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23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 139:23-24

  Lord, we acknowledge our humanity and our need for you. As we move into this season of reflection, re­pentance, and fasting, help us draw near to you as you continue to draw near to us. As we reflect and meditate during these weeks, search us, not because You do not already know us, but because we want to know more of who we are and more of Who You are in order to become more of Who You have made us to become.  May our repentance be genuine and thorough.  May our fasting be more than something done out of religious obligation.  Instead, may it all become for us a deep formation of You within us, moving us into deeper love for You and for our neighbors. Amen.

  Pause for a moment . . . look around . . . listen . . . close your eyes and listen more. 

  • What have you seen with your eyes? 
  • What have you heard when you were intent on listening, especially when your eyes were closed? 
  • What did you “see” with your mind’s eye when your eyes were closed?
  • Did any of it make you smile?
  • Did anything make you remember something else?
  • Did anything make your wonder?

  Whatever you just described, think about this:  What you saw, what you heard has been there — it was just waiting for you to pause and notice.

  This Season of Lent, which begins today, is a tool that can help you pause, just as you are now, and become more aware of that which is within you & around you as well as those who are with you & in your world … Lent is a tool to help you pause and hear God’s voice, see His Wonder, and be amazed at the depth of His sacrificial love all which you may have not yet noticed.

  Lent is this purposeful time to pause and create space and time in the middle of life’s hectic responsibilities in order to appreciate what’s always been there — namely, God’s presence, taking time to "see" God in your life and what He wants to teach you, reveal to you as to where He desires to lead you and that which He wants to do to take you there . . . The Lord is OUR Shepherd, after all.  

  Ash Wednesday initiates this Season of Lent as a day of repentance and reflection.  This day leads us to reflect on our mortality and our complete dependence upon God, setting the foundation for this entire season of reflection.  This foundation reminds us that we need Him and His Saving Grace which pours out through and because of the Power of His Resurrection, which is the capstone of this Season . . . Easter!  This foundation keeps reminding us of our need for continual repentance (turning from our ways to God’s ways), whenever the Lord reveals the darkness that may remain in our souls, which is a darkness He desires to vanquish with His Light of Mercy and Grace.  This foundation establishes the means of intentional fasting - surrendering something of value or pleasure - so that we can more clearly see Jesus and the prize to which He is calling us heavenward . . . His Glorious Likeness!

  For us Nazarenes, it is as Dr. Truesdale penned in his Lenten devotional, Abide with Us (p. 7): 

  For Christians, Lent unfolds in an environment of ongoing sanctification of the whole of life. . . . But make no mistake, it is characterized by confession and forgiveness. It is confession for the ways and times we and our Christian sisters and brothers have not borne the fruits of righteousness and have not faithfully identified with our suffer­ing Lord. It is also confession for the inadequacy of our testimony to a broken world. The apostle Paul’s admission that he had not yet been made perfect was made in full confidence that God’s grace enfolds an honest admission of the “not yet”, an honesty that rests upon confidence that what Christ has begun he will complete.

  This "ongoing sanctification" is perhaps as Paul declared to the Philippians:

12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.                                               - Philippians 3:12-14

   This "not yet" of our spiritual life can be lived with confidence Paul had already stated to these same brothers and sisters:

being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.                                                        - Philippians 1:6

  For such a life'd journey of "not yet-ness" resting in the confidence of Christ, for such reflection, such repentance and confession, it takes time … time to hunger and thirst for His Kingdom and His Rigtheousness; we cannot swallow it all in one sitting.  We are too accustomed to fast-food spirituality and  short-cut answers … life hacks, you might say.  However, God is patient, not in a hurry one bit.  He is fashioning us into His Likeness as a master sculptor chisels the stone ever so incrementally to complete his masterpiece.  Lent can be such a purposeful time to slow down and SEE the Savior more fully and be continually transformed into His Likeness so that we can live the life He has chosen, called, in fact, commanded, us to live.

  Nonetheless, the purpose of Lent isn’t to “better” your life.  Rather, the purpose of Lent is to keep centering your life on what matters most, really on WHO MATTERS most: the One who made you and died for you, Jesus. Actually, perhaps I can say that is the purpose of our entire journey of discipleship; as John the Baptist declared, "He must increase, but I must decrease."

  So, be purposeful today, throughout Lent, everyday to make space for what matters.  . . . Take time to be holy.

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