[re]imagine Lent: 3/3/2023
We encourage you to sign up for the 40-40-40 Lenten Challenge, a challenge with our partner Southeastern Iowa Synod to participate in Lenten practices, including these daily devotions. Just signing up counts as participation! More info here.
“[Jesus answered,] The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Do you hear it?
The rustling, restless
joyful howl, coming ever closer.
Of course, sometimes it’s not a howl,
Sometimes it’s just a gentle breeze,
slowly and steadily building
until there’s enough power behind it to move,
this way and that.
That’s when it gets dangerous.
What was that?
A whisper of the wind, perhaps
Blowing from the past, a corner of nostalgia
that prefers to live in that easy part of your mind,
a comfort to return to,
a seductive promise of things that used to be.
But this whisper isn’t the wind.
The whisper is so close,
Sneakily disguised as the wind,
But.
But the wind doesn’t stop.
It carries you forward, forward,
Sweeping us all up in its relentless pursuit
of God’s kingdom
Flitting here, resting there,
Depositing you just so, for whatever time God needs,
Until you are swept up once again.
The wind blows where it chooses, and you are powerless to stop it.
So maybe, instead of clinging to the old, dead tree,
using all that energy to hold on to something that
no longer teems with life,
Like a leaf you can joyfully let go –
Being swept up in the movement of God’s Spirit,
Prepared for a new landing,
New soil,
Planted, growing, and bearing fruit until
The Spirit sweeps you up again
Prayer
God of everlasting promise, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus you have called me to a life of grace and faith. By your Spirit empower me to believe and so believing to act, that living in your salvation I might leave behind all that no longer gives life and step into a future you are calling into existence. Join my faith and gifts with others in my life so that together our faith becomes your gift living in the world. Amen.
Journal Prompt
Lent calls us to practices of faith. Reflect on your own life of faith. When has God called you to take a step into something new? How did you respond? Or, ask yourself if God is currently calling you, like Abram, to leave something behind so that you can start something new, even if that new thing has yet to be revealed. How does that call make you feel?
Week Two Devotions by Rev. Erika Uthe, uthe@seiasynod.org