This week's lessons are filled with reminders of God's wisdom...and our folly. We have been told that God has inscribed his law upon our hearts...and that his teachings regarding the way we are to be so that we may have full, healthy relationships are readily accessible through Jesus. Still...we play with risks. We may pursue strategies that are propelled by the knowledge we have harvested from the world...facts...statistics (all helpful, perhaps, but erroneous unless coupled with God's wisdom) Sometimes we become bargainers before the Lord...If I do this, will you do that? Sometimes we fiddle about with thoughts or fantasies that are our meager attempts to provide or secure for ourselves something or someone who can satisfy us more quickly (it seems) than patiently waiting before God.

I think of my wandering ways...how I walk the path of my life going through spaces that are clearly illuminated by the wisdom of God's teachings. Then, without any apparent intention of my own, I find myself in a place that is fogged over with subtle eruptions of my ego's selfish strength...or my doubt that all that Christ says about the "abundant life" can really be true.



I vacillate between humble acceptance of life lived according to His teaching...and arrogant bargaining for just a bit "more" that might make MY life smoother, or more certain...

Lent is about submitting myself to God's wisdom in Christ to clear out the "temple" that is my body, my personality, my mind and my heart. It is a season when all of the church, the assembly of believers, may be cleansed of ANYTHING that would distress our Lord.

How have we wandered? Where are we trying to bargain with the Lord...or with each other? How are we clinging to our own ways...or our own "knowledge"? What in our thoughts or deeds is "trashing" the Body of Christ...the Church?

(photo of person in mist from Pete Carr, photographer)