a time and a season of humility and restraint
Photo courtsey of Unsplash
In high school, I didn’t understand why the students walked around with ash in their heads. It was a Catholic school, but I was a Baptist. I never thought to ask, and if I did, the thought never recentered my mind until I became an adult seeking to grow nearer to God.
So, this Ash Wednesday at Antioch Baptist Church in Bedford Hills, NY, I was to stand and deliver a word from the Lord because I’ve marked my hand and my head with ashes and grown to understand that the season of Lent is “a time and a season of humility and restraint’” the title of my Ash Wednesday meditation.
After the service was complete, Pastor McJunkin suggested I listen to my message. He said I will be blessed. The message you are given is not the message you preach because the spirit is in control. I’m not prone to watching myself or listening to my sermons. I don’t think that highly of myself that I need to analyze and critique. I’m always critiquing myself. Like many of us, we are our biggest and worst critic. I’ve been through a season of learning to embrace the experience rather than sing the litany “shoulda, coulda, woulda.” I take time to humble myself, thanking God for the opportunity to revel in the beauty of the experience.
So, on this second day of Lent, Friday, I humbled myself twice. On the first day, I asked an editor for an extension to the deadline. To be late hurts my pride but I am learning to ask for help. On this second day of Lent, I listened to the sermon God put in my mouth, and the Holy Spirit instructed and inspired me to write. I’ve been writing for several years, and this season, the writing has changed. I have changed. God has changed me and loosened my heart. I’ve become a contemplative writer: slowing down, listening, noticing, and waiting to hear the gentle whisper of God. I have to revise and I have to rest in the writing. Step away from the work. Step away from processing and organizing. It takes restraint to revise, leave the work, and come back to it. To sit with it.
I did just what was recommended in the Ash Wednesday meditation: I slowed down and sat in my car before going into Whole Foods after I had shopped at Costco and visited the dentist and the esthetician. I almost got trapped in go, go, go.
So, I was blessed when I parked and paused to listen to the meditation/sermon. A sermon is a religious speech on a religious or moral matter, while meditation is a devotional exercise of or leading to contemplation. So, as a preacher and a spiritual director, I combined the two.
The Lord God blessed me while obediently listening to my sermon; I preached what I have been practicing, the life I have been living, learning to let go and give up some stuff that really hinders my spiritual growth.
So, dear reader, What will you sacrifice for a spiritual gain? I invite you to:
Give up complaining and focus on gratitude.
Give up pessimism and become an optimist.
Give up worry and trust the Divine Providence.
Give up bitterness and turn to forgiveness.
Give up fixing or judging; be still and listen.
Give up gloom and enjoy the beauty around you.
Give up gossiping and control your tongue.
Give up giving up and hang in there.
