Lent
February 23, 2016

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 55:1-9

Seek the Lord while he may be found,
   call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake their way,
   and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
   and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts. –Isaiah 55:6-9

Love is a better way. It is the way of the Lord. So why are we constantly challenged to not be challenged to follow this better way? Why is it so easy to slip into lazy patterns of distrust, selfishness, greed, even hate? Why are we so disposed to judge people and rank people in our hierarchies of worth by color, economic status, gender, or sexual preference? Why do we have patterns of discerning beauty that excludes some traits and includes others?

I know that by faithfully doing my stretching exercises every day, I will experience less pain and be more agile than forty years of arthritis usually allows. That does not always translate in my doing the exercises. Indeed, there are times when life happens and I am truly needed elsewhere. I depend on my routine faithful stretching to carry me through those times. I also know that by faithfully practicing the presence of God in my life through doing the basic spiritual disciplines of prayer, study, worship, and service, I am fortified for those times in life when I must depend on the spirit to pray for me.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27)

Prayer: Lord, forgive me when I turn to lesser gods for the nurture that I need. Sustain me in taking your higher way. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.