Day 30: Be Silent While You Wait
When I decided to give up social media for Lent, it seemed like the standard millennial thing to do. I knew it would be personally helpful - probably allow me to be more present and productive, and to not rely on silly likes and comments as a shallow form of validation. But I don’t think I anticipated enjoying it quite as much as I have these past five weeks.
Day 29: The Story Continues
We are compelled as members of Christ's church to love and serve our world, and to continue to participate in the story that has been set before us. Let this not be something that sounds restrictive or binding to you. Rather, recognize the freedom that comes from following in the footsteps of those who came before us, and the beauty of carrying forth the traditions laid out such as this lenten season.
Day 28: Reorientation
When we become possessive over our actions and creations, our hearts start to warp, and our identity gets tangled with all the wrong things. We start to feel a deep pressure to continue creating, to continue having wise ideas, to continue thriving in our jobs. These actions and creations become our own little gods, and we lost sight of who we are and why we’re doing these things in the first place.
Day 27: Arise
The Scriptures scattered within the piece are intended to be a meditated upon as you take in the visual of the mosaic, which was created in the heart-space of those same Scriptures.
Day 26: The Duty Of Rest
I am weary. God has given me the key. He gave it to me a very long time ago, delivered by the worn old hands of Moses, and engraved into a tablet of stone. His fourth commandment to the people of Israel read: “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” Rest.
Day 25: Nothing More
You made me somethin' You gave me life The freedom found in You goes on and on and on
Day 24: By Bread Alone
The hunger I am experiencing is a hunger for the words of God, and by this I do not simply mean the Bible. No, it is a hungering to hear God speak, to hear Him expose my weaknesses to me, to make them ever more evident and to reveal more of them to me. This is not a degrading or debilitating thing, rather it is a relief because I do not have to work to keep up the strength to hide my weaknesses, to pretend that I am stronger than I really am.
Day 23: A Faith That’s Grim
All that we can do is watch while the saga unfolds as our own death looms like a guillotine suspended somewhere in the sky over our heads. We walk about full knowing that the cordage to that cleaver may very well break loose at any moment. We are powerless to stop its plummet. We cannot even slow its descent. When it’s time, it’s time, be it grimace or grin beneath the blow.
Day 22: Dying to Embrace Life
Our spiritual efforts are attempts to reach a more and more passive position so that God can work through us. He cultivates in us a reflex towards virtue, which equips us for warfare against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Done well—prayerfully and with prudence—fasting freshens the spirit for the fight.
Day 21: Mere Childhood
Without a child’s heart, loving and trusting our Father would be extremely difficult, maybe even impossible, but without an adult mind, we cannot work alongside our brother Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
