Lent - Day 40

Lent - Day 40

excerpt from Living Well through Lent 2015
by The RT. Rev. Laura J. Ahrens
Bishop Suffragan, Episcopal Church of Connecticut

Palm Sunday: Seeking with Faith

SWF: Looking for an apartment? Looking for a life partner? The acronym SWF often appears as shorthand for Single White Female.  Recently, my prayer time has put those initials on my heart in a different way: Seeking with Faith.  It's a posture I have adopted as I seek to explore new and life-giving ways to participation God's mission. God is up to something exciting and energizing as we join with God in ministries of restoration and reconciliation. God invites us to seek innovative and transformational ways to share the love of God. I believe stepping out into this unchartered sea of God's mission field to share God's love in word and action is the most faithful step I  can take. Seeking with Faith.

What does this have to do with Palm Sunday? Everything. Those early disciples were also SWF -- Seeking with Faith. They, like me, sometimes forgot the seeking part, instead stepping back into familiar patterns. They, like me, sometimes forget the faith part, instead putting themselves first, not looking to the heart of God as the source of comfort, strength and guidance. Hosanna. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. This is the fun part, the good days, the easy days. As the world around us watches, our energy invites others to inquisitively wonder what we are about. But then comes...the garden, the sleeping while promising to e watchful, and the denial.  Seeking?  Faithful?

There is Jesus in the garden seeking with faith in his prayer, seeking with faith to let the scriptures be fulfilled.

I see him seeking me, seeking me with faith that I will follow him and share his offering with the world -- for God, for the people of God, for the world. Seeking with Faith. God is seeking me with Faith. How shall I respond? SWF.