musing...

throughout the lenten season i have not been able to escape images of the desert. throughout the past week, on inumerable occasions, my mind's eye has fixed upon mental pictures of the sand swept desert, Jesus wrestling with temptations, the ravaged red rock of sinai.

but, for all my musing, when the time came to enter into my own desert, i almost missed it.

on monday i was jostled out of my normal routine by a scheduled, yet completely forgotten, job coaching session at a you haul storage facility. the assignment was to simply to observe a client's work and report on her activities to the supervising manager.

yet, as i stumbled around in that unheated storage facility, interupted only by the scratch of a broom and the need to take an occasional note, my anxious breathing slowed, my feet froze and i was confronted by the silence i often take great pains to eschew.

in that silence, in the midst of my lenten fast, one of my temptations was revealed. namely, i am constantly tempted to ignore the service opportunities that constantly present themselves in order to fixate on the ideal context and perfect position wherein i can properly perform the accompanying, teaching and preaching that is at the heart of my calling. God forgive me for the times when my idolatrous dreams of being a resident theologian and preacher-teacher in a church obscures both the work and the people you have placed in my path.

if you are participating in a lenten fast and have wrestled with your own temptations in the midst, feel free to share your reflections below. for those of us who are fasting during this season, my prayer is that we can sustain the fast so that we can more fully keep the feast.