A Lenten Devotion

“Here is what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God.  Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage.  The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace…The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being. (Matthew 6:6;21 – The Message Bible)

I was finishing at Seminary and had a summer free to travel before I would begin my internship in San Diego.  I would be ordained the summer of the next year as associate pastor of the same church.  Meanwhile, the summer vacation was at hand.  

I decided to go to Canada – Jasper and Banff National Parks.  It was a trip of a life time and transformative in many ways. Perhaps the most awesome moment was when I was in Jasper National Park.  I came to a place where a Gondola/Lift would transport people from a Visitor’s Center up the mountain – from 8 thousand feet to 12 thousand feet.  Once we got off the Lift, we could walk up another 2 thousand feet to a 360* vista which saw all over the Canadian Rockies.  If that wasn’t awesome enough, another thing struck me immediately – Silence.  I walked a further distance so I could relish the sight and silence.  I just sat down on a rock with the mountains all around me and complete silence in prayer. I would sing a praise song and recall scriptures – psalms of praise and scriptures of creation. It was momentous and transformative!

I share that experience and the scripture from Matthew 6 for two reasons – 1) A place where you and I are close to God; and 2) an expansive heart.  Consider these two points this Lenten Season. 

First, a place where you are close to God need not be a mountain top, but could be your favorite chair in the living room or den.  It could be a place of refuge at Camp Calvin Crest.  Wherever that place is, is where most want to be and end up being.  Claim that space for God during and long after Lent.

Second, pray that God will use this Lenten Season as a time to expand your heart – as if it were a 360* panorama. Where in your heart are you finding a searching question – a hunger of love and compassion for another? Lent has been stereotypically a season of giving up something. Well, why not make room in your heart for Lent? Pray God to expand your heart of affection and compassion with a vista of grace seen though the eyes of our Lord Jesus Christ Whose grace expands to eternity.

Prayer: Lord God, let me find my peace and silence in You this Lenten Season.Open my eyes to the vistas of Your grace in Jesus Christ so that my heart may expand to the never-ending vista of love through Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Rev. Dr. John J. Duling, Parish Associate