Lent

March 15, 2022

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

When can the Lord not be found? When is God not nearby? My experience tells me that I am the one who is lost, and I am the one who has pulled back from God. For two or three months after my mother died, I said my nightly prayers and got the sense that they were not getting past the ceiling. Grief does that to people. Finally, one evening as I prayed, I had the great sense that the very heavens had opened, and my prayers had not only transcended the ceiling but had indeed reached all the way to God’s abode. I also hold tightly to the scripture Romans 8:26, 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.

On the other hand, I am guilty, at times, of wanting God’s ways to be my ways and wonder why God does not share my logic. To enjoy the abundant life the Lord designed for us we must seek the Lord not only in our prayers but also in our study and sharing with other people of faith. The challenge with that is we can invest more time in trying to convince others that our ways are God’s ways until we, like the first-century Pharisees, perceived God’s ways that Jesus modeled as a threat to the more comfortable ways we have established.

Prayer: Lord, create in us clean hearts and right spirits to incorporate your ways of being into our ways of being. 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 America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.