A Labyrinthine Journey

I spent some time today trying to figure out what approach to take into preaching through Lent this year. For some reason, the lectionary passages didn’t capture my attention as they usually do when I do my seasonal planning.

As I reflected on themes, one idea kept resurfacing: what are we in danger of losing in life in the face of crisis.

Of course, a big crisis on people’s minds today is the economic one. Our finance committee had some unpleasant moments as they looked at lower donation numbers and higher winter heating costs. Yet, in the last few days I have been in conversation with people who are facing the crisis of marriage disintegration, cancer, emergency surgery, as well as job loss or the threat of it.

While hearing all those voices of fear and anxiety and despair and even panic, I hear the whisper of another voice. A voice that is seeking to remind me that life is still a good thing and that we are held beyond what we can remember.

So, my Lenten preaching is unfolding as a series of reflections on what the scripture and the Spirit want to tell us we are at risk of losing when we only hear the voices of fear and loss. And what is the more we can gain as we again attend to that tender voice of  the Beloved.

The list of themes is still forming and may spill over beyond Easter, but isn’t that the way it is supposed to be. In the midst of our darkness and fear, Life spills over out of the shadows to carry us beyond Easter eternally.

Preaching on the Transfiguration. Applying it to the transforming work of God in our lives. As I follow the thoughts and ideas I find I am needing to change a perspective on the spiritual life that I have preached on before.

I used to really like the idea of our lives being a reflection of the Glory and Grace of God. It has been in invitation to free ourselves from the trap of needing to create and work for our own righteousness and spiritual life. We need to try to get out of the way of what God wants to show to others. Reflecting is a good thing, but I am wondering if that is enough.

At the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-9 this year) we don’t see Jesus reflecting the glorious light of God as if God turned a huge spotlight on Jesus and said, “Look at him.” I read the text saying that Jesus was transfigured from the inside out. He didn’t just reflect God’s glory, he revealed it. It may not seem like much of a difference, but I am beginning to see it as an importance shift in perspective.

When we are reflecting something, we don’t really participate. We are showing something that is not us or a part of us. A mirror reflects light and images but is unchanged as a mirror. That silvery surface can reflect images of beauty and wonder then in the next moment show images of ugliness and destruction.

Yet, when Jesus reveals the Glory of God he is fully participating in that action. He is transfigured by that presence and we see in the Gospel a noticeable change in him for the rest of the story. Jesus is the Living Light of God in that event. Jesus, according to John, is the Living Word of God while on earth. The early church wrestled with that idea and ended up with the mysterious formula of Jesus being fully human and fully divine to capture this idea that when we see Jesus we don’t see a human being giving us reflections and pictures of God, but we see the real presence of the Divine in the completely human life of Jesus.

I believe our transformation by grace can learn from that event in the Gospel. God doesn’t come to simply use our lives as a surface to reflect something that is not us to the world. God wants us to fully participate in the Creating/Living Presence of Love. And we should want that, too. We ache inside to be a part of God in the world. We yearn to become Revealers of God.

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. — 2 Corinthians 3:18 NRSV

While Paul begins here with the idea of reflection and mirror, he doesn’t end there. He talks about this process of transformation where we no longer just show but become.

Jesus called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” –Mark 8:34, NRSV

Okay, I confess I have struggles with ideas such as surrender, denying myself, and even following. So today’s reading from Sacred Space was a bit soul rattling. It isn’t an earth-shaking concept at all. I just struggle with it. Part of the struggle comes from being an Enneagram 8 which is very much afraid of others controlling our lives. Yet, I think this is a struggle we all have as we work out of and through our sinful, self important orientation to life.

Face it, we all go through life trying to get everyone and everything to serve our best interests. We become masters of manipulation. We mold our image and the situation so we become the winner. We have even found ways to make doing good things for others into a way that we get payback. Control is a major issue for all points in the enneagram not just the Eights where we excel at it.

Right now, the hot zone is my spirituality. I say that is a good thing because that signals me that there is where my growing is most active and part of me doesn’t want to budge. I haven’t been able to name that part yet, and may never identify the persona inside me that is leading the resistance. I don’t need to be able to understand what is happening in order to proceed with the growing and healing. (seeking to understand is the control issue for the Enneatype 5, my stress point)

Back to denying. One of the fears of the call of Jesus in Mark 8 is that it opens up life to vulnerability, to weakness, to loss, even to emptiness. For quite a while, John 10:10 has been a calling point for me: the gift of life abundant. But here Jesus lays out a different path of life and growth, one of lessening not abundance. I have naively associated abundance and the fullness of God’s presence with the image of the rich feast where all our hearts desires (as we define them) are laid out for our joy.

However, lately, the experience of the abounding presence of God has been more desert then lush forest. It’s been about emptiness and sparseness than rich color and luxury. So the invitation to a life of denial is another string of this surprising path God has been leading me on.

The surprise has been enlightening.Once I get past the initial reaction of ache to the void and emptiness that seems to surround and fill me I find more there than I expected. The clutter and the noise recedes and instead of nothingness there is everythingness. Last year, I set as my personal Purpose statement to “Behold the ab0unding Presence of God.” I am discovering that as I move into this spaciousness of grace within that this Gloriousness is more visible. When I turn off the noise and allow the many voices to quiet and recede that it is becoming easier to hear the whispers of the Beloved. And my protests of fear and control and success and judgement and “look at me, look at me” now show themselves to be my small attempts to fill the void thinking It was what I truly feared when the Lover found in that space is truly my heart’s desire.

A struggle yes. Yet, I am soo far along the path to turn back now and I find myself actually more intrigued the further I walk along this desert path. Besides if I try to retrace my path, I can’t. The desert winds have blown away my track. I have little choice but to follow the pillar of glory that is changing it all.

How do we make connections? We live our lives surrounded and upheld by an almost infinite number of relationships. Some relationships we aren’t even aware of as we live in a global economy. Other relationships we live more fully enjoying or wrestling with. At whatever level we want to consider the issue, we cannot ignore the myriad connections we have throughout our daily lives. So how do we make those connections?

The word we use to describe that process is communication. Without relationships we would have no need for communication and without communication we find relationships hard to maintain. We are almost overwhelmed today with opportunities and means for communication. You can email me at work or at home. You can read my blog (which you are already doing) or be my Facebook friend. You can follow my Twitter tweets and I can follow yours. If computers aren’t your thing, there is always the telephone: church, home, and cell. Yet, with all those technological ways of communicating information and are very helpful ways of connecting, they cannot compare to what happens when we have the opportunity to share and listen face to face.

With all those means of relating together available they do us no good if we don’t use them. For example, if you are in the hospital or need someone to talk to and not call, then we have no way of knowing your need and responding. In the same way, if in our families we each have thoughts and ideas and concerns and questions but don’t communicate them with the people in our lives how will they know.

Sometimes communication is easy, sometimes it is very hard. Sometimes the words and ideas flow easily from mind and heart to speech or page and sometimes those thoughts and emotions move like hardened cement or clay deposits. Sometimes when we listen it is like light surrounds and fills our hearts and other times it is like we are deaf in deep darkness.

In our daily relationships we need to continually renew our commitment to nurture those connections. When it hard, we need patience, perseverance, and grace to not give up and anticipate those times when the relationship is in that state of easy flow. In the larger scheme of relationships what is important is not whether we are communicating well or poorly at any particular moment, but that we remain committed to the relationship until the time of richness arrives.
If that is true in our relationships with other human beings whom we can see, hear, and touch, it is more important in our relationship with God. Lent offers to us the invitation to renew our commitment to nurture our connection with God in our daily living. Since it takes time to connect with humans, we need to remember to take the time to connect with God.

When we gather together for worship or study we are seeking to support and encourage each other in our connection with God. When we pick up our Bibles and read to hear what God wants us to know right now in our lives, we are opening our lives to the living Word. When we set aside the busy-ness of our lives to spend time with God in prayer, we are showing that we want to tend to that living connection with God through the Holy Spirit. Prayer is both that wonderful invitation of God to share with God’s heart what is in our hearts, it also becomes a way to quiet our minds so we are able to hear the loving whispers of the Beloved Redeemer.

This last Sunday in worship we considered the witness of Anna and Simeon to waiting for the gift of God. And I am noticing that I have been focused on waiting for quite a while. This isn’t just an Advent thing, but something deeper in myself that is waiting for something. Not sure what that is at the moment, but the how of waiting is important to me personally in thie present moment.

In thinking about waiting there are a number of ways to wait that don’t work well.

The first way would be Anxious Waiting. At one level, we don’t think too much about saying that we are anxiously waiting for something to happen or someone to arrive. However, the core word is “anxiety.” This is a waiting that is colored with fear and doubt. We want to wait. We want the promise to be true. We want the awaited one to get here, but we aren’t sure. Our waiting is filled with Maybe. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I missed it somehow. Maybe God really didn’t mean it. The uncertainty becomes acidic to the spirit as time lengthens between the promise given and the answer’s arrival.

One direction to go when the waiting time lengthens is what I call Imitation Patience. This is the empty appearance of waiting when one has given up. We have always been told that patience is a virtue and so even when we have given up on the hope of the awaited promise we still think we need to put up the appearance of patience. Yet, it is a sham. We get to the end of each day, we look back and see the lack of transformation and we think, “Just as I thought … nothing … again … and forever.”

Another response to the lengthening waiting time (which for many of us in our age of the Instant can be measured in nano-seconds) is to give up on waiting at all: impatience wins. This, too, is a giving up on the promise ever coming, but then takes over the reins. The thought comes to us that God’s not going to give us what we want (or what we think God wanted to do with us in the first place) so that means that we need to take care of things ourselves. We try to sanctify the impatience by saying that we are just giving God a hand in fulfilling God’s promise, but we betray our giving up on the promise when we become very certain about what God is supposed to be doing in our lives.

We can and do choose those ways of waiting quite often. And as time marches on and we are unable to see God’s promise fulfilled in our lives and world they become greater temptations. However, we are offered another way of waiting. This way is what Anna and Simeon witness to in the Gospel story.

I call this way of waiting Holy Anticipation. This way of waiting is grounded in faith in the promise given. Well, actually, it is more deeply grounded in the One who promises. And maybe that is a clue to how this way of waiting can be time-proof. The promise is one thing, but if we keep our lives grounded on trusting the One of Grace and Love who gave the promise then we can be more open and flexible to the variable forms the fulfillment brings. So certainty in the Promisor is one key to Holy Anticipation.

The other key is openness to whatever God wants to do in answering the promise. We get stuck when we think too specifically about how the promise will be answered. How often do we miss the gift offered to us because it didn’t come in the form we expected. I heard a retreat leader once define Expectation as “preconceived resentment.” I can imagine Simeon and Anna spending their lives going to Temple looking at each person that arrives and each family that brings in their children to be blessed wondering if this one is the promised one. Is this the Hope of Israel? Can this next one be the Consolation of Your people?

We are invited to enter into each new day with that kind of Holy Anticipation. God, is this your promise? What gracious and glorious thing are doing through this person, this event, this act of mine, this gift of another, etc.? Holy Anticipation is a completely open heart that with certainty looks for how God is using each moment of each day for our good and God’s glory.

There was a time when I would describe myself as being declared a heretic in at least 2 different churches. As I consider some of the tools I use now in my spiritual and pastoral toolbox, I think I might have to expand that level of condemnation. And maybe I have done my part to intentionally amplify that status in the last few years. I confess that I have a bit of a stubborn streak when it comes to people trying to control me (Enneagram Type 8 for those of you who care).

I hoping in the next few weeks to begin to write extensively here about my learnings from and ministry application of the Enneagram in this space. If you google “Enneagram” you will find a few sites that are very eloquent in its condemnation of the Enneagram as a tool of the occult bringing spiritual chaos into the church. I suppose the Enneagram symbol does look occult/mysterious/secret-society like. And after all, most of the early adopters of the Enneagram are non-Christian mystics and psychologists. If that is the case, then the labyrinth would also be placed in that category of anti-Christian symbols that appear occult. For me, both that labyrinth the Enneagram are symbols and tools that have great power and usefulness in my work as spiritual director and pastor as well as in my own personal walk with God.

The more I think about it, there are other reasons for falling into the heretic mold for some people. I am very much a process oriented person. Not only do I still use the family process perspective on relationships from Murray Bowen and Ed Friedman in my counseling and spiritual direction, but I definitely see myself as a Process Theologian. God’s love might be unchanging, but our God is a Living and Dynamic Being who responds to and is affected by the divine involvement with history. So how God works in my life is never the same as how God works in another person’s life. Beyond that, how God works in my life today is not the same as how God has worked even in my own life. There is no “God only works in these prescribed ways” point of view in my theology. Not only would those Baptists in my history be aghast, but my Reformed Church colleagues would be convinced that I have lost something important.

I, however, think I have gained far more than I have lost. And that gain lies behind my title. it also lies behind a deeper reorientation I think the church should examine about many things we do that are acceptable means of grace within the church.

The key reorientation is to not become focused on the various forms of God’s grace, but to keep our eyes on the Grace of god itself.

I enjoy the symbol of the labyrinth because I do believe it has a certain beauty and symmetry to it. I have experienced some profound moments of God using the labyrinth in directing and transforming my life, but the symbol of the labyrinth should not become a magical talisman that holds power itself. It is powerful as it holds and contains and brings my life into contact with the living and dynamic presence of God. The symbol of the labyrinth is simply that of a tool (a very good tool for many people, but worthless to many others) that God is able to use to slow down our lives to be able to see, hear, and allow God to work within us. The focus is on the God at work, remaining thankful for the tool.

Same thing with the Enneagram and Process theology. I am a student of both and a witness for both in my life and ministry even if I don’t mention the names themselves. Why? Because God has used both the process orientation and the Enneagram to open up a deeper and profound perspective on the spiritual journey that rings true as I seek to follow God. There are so many aspects of the spiritual life that it is easy for me to forget and to get lost in all the nuances and details that come from Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. The Enneagram has become a very easy way to remember and to process what God is doing in my life and in the lives of those I know and love. I get excited about how it helps me sort through all the details to hold the core gifts of God before my heart and my preaching. There is no magic in the symbol, but there is power because I keep finding the ways that it makes sense of what God is doing. While I am thankful for that understanding, it is simply a tool, a very powerful one to me, that keeps my focus on the god who is ever making us and remaking us into the imagio dei.

Yet, my title goes beyond that. I find myself continuing to remind myself of this tool perspective for more things in the church. How many of our worship wars come about because we have our eyes so focused on the form of our worship (music styles, liturgical styles, media, architecture, etc) that we forget Jesus leading us to be people who worship God in spirit and truth (John 4:23). Worship is important and we need to do it often and well, but when we become so wrapped up in what worship looks like, have we lost our way confusing the means with the grace.

How about church budgets and apportionments? Do we become so focused on the dollars and cents and the power that goes along with them that we lose sight of our money being tools that God gives us in order to witness to God’s love in word and deed? I have been trying for years to keep my focus on the grace we are stewards of during the annual finance campaigns. I believe that as we keep our focus there, the tools will no longer leads us into anxiety, but will become occasions for celebration and greater generosity. Or how about administrative structures (both local church and denominational)? We are way too focused on the forms of our structure that we forget what they are there for.

Even spiritual disciplines (I could go on, but this will be my last set of examples). For years, I would become discouraged because I couldn’t journal everyday, or read my Bible every day, or even pray every day as I knew I should, or even as I wanted to. I would really kick myself for not being a very disciplined person (as this blog will demonstrate). Lately, I have realized that my self-defeating discouragement was another form of putting the means before the grace. I was always thinking that the important thing was the reading, the writing, the praying, the whatevering, and since I kept failing that I was a failure (recipe for depression). However, what if I kept the focus on why those things were useful as tools of God’s work in my life? What is the purpose of prayer and scripture reading? To spend time with God and growing in my relationship with my Beloved. What would be the purpose of journaling or writing? To remember and nurture what God is doing in my life. As I have been reminding myself of the primacy of living God’s grace, I have not only had less anxiety about what disciplines I do or do not practice, but paradoxically, the actions of the disciplines flow more freely and more naturally.

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us – 2 Corinthians 4:7 NRSV

I know that Paul is reflecting on the wonders of how our mortal, fragile beings can be vessels for the gospel, but I think it can apply to these other tools as well. Whether the clay jars are more “acceptable” like worship styles, words of scripture, church buildings, disciplines, or more fringe such as the Enneagram or the labyrinth, we need to keep our eyes on the extraordinary treasure which is the living presence of God within us, for the transformation of the world.

During my last session with my Spiritual Director he wondered if the story of Elijah at Horeb (1 Kings 19) was one that might be significant in my life. That question took me back because I hadn’t though of that story for a long time, but it is one of those stories that keeps returning to challenge my journey.

Elijah had just completed what we could say was the high point of his ministry: the triumph over the priests of Baal and the end to the long drought. You would think that at that point he would feel most assured and confident of his life and ministry, but he swung from the height to the lowest depths of his life. He became terrified. Not only did he run away in fear, but he even wanted to give up on life. That has been, to one degree, a parallel for me. It is not that unusual for me now to see that after a real good worship service or a great meeting or day of ministry that within days I will find myself weary of soul, as if nothing great had happened. The swings aren’t quite so wide now as they used to be, probably because I recognize the process. I don’t necessarily enjoy it, but I see it as a familiar pattern.

It is a pattern that makes a certain amount of sense from a spiritual growth and faith perspective. It would be so easy to get so caught up in the highs of the experience of God’s active presence that our faith gets twisted away from the presence of God to the actions of God. Our faith then becomes grounded in the experiences and the spectacle. What happens when the adrenaline fades and the emotional energy dissipates? Our faith becomes shaky and so we get anxious and go seeking or even creating the experience that we miss. Maybe we go from retreat and conference to retreat and conference seeking to stay on the mountaintops of our experience. Or maybe as a leader we become very skilled at manufacturing the emotional energy to keep that high for ourselves and for our followers. People love to go where the excitement is visible.

Yet, that so easily becomes a trap. A trap that Elijah got caught in for a time. A trap that trips us all.

We can easily grow to love the creation, the action, the experience, or the gift more than we love the Creator, Lover, Giver.

I can easily imagine Elijah thinking that since he has triumphed over the prophets of Baal that everyone would see the superiority of the power of God and things would be good from now on. When that did not happen and Ahab and Jezebel actually become more intent on killing him, his faith in the experience was shaken. So he retreated.

What I think is marvelous is that God graciously aided his retreat. God recognized that Elijah needed to go through his wilderness (real and emotional) for true faith to be brought through him. That is what happened. Elijah was reoriented to the real presence of God so that he could return to his work with the right God-energy.

I think that is another aspect of the encounter at Horeb. Where do we expect to find God if we are oriented to the experience and the expression of God’s presence? We would “know” God was in the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire. We feel we need that verification of God for faith in God to be strong. Yet, the writer is clear: “the LORD was not in the wind/earthquake/fire.” We get sucked into that when we think God is more present in a spectacular worship service or in an experience of healing or in a big mega church or some wonderful ministry experience. Yet, does that mean that God is less present in between worship service? Does that mean that God is less present in the small churches with only a few dozen people present? Does that mean that God is less present in my life when I am tired, or questioning whether or not God is present?

“and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’” – 1 Kings 19:12b-13, NRSV

This is the Elijah question that keeps returning to my journey, especially in those times when I am trying to escape or retreat. What am I doing here? I, like Elijah, have a long list of rationalizations for being there. And the wonderful thing is that God never condemns, the response is always, “Go.”

When I get to the Elijah question I find that I have sorted through the dross of the experiences and I am again ready to see that God is the presence that I seek. I again and again am brought back to the primacy of the Creator/Redeemer/Sanctifier as the ground of my being and the source and end of my journey.

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

I found this wonderful poem by Dawna Markova at inward/outward from her book of the same name.

This is one of those that demands to be printed out and placed just about everywhere I might sit and reflect on life. Maybe especially in those places where I go along taking life for granted. That is probably the perennial challenge for each of us: to stay awake to the life that we are living. Life goes on with or without our awareness, we just miss it. God is present whether or not we remember that truth. Therein lies grace.

Yet how much more full our lives can be if we forget God’s abounding presence less so we might relish in that delight? How much more can our lives be as we are mindful of love in every form God blesses us in?

Time to go live life for a while.

So what are you doing for your Lenten discipline this year? I find myself getting more interested in this question than the whole New Year’s Resolution question. On Ash Wednesday morning I made this commitment:

For Lent, 2008, I will set aside two blocks of time for sabbath-type activity. Each block will be at least 30 minutes, with a target of 45 minutes. Activities will include, journaling, a daily examen of consciousness, devotional reading, lectio divina, tai chi movement, or centering prayer.

I know it is only the third day of Lent, but I have already followed through and missed a step. The morning times have been easier since I have been working more lately on starting the day in a God conscious way. The evening times are the greater challenge.

I missed last night. Another new day, another day to seek to behold God’s presence again. It is is hard to be truly fogiving of non-judgmental of myself while still recognizing my failings and my sins. I could easily just simply dismiss my missing the time as if it is no big deal, but that would deny the importance of my intention, my time, and my promise. However, the old way of responding by mentally beating myself up and casting my self as an utter failure doesn’t do any good either.

As I consider a response, the image that comes to my mind is practicing music and rehearsing a song. I hit a wrong note, I don’t come in at the right time, or something about my playing doesn’t fit the composition (too loud, too soft, etc). So what do I do? Do I through my bass on the floor or kick the stand across the room or give up the whole idea that I can ever play music at all? Getting frustrated and hating or condemning myself doesn’t help, in fact it prevents me from ever really learning to play the music in its fullest.

So what do I do in practicing? I notice the missed note or botched entrance. Maybe I mark the music to remind myself the next time. I then go back over the part and practice it again. Maybe I will need to go more slowly to figure out the fingering or the rhythm. I might have to sit down at the piano or ask the director and accompanist to play my part for me so I can hear the interval I am missing. I shake it off, and keep on practicing. By renewing my attention to the music and by patiently working on the sticky parts (yes, there will be other parts that need attention) I will learn the piece.

Might the spiritual disciplines be similar? I miss something that is important for me to do to express my yearning for God or I get sucked back into my disobedient mode. I notice it by confessing, writing, or sharing the carelessness and disappointment with a trusted companion. Then I accept the grace of God that has simply been waiting for me to return to the embrace of Divine Presence and renew the time.

I don’t know about you, but without thinking about it, my office space can quickly become overrun and unmanageable. The piles of papers seem to multiply overnight and the notes pop up in strange places so there is less and less space for me to use. And I know that without attention I easily lose wonderfully creative ideas somewhere. That usually continues until I finally pay attention, then once I get past the feeling of being overwhelmed I have to face the situation. Over time I have learned that when I get to that point, I just have to begin someplace and persist in choosing to keep up with that area until there is space again for work.

I see the season of Lent in much the same way. Without really thinking about it we so easily clutter up our lives with many things that just fill up our soul space. Sometimes it shows up on our calendars: we find ourselves running from one thing to another thing and then we have so many things that we think would be wonderful to do and before we know we have no time for friends, family, or God. Then other times we find our hearts overwhelmed with worries and fears that leave us tired and weary, so there is nothing left to even think about other people in our lives or to even begin to consider God’s presence.

So for me, Lent is about Making Space. We are offered the opportunity to stop and see how our lives have been filled with distractions and spiritual clutter that our souls are choked up with the weeds of the junk of the world around us. One meaning of salvation is that God by grace gives us room to move and freedom to live and grow. Yet, we must begin somewhere in responding to our soul messes. We cannot do it all at once nor can we do it all by ourselves, but in Lent we can make the choice to allow God’s Spirit to get started in clearing out the spiritual clutter.

So the Lenten question becomes “What clutters up my life leaving no room or energy to love God or to love my neighbor?” Take a look at your schedule, what can be dropped from our time line to allow you to spend time with family or in prayer? What about attention and focus. Multi-tasking is a myth that only keeps us always tired and worn out. Or if we can find the energy to do all those things, we are left with anxiety and stress that rob our spirits from being able to do anything with anyone. How about possessions: do the things in your life possess you and keep you from enjoying them because you are always worried that something might happen to them? Or maybe there is something else in your life that you recognize clutters your soul and mind leaving you with no time or space for God and all the blessings God offers us.

This Lent, let go of what gets in the way of your walk with God and be open to beholding the presence of God. All this is so you can be more free to live the compassion, the freedom, and the joy-filled lives that God comes to bring.