People sometimes treat Lent as an opportunity to
become better persons
But what if this year your hopes were greater
your prayers more daring?
What if you didn’t ask for help in becoming a better person
and prayed instead for the grace to stop being the subject
of your own little life project?
What if this year you gave yourself up,
not just chocolate, beer or Facebook? What if this Lent
you invited God to speak
not so much to your behaviours as
to your heart?
And what if in that conversation you discovered that God
wants you not to be better so much as to be enraptured,
not be good so much as to be lost?
Lost in the beauty of God’s mercy,
God’s justice, God’s passions.
Lost, as a great hymn says, ‘in wonder, love and praise.’
For 40 days in a hard wilderness Jesus had his own heart
refined and enraptured. At the end he was so enraptured,
so lost, that when the tempter came, Jesus could say only
one word to him -- ‘God.’ God alone.
What if when your Lent ends, you too have only God on your lips?
God alone. Heart. Mind. Soul. Strength.
Written by Mary Luti, in “Heart, Soul, Mind, Strength
Lent Devotional 2016, published by The Still Speaking Writers Group, United Church of Christ.
