Day 41

Forty-one days ago, someone challenged me (as part of a larger group) to one hundred days of holiness; not as a measure of our own excellence, but as test of our desire to deepen our faith. The challenge was to purposely set aside time to read the Bible daily, pray daily asking God to work in our lives, and communicate with others daily about what He was doing. Accepting the idea with a small measure of selfishness, hoping that God would "flip my world upside down" as promised, I began reading in Joshua. Over the past forty days, I have read more scripture than I have in the last five years, discovering that I need it. The days in which I have not read, I notice that I am missing something. It is a new chapter of my faith. Reading in the Old Testament has brought me to reread my own history of faith (or faithlessness, as it were). Lent began a few days ago, and the practice of giving up something is new to my own Protestant practice, but I began to feel as though the Spirit was calling me, insisting that I be less lazy and more intentional. Switching my quiet times to the morning and replacing them for my "most important meal of the day" is my fast this Lenten season and to this beginning, I offer this Lenten meditation.




Something's missing. 
Deep-rooted fears 
sabotage a lonely faith. 
Ravenous, wandering a 
purposeless wasteland, 
battling, gnawing at the 
need. 
In the bread of life, find a 
satisfied hunger, 
the faith craving relieved 
with a purposed path 
through the desert.