This is the fourth Sunday in our journey through this Lenten season. With only three weeks left before Easter, this is a good time to do a spiritual check in and reflect on how things are going. Take a few minutes today to dwell with God in silence and solitude. Pray and ask him to guide your reflection. Consider these questions and take some time to journal as you reflect on this journey:
- How is your journey through this season going thus far?
- How have you been connecting with God? What are some high points? Any low points?
- How has God been at work in your life?
- If you are practicing fasting, how is it going? What is God showing you through this practice?
- If you haven’t been fasting, is there anything God is leading you to fast from over these next three weeks?
- Are there any tweaks you would like to make for the remaining weeks of Lent?
The purpose of this reflection isn’t to berate yourself for not living up to your expectations or for struggling to fast. Instead, the purpose is to invite God to sit with you and guide you as you reflect on how you’ve connected with him and seen him at work over the past few weeks.
One of our Scripture readings for today is the parable of the Lost Son from Luke 15:11-32. Take some time to read over this parable this week. Where do you find yourself in this parable? How are you like the lost son? How are you like the brother who stayed?
Look at this artist’s depiction of the son’s return below.1
Which part of this painting draws your eye? How does this scene move you?
As I was looking at this painting and thinking about our Lenten journey, I was struck by the joy portrayed in this painting. Joy and Lent seem to be incongruent. Often when we think about Lent, we think of it as a somber, dark time of confession focused on our sins and the price Jesus paid for them. And while that is certainly true, it is also true that God’s love and desire for our restoration to himself is what drove Jesus to the cross. And God rejoices at this restoration as much as the father, mother, and others in this painting rejoice over the return of the lost son. Joy and rejoicing are the natural outflow of Jesus’ restoration of our brokenness, the response to our being made new. All of heaven and earth celebrate the ushering in of God’s Kingdom, the beginning of the new creation.
Have you ever thought about God rejoicing over your return to him like the father does in the parable? How does God’s love move you?
God loves you. Period. As you step into this week, may the reality of God’s love and rejoicing wash over you like a fresh spring rain filling you with indescribable joy.
- JESUS MAFA. Prodigal Son, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54662 ↩︎
