“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Hebrews 11:1

Perhaps you don’t even realize you’ve given up.

Resignation has replaced the faith in God you once had that your prayers would be answered. Or maybe you have a request that seems so audacious you’ve yet to voice it. It  hovers on the outskirts of your mind while you wonder, Is my God really that big?

For this week of Lent, we are going to focus on faith. The Bible tells us that if we have mustard seed faith, we can move mountains. I’d like to take God at his word by growing my faith in Him: trusting Him with my prayers, both big and small; leaning on Him in difficult times; praising Him when all is well — and when it isn’t.

 What Is Faith?

One way to nurture faith is by simply spending time with Jesus. In the little book The Promise of Answered Prayer, Jim Cymbala says,  “Faith is especially nurtured when we just wait in God’s presence, taking the time to love him and listen for his voice. Strength to keep believing often flows into us as we simply worship the Lord. The promise of scripture becomes wonderfully alive as the Spirit applies them to our hearts.”

This year I’ve focused on waiting quietly with God. Several times a week, I pick up my prayer journal, still my heart, and just sit with God, listening for His voice and journaling what I feel the Holy Spirit witnessing to me. It’s been hard to make myself stay still. A million tasks vie for my attention, but as I sit at Jesus’ feet, He brings scriptures to my mind to read, and people to my heart to pray for, and sin to be confessed. He gives me wisdom for situations I’m facing and peace for my soul and pictures to ponder.

These times of quiet add a richness and depth to my devotion time that was absent before.

Now I find that if I don’t have this one-on-one with Him that I miss it. I long for his presence and that still, small voice whispering to my heart, fanning the sparks of faith into flames. And I’ve learned that faith is not the absence of difficulties, but the presence of Jesus in the midst of difficulties.

This week, let’s remember that faith does not rest on our abilities, but on the ability of the One we believe in, as Psalm 130:5-6 reminds us:

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,

and in his word I put my hope.

My soul waits for the Lord

more than watchmen wait for the morning,

more than watchmen wait for the morning.

What will you put your faith in God for this week?

Pray on!

 Have you ever lost something of value that you would have given anything to find? One day my 3-year-old son and I were shopping in a department store. I was pawing through the sales racks looking for bargains, and I turned around to say something to him only to see empty space. In a panic, I called his name and looked up and down the aisles all around us trying to find him. He was nowhere to be seen. I was about to call in store reinforcements for help when I heard a giggle and a voice say, “Here I am, Mommy!” He had crawled into the middle of a clothes rack to play hide and seek. Although he had only been missing for a few minutes,  I was weak with relief when I pulled him into my arms.

As I think about this week’s focus for Lent, I wonder am I this desperate when I am seeking God? Am I pursuing Him with the same intensity that I had when I was looking for my son?

I don’t know that I am, but I think I need to step it up a notch.

According to the Blue Letter Bible, the Greek word for seek is zeteo, and it means all of the following:

•       to seek in order to find
•       to seek [in order to find out] by thinking, meditating, reasoning, to enquire into
•       to crave, demand something from someone

As I look at these meanings, the word crave resonates with me, seems to go hand-in-hand with seek. When I’m craving a piece of chocolate, it’s on my brain constantly until I fulfill that craving by popping a velvety piece into my mouth. I can’t stop thinking about it, and I seem to see chocolate or smell it wherever I go. That’s how I should be craving God everyday. I need to have Him on my heart constantly, see Him wherever I go, catch his scent on the breeze. Whether I’m at work, at home, or out and about, I can think about Him, meditate on Him, read His word, and pray. But the one difference is I don’t just want to satisfy my craving, I want to feed it.

For this week of Lent, let’s work on seeking God and indulging our cravings for Him. Unlike chocolate, He’s not fattening, so we can have as much as we want.

Share some ways you will be seeking Him this week and pray on!

(Here are the other posts in this series: Self-Denial, Repentance and Examen)

 As a child, the season of Lent often began with a battle royal for me.

You see, my parents always encouraged my sisters and me to give up something for Lent. More often than not, I usually gave up candy. Every week a good portion of my weekly allowance quickly found it’s way from my pocket to the coffers of Krajci’s Drugstore a few blocks from my house. In the small town where I lived, Krajci’s was one of the few places that had a huge selection of five- and ten-cent candy. Bub’s Daddy Bubble Gum, Paydays, Wonka Bottle Caps, Snickers Bars, and cherry Colas were a few of the items I splurged on. Forty days seemed an awfully long time to go without a treat from Krajci’s.

Self-denial

I didn’t totally understand at the time the purpose for giving up something during Lent. I would have been happy to have given up brussel sprouts or tuna noodle casserole, but I understood enough to realize that what I gave up needed to be something that I actually liked.

Today I realize that one of the purposes of self-denial is that it is part of the process of spiritual formation. I need to cooperate with the Holy Spirit so that He continues to transform my life to make me more like Christ.

In that spirit, this year during Lent I am going to work on “giving up” a sin pattern in my life — and hopefully this will be something that continues for the rest of the year too. I think I know just what bad habit I want to be rid of this year: lateness.

Tardiness has been a habit that has plagued me since childhood. It worsened during my teen years (just ask my best friend Pam who drove me to school most mornings). I was always rushing around stressing myself out and anyone else that had the misfortune of being around me. I’ve since made some changes but still have plenty of room for more. I know this won’t be an easy fix for me, but I’m expecting progress!

If you’d like to join me in giving something up for Lent, tell me about it in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from a few fellow bad-habit breakers.

Pray on!

Lent is a time of self-examination and self-denial to prepare for Easter.

It’s natural to want to minimize these difficult days leading up to Resurrection Sunday, but then we would miss the whole purpose of Lent. We need to pause and sit with all the things that happened during Jesus’ last 40 days on earth. And we need to pause and sit with ourselves too. We need to see what should be adopted, eradicated, improved upon, and otherwise changed to make us ready for Easter.

Prayer of Examen

For the remainder of this week of Lent, we will focus on repentance and an ancient practice introduced by St. Ignatius called Examen. Examen is exactly what it sounds like. It is an in-depth prayer that helps us to examine ourselves. In the process we may be able to better discern God’s will, find God in all things, and enhance our understanding of God’s creation. This discipline should be done at the end of the day so that you can analyze how your day went. Don’t let the words discipline and analyze scare you. The process can be completed in as little as 10 minutes if you don’t have much time. Try to do it at least two evenings this week, more often if you are able.

Here is a link that will take you to the short Prayer of Examen tutorial. It’s a simple, yet effective process. If you want to, you can journal your answers to the questions, or you can complete them without pen and paper. Feel free to share any of your thoughts in the comment section below.

Pray on!

Are you a good singer? Do your basketball talents rival Michael Jordan’s? Perhaps you can cook like nobody’s business! God has given all of His children gifts and talents and He is very interested in how we use them! Please click on the link to do our last Lenten Devotional, Talented and Gifted Program.

Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Quickly think through your top three priorities at this time. Was God on your priority list? God wants to be your first priority…and your second…and your third. Please join us for the Lenten Devotion With All Your Heart by clicking on the link.

Image: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net