Lenten Season 2021
We have already begun to see the days grow longer as the sun makes its way back north. Before long we will see the signs of Spring. I get excited about the change. Shrove Tuesday marks the end of a season of celebrations. Ash Wednesday ushers in the season of Lent and I know that a change is coming for me. The season of Lent is such a moving time where we refocus our walk in observing the disciplines of fasting and prayer. We open ourselves to the work of the Holy Spirit to continually grow us into the people we have been called to be in Jesus Christ.
Change is not easy for everyone. Especially when that change doesn’t bring a sense of life, but of more despair. The stresses our world and the day to day burdens of employment, housing, hunger, health and coping with the loss of loved ones to death can lend more of a sense of darkness and despair. Hope seems to diminish and instead of a bright outlook for tomorrow we are left with the isolating darkness of troubles.
Lent embraces those troubles. Lent calls us into fasting to acknowledge that we do not live by food alone. We set ourselves to discover that our real source is in God’s WORD, the Lord Jesus Christ. Reading scripture is like sitting down to a banqueting table. We feast on the HOPE that is born from the words we read. We find JOY in the midst of death as the promise of resurrection is unveiled. We discover a PEACE that goes beyond understanding. Troubles when met with the practices of fasting, prayer and meditating on scripture suddenly lose their power and the enormity of their grip upon our lives. Our journey to the CROSS in this season will bring us to an outcome that the world never anticipated.
So yes, I get excited about Lent. I have an opportunity once again to see Jesus Christ confront disease. I will bear witness of Christ bringing me out of death into life. The promise of new life even in death overwhelms the despair in me and brings me to a celebration of Spring with the breaking forth of more light every day. Slow down. Stop the rush to get to summer. Take the time to practice the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting and reading scripture in this season. The rich, spiritual experience these practices will bring will make for a healthier breaking forth of Spring to usher in a new day of warmth and light in the Summer of our lives.
Winning them to Jesus,
Gil
If you would like to view past editions of A Moment with Gil, follow this link: https://beacondistrictnc.org/category/from-the-ds/