This Season of Lent, we are traveling through a worship series titled Journey to the Heart. The question remains, however, the Heart of who or what exactly? It’s ambiguous & leaves us, perhaps, feeling disquieted & uncertain. However, it is intentionally nebulous & open-ended. When we journey toward the cross of Christ, it is a journey that takes us to the Heart of ourselves, the Heart of our community, & ultimately, the Heart of God. We are challenged in Lent to peel back the layers of ourselves to get to the core of our being. We are also challenged in Lent to peel back the layers of the world & our community, examining where we, collectively, miss the mark of what it means when we pray for God’s kin-dom to come into this world. Finally, we are called to peel back the layers of our understanding of Christ so that we might have a fuller grasp & understanding of our Lord & Savior. A journey to the Heart is never one for the faint of Heart.
As you contemplate this season & have hopefully taken up a posture of hope & waiting, I want to remind you that the disciplines of Lent are not meant to be performative. Suppose we genuinely desire to Journey to the Heart. In that case, we need to realize that the things we give up or take on as part of this 40-day preparation will only help us grow if we use them to lean into the Holy Spirit. For example, giving up processed sugar is good for our body. However, it only becomes good for our soul if we take the moments of craving & temptation as moments of prayer & reflection, inviting God’s Spirit to converse with us in that moment. Reading the Bible can increase our knowledge of the Almighty. However, it only feeds our soul when we read with the intention to seek revelation & inspiration by the presence of the Divine One in our understanding & interpretation; otherwise, it’s simply another book filled with words & no longer the Living Word.
I pray for each one who calls this local church home & those siblings in Christ worldwide as we journey collectively during these forty days. May the power of the Creator birth something new in our lives, in our community, & in our world so that this year’s Journey to the Heart is filled with the Holy Spirit. After all, that is the same Spirit of fire that purifies the hearts of believers, sanctifying us to be more like Christ in our personal & collective lives. And I can’t help but think that the world having more people like Christ is the best news this season of preparation, hope, & waiting can look forward to.
In Christ’s Love,
