I was slow getting started this morning. I chalked it up to a slow recovery from the flu last week. I hadn’t started my prayer yet. I hadn’t greeted the LORD yet. I sat, stared, and sipped. And then this lone, very vocal duck flew over my porch. He sounded so lost; his cry resonated with me. “LORD, I am lost. Please find me.”
And so I began my prayer this morning. I recognized that I am one week into my Lenten journey and I can’t see an inch of progress. I had such hopes. Where is my resolve? Where is my perseverance? And then I remembered that silly duck. I remembered the sound of his questioning quack. Ducks aren’t solitary birds. Where was the flock? Where was the leader? And the LORD answered my prayer the way He so often does. He used the world around me to help me see myself.
I’m that lost duck. The flock didn’t leave me. I took off on my own. And so, I stilled myself and sat quietly, knowing I’d been found. And then I turned myself over to the LORD. “Lead me, LORD.”
We have a Savior. Lent is all about recognizing our need for a Savior and about setting our minds and hearts on Him and on His love for us. It’s not about what we want, although we do have to choose. It’s not about us, although He died for each of us. It is about the journey in Him: “deny self, pick up your cross, and follow.”
May this Lent be the Lent that we set down what we want and pick up what He offers. May this Lent be a time when we pick up willingly the cross we are given to carry through this life in Him. And may this be the Lent that brings us to Him with faith renewed, with hope amplified, and with love abounding.
Until tomorrow, let us all love well.