Lent: Day 34

My intent is to relate to You this morning, Father. As I read the Scripture passage yesterday from 1 Corinthians, it occurred to me that rarely in this Lenten season have I been "alive." I've complained much about the staleness of my faith, feeling like this has almost been an overwhelming "dark night of the soul" type of time for me.

So yesterday I was listening to a Eugene Peterson speech from the Catalyst conference that we went to three years ago. He was talking about the ways of gaining power and influence that were available to Jesus when he was here, the ways of the Pharisee and the way of Herod. They were established ways of doing leadership and power gathering that Jesus could have used to his advantage, and yet he refused.

As Eugene was describing Pharisees, he made a beautiful illustration that the Pharisees were like a person who had a large picture window with a beautiful, breath-taking view of the mountains. But they became obsessed with keeping the window clean, so much so that they set up a system of ladders and pullies and automatic cleaning devices and eventually forgot and couldn't even really see out that window anymore to the beautiful view that made the window important in the first place. I had to ask myself if that has become me.

See, I know I have to live life in the day to day. I can't step back and appreciate the grandness of life, love and faith all the time, because I have to also deal with all the details that come with life. But, I should step back sometimes. And often I get overwhelmed and bogged down in the details instead of living through them.

It has occurred to me once again the ways in which I split my life into spiritual and not-spiritual and live that way. But I don't want to make all these convenient separations. I want to live life whole, to actually have abundant life, and a life that is full.

Right now, that requires stepping back and looking out the window. As I head to school, let me not lose our relationship because of daily minutia. Instead, let our relationship continue through it.

IN the name of Jesus, I am praying...

"Speak to me, speak through me."