Author: Kayla Mahnken

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Psalm 23 ~ For You Are With Me

Dear Sister,

The past few months I have been learning about all the ways that God is not like us. Most recently, I learned about God’s omnipresence or his “all present-ness.”

Part of being God means that he is fully present everywhere – not just in space, but also in time: in the past, the present, and the future. He is not like us when we try to multi-task with our attentions divided; he is fully present everywhere that he is. He is just as much present with the persecuted church in China as he is with the constitutionally protected church in the US. He is there when life is brought into the world and he is there when it is snuffed out. He watches over everything in every place of his creation and there is nothing that happens that he is not an eye-witness of, which brings me to today’s passage. 

In Psalm 23, we learn that God is our shepherd. Thinking about the role of a shepherd we can know that God watches over us, protects us, and leads us (v. 3). When we wander, he seeks after us, finds us, and restores us (v. 2). When we are downtrodden or anxious, he comforts and calms us (v. 2, 4).

I love knowing that God is my Protector and my Comforter but my favorite part of this passage comes in verse 4: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”

The past two weeks I have felt God working in my heart in a special way. I know God is always working but sometimes it’s hard to see and we don’t always feel it. However, his current work in my life has become tangible in a way I haven’t experienced in quite some time.

Learning about how God is fully present everywhere all the time floored me. It made me cry to realize that God never has to ask me how my day was or how I slept because he has neverbeen away from me. He loves me – and you! – that much!

He loves us so much that even in the “valley of the shadow of death,” he is right there beside us. In the dark places that we don’t want to expose to anyone, he is there. In the struggle against cancer, he is there. In our most miserable – and most sinful – moments he is there. He neverleaves us and because he never leaves us, we no longer have to be afraid – not of man, not of tragedy, not of anything!

Psalm 23 is not the only place where we find that God is with us. Over and over again, God promises to be with his children, to never leave them or forsake them (see Joshua 1:9; Isaiah 41:10, Isaiah 43:2, 5; Matthew 28:20; Hebrews 13:5). God is so serious about this promise that he even intertwines it with one of the names of Jesus. In Matthew 1, it says “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us” (1:23).

So, dear sister, I hope this reminder renews your faith and increases your hope. I hope it motivates you to resist temptation, knowing that when we sin we do it in the sight of God. I hope it comforts you in your grief and strengthens you in your struggles. And most of all, I hope it brings you rest – knowing that your Shepherd cares for and protects you, casting out all fear. 

Walking with you,

Kayla

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Layers and Layers of New Beginnings

Dear sister,

I have a love-hate relationship with new beginnings. Whenever I try to start a new habit, I always want to start on a Monday. A new morning routine? I want to start but it’s already Tuesday! That means I have 6 more days of sleeping in. Want to read the Bible in a year but it’s the middle of July? I guess I’ll just have to wait until January. I can be fit and toned in 3 weeks? Great! Sign me up and teleport me to three weeks from today so I don’t have to experience the pain of sculpting my body into something resembling a swimsuit model. Oh, you don’t have a TARDIS? Never mind, then. (And yes, I just made a Doctor Who reference; no one is more surprised than me.)

My problem is that I want the benefit of the new habit but not the discipline or the work that comes along with it. It’s a good thing, then, that God doesn’t treat our spiritual transformations the way we often treat our physical ones. What if God said “Well, I know I’m supposed to start the hard work of softening Kayla’s heart today, but I’m just not feeling up to it. Maybe next week.”

No, thankfully God is always working in our hearts—through His word, through community with the church, through prayer, and through the sacraments. He’s not waiting for a new week, a new month, or a new year; He’s always working. He never slumbers or sleeps (Psalm 121:3-4).

But, God’s working out our new beginnings can be slow. Today, I realized that I’m still dealing with some of the same struggles that I was dealing with several years ago! One struggle is people pleasing. When I discovered this struggle in 2015, I read books on people pleasing, read verses on the fear of the Lord, and presumably prayed about my struggle (though I don’t remember with clarity). Three years later, however, I feel that I’m just as much a people pleaser as I was then. However, recently God revealed a new layer of my people pleasing heart. I realized that in my people pleasing what I’m really doing is attempting to control the responses of others. I will withhold truth, say what I think you’re expecting or wanting me to say, or stonewall you to avoid having to say anything altogether! All so that I (self-centered Kayla) do not have to deal with your response (which, in my head, is likely to be anger, rejection, or ridicule). Is that really what I’m doing? Yuck!

Thankfully, God is not impatient like we are. He knows that the “new beginning” he has blessed us with will take a lifetime to work out. He knows it’s better to reveal things to us in layers, not all at once, so we will repent, and heal, and change in layers. Just like I’m still learning about the pitfalls of people pleasing.

Sis, don’t be discouraged when you feel like you’re not making progress. Press into your struggles and see what else God may be teaching you and let your motivation to “put off the old self” (Ephesians 4:22) be renewed. Remember that God is pleased to give us new beginnings every day and He demonstrates this by calling us to a life of repentance—a life of turning away from our sinful patterns, and with the help of Christ, turning toward the way of righteousness and “putting on the new self”.

So, dear sister, don’t be like me. Don’t put off your new beginnings. Embrace them in every moment of every day for as long as we repent and believe God is willing to grant them to us.

Changing in layers,

Kayla

 

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When Jesus Weeps: Knowing the God of Compassion

Dear Sister,

It’s always been very easy for me to take or leave romantic relationships. Silly as it may sound, “working things out” for whatever reason was never a thought that even went through my head. Every issue was a make it or break it issue—I was that naive.

I know now that relationships take a lot of work—even when you really like the person you are with. It may seem easy for a time, but eventually the rose-colored glasses come off and the problems start appearing apparently out of nowhere. Those lovey dovey feelings you felt in the beginning are now somehow replaced with irritation, frustration, or even disappointment with your significant other.

But Jesus does not leave us alone with our emotions on those days. He doesn’t frown upon the days when you’re not your usual bubbly self, singing in the car on the way home from work. If you read the psalms you’ll see that God never dismisses our emotions, but encourages us to engage with Him through them.

But perhaps the most profound verse in the Bible is also the shortest verse: Jesus wept. (John 11:35)

Did you ever find it curious that when Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus that Lazarus was dying, Jesus intentionally waited TWO more days in the place where he was before going to Judea where Lazarus was? He knew Lazarus’ illness and death was “for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:4). So, he waited, and Lazarus died.

When Jesus does arrive, Lazarus has already been in the tomb four days. But before he even gets to the tomb we are told that Jesus was “deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled” at the sight of Mary and those with her weeping. Then, instead of going straight for the grand finale of the resurrection, Jesus takes the time to weep at the tomb. Jesus wept!

In this ordinary display of grief, Christ reveals not only his humanity, but also his divinity. He shows us that God is a compassionate and emotional being who is willing to come alongside us and walk through whatever it is we might be going through.

For me, I struggle with loving someone that I’m in a romantic relationship with. In fact, in all my feeble attempts at romance, I don’t think I successfully loved any of one of them. I wasn’t even trying! But you know what else I never did? I never asked God to help me. I never asked God to intervene or show me how to love the person he had placed in my life.

So, sis, whether you’re angry, sad, disappointed, or frustrated, look to Christ. Ask Him to intervene, knowing that you do not have a high priest who is unable—or unwilling—to sympathize with our weaknesses. He hears you. He sees you. And He loves you!

Walking with you,

Kayla

 

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Spending Our Time

Dear Sister,

2017 was a weird year. I didn’t feel like myself; I was apathetic in my faith at best—and unbelieving at worst. Even the presence of a new romance wasn’t enough to bolster me out of my – Depression? Crisis of faith? I can’t quite put my finger on it.

I have thought about many things I would like to do, but haven’t acted on any of them. Continual promises to “look that up” or “find out more” so I can get “more involved” have been habitually broken, leaving me saddened and regretful that I have not accomplished more of my personal goals.

Considering our technology-saturated lives, there is no doubt that my generation is the most distracted of its time. We are always plugged in to our phones—guilty! Airports boast charging stations and even provide outlets and wi-fi on the plane. Netflix has given us unlimited access to numerous shows, allowing us to waste away mind-numbing hours in front of any one of our preferred screens. Should we then be surprised when it feels nearly impossible to accomplish anything productive? Or to be satisfied when we are constantly bombarded with new information?

Maybe my prolonged “funk” is due to the fact that I have given too much of myself to these manmade distractions. I tell myself “when I’m married, I’ll make better use of my time” or “when I have kids, I’ll be forced into a routine.” But will these milestones really change me? Or will it just be that much harder to break my bad habits?

Toward the end of last year, I heard Jen Wilkin speak at a women’s conference. One point she made regarding use of our time was particularly convicting. She said that we can either fall into the camp that practically believes that “God has not given me enough time so I must be constantly doing things” or the camp that practically believes “God has given me all the time in the world and therefore nothing is urgent.” Of course, none of us thinks like this but how we choose to spend our time paints a concrete picture of our more abstract belief. I tend to fall into the “all the time in the world” camp, slowly moving from one task to another, without any real concern about those tasks that remain unfinished.

Which camp do you fall into, sis? Are you frantically trying to get things done and failing to rest in God’s sovereign provision? Or, are you more like me, lacking a sense of urgency and easily distracted from accomplishing the day’s important tasks?

This new year, let’s encourage each other to spend our time well in the new year, whatever that may look like in each of our lives. I need to kick myself into action most days, but maybe you need to rest more. Let us rejoice in each day that God has given us and cheerfully accomplish those things He has called us to do.

Walking with you,

 

Kayla

“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” -Psalm 118:24

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Hope in Failing

The Garden of Eden, (a.k.a.Paradise). No weeds. No decay, and none of those prickly sticker things. Can you imagine it? Can you picture Adam and Eve living in the garden in perfect harmony with each other and intimate communion with God? It must have been absolutely glorious. But it didn’t last, did it?

Genesis 3:1 says “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.” He approached Eve with the question “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden in the garden’?” Eve knew the word of the Lord. She knew that He had commanded her and Adam not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And why should they have needed to? The Lord had abundantly provided for their needs in all the other trees and plants that he had created. But the serpent was perceptive. Already Eve had added to the command of the Lord. Her mind was ripe for deception. With great cunning, he got Eve to believe that God was holding out on her for seemingly no reason. So when Eve “saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.”

Do you think that if Eve had known that taking that bite would shatter their literally perfect life, she would have done it? Do you think that she would have knowingly brought suffering, death, and destruction into her life? Of course not! But Eve was naive. Eve was unsuspecting. How could she have possibly known about such a thing as deception?

Sadly, the true story is that even though she wanted for nothing her heart went after the one thing she was forbidden to have. As a result, she plunged her world, and ours, into sin and darkness.

Perhaps you, like me, have had your own “Eve” moment. Maybe God presented you with something good but you couldn’t receive it because you were too busy looking elsewhere for your satisfaction. Perhaps Satan even approached you and said, “God wants to give you this, but what you really need is this and I can give you what you really need.” The end result of believing the lies of Satan is absolutely devastating. He promises life but all you will get is death. I can tell you that, dear sister, because I have experienced it firsthand. I have been deceived by his craftiness only to find myself drowning in a sea of sorrow, guilt, and regret.

When I realized that this had happened to me, and what I had done as a result, I was devastated. I had never experienced such raw emotions. Rage coursed through my veins. Sorrow and regret overcame me. Feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness nearly killed me. Thoughts such as “You idiot, Kayla. What is wrong with you?” plagued me. Yet, I am still here. I made it. I came out of it alive. Bruised, beaten, and bloodied, but alive. How? Where’s the hope after such utter desolation?

In Eve’s situation, we see that God dealt graciously with her. She kept her place as Adam’s wife and she still became the mother of all living things. God even promised that her Savior would come from her seed. Even amidst her brokenness, God blessed her.

This failure in my life was my “Damascus” moment. I, like Paul, was a Pharisee. I went to countless Bible studies, church every Sunday, and abstained from sex and alcohol. But my heart was a whitewashed sepulcher, laced with envy and discontent, and ruled by fear. It took brokenness for me to truly understand the gospel and my need of it, but the Lord has still dealt graciously with me. As severe as his mercy may seem right now, I am trying to have faith that he is working it all for my good and His glory. It’s hard walking in the uncertainty, but that is what faith is all about—being sure of what is hoped for and certain of what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1).

Recently, we remembered the death of Christ and celebrated his resurrection. This is where our hope must lie, dear sister. We must turn our eyes to the cross in faith, acknowledging that all of our sins—and our old selves—have been nailed to the cross with him. In his resurrection, Christ has conquered sin and death and they no longer have dominion over us. This doesn’t mean that we won’t ever stumble, but it does mean that we are no longer ruled by it. Take hope in that, my dear sister. His is the hope and the promise that will never disappoint.

Walking with you,

Kayla