling my children, about homeschooling them, I thought about being a discipler of women, of being a pastor’s wife, a blogger, a conference speaker, a children’s ministry teacher, an author, a friend, a daughter of a disabled mom, of being a housemate and neighbor. And then I’m also so crazy as to think it’s not too much to ask that I even sneak in a hot shower 2-3 times a week!

I wrote in the margin of the book: I cannot bake in the Wow to every area of life. 

And that’s just it. The challenge with being surrounded by experts is that these people bake in the Wow to their own area. Great! But then we turn to all of them, and assume we need to bake in their wow in that area as well, and with a quick click we can turn to so many experts at once and begin thinking we need to bake Martha Stewart cakes while rocking Jillian Michaels bodies living in Pinterest-worthy homes. Back in the day, we would have turned to maybe 1-3 people to help us grow in some area. Now, we have hundreds right in the palm of our hand. 

Last week, I had the joy of getting together with a friend and teaching her to sew a skirt. It was a simple thing, and I’m sure she could have figured it out on her own, or YouTubed a tutorial. But we had such a fun morning, cutting and stitching, singing along to worship music. Heidi joined us, and we all we were able to have rich conversation in the midst of learning a new skill. And I realized that morning, the thing we miss when we only tap into experts, is learning through relationship. 

This is why downloading a podcast or even reading a book will never be the same as sitting together with people who know you and studying, learning, growing, discussing together. They are the ones who can read your body language, see a tear in your eye, ask you a hard question, speak a Spirit-led word of encouragement. They are the ones who know your mom is sick, or your husband lost his job, or you’re trying to get pregnant. They are the ones who will you see you fail — and succeed — and weep and rejoice with you all along the way.

There is just no substitute for learning and growing in community. Real community. No celebrity or expert can come close the value of learning from each other. From living in community and asking questions, asking for help, making known our weaknesses and struggles, and also offering our gifts and talents and wisdom as well.

So, though it might not top most people’s lists, I RESOLVE this year, to learn and grow in relationship. 

{Thanks for reading.}

Tears stung my eyes as I read the words. Why? Why this division? Why this strife? It feels like just when one group is happy, another is upset. One person’s victory means another’s defeat. One group’s gain seems another’s loss. By advocating one truth, it seems to pit one against another truth of equal importance.

Thankfully, there is good news.

There is THE Good News.

I have had this song echoing in my heart all week. It’s #6 on our Seeds Family Worship, (you can listen here) and sometimes I’ll just sit, all alone in the car, after the kids have gotten out and run into the house, and I’ll just worship God to this song, letting the tears slip down my cheeks, lifting up my hands like a crazy lady, just so grateful that the gift of God, that Jesus Christ, that the gospel is …

joy that will be for all people.

Jesus isn’t the savior for only Americans. Or only Syrians. Or only Democrats or Republicans. Or only Jews. Or black, or white, or rich, or poor. His Good News knows no borders or bounds. It is Good News that is joy for all people. 

There is no one excluded. Ever. To all who receive, it is joy. It is peace. It is hope.

And then, in the song, near the end, the choir sings out in Glory to God in the highest, Glory to God in the highest, and my heart gets caught up because Oh yes! We will sing those words and give Him praise and thanks because He is good and has done great things. And for all who sorrow, for all who mourn and weep, for all who ache and yearn and hunger for Him. We will sing He is good, He is holy, He is mighty, He is awesome. Glory to God in the highest …

And on earth peace to men, on whom His favor rests. 

On whom does His favor rest? Who has the favor of God? 

This isn’t a trick question. It isn’t black or white or rich or poor. Those who are in Christ Jesus have the favor of God.

The only way we can have the favor of God is if we are reconciled to Him. We were enemies of God, but Jesus Christ is our peace:

Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.

Because of Jesus Christ, God’s favor rests on us. He has killed the hostility, between us and God, and between us and others. Because Jesus Christ preached peace, He is the joy that shall be for all people. So we can move out courageously and generously. We don’t have to be “right.” We don’t have to prove our point. We can misjudged or misunderstood or even mistreated. We can love and give and hold our tongues or turn the other cheek or overlook offenses or just let stuff GO. Why?

Because the gospel’s grace is big enough. The gospel’s grace means you don’t have to demand your own way. We don’t need to be disappointed if we don’t get the perfect gift, or family, or experience.

We’ve already been given the greatest gift. It is a joy that will be for all people: It is Christ the Lord. 

Glory to God in the highest. 

{Merry Christmas, friends. Thanks for reading.}