PRAYER TO JOURNEY CLOSER TO GOD ON ASH WEDNESDAY

Today is Ash Wednesday, the day we enter into the season of Lent – 40 days before Easter where we consider how prayer, fasting, and deeds of charity help us to consider God’s priorities that brought Jesus to earth to die for us. 

How deeply are we longing to be in close fellowship with God?  How willing are we to put aside things that we like to have, activities that we like to do, people we like to be with, for something that is greater?  To what degree are we willing to inconvenience ourselves on behalf of helping others? 

These are fair questions at any point, on any day, but they are so appropriate in our times when everyone seems to want and fight for what works for them and sometimes failing to see the impact of our wishes on others. 

Traditionally we’ve known that Lent was about “giving up” something – whether it was a meal, or chocolate or a certain internet game etc.  While there is probably some merit in doing these kinds of things, I think this is a season to consider how we are giving up our lives to the Lord and allowing the new life He wants to create in us to come to the front.

A common Bible verse prayer for this season is:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Psalm 51:1-2

Thank You, God for this wonderful privilege of being able to come to You and ask for love and forgiveness, even though we don’t deserve it.  Based on Your own promises we can expect You to respond generously to us because Your love for us is unfailing and Your compassion for us is great. 

Thank You for washing away all our wrongs, even the sins that seem to trip us time and time again.  Help us to be more aware of how we are influenced by sinful things in our culture every day of our lives.  Open our consciousness more and more so we see how we are sinful, repent, and return to You.  Amen

A couple of verses later in that Psalm help us invite God to do a new work in our lives:

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.  Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.  Psalm 51:10-12

And then I also love how Paul expresses the new way of living that we are called to.  I’ve thought about and prayed about this verse many times and I still often have it roll around in my head as I think about how each phrase tries to build on the one before it – and express the struggle that seems to go on in us as we seek to live as sons and daughters of God, rather than as self-willed people following the lures and lies of the evil one.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  Galatians 2:20

Teach us in these next 40 days, we pray, along with a guy named ST. RICHARD OF CHICHESTER:

Thanks be to you, my Lord Jesus Christ for all the benefits you have given me, for all the pains and insults you have borne for me.  A most merciful Redeemer, Friend, and Brother, may I know you more clearly, love you more dearly, follow you more nearly, day by day. Amen.