Immediately the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and the angels were serving him. (Mark 1:12-13, CSB)
Does it feel like we are in the wilderness with wild animals and other frightening things? Our wilderness is in COVID19, cancer, domestic terrorists, political division, dangerous weather, and wildfires. For parents, schooling for children during COVID is a wilderness. Satan is here, too, tempting us to lose faith in God, tempting us to not love everyone as we love ourselves, tempting us to turn away from Him.
However, in our faith, in our hearts and souls, we know God is with us. Our faith suggests that we can have hope amidst all the bad news, child abuse, war, hunger, terrorism, crimes against innocent people, and all the other darkness in the world. During this Lenten season, we can follow Jesus’s lead in trusting in our Lord in the wilderness. God cared for Jesus in his wilderness and God will care for us in our wilderness. Maybe we should turn off all the news and focus on God’s faithfulness and trust he will rescue us during these 40 days of Lent. When we are tempted to sin, if we do as Jesus does in the wilderness, we will pray and pray and turn our faces to God.
We will be so much happier and more peaceful if we listen to God instead of the politicians. If we spend more time shining God’s light in the darkness and less time listening to all of the political rhetoric and dark news, we will find joy, peace, and strength.
Remember “If you want to get to Carnegie Hall, practice, practice, practice”? If we want to live our lives in the Kingdom of God, perhaps we can practice, practice, practice praying to God and trusting Him during Lent and carrying it over after Lent.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own understanding: in all your ways know him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6, CSB)
Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a terrible death, and he will deliver us. We have put our hope in him that he will deliver us again. (2 Corinthians 1: 9-10, CSB)
Corrie Ten Boom: “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson: “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
From http://thepatienceoftrees.blogspot.com/
To Grow a Trust in God (What Lent is For)
A French writer once wrote, “In the end, life offers only one tragedy: not to have been a saint.” When Lent points us to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, when Lent points us to baptism, it calls us to the life of a saint, to the life that trusts in God. The Transfiguration of Jesus is a picture of what it means to be a saint because it is a picture of staying present when, like Peter, we don’t know what’s coming next and so we truly are following, even open to getting things wrong and correction. But most of all, it’s a picture of trust and God’s glory; a picture of what Lent is for. The Transfiguration reminds us why we make the trip.
Lent is about trust and God’s glory. Lent is for growing our trust in God’s love as the most important thing about us. Putting down the other things we were tempted to trust instead, especially those fears or misplaced trusts that come at the expense of our visible love for our sisters and brothers.
Lent is about trust and God’s glory. This is why Lent is about preparing for baptism and remembering your baptism. Baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Lent is a good time to remember what we are here for, and to once again center our lives on our purpose of living a life centered in Christ.
What About Him? The One who died, was crucified to save us from sin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgXIbj4qUcA&feature=youtu.be
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