Lent week3 Tuesday

 Philippians 2:3-4

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.

Wordsworth

The pursuit of success is the dominant narrative of our time, where social media encourages us to present a perfect image of our lives with the drive towards a bigger house, better job, or flashier holi-day.

Much of what society teaches us, particularly in western society, is to focus on the wrong things. So many people end up making themselves ill and tired hustling to get those things. Sometimes people actually get those things, and it does not make them happy. Or in the process of striving, they neglect the things that truly make them happy.

Lent Spiritual Prompt

Talk to God about your life goals and your decisions. What "ma-terial things" are controlling your life? List them and ask the Holy Spirit to help you release control and let them go, so that God's perfect will is done in your life. At your core are you content and at peace with your life? If not, talk to someone you trust about this.

Pray

Gracious God, please help me to spend my time, talents, and assets wisely. Please break the bondage of conspicuous consumption over our nation and over me. Help me to be a better steward of the resources You have blessed me with. Holy Spirit, please help me to be more disciplined with my lifestyle. Loving God, help me to learn to be content with what I have instead of wanting more. Help those who are in financial trouble. Many need a miracle in their finances, and I ask for Your intervention.

Compassionate God, please forgive me for greed, selfish ambition, idolatry, conceit, and arrogance. Forgive me for loving things and placing them over You. Forgive me for not being a good steward of Your blessings. I renounce any gods of materialism. Lord, remind me of those I need to forgive; and help me to forgive.

Lent week 3 Monday

 Philippians 2:4

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Acts 20:35

In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

When we see a person who is homeless, we have the opportunity to pray for them and ask for God's protection to cover them.

The next time you pass a person who has no home, pray for them.

Pray

Loving God, I pray for the people I have passed sleeping in door-ways. Show me what I should do to help change their situations.

I pray for transforming hearts and minds to foster generosity and compassion toward all those who have no homes and who are in need. Inspire those with resources and power to be Your hands and feet, extending Your love to those in need.

Lent week3 Sunday

 John 15 

 Jesus says, '...if you abide in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing..

During Lent, perhaps we might enter a place where we rediscover our sense of belonging to our Creator, to each other, irrespective of colour, culture, or creed. This Lent we should strive to name and own our ambitions, including the temptations that stand in the way of us achieving God's plan for us.

Pray

Loving God, challenge me when I talk of anyone as less than myself, and help me speak up when others speak in ways that diminish or disparage people who differ from them. Grant me patience to listen to you to discern your plan for me. Let me abide in you and let me bear fruit for you. 

Lent week2 Saturday

 Luke 5:16 

"But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer."

The wilderness can also be a place of formation and a place of prep-aration. The Israelites took a census and got organized during their time in the wilderness. John the Baptist was a voice crying out from the wilderness. Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the wilderness before beginning his public ministry. Once Christ began healing and teaching, people followed him everywhere, but he often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.

In our spiritual desert experience, there is time and space to think and pray.

The desert has things to teach us. We see the careful provision of our Father in a different light. His love stands out in stark relief against the background of the desert's barren landscape. In the wilderness, we come to the end of ourselves. We learn in new and deeper ways to cling to Him and wait for Him.

When we come out of the desert, the desert lessons stay with us.

We take them with us into the next stretch of our Christian journey.

We remember the God who led us through the desert, and we know that He is with us still. Desert times are fruitful times. Though they seem barren, lush fruit is being produced in our lives when we walk through the desert. The Lord will sanctify our desert times and make them to be fruitful in our life.

Lent Spiritual Prompt

What have you learnt this week about the desert experience?

One thing is clear in Scripture: We are never alone in the wilder-ness. If you are walking through a wilderness of your own, pray to be reminded of the promise that God will never leave or forsake

you.

Pray

Father, you've led me to this wilderness to heal me, change me, and reveal yourself to me. I trust in your plan for me as well as your willingness and ability to provide for me here.

Dear Lord, I know that wherever I am, You are with me guiding, protecting, providing. You make streams flow in the desert; You cause a root to grow out of dry ground. Thank You for giving me the opportunity to see You work when all hope seems lost.

I know I am never alone in the wilderness. I pray to be reminded of the promise that God will never leave or forsake me.

In my wilderness experience show me that desert times are fruitful times. Let me have faith to know that though this time seems bar-ren, lush fruit is being produced in my life when I walk with God through this desert. Please Lord sanctify my desert time and make it to be fruitful in my life.

Lent week 2 Friday

 Ecclesiastes 3:1 

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens."

To be led by the Spirit requires listening and obedience to God. The wilderness can be seen as a situation of austerity - a desert place offering no luxury. Intimidating, disheartening, and downright dangerous, time in the wilderness is daunting and not something to look forward to. It's a place where survival skills are called for.

Metaphorically, it is about loneliness or depression, about adversity, maybe bereavement, tough times.

Desert time can be associated with time for solitude. Time alone can be renewing and recharging, a dedicated opportunity for reflection and prayer, a time for us to see more clearly and to put our struggles into proper perspective. It is important to go to the desert to come closer to God.

The desert journey can be a time of learning to know and to trust God, but also an increase in self-knowledge. The desert time gives us a deepening awareness of our thoughts. We can never fully escape our struggles and temptations--time alone reminds us often it is our own thoughts and behaviours that are our biggest obstacles to having a closer relationship with God.

Lent Spiritual Prompt

What are the thoughts and behaviours that are your biggest obstacles to having a closer relationship with God? What is Jesus saying to you about the necessity of desert experience for your inner life? How do you build in and practice some desert time in your life?

Pray

Father, you've led me to this wilderness to heal me, change me, and reveal yourself to me. I trust in vour plan for me as well as vour willingness and ability to provide for me here.

Gracious God, help me to build in and practice some desert time in my spiritual life. Help me to learn to know you and trust you. Let this desert time deepen my awareness of you and your direction for me. Show me the obstacles in my life that are blocking my relationship with you.

Lent week 2 Thursday

 Corinthians 12:9

"My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."

Jesus' time in the desert prepared him to begin his public ministry.

When we confront our demons with God's help, we are stronger. It is in the desert time our time of prayer, solitude, and aloneness with God--that God readies us for our next steps.

The wilderness can be seen as a beautiful and necessary part of the earth's life. We can see the wilderness as a metaphor. We all need breathing space, time to just be, peace and quiet, and the opportunity to retreat, regroup, and get a better perspective on life.

Lent Spiritual Prompt

Have you found spiritual growth or healing in your spiritual des-ert?

As we continue on our Lenten journey, let me be led by the Spirit to have the courage to deal with the desert as Jesus did. I pray that during these weeks of Lent, God will strengthen me in my weakness the way Jesus was strengthened.

Pray

Lord, you've led me to this wilderness to heal me, change me, and reveal yourself to me. I trust in your plan for me as well as your willingness and ability to provide for me.

I pray that in the wilderness you never leave me alone. Please be with me and let your light shine on my path so I can see the way and never be lost in the wilderness.

Gracious God, let me be led by the Spirit to have the courage to deal with the desert as Jesus did. I pray that during these weeks of Lent, God will strengthen me in my weakness the way Jesus was strengthened.

Lent week2 Wednesday

Deuteronomy 8:2

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.

Wilderness wanderers usually know what it is to feel lonely and hopeless; disillusionment, discouragement and a sense of abandonment can so easily set in as we seek ways to get out of our desolate place. It is a natural human emotion to cry out for help and relief, too long for such days in the desert place to cease. The Hebrew word for 'desert' means 'place of speaking'. When we feel abandoned, God always finds a way to reassure us of His presence and speak to us.

Lent Spiritual Prompt

Can you recall times of struggle or drought where you also experienced moments of encouragement or felt close to God? Did you believe God "watched over your journey through this vast wilder-ness." Deuteronomy 2:7

Pray

Gracious God, you've led me to this wilderness to heal me, change me, and reveal yourself to me. I trust in your plan for me as well as your willingness and ability to provide for me here.

I don't want to doubt your presence. You've led me here to reveal yourself to me. You are helping me exercise my spiritual muscles in discerning your voice in new ways.

Loving God, I struggle to hear that gentle whisper you're teaching me to listen for. Open my eyes to recognise you in the ordinary as well as in the extraordinary.