Yesterday was a long and challenging day. It was Ash Wednesday and I really wanted to go to church where we were doing the imposition of ashes "drive by" at the church. Pastor John put together a meaningful liturgy for people to receive when they drove into the church. We had music playing on the radio so that they could sit and read and pray individually and then drive up to the church to receive ashes. Not everyone did it exactly like that - but it was very meaningful to me to get to "do" the ashes.
That was truly the best part of the day.
There were several challenges. First I worried that I would not be able to drive out of my snow cul de sac which has not been plowed. The day before I watched people slipping and spinning their wheels and I had a great fear of being stuck and helpless in the middle of the street. Feeling very vulnerable.
Also, we did prayer partners at the church and I had trouble understanding the program that was being used. AND I did a zoom Bible study where we had a new pass code that I had trouble grasping. All of that makes me feel vulnerable and inadequate and old.
So, today I start the day with the "Pray as you Go" app and a song about being drawn to God. And I felt like I was being drawn out of the grey puddle of inadequacy that is me into the light and love of God. Or at least wanting to be drawn. The devotional focused on the grace of God - "which is given freely without cost, to those who will accept it."
The text today is Galatians 2: 20-21 and it was most easily understood by me when I read it in the Message:
19-21 What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.
21 Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.
What speaks to me here is this:
My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer drive n to impress God. Christ lives in me.
I love the idea that Christ lives in me. The way I often say it is - "putting Christ on the throne of my heart" - rather than myself (or my ego.)
I recognize that my challenges - my vulnerabilities - all have to do with my ego. And it is in the drawing closer to God that I can find freedom and release from the turmoil that ensues when I am feeling old and inadequate. I can trust God's love, God's provision, God's mercy, God's power.
The devotional today ends with this thought:
Before this day is over, I will spend time thinking about what I need to do to come closer to God - to make room in my heart for him.
On this second day of Lent - may it be so.
Here is a blessing for today by Maxine Shonk
May the God of your YEARNING, the God of your longing, bless you.
May the God for whom you search always gift you in ways that bring you ever closer to recognition and union with the Source of your beings.
May you trust that even as you search, the God of your longing has already found you
and guides and directs your journey.
May the God of your YEARNING bless you.
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