Lent Day 20 – It’s All Mine!

It’s a crowded world. There are lots of people, lots of ideas, lots of really cool things happening. Techies are making new and cool gadgets. Lifehacks are cracking codes for living big. Writers are expanding our thoughts, possibilities and opportunities. Talking heads are telling us what to fear and how we should be thinking of it all. Hipsters are hanging out in super-cool joints full of novelty and pretension. I was at one of these places the other day. I think my coffee was flavored with pretension. I walked out feeling both savvy and “above it all.” World-changers are relieving the suffering of the forgotten, the lost and the hurting. They are making real impacts in the world today. Living in Southern California, where it is all seems to be happening, can be fairly intoxicating and overwhelming. My life can seem so provincial and mundane in comparison to it all.

My life, at times, seems so far away from all the “cool” happening around me. How can I possibly be missing out on it all? Why is it that so many others get to be in on the “cool?” It is in this mundane space of feeling a part from it all that I found myself seeking my connection to the Divine voice. Day 20, half way through Lent. Half way to nowhere, or so it seems today. In my time of space and grace I sat and listened. I listened for the voice who calls me “son” and defines me as “loved” and lets me know that I bring “pleasure” to the One who made me. I sat in the silence, trying to calm my mind and my racing heart. It is in this space I recalled the voice of the Lovesick Father tell his bitter Older Son, “Look, dear son, you and I are very close, everything I have is yours.” (Luke 15:31, NLT)

I needed that reminder today. I needed to know, despite what I felt and how I pigeon-holed myself into believing I was apart from it all rather than a part of it all, that I was intimately close with the Father and He was offering me all that was His. It was an invitation to stop and see all that He was allowing me to be a part of. It was a reminder that everything I really need was well taken care of. It was a call to trust that there was more “life” coming my way. So, today I will grab onto to the hand of the Father who will go the distance with me and continue to give me all the life that belongs to Him! Today, I will seek to trust His closeness and His abundance.