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.

Lent week 2 Tuesday

 Psalm 63:1

You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.

Though we try to avoid the desert experience, God leads us to the wilderness to reveal Himself to us in new and life-giving ways. The wilderness calls us to be still, reflect, pray, wrestle, and to listen to God. Our wilderness experience tends to bring to the surface what is happening deep within us, and it is possible that we find our-selves, similarly to Jesus, being prepared for what lies ahead.

The desert experience lays bare our inner emptiness, detaches us, and can simplify a person's life down to the bare essentials. In the spiritual desert we are confronted by all our baggage and dark spots. We resist going into the silence and quiet because we do not like what we see there.

Desert time is vital to a mature relationship with God. If we are committed in our faith, then God is going to bring us to the desert at some point to look deeply at ourselves and see ourselves the way God sees us. This means we will have to confront the dark spots of our lives and the things we do our best to hide from God and from the rest of the world.

Lent Spiritual Prompt

Do I acknowledge my complete dependence on God?

Do I trust the power and presence of God in my life?

Do I prefer the easy way, the path of least resistance and the most gratification?

Do I value money, time, and prestige more than people?

Pray

Gracious God, you have 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.

Quiet my heart to hear your voice. Father, I don't want to resist your will and your timing. Help me lay down my agenda and my pride.

Teach me submission and humility. Let me know your present as I wander in this wilderness.

Lent Week2 Monday

 Deuteronomy 2:7

The Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you, and you have not lacked anything.

All sorts of things can lead us to a barren, wilderness place and our days can often feel long, dark, and extremely difficult - physically, emotionally, or spiritually. Maybe you find yourself in a place where everything feels as though it is being stripped away and you hunger and thirst for something more. Tell God about it.

Lent Spiritual Prompt

Can you describe a time in vour life that vou would identify as

"wilderness"?

Have you ever encountered a wilderness experience? A place where perhaps you found yourself discouraged, uncertain, tired, weary, and fed-up.

Pray

Loving God let me tell you about my wilderness experience.

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.

I don't want to self-protect, isolate, or place my heart high on a shelf out of reach. I want to bring you my whole heart. I want to uncover so vou can cover and heal. I want to hold nothing back, Jesus. I don't want to doubt your love. I want to grow deeper in my understanding of your love for me, but I know I need your help to even grasp how long, how wide, and how deep your love truly is.

Lent Week 2 Sunday

 Mark 1:12-14

The Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

James 1:3 The testing of your faith produces perseverance.

As we step into Lent, we are reminded that Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness before starting His ministry.

Throughout scripture we read of many characters who experienced the wilderness, usually before they stepped into a significant calling.

We all walk through wilderness times, those spiritually dry places where God teaches us to trust Him. It's often in the middle of the bleakest desert that God heals us and sets us free from false narratives that hold us captive.

Lent Spiritual Prompt

Why do you think the Spirit led Jesus out into the wilderness to be tempted?

In the desert of daily routine can you learn to find value in the humblest tasks?

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. I don't want to grumble.

I want to thank you for all the gifts you have given me. Whatever happens to me in life, dear Lord, even when the road is rocky and leads me through wild or frightening passes, help me to hold on tight to you.

Thank you for the endurance and courage of Jesus, and his steadfastness in temptation. May I learn from him, may my faith in him never fail, and may I grow more like him as I follow - slowly, stum-blingly - after him. Amen.

Lent Week 1 Saturday

 What to Give Up ...

Give up complaining.

... focus on gratitude.

Give up pessimism .. become an optimist.

Give up harsh judgments

... think kindly thoughts.

Give up worry . trust Divine Providence.

Give up discouragement

.. be full of hope.

Give up bitterness ... turn to forgiveness.

Give up hatred

Give up negativism

... return good for evil.

. be positive.

Give up anger

be more patient.

Give up pettiness ..become mature.

Give up gloom ... enjoy the beauty that is all around you.

Give up jealousy ... pray for trust.

Give up gossiping.

... control your tongue.

Give up sin.

.. turn to virtue.

Give up giving up ... hang in there!

Lent Spiritual Prompt

Think of a person with whom you have a strained relationship and make some gesture toward improving that relationship.

Pray

Direct my actions, Lord, by your holy inspiration and carry them forward by your gracious help, that all my works may begin in you and by you be happily ended.