Dr. Curt Thompson on Lent:
“As I have been reflecting on and anticipating this season in the church calendar, it occurred to me how beautifully and mysteriously our observance of Lent maps on to our day to day experiences, as well as the whole of our lives. Not least in terms of how it connects us not only to our sin, but to our grief. And as it turns out, it is to our grief we must go if it is liberation from our sin that we desire.
At one level, Lent invites us to examine ourselves to name those elements of our lives—our sin—for which we long to repent; to repent of those characteristics and behaviors for which we seek God’s renewal and transformation. But the very moment at which we identify the sin for which we want to repent, an odd thing happens.
If we are paying attention, and if we are honest, we become aware of that which lies just underneath and provides the energy for our sin. For it is at this point that we are brought into the awareness of our longing. For indeed, those thoughts, words and deeds in our life that represent our sin invariably also represent our desires. Desires that are core to our being human—and as such, are core to our being God’s image bearer. These desires precede our sin and are even shaped by our sin to the point that we often can’t tell them apart.
Our sin is, in fact, misdirected desire. Misdirected, mind you, not for the purpose of intentionally and consciously slinging mud in God’s face. Rather, we end up misdirecting our desire because there is something that we perceive we are so desperately in need of at the moment, or over the course of our life, but that we do not believe we will have, or that God will give us.” 2/21/23
One of my (CBB) favorite verses:
Psalm 37:4. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart……
(He will cause the desires of my heart to conform to His own, turning away from longing for things of the world toward longing for more of relationship with Him!!). CBB 2/21/23