Lent - Keep it simple

 

Questions on the way

1 Thessalonians 5:19-21 “Do not quench the Spirit.  Do not despise prophecies,  but test everything; hold fast what is good.”

As we have journeyed through lockdown and now find ourselves travelling through Lent, I wonder whether your mind like mine has turned into questioning mode. It was Bertrand Russel who said,  “In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.” 

Our questions can serve us well in a time such as this, a time of grave uncertainty, of soaring potential, of fragile yet resilient hope. Our questions and questing are crucial, because they can help us live into the answer of the future. I am certain of one thing: the love that is God is at the heart of the answer, just as it is at the heart of each moment—past, present, and future. 

Faith today, tomorrow, and always seeks to live, to love, and to be loved fully. It seeks the Holy and waits (though not always patiently) to be found; it nurtures and activates wisdom and compassion. It chooses to embrace hope and to be embraced by hope, even when overwhelmed by despair; it seeks life even in the face of death. We act in faith, knowing that we see only dimly. But living in faith, we act anyway, choosing and doing the best we can. We act and live in confidence that someday we will see face to face, that we will live into the answers. For God's grace embraces our questions as well as our answers and our blindness as well as our vision, just as the sun shines steadily through the night, waiting to illumine the sky at dawn.

Prayer

You call us, Wanderer of seashores and sidewalks, inviting us to sail out of our smug harbours into the uncharted waters of faith to wander off from our predictable paths to follow You into the unpredictable footsteps of the kingdom; to leave the comfort of our homes and accompany You into the uncomfortable neighbourhoods we usually avoid.As we wait, in our simple, sometimes crazy, constantly uncertain lives, speak to us, Spirit of Grace: of that hope which is our anchor; of that peace which is our rock; of that grace which is our refuge. Amen