Daily Lent Devotions from Church Street UMC
Sunday, March 6, Morning
By Nancy Carmon
Dangerous Journey
Read Isaiah 43:1-3
My home devotion study recently was entitled “Dangerous Journey”. I assumed the writers were going to reflect on Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness. That was a dangerous journey. The landscape east of Jerusalem down to Jericho is barren, wild, arid, and rocky. Jesus would have been hungry and thirsty, and it certainly would have been dangerous wrestling with the darkest forces of evil. Or even Jesus’s last journey to Jerusalem, where according to the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus tells the disciples what awaits him there. That was a dangerous journey too!
But the week’s readings were about the dangerous journey of faith. The “cost of seeking God and the danger of following Christ”. For Jesus, God’s call meant the ultimate sacrifice – the cross. For many missionaries serving in troubled areas, the call to service and faith may certainly be quite dangerous.
How can that be dangerous here in America where we have freedom of religion? Maybe the danger lies in what we choose. To say yes to God’s call requires saying no to our own voice, our self will, our own desires, and even sometimes to the voices of persons and things we love. Jesus tells the disciples that he has come not to bring peace, but a sword. A dangerous journey indeed.
A dangerous journey and a challenge for all of us this Lenten season is to step out in faith–out of our comfort zone: to be a greeter, to serve on a church committee, to write a Lenten or Advent devotion, to welcome a stranger sitting in our pew, to seek the consolation and power of prayer, to delve deeply into scripture, to join a Sunday School class, to fast and seek God’s call, to recognize our spiritual gifts and to use them for our church, our community, our world.
What can we expect when we say “YES” to God’s call? “I will be with you…for I am the Lord your God, the Holy one of Israel, your Savior.” Thanks be to God.
Prayer
Dear Jesus, open us to the possibilities of saying “YES” to you this Lenten season. We know that you will walk in faith with us on our “dangerous journey” of faith! Amen.
