The Ending of Lent…
The Beginning of Holy Week…
Pick out a cup to pray with today. Consider what the cup of your life is like.
Hold your cup and consider what’s been filling your cup this week.
My cup has been filled with a lot of frustration lately. Allergy season hit hard and shut down my productivity and declutter plans this week which filled my cup with discouragement.
I’ve had a pretty pathetic lent…I started out strong and focused and lost it somewhere in week four. I think the stuff of the world got my focus rather than the stuff of God. The Wilderness of war and rumors of war invaded my peace and distracted me from being present in the wilderness with Jesus. I’d like a do over please!
We thankfully all get a do over this week…it’s Holy Week starting on Sunday. I’m starting early with today.
Once upon a time, Lent was only Holy Week, not the forty days, so we get to begin again and focus our attention on the last week of life on earth of Jesus.
Jesus had warned his disciples that this week was coming. I don’t think any of them were really ready, or actually understood.
Like us, they were all hoping for a different outcome. They were all still imagining a world at peace without the Roman occupation…they all wanted Jesus to deliver them from their oppression and for Jesus to be their conqueror.
That truly is what I want .. I want Jesus to come in and rescue us from all the oppression in our world. I want Jesus to come and end the senseless wars and killing of children. I want Jesus to bring peace and restoration and end gun violence in our neighborhoods and cities. I want Jesus to wipe out racism and injustice and bring his love and mercy into hearts, especially the hearts of my enemies!
I see why the disciples didn’t really get what was about to happen.
How are you feeling as the Lenten season is ending? Is your cup feeling full of misunderstanding, or perhaps it’s full of anger, frustration, hurt or rather empty due to the stuff of life? Talk to Jesus about where you are today.
Even when our cups are feeling broken and cracked there are good things we can take time to notice and thankful for like the beautiful trees this spring or the surprise of free tickets to a concert that I received this week. Celebrating our son’s birthday with him and listening to great jazz and remembering birthday past all brought joy into my cup!
What are the good things in your cup right now? Drink them in and be grateful.
So as we end Lent let’s keep an open cup handy as a reminder….
A cup open to receive from Jesus in the days ahead.
Let’s drink
A cup of God’s presence.
A cup of stillness
A cup of peace
Let’s hold a cup of grace for one another as we see family and friends.
Let’s hold a cup of love and grace for ourselves too.
Consider all the cups of Holy Week…Jesus took the cup of wine at the table at the last supper and gave us the new covenant. And the cup in the garden…What is the cup Jesus is inviting you to hold and drink from this week?
I invite you to pray through Holy Week with your cup. You can download s hand out for free freerangeworship.com
by June Friesen
Recently I have been trying to practice this phrase – “Let go! Let God!” Believe me as I
tell you it is much easier to speak these words than to practice them. Many years ago I had
a sign that had these words on it. I tried to keep it in a prominent space where I would see
it as a reminder to me. Recently again I am trying to keep these words in mind as there
are things in my life that I want to get on with already – I am tired of waiting. Others
around me are tired of waiting. And I could think of many reasons why ‘I’ or others
should not have to wait. Yet it seems that God is holding up the ‘Wait’ sign.
Psalm 40
1-3 I waited and waited and waited for GOD. At last he looked; finally he listened.
He lifted me out of the ditch, pulled me from deep mud.
He stood me up on a solid rock to make sure I wouldn’t slip.
He taught me how to sing the latest God-song, a praise-song to our God.
More and more people are seeing this: they enter the mystery,
abandoning themselves to GOD.
Have you ever felt like you could relate to the words in this psalm? Or maybe you are in
this space presently. As I am pondering and meditating on these words in this Lenten
season there are many people who were a part of that time in the Scriptures and even
those not mentioned that no doubt had many thoughts about the present events
happening.
The people of Israel had waited for a couple thousand years already for the Messiah to
come. However they had a very different idea about their Messiah than God did. As we
follow the three years of Jesus ministry as He tried to help the priests and teachers of the
Scriptures understand they just could not seem to understand. When he taught in the
synagogues they marveled at His knowledge of the Scriptures yet they were blind to who
he was. When he was doing miracles of all kinds they went so far as to attribute his works
to the devil. Their idea of the Messiah was someone who would come and overthrow the
Roman government and establish an Israelite nation where they as Israelites would be free
to live and worship God as they chose. But they chose to hang on to the past, hang on to
what they had been given long ago. New soil of opportunity, new fertilizer for
understanding and belief were not a part of their equation. They would instead not release
the old seed so that new seed could grow.
The dandelion plant goes through a full process of life in order to create as well as
embrace new life. First the seed awakens with sprouts to embrace a new plant. The plant
then grows and produces buds which in turn bloom into flowers. Then the flower and
plant have to be willing to embrace the bees as well as other insects who will find
nourishment as well as carry pollen from one plant to another. Then the flower will
produce a seed puff with many, many seeds. Again the dandelion will share – some of
these seeds will become food for birds and insects and the rest will become more plants for
the future. But it is all about ‘letting go.’
God had to practice the process of letting go as well. First of all God had to let go of Adam
and Eve in the garden after they disobeyed Him. It was not His perfect plan but it enabled
them to continue to reproduce humanity on the earth. The next most significant letting go
that God practiced was when He let go of His Son Jesus to be born as a human on this
earth. I am sure that God also practiced letting go quite frequently when it seemed as if
Jesus was in a tight spot yet the Father always provided a way of escape until His total
plan was ready to be fulfilled.
The final letting go of God was when He listened to the words of Jesus on the cross as the
suffering was almost overpowering – “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” The
pain was excruciating. The abandoned feeling was real. Yet……yet God the Father, in
order to accomplish His purpose had to let go and allow His Son to be alone as His human
death would accomplish victory over human death for all humankind. Yes Jesus death
that culminated in His resurrection was all about ‘God the Father letting go and letting
His Son die a physical human death so that humanity could once again have a relationship
with God’. It is not a relationship like it was in the Garden of Eden but when we follow
Christ we have the promise of one day living in the heavens with God – and I expect it will
have a garden even more beautiful that the garden of Eden. And so God calls to you and I
today: Let go and let Me be in charge.
MY PRAYER TODAY
God there are so many things that I want to control,
I want to be the one who says where I will live,
I want to be the one who says what I should do,
I want to be the one who even gets to tell others what to do,
I want to be the one.
God, help me to let go –
Help me let go of ‘me’ first –
Help me to be who You have planned for me to be –
Help me let go of ‘people’ around me –
Help me allow others to be who You plan for them to be –
Help me to embrace Your presence and guidance in my life –
Help me to embrace Your presence and guidance in the lives of others
Especially when it does not seem to be in line with my thoughts –
Help me to consider how it was for Your Son when even knowing the plan before He came
to this earth –
He chose to come, He lived on this earth willingly even when enduring ridicule, unjust
accusations and finally was seemingly wrongfully crucified (from a human view) –
Yet it was in and through that ‘so-called wrongful death’
That humanity is now able to know the fullness of Your love –
Because death was not victorious over Your Son –
Because Your ultimate Power breathed life back into that lifeless body
And crushed the power of satan once and for all.
Help me O God to ‘let go’ of things in my life that need to die,
Help me to know that as they die You O God will bring new things to life within me,
Help me then to know when and how to embrace this new life,
The new beginning(s) –
And may I too embrace resurrected energy and life filled with the Spirit’s presence here in
this world.
Photos by June Friesen. Scriptures from The Message translation.
I did a piece last year for Clean Monday and only just remembered as the ideas fell into my head to write a piece this year
This year’s is taking a very different tack. I won’t go over what I wrote last time. You can read it if you want. This year I am much more focused on the cleaning angle.
Until March 2020 I rented the top two rooms out in my house with Airbnb. This meant that almost every day I was having to scrub down my house, check for dust, hidden dog toys, that we’d not left anything just lying about. It was a hard job but at that time I had the grace for it and almost enjoyed it. Then enter lockdown and Covid. My daughter lived with us for eleven of the main sixteen months. My husband was now working from home. There was no thought of anyone coming to stay over the 2020/21 period. So no real worry about keeping things too clean.
Lockdown ended. Daughter went back to her own town and back to work. Husband has continued working in the top small bedroom, venturing into his office occasionally but not regularly. All this gave me time to re-evaluate whether I wanted people staying in my house; to which the answer was No. The grace had gone and so it was time to move on with what I did with my time.
I’ve got more into my writing, into praying, into study, into coffee with friends. Life has changed. But so has my love of doing housework.
So with spring slowly appearing I have decided I need to give the house a real spring clean. I wrote the list. I planned out the rooms – what needed doing and how. I checked I had the required tools and products. I even checked the date to see what would be good one to start. What better date than today?
Or maybe tomorrow? Or when it’s warmer? Or just before we go on holiday? Or when we come back from holiday? Or just before certain friends come to stay? Or maybe I need to buy a steamer or a handheld hoover? Or perhaps I’ll do the car first? Or the garden? Or the dog?????
But then I realised how much I can be like this with my Christian life. I make the lists of what I want from this season, what books to read, the journal to write in, put an allotted time in my diary – and then …. Well there is always tomorrow. Next week. After the holidays. After friends come to stay. After I’ve bought a certain book. Perhaps the dog needs big hike in the woods and I could pray then/write poetry then/get closer to God then.
EXCUSES! Nothing more than excuses! A fear? Of what? Of the changes God might make?
Aren’t we good at finding plausible excuses?Yet the Bible has much to say about not putting off to tomorrow what you can do today. I thought there were only one or two but Open Bible has collected 46!!! Forty six bible verses that pertain to doing things when you say you’ll do them and not putting them off! Oh My Goodness!!!! That has certainly surprised me.
So perhaps I will get on and start on those spring cleaning chores. Though I think I’ll listen to Christine’s Liturgical Rebels podcasts as I do. Covering both the physical cleaning and a bit of spiritual cleaning too. And hopefully the biggest thing I’ll learn is not to put off till tomorrow what I am more than capable of doing today.
Spirituality of Gardening Virtual Retreat: On May 11 from 10 am to 12 pm PT (check my timezone) We will discuss connections between community, spirituality and gardening. Explore the wonderful ways that God and God’s story are revealed through the rhythms of planting, growing and harvesting as well as the beauty of nature. This webinar is for anyone who admires the beauty of God’s good creation, likes to walk in nature, sit by the ocean or just relax and listen to the birds in the trees. It is based on Christine Sine’s popular book, To Garden with God and each participant will receive a digital copy of this book.
They say every cloud has a silver lining. This morning I wasn’t so sure. After a wonderful weekend, celebrating the 80th birthday of a good friend, everything seem to fall apart. My flight was cancelled and rescheduled. My seat disappeared and then reappeared. My stress levels which had really diminished over the weekend skyrocketed again. Part of what it made me realize is how bad I am at replenishing my resilience. Yet there are many silver linings. The sun shining through the clouds reminded me of this. This extra travel time gave me time to reflect on the wonderful weekend I had experienced and to save the memories without feeling I was rushing onto the next thing.
I am writing this sitting in San Francisco airport waiting for my flight to Seattle. I have just revisited all the beautiful photos I took during this fantastic weekend. In some ways, I am still basking in the glow of a friendship that goes back over 40 years. In other ways, I am struggling with the simple frustrations of every day life. No wonder I need to enter regularly into God’s sabbath rest. No wonder Lent allowed for our sabbath rests each week. The 40 days of Lent do not include Sundays. We always take a time out on Sundays. Feasting in the midst of fasting is the way of Lent. It is just that I am taking all my Sundays at once as I celebrate my friend’s 80th birthday as I commented in my Meditation Monday: Sabbath in the Midst of Lent.
Holy week is rapidly approaching. Our churches are getting ready for Palm Sunday, stations of the Cross and Easter services. Perhaps it is time for all of us to pause and savour the flavour of what these last few weeks have held. In Freerange Friday – The Wilderness of the Pandemic, Lilly Lewin reminded us that we all carry layers of pain, not just from the pandemic, but also from the violence and the devastation that we have experienced in our world. Lent is a good time to reflect on all of this.
In Desert-ed by God, Carol Dixon reminded us Lent is about the many lessons of patience, waiting, letting go, and the value of walking in the desert in order to learn, and become the people God wants us to be. Karen Wilk in Waking up to God in Our Midst pondered the question. “I wonder if at least in part, that is what the Lenten journey is all about. It’s an opportunity to turn our attention intentionally and steadily to what God is up to in the subversive, small and seed-like ways of His Kingdom.”
Don’t forget that this week, we launched the third episode of Liturgical Rebels, a fascinating interview with artist and storyteller Scott Erickson. Don’t forget to listen to this episode. As well as the intriguing interview with Drew Jacksonfrom a couple of weeks ago. Next week we will be publishing an interview by block artist Kreg Yingst. Thank you for all of those who have listened, commented and enjoyed my new venture. According to statistics, we are already in the top 25% of podcasts. I am thoroughly enjoying the interviews that I get to record. I am meeting some fascinating people.
With Holy Week rapidly approaching we encourage you to check out the many resources we have available on Godspacelight. My favourites are The Maundy Thursday Liturgy and the links to the broad array of Stations of the Cross we have available.
Some of my reflections as I sat at the airport today revolved around the love of God and how easily we misconstrue who God is. This prayer came out of those reflections.
Why Do We Think We Understand
Why do we think we can understand,
A God, who is infinite
and bigger than our universe.?
Why do we think a God of love
Could possibly reject those
Who are flawed and imperfect
In different ways than we are?
We all fall short of the glory of God.
We are all on a journey,
towards the wholeness
that God desires for us.
There is nothing that can separate us,
From the love of God.
It is always above us,
Beneath us, on right and on left
Behind and before.
God is always there.
Loving, caring, drawing us close.
The embrace of God is everywhere.
Many blessings
Explore our Lent and Easter Resources
by Christine Sine
On Friday I flew to Southern California to celebrate my good friend Ruth’s 80th birthday. I felt a little guilty heading off in the middle of Lent and then was reminded that the 40 days of Lent do not include Sundays. We always take a time out on Sundays. Feasting in the midst of fasting is the way of Lent. It is just that I am taking all my Sundays at once.
Even before I arrived at my destination I felt God shining on what I realized is a much needed Sabbath rest in the midst of a very busy and challenging season. It was worth getting up at 4am to watch the sunrise at 35,000 on a beautiful clear day. Mount Rainier, Mt Baker, Mt St Helenas, Mt Hood, Mt Shasta, and others I cannot name, all came out to play in the beautiful morning glow. I sat and watched the changing colours and the changing landscape as we flew south. Breathing in and out slowly, savouring the wonder of it all and drinking in the revitalizing beauty really did make me feel that I was entering into God’s Sabbath rest.
In his inspirational book Sabbath as Resistance, Walter Brueggemann reminds us that Sabbath is not about keeping rules but rather about becoming whole persons in the midst of a restored, whole society.
Brueggemann contrasts the restless anxiety of our producer/consumer culture with the restfulness of God’s Sabbath world.
In our own contemporary context of the rat race of anxiety, the celebration of Sabbath is an act of both resistance and alternative. It is resistance because it is a visible insistence that our lives are not defined by the production and consumption of commodity goods. Such an act of resistance requires enormous intentionality and communal reinforcement amid the barrage of seductive pressures from the insatiable insistences of the market, with its intrusion into every part of our life from the family to the national budget….
But Sabbath is not only resistance it is alternative. It is an alternative to the demanding, chattering, pervasive presence of advertising and its great liturgical claim of professional sports that devour all our “rest time.” The alternative on offer is the awareness and practice of the claim that we are situated on the receiving end end of the gifts of God. (preface xiv)
Brueggemann explains that the command to keep Sabbath is the pivotal point of the Ten Commandments, something that we often forget or ignore. The weekly work pause breaks the production cycle. It breaks the anxiety cycle and invites us into a radical world of neighbourliness and equality. The commandments that follow he tells us really show us what neighbourliness looks like – you do not dishonour mother and father, you do not kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness or covet.
Sabbath is not simply a pause. It is an occasion for reimagining all of social life away from coercion and competition to compassionate solidarity. Such solidarity is imaginable and capable of performance only when the drivenness of of acquisitiveness is broken. Sabbath is not simply the pause that refreshes. It is the pause that transforms. Whereas Israelites are always tempted to acquisitiveness, Sabbath is an invitation to receptivity, an acknowledgement that what is needed is given and need not be seized. (45)
Grappling with the implications of Brueggemann’s theological interpretation is something that I am sure will occupy a lot of my mind in the next few weeks. I have long felt that God’s kingdom of wholeness and restfulness is the world view around which my whole life should revolve but I must confess it is not always so. Like the Israelites and like many of us, anxiety and acquisitiveness very quickly take over and in the midst of that anxiety the temptation to let go of Sabbath is huge.
Brueggemann’s book is an essential read for all of us. And I hope that like me you will be challenged by this book to rethink your life and to learn to live in the Sabbath restfulness that God intends for us all.
This weekend has certainly had this kind of a Sabbath flavour for me. Celebrating with friends whom I have have known for almost 50 years, is a glimpse into the kingdom for me. We have supported each other – physically, spiritually and emotionally through the highs and lows of life. We have supported each others’ ministries and encouraged each other when we felt unworthy. In so many ways we have helped each other draw close to God and to the wonder of being part of God’s eternal family. I cannot imagine anything more fitting as a Lenten celebration as this is meant to be a time that helps keep us on track pushing forward, and helping others push forward towards the kingdom of God.
NOTE: As an Amazon Associate I receive a small amount for purchases made through the links above.
My friend Thom Jensen posted this on Facebook
“Four years ago today.
Saturday 3/14.
All Apple stores in the world to shut down for 2 weeks. (So they thought)
I never went back to work. ”
All the Apple Stores ended up being shut for 9 months because of covid 19
Do you remember what you were doing this week in March 2020?
Do you remember how much we didn’t know?
How uncertain everything felt?
I took some time this week to look back through my photos to see what I was doing and what I was feeling as the pandemic started. My husband and I had been sick most of February with some crud that may or may not have been covid because there weren’t any tests yet.
I remember that on Thursday, March 12th that the National Basketball Association cancelled their season. Since this is professional basketball, people in the USA really took notice and realized the global pandemic that the World Health Organization had declared on March 11 was actually real.
I was reading the CDC time line of the pandemic and remembering how much we didn’t know back then. I remember hearing about all the deaths in Italy and listening to the Italians sing to one another from their balconies.
Italy suffered extensively and the world watched.
In Nashville, we had just experienced a major tornado ripping through the city. Clean up began in the middle of things shutting down. I remember that there was conflict between the Nashville mayor and some of the business owners Downtown in the honkey tonk district of Broadway because they didn’t want to shut down and lose money on St. Patrick’s Day. And the conflict started about wearing masks.
How did you experience the first weeks of the pandemic? What do you remember? What stands out?
This week I am noticing how I’m feeling four years on and noticing all the pain of the last few years.
You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your record?
Psalm 56:8 NRSV
God holds our tears in the wilderness of Grief and Sorrow. READ THE WHOLE CHAPTER
This week, March 13th, marks the fourth anniversary of Brianna Taylor’s death. She was an emergency medical technician who was home with her boyfriend when the Louisville police broke down the door and shot into the apartment and killed her. She had done nothing wrong. The police didn’t take the time to ask questions. They shot first. She was only 26 years old..She would be 30 this year. She was black. I have a son who will be 32 this year. Due to his color , he never has to worry about the police.
Brianna was the first of many painful, senseless killings of black people by police in 2020 and because of the lockdown we had time to pay attention to a pandemic of death that had been going on for years and sadly still continues.
The anniversary of her death hit me hard. I think because so little has changed. There is still so much violence against people of color in our country and our world.
EMT’s took my dad by ambulance to the ER hospital on Saturday after an episode that my mom thought was a stroke or a heart attack. Thankfully it was just a blackout from his blood pressure dropping but as many of you know, hospital stays are stress full and not restful. So everyone in the family s exhausted from this event and wondering when it will happen again.
Layers of grief
Layers of fatigue that we carry around with us …sometimes we notice. sometimes we feel sad or depressed and we don’t understand why… I think it’s because we have all suffered loss and been impacted by the global pain.
Then add on the wars in our world, and the conflict in politics and an election year her in the states and it truly can be overwhelming.
GOD HOLDS OUR TEARS!
On March 27th we will remember the first year anniversary of the Covenant School shooting that happened near my neighborhood .Three fourth graders and three staff members died when a former student with a military style rife opened fire in the school.
And here in Tennessee, the state legislature wants to make it illegal to buy cold beer to prevent drunk driving deaths but refuses to put any limitations on gun sales. We are a permit less, open carry state where anyone can purchase a gun without any training and very limited background checks.
This all makes me so crazy! Especially when I know that other countries don’t deal with gun deaths every single day!
GOD HOLDS OUR TEARS!
I think our whole world is exhausted and in grief. I our bodies feel it even if we aren’t choosing to pay attention. We really do need rest and restoration and time to grieve.
You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your record?
Psalm 56:8 NRSV
What are you grieving today?
What do you notice as you recall the events of the lockdown and the last four years of your life?
How have things changed for you?
How are things the same?
Did you lose anyone to the disease or because of the pandemic? What were the losses you experienced? Have you taken time to grieve these?
Pray for people you know who lost someone.
What has changed for the better? What have been the gifts since Covid lockdown?
Take time to reflect with Jesus on what you’ve learned and how you’ve changed. And take time to be thankful.
What are you grieving about our world right now? What is breaking your heart and causing you pain?
Let Jesus hold these tears for you! GOD HOLDS OUR TEARS!
Practice:
Take out a Cup and a pitcher… Fill the pitcher with water..…imagine the water is the tears you’ve been crying…for your country, your city/town, your family, our world, your self, the losses, the waste, all the things you cannot fix or control. All the things our are grieving.
Pour out some water into the cup! Now give that cup to Jesus to hold. Let Jesus hold your tears. Keep a pitcher and cup somewhere in your house to remind you that God is holding your tears.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted. Matthew 5:4
I am grateful that GOD knows our sorrow and understands our pain. I am grateful that Jesus understood loss and wept for his friend, and got angry at injustice! at the end of Psalm 56 we are reminded…
God, you did everything you promised,
and I’m thanking you with all my heart.
You pulled me from the brink of death,
my feet from the cliff-edge of doom.
Now I stroll at leisure with God
in the sunlit fields of life. AMEN
Take time this weekend to stroll outside. Stroll with God…let God comfort you in your pain and refresh you with the beauty of nature. Remember that you are greatly loved and you are not alone. And in honor of St. Patrick’s Day on Sunday, an Irish Blessing Song. If you remember, there were many blessing songs that came out during the Pandemic. One of the gifts of technology that kept us together!
You can download a free resource to help you pray through Holy Week, Using your Coffee or Tea Cup.
@lillylewin and freerangeworship.com
by Carol Dixon
On the first day of the third month after the Israelites left Egypt—on that very day—they came to the Desert of Sinai. 2 After they set out from Rephidim, they entered the Desert of Sinai, and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain.
A desert prayer: Desert-ed by God
The desert is hot and arid,
….it saps my strength,
….my eyes burn for a glimpse of God;
Parched I pant for pools of living water;
….I long to lounge again by the life-giving streams,
….and let God’s provident love flood my life.
Bountiful God,
….Renewer of our strength in times of testing,
….you provide bread for our journey,
….and springs of water in the hard places
….if only we know where to look;
Forgive our flagging faith,
….turn our fasting to feasting,
….remove our stone-filled sandals
….and humbly wash our feet,
….until restored, renewed and re-invigorated
….we plant seeds of joyful hope
….in the desert places of our world. © Carol Dixon
I’ve never been in an actual desert. I should imagine it can be quite a scary place. I’ve never been a refugee either, fleeing from an oppressive regime. So it’s hard for me to imagine just how desperate the fugitives who followed Moses from Egypt felt. Often when we hear the story we blame the refugees themselves for moaning about the situation they found themselves in – they’d just been spectacularly rescued from a life of slavery so why complain – but in many ways it must have seemed to them like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.
So why did God allow his chosen people to wander in the wilderness for a whole generation? Canon Trevor Dennis in his ‘Book of Books – The Bible for young people’ suggests that one reason was so they would learn to grow up into the people they were meant to be – far away from the temptations of heathen gods and the flesh pots of the decedent cities round about. It was also so that they would learn to rely totally on God who fed them physically and spiritually.
Sometimes in our lives we can feel as if we have been des-ert-ed (deserted) by God. Joyce Huggett in her book ‘Formed by Desert’ says: Sometimes in our lives we can feel as if we have been des-ert-ed (deserted) by God. Our ‘desert’ might be a situation of hopelessness and helplessness, any situation where we watch the resources we normally rely on dwindle and dry up – any situation where we feel we have lost our way. Our own personal wilderness might be the emptiness of loss that comes through bereavement or redundancy, depression or burn-out, illness or loneliness, post-accident trauma or marriage breakdown; failure of any kind. Alternatively our desert might be the desert of discouragement or confusion, inability to pray, weariness or disappointment, or an awareness of our innate selfishness and addiction to consumerism, to name a couple of 21st century deserts.’
In these kind of situations we can learn a lot from the story of Moses to help us to understand and get through our desert times in life. His story reminds us that when prayer seems dry, difficult or dull, we still need to come to God – even if it’s just to complain! Moses also teaches us the value of waiting. Praying in times of spiritual aridity may seem as if nothing is happening but as we offer God all that we are we discover that the waiting time allows our soul to grow up’ and we learn to become the person God intends us to be.
The story of Moses and the Israelites also teaches us to hope in the sense that it encourages us to depend on God’s promises and power. He challenges us to watch to see the way in which God’s creative love will express itself at every twist and turn in the road and we learn to look around every corner expecting the new mercies God constantly showers on us day by day even in difficult times.
Sometimes in our desert God provides us with the support of a companion, a spiritual desert-dweller who has learned the art of thriving in the inner desert; someone who can point out hidden dangers, as well as waterholes and sustenance for our journey – I’ve been very blest over the years to have found such companions who have helped me on my journey of faith. The final lesson Moses had to learn over the years was that of letting go. When something or someone is precious to us, the temptation is to cling, and when we cling we are unable to stretch out open hands to receive the new thing or insight God yearns to give us. Moses (and the people he led) learned, albeit with a struggle to pray the prayer of relinquishment regularly. As God himself reminds us (in the words of the prophet Isaiah): Stop dwelling on past events and brooding over days gone by. I am about to do something new; this moment it will unfold. Can you not perceive it? Even through the wilderness I shall make a way, and paths in the barren desert… for I shall provide food in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. (Is 43 v11-21)
We have a Saviour who has walked the desert way before us and who is with us in all our challenging circumstances as well as in our joys. One of my favourite songs is ‘Be not afraid’ (You shall cross the barren desert). The words are so affirmative and comforting. I particularly love the version by Marilla Ness:
https://youtu.be/tqo11i6opyE?feature=shared
Be Not Afraid
You shall cross the barren desert
But you shall not die of thirst
You shall wander far in safety
Though you do not know the way
You shall speak your words in foreign lands
And all will understand
You shall see the face of God and live
Chorus: Be not afraid, I go before you always
Come follow Me and I will give you rest
If you pass through raging waters in the sea
You shall not drown
If you walk amid the burning flames
You shall not be harmed
If you stand before the power of hell
And death is at your side
Know that I am with you through it al Chorus:
Blessed are your poor
For the kingdom shall be theirs
Blessed are you that weep and mourn
For one day you shall laugh
And if wicked tongues insult and hate you
All because of Me
Blessed, blessed are you! © Bob Duffy
Photo by Emma Van Sant Unsplash
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