Category: Devotional

Eyes Wide Like a Child

Posted on by K.L. Gilchrist
Photo by Kiana Bosman on Unsplash

Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. ~Mark 10:15 (New International Version)

…backstage at a recital means mass confusion. Triple the mess, fuss, and chaos when a show is filled with thirty-six people with an average age of nine. Teens in tutus. Joy-filled junior high girls happy to pile on heavy makeup and eyelashes wide like bat wings. Boys in corners chanting out dance steps to themselves.

I was in the middle of it all. Sweating. Trying to keep makeup off my praise dance costume. Checking the dance list two and three and four times out of nervousness for my own routine. Then, finally, forgetting myself and moving toward little bodies. Do you need help? Can you find your jazz shoes? Where is your clothes bin?

I felt a pat on my thigh. A little one. I turned around and glanced into a moon-eyed brown face. Gorgeous braids. Tiny pink lips.

You can help. She said.

I nodded.

Am I dancing next?

I checked the list and told her no.

I’m in hip-hop. You can help me. I lost my costume.

I gritted my teeth. Sweated. Sighed. Swallowed and finally smiled in her face. I didn’t have any idea where her tiny costume was, but because she trusted me, I would rip the backstage area apart until I found it.

She led me into a corner with four lemon-yellow leotards, a pink glitter and zebra stripe pantsuit and black Chucks jumbled on the floor. I held her hand and whispered encouragement words. Stand right here beside me. I’ll get your costume. We have plenty of time before your last routine. Don’t you worry, sweetie. I’ll get you dressed fast.

She smiled back at me. Hummed a tune. Clutched my fingers and waited. I sifted through the wardrobe rack. The floor. The clear bins with names on them. No costume. I panicked and stress-sweated, then looked in her face. She told me her name and smiled once more. I went back to ransacking the wardrobe racks. She trusted me and I was on a mission to find a preschool hip-hop dance routine outfit.

I wish I could say I found it. I didn’t. But I kept the sweetie-pie by my side and one of the more practiced dance parent’s found the outfit and we pulled the preschooler in the glitter-drenched stretchy pants and halter fifteen minutes before she was due to be on stage.

And this post isn’t really about costumes, dance, or little kids.

It’s about that warm tiny, hand. Those wide innocent eyes. That sweet little patient tune.

A child who simply trusted.

We live in a sin-sick world full of complications. We want to fix things and be everything to everyone. But all our Father really wants is for us to face Him, trust Him to help, and be relaxed and confident that the outcome is in His hands.

Faith with the heart of a child. Eyes wide. Trusting. Innocent.

Faith.

For the Love

Posted on by K.L. Gilchrist

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.” ~ John 13:34

Palm Sunday. Monday before Easter. Holy Tuesday. Holy Wednesday. Maundy Thursday. Good Friday. Holy Saturday. Easter Sunday. Eight sequential days representing the beginning of the end leading to a new beginning. Eight days that transformed history.

The world has never been the same.

Pause for a moment. Take that in.

The world has never been the same.

As believers, the eight days are as transformative now as they were years ago. At least they are when we consider Jesus’ powerful sacrifice — the blood he willingly shed on Calvary — and that He walked through those eight days for us.

With grace and prayer and acceptance of God’s job for him, Jesus did the unfathomable. He walked. He taught. He forgave. Amid mental and physical pain and while enduring a whirlwind of emotions. While having a front-row seat to disturbing religious traps, wicked betrayals, and scandalous political posturing. Beaten and bleeding and driven half out of his mind with pain, he carried the cross to the end that became the beginning.

For us.

And he gave us this command: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.” ~ John 13:34

He spoke the command on the day we call Maundy Thursday. Maundy means “mandate”. Jesus understood he was about to be betrayed. He was about to predict Peter would deny him later. Jesus should not have been able to think about a bold command let alone give the mandate to the disciples, but He did.

Why?

Because of the greatest force known to humanity: love. He transformed our fates out of love. He gave us everlasting life out of love. He wiped our sins away out of love. As authors and creators, the most dynamic force driving us to bear fruit should be love. Love for our brothers and sisters of faith and love for those who do not yet know Jesus Christ.

Our greatest lesson from the eight sequential days representing the beginning of the end leading to a new beginning? Love no matter the circumstance. Love with forgiveness. Love with boldness.

Love as Jesus loved.

Touch

Posted on by K.L. Gilchrist
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

…see when you finally figure out that all you want and need is His embrace and His comforting voice in your ears and the warmth of the only God surrounding you with a presence you can’t explain that’s when you’ll know you don’t need anything else and at best what you can find is a poor substitute because you don’t need more food people beauty physical love adoration family homes cars clothes drinks smokes likes shoes excitement or any of that and some people say you only need Jesus and those people are right because once you launch through that spiritual door and the reality of what you never truly understood before ignites your soul and you get it got it good that there is nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing on this earth that will rapture your soul like the arms that contain the eternal golden transformational touch…

Face to the Son

Posted on by K.L. Gilchrist
Sun showing through fingers
Photo by Daoudi Aissa on Unsplash

the sun to govern the day, His love endures forever.
~Psalm 136:8 (NIV)

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
~John 3:16 (NIV)

About Up

I love the Pixar movie Up. Almost all Pixar films are incredibly good with story structure and pacing, and that’s essentially why they are so memorable. But with Up, I think the Pixar storytelling geniuses were in rare form.

The beginning of the film is a fast-paced five minutes through the young, married, and middle-aged lives of Carl and Ellie Fredricksen. It starts with them as kids who want to be explorers and ends with Carl at the age of 70 after Ellie has passed away. In the middle, they buy a house, work selling balloons and photos to kids at the zoo, and plan on starting a family.

There’s a point, right in the very center of that montage, showing Ellie Fredrickson’s devastation as the doctor shares they will be unable to have children. But the scene right after she finds out, the picture of that is so deep, I’m not sure many other viewers grasped it.

Face to the Sun

As Ellie Fredricksen grieves her infertility, she sits outdoors in her chair with her face to the sun. Her hair blows about in the wind, signifying how she releases her pain in the sunshine. She doesn’t moan or complain. She simply remains still in the breeze, the sun warming her cheeks, allowing her disappointment to just…be.

No words. Just her face to the sun.

Release Disappointment

Pain is a part of everyone’s story. Actually, the only thing that is different from one human to another, is how we choose to handle our pain and disappointment. Pain avoidance never works. Resignation doesn’t really work either – it can lead to a less than fulfilling life.

The movie scene I described above is an illustration of the only thing that works when you experience real disappointment. Acceptance.

Face to the Son

Where is God when it hurts? Where is our Lord when the test results are bad, when the loved one dies, when the child rebels, or when the job goes away? What are we to do with our ever-present disappointments, the ones we may or may not pray about? What should we do? We turn our faces to the Son.

In Mark 4:39, scripture states that Jesus rebuked the wind and the waves, saying, be still. Be still meant…be cool…hear my voice…settle down. When we turn our face to the Son, we allow his voice to fill our ears and we stop listening to the noise of the raging storms of disappointment. Instead, we grow quiet, we see His presence, and we settle down. And when we settle, we can begin to accept that though the storm may rage, nothing will remove His peace.

As people of faith, we must understand that though the storms may continue, with our faces to the Son, we will go on.

Getting to Joy

Posted on by K.L. Gilchrist
Photo by Eye for Ebony on Unsplash

One of my favorite novelists once wrote a book called Getting to Happy. It followed the happenings of four African-American women whose lives took unexpected turns during mid-life. I loved the story (of course…I’m such a fangirl), and it made me wonder since life is so unpredictable, is it ever possible to get to happy?

What is Happiness?

According to an article in Psychology Today, in 2008 more than 4000 books were written on the topic of pursuing happiness. What is happiness really? By definition, it is the quality or state of being happy. And happy itself is the feeling of contentment, gladness, or delight over a particular thing.

But happiness, the feeling of being happy, tends to fade. So if you ever “get to happy” through whatever person, place, or situation got you there, the experience is sadly temporary. Though many make a big deal about pursuing happiness, most people end up on a “happiness treadmill,” searching for contented or glee-filled experiences. And if you receive the thing (relationship, baby, job, career status, better health, money, insert your heart’s desire here), your happiness meter hits the top but then begins to subside. And if you DON’T get the thing, your happiness meter doesn’t move at all.

I promise. I’m going somewhere with this.

What is Joy?

Here’s the thing. There’s nothing wrong with getting to happy. But there is something better. Getting to joy. (I know that sounds like a great journal title so please don’t steal it. I might use it. 🙂

The dictionary definition of joy is the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation. In a fickle world filled with ups and downs, to tie joy to people, places, or things is a recipe for disaster. God offers a direct path to real joy. It involves tethering joy to our relationship with Him.

Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

Nehemiah 8:10

So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

John 16:22

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,

Romans 14:17

Getting to Joy

I know. I know. I know. God and Jesus don’t rank high on popularity lists these days. But what I know to be true is that every single thing I’ve ever chased after for happiness has either failed me or faded away. I can’t say that about Jesus. The more I attach my joy to the fact that I’ve been given a permanent home in his Kingdom, I don’t worry as much about whether or not I’ll be happy on earth. Actually, it becomes a moot point after a while.

On earth, I’ll seek to do as much good as I can and I’ll pursue God every moment and I’ll open my heart and forgive and work hard and love hard and be generous and humorous and free and I’ll chase joy through the only one who can truly provide it.

Happiness? I don’t know. Maybe I’ll reach it.

Joy? I already got it. Today and always. Absolutely. No question.

Amen.