Fasting....not
to make ourselves thinner or healthier but to increase our sense of
dependence on God...part of the process of stripping away everything
that doesn't actually matter.
Reflect
on the things that you depend on...it might be family and
friends...it might be car or mobile phone...it might be
anything....even things that are good in themselves....
Take a stone
for each one...choose to put it down at the foot of the cross...and
ask God to help you order your priorities so that you come to
recognise your real dependence on him.
Learn
to be God's people once again.
Take
a piece of broken pottery...carry it with you or put in beside your
bed to help you remember that God is the potter, we the clay – that
little by little we are being shaped and remade into the people God
longs for us to be, as we feast and fast in line with his pattern for
our lives.
(I find my piece of pottery in my coat pocket whenever I lose track of where I've put my keys. It slows me down, even in that moment of urgent anxiety...makes me remember that I'm broken, yes, - but nonetheless a clay jar that holds treasure)
Finally listen...listen as God speaks to you, not just through Scripture, nor, tonight, through creation nor one another. Choose a word card and let it be your companion through Lent.
This
is YOUR word...Walk with it, reflect on it, ask God what it might
mean for you, how God wants to make this word real in your life.
Savour it through all the 40 days ahead...and watch it work on you.
Here's my word. I'm not sure how I feel about it. After all there were so many others I might have picked - they were in a pile face down, so your word chose you rather than the other way round. "Justice" "Obey" "Adventure"....wouldn't one of those have been more interesting, more challenging, more....
and yet, and yet...OK it feels a bit obvious, a kind of "duh" word...but it's more than challenge enough really. And it's the foundation of pretty much everything else.
I'll walk it through Lent and see where we get to...
No second-guessing the destination.
It's all about the journey.
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