We shun the practice of bowing before sculptured idols and leaving some payment or tribute. We know there is no heartbeat in a statue, no leadership in marble, no love in a stiff, unmoving form. We like to skip what Jeremiah says: They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves. Jeremiah 2:5 We don't believe in worshiping idols. But what of the space we reserve in our hearts for what we want out of this life, what we believe we have a right to pursue? What pr

What we hold in our hearts, shapes us. That’s why God wants to make sure that everything we hold here, including what we hide, passes His inspection. So He invites us to: What part of His complete inspection are you afraid of? That’s where you start, because a change in your heart there will bring all the other changes that will heal, help, and direct. The prophet says to come four ways. 1. Come fasting. What do you need to take out of your life so that you can hear bette

The purpose of temptation is not to undo us.  The purpose is to help us realize how our poverty can never fill our needs by our best inventi

Today we wear the ashes of our impotence and mortality. It is a day to remember who we are and who we are not. Today we bring our unedited selves to God so that we start this journey to the cross in the most honest way possible. I remember the first time I participated in an Ash Wednesday service. The reflective music, scripture, and words prepared me to receive the mark of the cross in ashes on my forehead. I felt branded, labeled, and unmasked. It was like someone had

In this rush about, text-crazy, isolated, and often depressed and angry world we live in, the call to come away for a time to hear a different voice and find a different rhythm can be the most refreshing, life-reordering time. That’s what Lent should be. Lent counters everything we did at Christmas to celebrate. It invites us to quiet. It pulls us into reflection. It gives us time to renew our Christian vows. It compels us to allow what Christ did for us on the cross to b

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Matthew 27:46b The scene cannot be adequately described even though we try. Three crosses with three men in utter agony. Blood streaked bodies writhing, gasping for precious oxygen. Each knows that death will come, but not soon enough. Jesus receives no pass for pain. But it is not the pain that makes him speak. It is his feeling of utter abandonment, a separation, a darkness he has not known. In the desert and in Gethsemane, angel

Do you struggle getting everything finished on your agenda? The convicting truth we learn from Jesus is that we always have enough time to do God’s will. Jesus knew his time had come to fulfill his purpose. How he used his time after his desert experience was different from how he used it before. He began to preach, teach , and heal with great resolve and without fear of having enough time. He took God’s purpose to the people he encountered. He brought God’s life and freedo

Too many times our prayers are about what we want from God. Even fasting has been used to prove our desperation. We hope God will take pity on us and give us what we want. But that’s backwards. Fasting demands that we put all our wants aside to want one thing: more of God. More of His wisdom. More of His Truth. More of His Spirit living in us. When Jesus fasted, he feasted with his Father. He grew his appetite for His Father’s plan and methods. His Father’s greatest

Assaulting questions about the direction of the human race are on my mind this Ash Wednesday. Am I the only one who believes that as population has increased, so has disobedience to God, making excuses, creating rationalizations, and inventing activities to ignore God. God may seem silent but he is paying attention. Not with a stern, wait-til-you-see-what-I’m-going-to-do-to-you kind of attention. It is more a breaking heart kind of attention. More like the attention that co