Thoughts About The Season of Lent
Well, the Season of Lent 2025 is upon us. i feel compelled to share with you some tender thoughts I have been pondering:
General Thoughts of mine for Lent:
Lent mirrors the 40-day period of fasting that Jesus modeled and we read about in Matthew's Gospel account. Some Lent observers choose to have ash placed on their foreheads as the Season of Lent commences on Ash Wednesday. The ashes that are traditionally used are created by the burning of palm branches from the previous year's Palm Sunday celebrations. (This idea seems beautifully symbolic to me.) As the ashes are applied, the shape of the cross is re-enacted as the words from Genesis 3:19 are spoken: "You are dust, and to dust you shall return."
In a way, Ash Wednesday has a way of pointing my heart towards the words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 5:3a -- "Blessed are the poor in Spirit…" My translation is "You’re blessed if you realize how very desperate you are for God at all times." (Remembering we are essentially dust, helps us embrace how desperate we truly are for our Creator God and the giving of His Son to save us from condemnation (John 3:16-17). Also, we should be reminded that while we are dust, we are undeniably very valuable dust to God.
But there’s more. Lent and the ashes invite us to remember repentance, even mourning, as we lay ourselves bare before Holy God, asking Him to search our lives as we seek and saturate in the deep thoughts of His precious life, His sacrificial death, and His powerful resurrection.
Lent is a holy leaning-in season, a spiritual learning session, and a prayer laboratory setup for the continued transformation and inspiration of our never-dying souls. Let us not waste this sacred 40-day timeframe. May it serve to lead us into renewed wonder, revived love, and reverent praise. -kww
Devotional Thoughts from another about Lent:
Lent is the opportunity to change what we ought to change but have not... Lent is about becoming, doing and changing whatever it is that is blocking the fullness of life in us right now... Lent is a summons to live anew... Lent is the time to let life in again, to rebuild the worlds we've allowed to go sterile, to "fast and weep and mourn" for the goods we've foregone.
If our own lives are not to die from lack of nourishment, we must sacrifice the pride or the sloth or the listlessness that blocks us from beginning again. Then, as Joel 2:12-18 promises, God will have pity on us and pour into our hearts the life we know down deep that we are lacking.
-- Joan Chittister
Finally, as i compiled these thoughts concerning Lent, 2 Chronicles 7:14 (NLT) has been strong on my mind: "Then if My people who are called by My name, WILL humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, I WILL hear from Heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land."
If we WILL, God WILL! What a Glorious Hope!
MPastor Kerry Willis
