The Painted Prayerbook

No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
—Jeremiah 31.34

From a lectionary reading for Lent 5: Jeremiah 31.31-34

Reflection for Tuesday, March 20 (Day 24 of Lent)

This God who writes a new word on our hearts. This God who knows us and whose hope is built on a time when we will know God in turn. This God who holds onto us with such persistence and love and calls us to live into this love, yet does not keep tally of the times we have turned away. This God who knows the tally we keep in our own hearts of the occasions when we failed to live into the love that fashioned us, the times that are seared into our own memories with embarrassment or despair.

When we remember our shortcomings and sins so keenly, how do we trust in the God who graces us with forgetfulness? How would it be to take this up as a Lenten practice: to repair what we have damaged in our sin—as far as it lies within our power—and then to rest in the God who does not eternally hold against us the harm we have caused? We may not be able to forget certain memories entirely, but how might it be to cease to be bound by them—to allow God to release us from the memories that hold us hostage? What would you like to trust that God forgets?

This reflection is part of the daily series “Teach Me Your Paths: A Pilgrimage into Lent.” If you’re new to the series, welcome! You can visit the first post, Teach Me Your Paths: Entering Lent, to pick it up from the beginning. If you would like to receive these blog posts via email, simply enter your address in the subscription signup box near the top of the sidebar.

[To use the image “And Remember Their Sin No More,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah….I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
—Jeremiah 31.31, 33b

From a lectionary reading for Lent 5: Jeremiah 31.31-34

Reflection for Monday, March 19 (Day 23 of Lent)

For tonight, simply this question, carried with me as Gary and I flew home from Denver:

Here, just past the halfway point of Lent; here, at this point in your life: What word needs to be written new upon your heart?

[To use the image “A New Covenant,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

…and raised us up with him and seated us with him
in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
—Ephesians 2.6

From a lectionary reading for Lent 4: Ephesians 2.1-10

Reflection for Friday, March 16 (Day 21 of Lent)

As I write this I am miles above the earth, flying westward toward Colorado, where Gary and I will be leading several events in the Denver area. It gives a certain perspective to today’s reading about being raised with Christ and seated with him in the heavenly places. And so as I arc across the country, watching the familiar terrain of the Southeast giving way to the contours of the West, I am here to ask you: Where are you seated? Where are you letting yourself—your attention, your intentions—be drawn these days? Are the things you are giving your attention to drawing you closer to Christ or distancing you? What do you see from where you are?

[To use the image “In the Heavenly Places,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which God loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
—Ephesians 2.4-5a

From a lectionary reading for Lent 4: Ephesians 2.1-10

Reflection for Thursday, March 15 (Day 20 of Lent)

Even when we were dead, Paul writes.
Even when we turned away from the One who had created us.
Even when we lived in the grip of what drew our gaze from God.
Even when we were oblivious.
Even when we followed a path fashioned of nothing
but our own desires.
Even when we wandered far and willfully away.
Even when we forgot to look past our own feet and to see
the wonders not of our making.
Even when we failed to stand in awe, to breathe thanks,
to lean into the love that had waited long for us.
Even when, Paul writes.
Even when,
even then:
grace.

[To use the image “Even When We Were Dead,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

“Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?”
—Numbers 21.5

From a lectionary reading for Lent 4: Numbers 21.4-9

Reflection for Monday, March 12 (Day 17 of Lent)

We were made for freedom. Formed and fashioned by God, breathing with God’s own breath, we were created to live and move at full stretch and to offer our gifts in complete and unconfined measure. It is a disturbing peculiarity of humans that we have so often resisted this: that across time—and still—we have had such difficulty living into the divine freedom that God intended. We have enslaved others. Or we have taken our freedom lightly. Or we have given it away, trading it for something that looked like security. Or we have let it be taken from us because we didn’t know our own power or didn’t think that freedom was a state we deserved.

When we’re given a taste of freedom—like the people of the Exodus in today’s passage—it can sometimes seem too difficult. It requires vast amounts of intention and courage and faith to live into the liberation for which God has designed us. As the Israelites discovered, freedom is a big, uncharted territory, full of uncertainty and responsibility that can overwhelm our ability to see the gifts and possibilities the unconstrained landscape contains. Faced with that uncertainty and responsibility—and, let’s face it, with the reality that entering the terrain of freedom can involve discomfort and slim or distasteful rations—the confinement of the known can start to look more appealing than the freedom of the unknown.

And so, in the company of the children of Israel who had to learn to live into liberation, I am here today to ask you: Have you given away some part of yourself for the sake of security, or to keep the waters smooth, or because you thought it was expected? To whom or to what are you beholden? Is there some unknown territory that you need to press into with courage and intention in order to live more deeply into the freedom for which God has created you? Is there someone who needs you to come alongside them as they seek to do this in their own lives?

[To use the image “In the Wilderness,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]