By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The imposition of ashes this Wednesday is a tangible reminder of the fragility of our mortality. Our reality in our inner world and worldwide is brokenness. I served in a leadership development organization for young Asian North American pastors that created a unique three-retreat cohort. The outline was Our Brokenness, Brokenness in Our Churches, and Our Broken World. On the surface I’m sure this doesn’t sound like particularly inspirational training, but we believed that embracing our brokenness was a vital foundation for ministry health. Ash Wednesday certainly helps us begin in like space and compels us to not run too quickly to Resurrection.
As you step into this Lenten season, I call us to a higher level of noted intentionality. Mary and I often catch ourselves complaining about “first world problem.” We spend way too much emotional energy about the efficiency of our cell phones, or what brand to buy, or a package coming a day late. There is spiritual urgency, a necessity, as Western followers of Christ to keep fasting as a regular spiritual discipline. In our abundance and relative ease-of-life, it is too easy for us to forget God. In the speed in which we travel our days and the amount of stuff we commit ourselves to, it’s impossible for us to know God. Our belief and sense of God is way too small.
Martin Luther once admonished the theologian Erasmus by saying, “Your thoughts of God are too human.” Erasmus thought about God in the ways we would think about a human. He had caged God, tamed and domesticated him for his own purposes. In very similar ways, I think we do this too. The book Your God is Too Small by JB Phillips speaks directly to us.
If you don’t already, I call you to regular fasting to grow closer and more dependent on God. You will hear his voice more clearly. You will see the Spirit more regularly. And let us all join in a Lenten fast to raise our intentionality. Let’s slow down. Let’s refocus. Let’s check our priorities and what our hearts truly love. Let’s do what is befitting God Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. Let us show with our lives, our time, our efforts, our attention, our worship of Jesus our Savior. We are dust. God is here. Let’s be here too.
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Genesis 2:7 (KJV)
May God breath his Spirit into you, the breath of life that only he can give. And as you walk your Lenten path, may you experience the fullness of life as God intends for you. May he do his good work of forming you out of dust. Lenten blessings to you.