I planned to write more on this and include some thoughts about the end of my devotional readings from Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter.
But the thing about a proverb is it says what it says without needing any help from me.
“Something perfectly new in the history of the Universe had happened. Christ had defeated death. The door which had always been locked had for the very first time been forced open.” C.S. Lewis, Day 47 in Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter
Easter Sunday has come and gone. The season of Lent is over but my journey of reflection continues with the daily readings from the devotional. I’m in the “New Life” section of the book now.
Frederick Buechner writes on Day 52: “In the end, his will, not ours, is done. Love is the victor. Death is not the end. The end is life. His life and our lives through him, in him. Existence has greater depths of beauty, mystery, and benediction than the wildest visionary has ever dared to dream. Christ our Lord has risen.”
God has something more for us. But it’s not out there somewhere. It’s not tomorrow or in a few years or decades from now. It’s not when you finally have the family you’re praying for. It’s not only when your marriage gets better or when the cancer is gone or when the kids behave. It’s not just when you’re free from the addiction. It’s not only when you’ve reached your goal or when you’re living your dream.
It’s here and now.
It’s in the everyday mess of your life. The laughter and tears and everything in between. It’s in the middle of your battle. When you’re fighting for faith and trying to find joy. It’s in the hard work of reaching your goals. It’s the crying out to God when you don’t understand. It’s when you’ve conquered and when you’ve failed. When you go from feeling all is right in your world to feeling it’s hopeless. It’s when you fall and get back up. And it’s when you have no strength left to get back up.
He’s the God of your every day. Right there with you in the midst of your routine and obligations. Because “what God began, God will not abandon.” Madeleine L’Engle, Day 56
Something more is here and now.
“Those who live victoriously, though they wait in great hope and expectation for the final triumph of God’s grace, live even more in present experience of what that grace in Christ can do in their lives here and now. ‘Today shalt thou be with me in paradise’ is no idle promise for an indefinite future but a simple statement of what Christ can and will do here and now if we put our trust in him and open our lives to his presence and his power.” Howard Hageman, Day 50
The past week was the most difficult one of my Lenten journey. Not just in the remembering of the events of Holy Week or from my devotionals in Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter, but personally challenging in ways I thought were behind me.
That is part of the reason for my delay in writing this post. The words wouldn’t come. I’m unsure they’re going to come the way I want them to now but I will try.
We all know what a hard week feels like. Or months or years. Some of you are in the middle of a hard season and it’s been so long you’ve stopped keeping track.
All I know is that it felt like I was fighting to be okay. Not working hard to be okay. Not fighting to be victorious. I had to fight to be okay. That meant not giving in to certain thoughts. It meant doing the things I had to do…..and following through with plans I’d made. Fighting meant being honest with myself and focusing on Truth. It meant resting but not isolating. It meant me not asking someone else to do what only God can do and remembering what He’s already done.
“We begin our Christian life by depending not upon our own doing but upon what Christ has done.
When you cease doing, then God will begin.” Watchman Nee, Day 44, Bread and Wine
And I’m learning I’m able to make it through the hard weeks. Because He is with me.
“We go through that valley of the shadow of death with him. But with him. With whom? Him – the Savior – the Agnus Dei – this figure on the Cross.” Thomas Howard, Day 36, Bread and Wine.
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:3-9
I began this Lenten journey anticipating a fruitful time of reflection, refocusing and repentance. It has been that and so much more.
This week’s readings from Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter have been especially rich with deep truths my heart needed.
The reading from Day 27 by Peter Kreeft about Jesus: “He came. He entered space and time and suffering. He came, like a lover. He did the most important thing and he gave the most important gift: himself. He sits beside us not only in our sufferings but even in our sins. He does not turn his face from us, however much we turn our face from him.”
Let that seep into your soul. Let it flow into the deepest places of hurt and fear and let it heal you. Jesus does not turn away. When my heart is broken…..when the pain feels too much for me…….when I don’t understand. He’s right beside me.
He’s there too when I’m full of pride or when I’ve judged someone and feel justified doing it. When I’ve ignored an opportunity to do someone good. Even when I’m mean or greedy. He’s there. Not turning away from me. Not pointing his finger……but reaching out his hand.
Deuteronomy 31:6 says “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Jesus says in Matthew 28:20 “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Then there was this on Day 32. Dorothee Soelle writes: “God has no other hands than ours.”
The good that needs doing in the world will be done by our hands. Our hands.
Sometimes the way others know Jesus is with them and never leaves them……is by our being with them and not leaving. By our sitting right beside them whatever they’re going through. Sickness, painful circumstances, mental illness, bad choices, or foolish mistakes.
Jesus is the Savior. He’s the healer and the heart changer. But we can be hand holders.
Isn’t that what the Gospel is? The Good News that we don’t have to do this thing alone…..that Somebody has our back and loves us right where we are.
He’s here with me, holding my hand through it all……so I can hold the hands of the tired ones, the sick and hurting ones, the ones too weary to believe and the ones weighed down with regret.
I’m learning to be a hand holder.
Visit my friend Joy, on her blog A Life Giving Moment for her Lenten journey.
“We misunderstand God altogether if we think He deals coarsely with our souls.”
Henry Drummond
My journey through Lent this week has given me new thoughts on old stories. The stories were part of the daily devotions from Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter. I revisited the story of Jesus driving the merchants out of the temple for buying and selling there.
Am I like the merchants?
I reread the story of Thomas who declared that “unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.” John 20:25
Am I like Thomas?
The story of Peter is another one. Not only did Peter fall asleep in the garden when Jesus asked he and his other friends to keep watch but he denied he knew him. Peter turned his back on the very One he confessed as the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Am I like Peter?
Yes. I’m like them.
How many times have I tried trading with God….tried to get something from God in exchange for my faith or good deeds? “Look what I’m doing God. I’m serving and giving and studying. I’m working hard for You. Now bless me. Make my life comfortable and give me what I want.”
I’ve been the one not believing….not trusting until I can see. “Show me Lord, then I’ll trust You.”
My denial doesn’t look the same as Peter’s but I’ve turned my back on the One who loves me with an everlasting love. By not following Him. By not loving others. By withholding forgiveness. By causing others to feel less than.
But God doesn’t deal coarsely with our souls.
God is kind when He reminds me that “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
God is patient when I have doubts and fears. As Jesus did for Thomas, in His mercy He will give me the “grace of interior vision, the gift of the opening of the heart, and of its surrender.”
God is tender with me when I’ve turned my back. It was Jesus who turned to look at Peter as he was denying him for the third time. (Luke 22:61) There wasn’t judgment in Jesus’ eyes. There was love.
And I am thankful for His kindness.
“Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” Romans 2:4
For more thoughts on our Lenten journey visit my friend, Joy, at her website A Life-Giving Moment.
My Lenten journey coincides with another journey…..one I knew would be complicated and take me to hard and lonely places. But it’s a good journey. I don’t know of any worthy journey without challenges.
It’s the hard parts that make us stronger. We’re more courageous when we get to the other side of a trial. Our hearts are strengthened by God’s faithfulness and His promises become the anchors to our souls. And our trials are nothing compared with the glory to come.
“Jesus came to be the pattern, to leave footprints for the person who would join him, who would become a follower,” writes Soren Kierkegaard in the reading from Day 11 of Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter. He continues, “Christ’s life is a demand.”
God, give me courage to follow. Not to admire, but to follow.
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
path photo by danielam @ pixabay
I knew this journey of Lent would be a slowing down for me as it should be. How can I reflect and reconnect and refocus at high speed? Those are “soul-speed” kinds of things.
So I am learning to take my time……take it in………be present.
The reading for Day 7 from Bread and Wine is called the The Relinquished Life. My favorite line is “God will make you fit for all He requires of you.” I recalled the verse that struck me last week from Jeremiah.
But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Jeremiah 18:4
If I’m going to be made fit for all He requires or shaped as seems best to Him……then I need to let Him do it. The clay is there for the potter to shape. The clay is marred but the clay is soft.
I must remain pliable in His hands.
And the shaping of pots is probably done best at soul-speed.
photo by Quino Al
I began this journey through the season of Lent today, this Ash Wednesday. I must confess I know very little about Ash Wednesday or Lent and some of what I do know has been learned as recently as today from my Google searches.
Since accepting my friend’s invitation to join her on this journey I’ve wondered why I was intrigued by the idea. But as I reread her invitation I remembered. Like her, I need to take some time to “reflect, repent and re-order what may have gotten off track.” This is an opportunity…..a concentrated time of reflection…..a looking deep within and asking God to reveal what is there. A time of remembering God’s faithfulness and a refocusing on Jesus.
But why now?
I’m not sure except it seemed like the perfect time.
And so I began today on this journey where I’m learning as I go.
The introduction of “Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter” says that “Lent is the season in which we ought to be surprised by joy.”
I think I’m going to be.
I’m joining a friend of mine on a journey of reflection during the season of Lent beginning March 1.
Her invitation is found on her blog, A Life Giving Moment, in a post called A Journey Through the Season of Lent and I want to extend the invitation to you. She says what she says beautifully so I encourage you to visit her blog and see if you’d like to join us.
We are reading through “Bread and Wine – Readings for Lent and Easter”. I will share my thoughts weekly…….some on her blog and some here.
The book can be ordered through Amazon, other online stores or through the publisher listed on her website. If you decide to join us please let me know so we can stay connected and encourage each other.
The photo courtesy of Bouf16 @ Pixabay
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