Listen

The Lord says—who makes a way in the sea and a path in the mighty waters,

Don’t remember the prior things; don’t ponder ancient history.

Look! I’m doing a new thing; now it sprouts up; don’t you recognize it?

I’m making a way in the desert, paths in the wilderness.

Isaiah 43:16, 18-19

Think

Lent is not a time to look back with regret but a time to look forward with hope for a future that looks different than the past. It is so easy to focus on the past, and there is a good reason for that… it is the only thing that we have known. We cannot fully know the present, and we certainly cannot know the future, so the past is the only tangible thing that we have to hold on to.

Well, that is what we think at least.

Throughout the Bible, we consistently hear God calling us into a future, God’s future. This is a call that certainly builds on the past but is not determined by it. As you continue on this Lenten journey this week, I hope you will be challenged to move on from past stories of both pain and triumph and look forward with faith and hope to a future that is sprouting up even now, “don’t you recognize it?”.

Stephen Ingram

Pray

God, I thank you for the past, the trials and the victories, and the very ordinary moments in between.

I pray that I will not be fixated on these moments but that my eyes will focus on the horizon of your hope and the promise that you are constantly making things new.

God, help me be a willing co-creator of the goodness that is sprouting up all around, each and every day.

Amen.

Go

Ere we reach the shining river,
Lay we ev’ry burden down;
Grace our spirits will deliver,
And provide a robe and crown.

Yes, we’ll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river;
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God.

Robert Lowry in “Shall We Gather at the River?” (1864)