[ READING :: 1 Corinthians 10:1-17 ]

Meditation ::.

What is the gift of sorrow? It is so natural to want to come up with a positive side to sorrow. “God must have wanted me to learn [fill in the blank].” I think that the gift of sorrow is the same gift that we receive during Lent, Holy Week, and Easter. The gift of sorrow is God’s loving and compassionate presence with us—in whatever we are experiencing. God in Christ walked through the human experience of suffering. And God cradles us in our tears, our hopelessness, our grief, and our sorrow.
– From Alive Now, March/April 2011 by Beth Richardson – via the Upper Room Daily Reflections.
(Upper Room Daily Reflections is an email devotional resource that you can get sent to you daily. I would highly recommend it.)

.:: God is faithful, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear ::.
.:: But when you are tempted, he will provide a way out so that you can endure it ::.

A buddy gave this CD to me and it provides some good music for our Lenten journey.
And you can get it for free on Noise Trade. WIN WIN!

===========================
And here is how to get it for yourself! ENJOY!!!

[ READING :: Hebrews 2:5-18 ]

.:: Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. ::.

Meditation ::.

“Three gospels begin, after all, with an account of Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness (Matthew  4:1-11 and parallels),  and though these abbreviated and stylized accounts can be misread as an apparently rather easy victory, we are no doubt meant to understand that these were severe and prolonged attacks on the very heart of Jesus’s understanding of his own vocation and identity and the character of the kingdom he was called to inaugurate. Successful resistance to temptation may result in an increase in moral muscle, but that’s because one is going to need it; a temptation resisted may become more, not less, fierce, since to give in is to decrease the tension, at least for the moment. That may be the meaning, at least in part, of the following interesting statement in Hebrews 5:7-9.”

– From After You Believe; Why Christian Character Matters. by N.T. Wright

? Do think about Jesus being tempted often ?

.:: Meditate on Jesus’s temptation and consider your heart, mind, and souls response to that ::.

(a brief explanation & links can be found on last Sunday LENT post)

[ READING :: Mark 1 ]

Read Mark chapter 1 but focus in on these verses; v.9-13, 35-36.

Meditation ::.

“The great joy of the Saharan novitiate is the solitude, and the joy of solitude — silence, true silence, which penetrates everywhere and invades one’s whole being, speaking to the soul with wonderful new strength unknown to men to whom this silence means nothing.”

– From Letters From The Desert by Carlo Carretto

Here are a few more verses from the Gospel of Luke that helped me to think about desert life today.
Luke 1:80 // 3:1-6 // 4:1-2

? Is there a way to take advantage of your desert wilderness moments?

[ READING :: Psalm 42 ]

Meditation ::.

“Bright days (in life) will not last forever, and sometimes you will be so devoid of all devout and Godly feelings that it will seem to you that your soul is a desert land, fruitless, sterile, wherein you can find no path leading to God, no drop of the waters of grace to soften the dryness which threatens to choke our your life entirely. It is very true that at such a time the soul is greatly to be pitied, above all, when this trouble presses heavily, for then, like David, his food are tears day and night, while the enemy strives to drive it to despair, crying out, “where is your God? how do you think you will find him, or how will you ever find again the joy of His Holy Glory?”

– From An Introduction to the Devout Life by Saint Francis de Sales

? How do you respond when you find yourself in the desert ?

[ READING :: Hebrews 3:7-19 ]

It’s interesting to me how verse 8 of Hebrews chapter 3 states, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion during the time of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried me though for forty days they saw what i did.” It starts off with, “do not harden YOUR heart as YOU did” but quickly moves into, “where your ANCESTORS...”

It seems to me that the author of Hebrews gets the fact that their story is our story. That we are prone to wander in the wilderness and we are bent to unbelief and faithlessness as we (humanity) have always been.

This passage gives us a glimpse into the faithfulness of God but firmly helps us to see our tendency to wandering faithlessness. And this is exactly what i want to meditate on this week as i focus on the Desert and what i would be if it were not for Jesus.

? How have you hardened your heart against the Lord?

Do we ever just sit in our desert? In our dark night of the soul? In our dryness and spiritual barrenness? Do we ever sit in our humanity and ponder the reality that we are nothing but dust and that we will die, that we are all prone to wander. Why is that? Why don’t we think on these things? What’s going on there? I had a professor once tell say, “we are all dirt bags” referencing Genesis and God creating us out of the dirt. But it’s true right. And maybe, from time to time, it’s helpful to sit there, meditate on our humanity and mortality. Maybe it’s good from time to time in a season like Lent to ponder our bent to wander and fail in that desert every step of the way.

Saint Francis de Salve in his book An Introduction to the Devout Life offers us some guiding meditation on this very subject;

1. Humble yourself profoundly before God, acknowledging your nothingness and misery. Alas, what am i when left to myself? no better, Lord, than the parched ground, whose cracks and crevices on every side testify to its need of the gracious rain of Heaven, while, nevertheless, the worlds’s blasts wither in more and more dust.

He goes on, gives some meditation and guidance for those wandering in the desert and he says, “after all, nothing is so useful, so fruitful amid this dryness and barrenness, as not to yield to a passionate desire of being delivered from it.” He guides us to sit in our desert and reflect on where we are, letting this desert be for us a refining and preparatory  place in our spiritual journey.

Saint Francis give more guidance on seeking God and praying through this time and seeking God out of the desert but his initial thought and meditation i think are very healthy for us to ponder. So i invite you to sit there and think about that today as you did on Ash Wednesday.

This is a week to take to observe our location during Lent, the desert.

[  READING // Psalm 78:17-41 ]

.:: Remember, their story is our story ::.

? How have you questionsedGod, put him to the test, forget his loving kindness ?

READING :: Exodus 16

Their story of 40 days in the desert wilderness is our story of 40 days in the desert.

Jesus’ 40 days were a bit different.

Have you thought about the parallels? The Hebrew people come through the water, lead by God, affirmed by God’s mighty deeds… and lead into the desert wilderness. Jesus, comes through the water in baptism, affirmed by the father, comes out and is… thrust / lead into the desert wilderness for 40 days.

It’s interesting to think about what he did in those 40 days.  We know he fasted, which would have been connected to prayer and meditation. My guess is that he struggled through his thoughts, his hunger, his calling. Did he pray in those moments, “if there is another way, do that. Pass this cup from me. But not my will but yours be done.” Maybe? Is this where he formulated the Lords prayer, “Father in heaven…” Were his 40 days of fasting, self denial, prayer, meditation hard for him? Probably. And then we know his 40 days finished with some good old fashions temptation. But guess what, Jesus was faithful.

Maybe this is where our stories diverge. Our story, the story of God’s people, exodus and now, is a story of wandering, temptation, and LOTS of failure. Jesus’ story is one of faithfulness.

May the same Spirit that thrust Jesus into the desert wilderness be with you while you find your self in the dry, desolate places of life and Lent where temptation will inevitable come. It is that Spirit that is faithful and it is our flesh that is week.

? How does your time in the desert of Lent or the desert of Life

compare and contrast to the time Jesus spent in his wilderness ?