Greetings!
Thank you for joining us in prayer and reflection during this season of Lent. We will travel through daily scripture, reflection and prayer. Additional people have been joining us each day. Please feel free to forward these reflections to others. We invite you to explore the other resources for the season found at the bottom of the page as we continue the journey together. Christian Formation Commission |
Scripture
And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, "Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?" then you shall say to them: it is because your ancestors have forsaken me, and gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them and have forsaken me and have not kept my law; and because you have behaved worse than your ancestors, and here you are, every one of you, following your stubborn evil will, refusing to listen to me. Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you or your ancestors have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night for I will show you no favor.
Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, "As the Lord lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt," but "as the Lord lives who brought the people of Israel out of the land of the north and out of the lands where he had driven them." For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their ancestors.
I am now sending for many fishermen, says the Lord, and they shall catch them; and afterward I shall send for many hunters and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from my presence, nor is their iniquity hidden from my sight. And I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritances with their abominations.
O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble,
to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say:
Our ancestors have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit.
Can mortals make for themselves gods?
Such are no gods!
Therefore, I am surely going to teach them, this time I am going to teach them my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the Lord.
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I am sure that, at one time or another, each of us has felt that life has dealt us an unfair blow and have wondered what is was that we did to deserve it. Life has a tendency, just when we think everything is under control, to show us that we need help in coping with the vicissitudes of our every day existence. We have not necessarily done anything to make us think we deserved such a blow but we have not put our trust in God to know why "bad things happen to good people". When we forget that God sent his Son to redeem us, and that He forgives us for all our "iniquities", and that, if we deliver unto His keeping all that is really important our lives, in the long run He will give to us what He wants to bless us with. There may be a few bumps along the way but if we believe in the Lord, we will find solace in that belief. God, through Jesus Christ, has promised never to abandon us. It is our duty to remember that and find the beauty in life despite the blows which come our way.
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Prayer
"Lord,
I have so few ways to pray,
but you have so many ways to answer.
Keep me alert
to your unpredictable answers,
to your unexplainable surprises,
and by your grace,
make me one of those surprises,
for the sake of the One
who taught us the surprises
of moving mountains,
healing touches,
wondrous stories,
great banquets,
first suppers,
broken bread,
crosses,
and resurrections."
Help me to remember at all times that you are "my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in my day of trouble".
AMEN
Guerrillas of Grace, Ted Loder, p. 80
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