Success isn’t about how your life looks to others. It’s about how it feels to you.
It is not what you are nor what you have been that God sees with his merciful eyes, but what you desire to be! Evil and sin brought Jesus to the cross, but the power of goodness and the faithfulness of God brought Jesus to life at the Resurrection. Sin can never destroy humanity’s relationship with God, nor can God be deceased!
A person of faith can never fear the wrath of God. Why? Because faithfulness is what God cherishes the most in his followers. People can always bath in the clear rainwaters of the Holy Spirit and be reconciled with God once again.
As we enter another Lenten season, we engage in another view of a loving God who means what he says. He loves us and sees what is possible with each of his children when, at times, we only see what we cannot do.
God is our Savior and chose to save us. During this Lenten season, like all Lenten seasons, God gives his beloved a chance to turn our hearts to God. Simply because God knows another avenue, lane, or path, that we can’t see. This is called Godly trust.
George Washington once remarked: True friendship is a place of slow growth. It is the road less traveled, but that wouldn’t stop God from trying! In case it just might be the road God may wish to engage us on even if it is to make a point.
Even Christmas with all of its color, songs, and stories is here to make us feel good, but also to show us what it’s like to be incarnate among the poor who live around us. It is to show us what a Christ-like life is. We are better than we think but not what we want to be!
Lent talks of what the light Christ brings to the world. The word “Lent” can be translated as “lengthen.” It is the time of year in the Western Hemisphere when the hours of daylight grow longer. Lent speaks of our darkness and blindness and Christ as the light illumining our way.
Every Lenten season re-introduces our yearning for a savior. We call this Hope. It is born of truly sacred love. As Christians we believe that we live always in this l love.
Christianity is not a religion that believes in an abstract, distant, and disconnected God. On the contrary, our God chooses to meet us in flesh and blood in an exclusive manner. And this is a real, historical, and material fact. Even to this day and time, our God waits to meet us in a here and now reminding us to love one another, more deeply and lovingly. And to love God as God loves us.
As we pray in this Lenten season, we draw closer to the celebration of Christ’s Second Coming. We remember that the God of history longs to meet us at our specific time and place. However, not everyone is open to who hear the Word of God. Only those with sincere and receptive hearts can decipher Jesus’ message and translate it into action. When this happens, even our ordinary life experiences become windows into the extraordinary work of our God.
Our work during every moment of every season of a liturgical year is to pray to ask Jesus to clear our minds and give us a sincere heart to translate Jesus’ message into an everyday action – over and over again!
Painting: The First, Jared Barnes Artist
