Dear Family in Faith,
I wanted to tell you how proud I am of you all. The “Have a Heart For Others” auction was an outstanding success and it is because you pulled together and made it work. Fay named many of the people involved yesterday in service, but you ALL made it work. As I mentioned in second service yesterday, I was with several clergy members in Conroe this last week and we were sharing some of the things going on in our congregations. I left several of my clergy brothers and sisters with their mouths hanging open when I told them what we had done and what we were doing with the funds. With a swelling of appreciation (and, admittedly, a little pride for you), I said that is one of the blessings in serving at Bellaire United Methodist Church. Thank you all again for being the Church with such a big heart and showing your extravagant generosity. Well done.
On another subject, a couple of weeks ago, I asked you in worship and in my last Vine article to be listing five blessings each day and giving thanks for them. How did that go? I have heard from two people who, once they started looking for and listing blessings, had difficulty stopping at just five. They each said that because they were now consciously thinking about their blessings, they realized just how many they had not noticed each day. I hope that you found that little spiritual discipline as helpful as these two members did.
In a very real sense, that exercise points us toward the reality of Lenten observation. Lent is a time when we purposefully and consciously take time to think about God and God’s actions in Jesus Christ and how those actions and our reactions change our lives, as individuals, and the world as we share this with others. We begin with the penitential action of receiving the ashes on our foreheads and remembering that we are all mortal and sinners and it is in repentance and acceptance of God’s grace in Christ that those two realities of this world are cancelled. Lent was and is a time when people who have been separated from the church come back. Lent is a time of forgiving and being forgiven so that as we come to Easter we can truly feel what it’s like to have the total forgiveness from God through Christ. As Christians, it is a call to imitate those same actions with one another—to be little Christ’s with the Holy Spirit, the Divine, living within you who are created in the Creator’s image.
So many people think of what must be eliminated—“given up”—for Lent. In our busy lives this has never been more important (or more difficult), but it is not the focus of Lenten Observance. It is truly about spending time with God. The issue is that our lives are so crammed full, we will more than likely have to exchange one current event to add another. For instance, to spend more time in reading the Bible, you may have to “give up” reading a novel or mystery or part of the newspaper. People also try to work on or eliminate those things that are “stumbling blocks” in their spiritual growth. If you are having difficulty with your supervisor or co-worker and they push all your “hot buttons,” try praying for them. Ask God to help you in the relationship. If you are struggling with greed, purposefully give your accumulated “things” away —be generous. A simple thing that can be added, and hopefully you have already been doing, is to continue to recognize and record your blessings each day and then give thanks to God. If you would like to know even more about Lenten Observation you can go to www.umc.org and in the search box type “Lent,” but I encourage you to worry less about observing Lent and deal more with discovering a deeper relationship with God.
A good way to do that is to start your time with God in prayer. Below is a great prayer from St. Francis of Assisi:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. Amen.
May it be so with each of us…
In Christ’s love,
