Like when God spoke the world into being, I want every “Let there be…” spoken over me to be followed by “And it was so.”

At its core, materialism is a soul-cry for belonging. It’s a symptom of a good, God-given desire of our hearts that hasn’t found its fulfillment in Jesus. Sin always seems to work this way. | Lent 2023

A few books and practices that help me enter into this season of preparation with gentleness and an unhurried look at Jesus.

Yet this day of ash and repentance and bread and wine speaks to my soul that though I am fatally limited, I am also infinitely loved. And so I bear the ashy cross on my head in humility and sorrow but also in hope, for it is not the dirt that will have the final word, but the precious blood of Christ.

What if we implored the Spirit to take these truths from merely something we recite from the creeds on a Sunday, or something for theologians to debate, and instead to empower us to consider with all seriousness how these truths transform our hearts by the Spirit to love the Lord and cause us to walk in the way of Jesus?

Worship of our glorious God and love for our neighbor would flow like a river from people of God.

I will not weaponize what God meant for healing. I dare not throw in the face of my co-heirs what he has given to us in love. I will not use for my own gain what is meant to renew all things, making every heart cry out, “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit!”