Lenten Reflection, April 21, 2011

Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the glory of your holy name.

Once we’ve been forgiven and renewed, we have choices to make. The question becomes “Where now, Lord?”

Asking God to lead us is an implicit acknowledgment of His Lordship over us. We are asking Him to show us His way, to lead us into the green pastures the Psalmist spoke of. We are also signing on to follow into the less pleasant places through which He might lead us.

By asking Him to lead us, we are signaling our willingness to follow Him, even if we don’t understand where we’re going, even if it’s taking a long time, even if we don’t particularly enjoy the journey.

We will follow wherever He leads us.

The end result of this is that we learn to delight in His will; we learn to walk in His ways, and He is glorified. That kind of delight is not dependent on our circumstances; it is dependent on our relationship with the One who leads us.

God forgives us; we can trust Him.

God renews us; we can rely on Him.

God leads us, and we can delight in Him.

Thanks be to God!

Lenten Reflection, April 20, 2011

Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the glory of your holy name.

The idea of renewal always seems to be popular in the church, perhaps because we recognize that we are always in need of it.

In this prayer of confession, asking God to renew us may mean something a little different from our popular ideas of renewal. This request for renewal is connected to our recognition of our own sin and failure. Does anything feel as uncomfortable as knowing we’ve failed?

Understanding the reality of our own sin and failure can leave us feeling completely undone. Most of us have good intentions, at least to begin with. We want to do what is right; we want to do what is good. Somehow, though, we don’t quite manage to do right consistently; our “goodness” is always lacking.

How utterly disheartening!

And when we are disheartened by our own sin and failures, the idea that God might renew us – might lift our spirits, encourage us, give us a fresh start – what a blessing that seems!

God’s renewal is a blessing, one of second chances and do-overs. Renewal is His pronouncement that He is still working in us. His forgiveness cleanses us, and His renewal gives us room to try again.

Renewal is yet another sign of His immeasurable grace and kindness toward us.

Lenten Reflection, April 6, 2011

. . . we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

How much do I love my own self? Let me count the ways.

I love myself enough to eat well, to exercise, to make sure I have a house to live in and clothes to wear. I love myself enough to seek out meaningful work, as well as opportunities to do things I enjoy, and to have fun. I love myself enough to take really good care of myself.

And how much do I love my neighbors? Do I love them that much?

If I apply Jesus’s definition of “neighbor” – the one He offered in the story of the Good Samaritan, in Luke 10:25-37 – I need to love the one who is in need as much as I love my own self.

Am I as willing to meet my neighbor’s needs as I am to meet my own? Can I meet their needs with what is left over from my own life?

Or does loving my neighbor mean giving up some of what I use to meet my own needs, in order to meet theirs?

I have not loved my neighbor as much as I love my own self . . .

Lenten Reflection, April 5, 2011

Scripture offers us many ways to think of God: as a parent, as a king, as a friend, as a lover. We aren’t limited to just one way of thinking about our relationship with Him.

It’s interesting that each of those ways of thinking about God involves relationship: the relationship of a child to a parent, of a subject to a king, of one friend to another, or of two lovers learning to woo and love one another. No matter who we are, or where our lives have taken us, we can find a relationship model for our relationship with God.

Each of those relationships involves some kind of love, and not all of those kinds of love are expressed in the same ways. Some focus more on tenderness and care, some focus more on watchful concern for, or action on behalf of, the other, but all of them involve some kind of meaningful interaction with one another.

When we talk about loving God with our whole heart, we are talking about all these kinds of love. We are talking about how we offer our love to God, and how we receive love from Him. And all of these kinds of love require paying attention to the relationship involved.

To love God with our whole heart means being intentional in our relationship with Him. It means paying attention, being involved, staying alert to what is happening between us. It means risking our heart, believing that the reward of the relationship is worth the risk.

We have not loved you with our whole hearts . . .

Lenten Reflection, April 4, 2011

We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

What does it mean to love God with our whole heart?

Jesus asked us to do this. In fact, He identified this as the most important commandment of all.

He was talking with a group of people, including some of the Sadducees, about some of the finer points of the Law, when “ . . . one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the most important of all?’ Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'” (Mark 12:28-30).

Even as we confess together that we have not loved God with our whole heart, I wonder: what would our lives look like, if we loved Him with our whole heart?

Lenten Reflection: April 2, 2011

We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone.

Sometimes we sin by what we do; sometimes we sin by what we don’t do. There are sins of commission, and sins of omission. Sometimes it seems as if, no matter which way we go, it’s wrong.

This confession reminds us that we can sin by not acting as well as by acting. We are used to thinking of sin as something we do, not as something we haven’t done. Yet, how many times have we neglected to do the things God asks of us? How many times have we overlooked a chance to show mercy to someone, or kindness? How often have we neglected to care for the hungry, the imprisoned, the naked? How often do we intend to do “the right thing” but then forget to do it?

Recognizing our sinfulness is not just a matter of tallying up what we’ve done wrong; it is also recognizing the ways we might have honored, or obeyed, or loved God, but didn’t.

Righteousness is not just about who we aren’t. It’s about who we are.

Lenten Reflection, March 17, 2011

We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed . . .

Our deeds reveal the best of us, and the worst of us, and everything in between.

Who hasn’t carried a burden of guilt over something we’ve done that we knew was wrong? Or realized later that we’ve done something we shouldn’t have done? Whether it was something serious or something relatively “small” we still have to contend with the guilt of sin, whether we understand and acknowledge the guilt, or not.

Confession is the prescribed antidote to those sins we’ve committed, but sometimes our guilt overshadows our willingness to confess our sins. Regular confession, done as part of the body of Christ, is a cleansing thing, and as necessary as any other kind of cleansing.

Our willingness to recognize and confess our sins reflects our desire to draw closer to God.

Lenten Reflection, March 16, 2011

We’re all too familiar with the ways our words can be sinful. Sometimes it’s tempting to give up talking for Lent!
We can speak thoughtlessly, maliciously, foolishly – or we can use our words to heal, to comfort, to bless. The Apostle James observes rightly that, “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing” (James 3:10).
Perhaps that is why it is so important that we regularly confess when those words are sinful, that we hold ourselves accountable before God for those times when our words are less than they could be, less than they should be.
We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed . . .
Words matter, because they give shape to what we think, and they are a blueprint to what we may do; because they themselves embody elements of both our thoughts and our deeds.
And yet, words have a place all their own, a place where they might become a blessing, or a curse.
We must thank God for the one, and confess the other.

Lenten Reflection, March 15, 2011

How can what we think be sinful?
Thoughts are private and personal. No one can see them, or hear them.
Yet our confession of sin includes confessing that even what we’ve thought is sinful: We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed . . .
Some thoughts might clearly be considered sin – lustful thoughts, murderous thoughts, greedy thoughts. It’s easy to understand why we need to confess them.
But what about other thoughts, the kind that might not be so easily classified as sinful?
Why do they matter?
They matter because sin is sin. Because what we think is the foundation of choices we make, and of what we do. Because being aware of what we are thinking is a spiritual discipline.
Sin is relentless. How easy it is, in an unguarded moment, to slip into thinking the wrong thoughts, indulging momentarily in a wrong attitude. Even our thoughts are vulnerable to sin.
And so we stay vigilant to avoid sin, and confess what we know to be true: we have sinned against you in thought . . .

Lenten Reflection, March 14, 2011

We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed . . .


Here it is, with no excuse: we have sinned against you, Lord.

We have sinned against others, too. It might seem easier to understand those sins as sins. We understand that things like gossip, or arguing, or lying are sinful. We get it that what we think or say or do might hurt others.

But sometimes we forget that those things offend God Himself, even if no one else is affected. The Psalmist reminds us that “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment” (Psalm 51:4, ESV).

We have sinned in what we think; we have sinned in what we say; we have sinned in what we do. It is our responsibility to recognize our sin, to acknowledge it without excuse, and to confess it to God, because in sinning against others, we have also sinned against God Himself.

With this confession, we acknowledge that sin permeates every aspect of our being: our thinking, our speech, our actions.

The good news is that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness . . . “ (1 John 1:9, ESV).

Lenten Reflection, March 12, 2011

Before we were married, my husband-to-be worked second shift in the computer center of a local bank. The computer center was located on the second floor, and of course, during second shift the bank was closed.
So when I had to deliver some papers to him one evening, I had to ring the doorbell of the side door to the bank, and wait for the guard, a gloomy man who clearly believed I’d come to disrupt his evening. He escorted me up to the computer center, where I delivered the papers in question to my beloved. I turned to leave, but the guard had also gone off on his rounds without waiting to escort me back out.
No problem! Or so I thought. I took off down the winding stone staircase to the first floor, thinking I’d let myself out. Until I got to the door leading from the stairwell to the vestibule. That door was locked.
I went back up the winding stone staircase to the top of the stairs, where I assumed I could just go back to the computer center and wait. The door at the top of the stairs was locked, too.
I was stuck in the staircase. I could not free myself, but had to wait for the guard to come by again – which took a long, long time. And since this was long before cell phones, there was nothing I could do but wait.
Needless to say, the guard was not impressed with my actions when he found me.
Sometimes our sins get us into situations we can’t easily get out of – we cannot free ourselves. We are stuck in a situation of our own making, with no way out.
It’s not a comfortable thing, to realize you can’t yourself out of a difficult situation.
It’s when you really begin to understand that you’re stuck – in bondage – that you begin to hope for help.