If Advent is a time of
preparation, Lent is a time for contemplation, a time for us to reflect on our
lives and see where we have turned from God in sin. Lent calls us to
contemplation so we can acknowledge our waywardness and repent.
The liturgical color we use during is Lent is purple, the color of repentance. The color is a visible reminder of what Scripture teaches us: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Acknowledging our sins leads us to repentance, and from there to the joy of forgiveness: “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
For all the busyness that fills our days in December, Lent should be a quieter time, a time for us to read, to reflect, and most important, to pray. We should pray not just for forgiveness, which is always readily granted us by the grace of God in Jesus Christ, but for understanding and wisdom so we can learn from our mistakes and avoid making the same ones time and time again.
We struggle with prayer, though, struggle with the idea, that we are not sure just how to pray. After all, even the Disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. But prayer really is quite simple; you need not be concerned with the eloquence of your words, and yes, absolutely, you can dispense with Elizabethan English words like, “thou”, “thine”, and “thee”. Prayer is conversation, in your own words, with God who is always ready to listen.
But prayer is not as much about talking as it is about being quiet, contemplative and listening for God to speak to you. As the Reverend Harry Emerson Fosdick observed in his classic book, The Meaning of Prayer, “one of our strongest misconceptions concerning prayer is that it consists chiefly of talking to God, when the best part of prayer is our listening to God.”
Prayer should refresh and renew us as we unburden ourselves and feel God’s loving grace wash over us. The Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote that “prayer is not only the lifting up of the mind and heart to God, but it is also the response to God within us, the discovery of God within us; it leads ultimately to the discovery and fulfillment of our own true being in God.”
The liturgical color we use during is Lent is purple, the color of repentance. The color is a visible reminder of what Scripture teaches us: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Acknowledging our sins leads us to repentance, and from there to the joy of forgiveness: “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
For all the busyness that fills our days in December, Lent should be a quieter time, a time for us to read, to reflect, and most important, to pray. We should pray not just for forgiveness, which is always readily granted us by the grace of God in Jesus Christ, but for understanding and wisdom so we can learn from our mistakes and avoid making the same ones time and time again.
We struggle with prayer, though, struggle with the idea, that we are not sure just how to pray. After all, even the Disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. But prayer really is quite simple; you need not be concerned with the eloquence of your words, and yes, absolutely, you can dispense with Elizabethan English words like, “thou”, “thine”, and “thee”. Prayer is conversation, in your own words, with God who is always ready to listen.
But prayer is not as much about talking as it is about being quiet, contemplative and listening for God to speak to you. As the Reverend Harry Emerson Fosdick observed in his classic book, The Meaning of Prayer, “one of our strongest misconceptions concerning prayer is that it consists chiefly of talking to God, when the best part of prayer is our listening to God.”
Prayer should refresh and renew us as we unburden ourselves and feel God’s loving grace wash over us. The Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote that “prayer is not only the lifting up of the mind and heart to God, but it is also the response to God within us, the discovery of God within us; it leads ultimately to the discovery and fulfillment of our own true being in God.”
Prayer awakens us,
enlightens us, tunes us in more completely to and with God. As you journey
through Lent make time in your busy schedule for yourself and for prayer. Listen
for God’s response to your prayer, grounded in the simple, yet powerful words
of Jesus, “yet, not my will but yours be
done.”
Amen
Pastor Skip
Amen
Pastor Skip
