How often we forget the lessons of Matthew 6:25-44 and consume ourselves in worrying about the necessities of life rather than simply doing

God's work and trusting God to take care of things. We forget that God knows our every need and is concerned and committed to helping supply them. (Note: this is our needs, not necessarily our wants. There is a big difference!)

Furthermore, as today's lesson from Mark illustrates, often the answers to our needs are immediately at hand, right within our reach. So easily we forget or overlook the skills, abilities and resources that we already possess or that we have close at hand.

So, maybe at this time of Lent, when we examine our own lives, we might also look to the lives and needs of others, and see whether God might want to use us, or our our talents, resources etc., to meet those needs. Anyway, something to think and pray about.

Paul's two letters to the Christians in Corinthians are particularly troublesome and bewildering. Part of the problem is that their immediate cultural and historical situation is quite different from ours. The other part of the problem is that these letters are only part of the conversation. For the most part, especially in his first letter, Paul is addressing a series of issues or questions that have been put to him. Our problem is that we don't hear the question, at least, not in its entirety. We get a shorthand version and so are left guessing to quite a degree. It is like listening to one side of a telephone conversation.

However, there is one thing that is certain throughout these letters, namely that our behaviour invariably impacts our relationships both with God and with each other. So, what we think about food offered to idols (today's topic) or conduct at community Communion services or our take on 'spiritual gifts' or our behaviour at worship invariably impacts our life within the church. In other words, all these things matter!

Today's meditation deals with the question of food offered to idols, but I think you'll find (as I do) that this seemingly irrelevant and ancient question actually has quite a bit of application to today. I hope you find it meaningful and helpful.

This meditation talks about 'welcome', finding space in our hearts and lives for God and for others.

This meditation reminds that God is still there and still active, even when it doesn't look like it, and how we need to trust Him anyway.

This meditation reflects on our callings from God and the gifts we have been given in order to live up to those callings.

But, how often, we are reluctant, just like Moses was.

I find it remarkable--and rather informative and noteworthy--that though I am sure that Jesus felt an incredible bond with His heavenly Father right from His earliest years, He still felt the need to be with God's people, especially the wise and learned among them, in order to learn from them and grow in His knowledge of God's word. Even though He was probably precocious in this regard and even had 'a head start', He still felt the need to be diligent and disciplined in this. And yes, even to the point of 'ruffling some feathers', as it were, causing some distress in the case of His parents. I happen to think that Jesus was an astute reader of human emotions and reactions, and yet here He was willing to let them be, even in one sense, to disregard them, in order to devote Himself to study. All I can think of is how very easily we, you and I, allow seemingly minor things, even incidental comments or activities, to distract ourselves from this most important 'work.' Let us, I pray, be more like Jesus in this regard.

Today, perhaps surprisingly, is a call to action, specifically a call to earnest and persevering prayer. In yesterday's meditation and psalm (Psalm 71) our psalmist reflected on how consistently God had been with him over the years and how noteworthy God had been in answering his prayers. That brought to mind a question, a question about our prayer life and how consistent, and specific, we are in our prayers.

Today's meditation, from Mark 4 and the story of the storm at sea, also touched on our prayers to God and how they 'make things work', and not just for us but for many others as well.

So, what I am calling for today is sustained, consistent, specific prayer. You might want to pray for Ukraine and the terrible destruction, horror and impasse effecting that country and region. This prayer might be the lever to change things as nothing else seems to be making much of a difference.

For me, and for St. John's, I'm praying for a quick and effective resolution to a problem that we are having with the Canada Revenue Agency. We have had a dispute with them for well over a year, and even still, our file is reportedly at 'the bottom of the pile' and probably won't be resolved for an estimated five months! Our parish treasurer and people's warden, and the Synod Office as well, have all tried to intervene and get it resolved more quickly, but nothing has worked. Maybe our prayers will make the difference.

Anyway, these are just two 'prayer topics' out of many. I invite you to choose whatever topic is most on your mind, and then to use this time of Lent to intentionally prayer for it.

A few days ago, February 27 in a fact, a distinguished Anglican (Canadian, no less) evangelist by the name of Marney Patterson died. Over the years I have been privileged to work on the teams of a number of evangelists, Franklin Graham and Walter DeSousa as well as Marney, but I was especially impressed by Marney, with just how down to earth and 'ordinary' he was. Of course, that he was Anglican and Canadian may have helped. Thinking about this put me in mind of the various other evangelists that I have had the privilege of meeting, David Mainse, Michael Green and John Bowen, for instance, and had me thinking about how we 'do' or don't do evangelism. My suspicion is that often don't 'do' it--and this includes me!

Today's Scripture passage--and meditation--give us a bit more food for thought--and hopefully, action--on this count. I wonder whether we are sometimes too 'careful', too worried about whether the time is right or our words are crafted sensitively enough. I wonder whether we should worry more about simply listening to God and then speaking (or living) the Good News as He directs.

Lent is a great time to re-examine our lives and make sure that things are set aright. Today's Scripture passage picks up on two important things in this regard. The first is to make sure that we are open to the work of the Holy Spirit. That is an important consideration as the Scriptures tell us that we can resist or grieve the Holy Spirit, with effects that would not be good at all! And the second truth is that while the church and its fellowship, friendships and relationships are great, and vital, our relationship with Jesus Christ is even more central. In fact, it is our relationship with Him, and our common obedience to Him, that makes us into a family in the first place. After all, He IS the head of the body, the one person who directs it, enables it and holds it all together.

If there is anything that can be most assuredly said about life is that we will invariably face troubles and issues of various sorts. While this is certainly true of us, it was no less true of our Biblical forebears.

If there is anything that can be most assuredly said about life is that we will invariably face troubles and issues of various sorts. While this is certainly true of us, it was no less true of our Biblical forebears.

During Lent, we are invited to join together in an intentional and disciplined time of prayer, meditation and self-examination. However, for us humans, it is far too easy, during this process, to see ourselves and to examine our lives only by the standards of church or society, or by our own standards. In today's reading, the apostle Paul discourages this and challenges us instead to examine our lives, and judge our lives and our performance, only by God's standards. That's where prayer and the study and meditation on the Holy Scriptures come in. They help us to see what God wants, rather than what we, or any other human, might want and assess ourselves accordingly.

Joseph, sitting there in an Egyptian jail, was God's man of the hour, God's agent to accomplish some much-needed changes in his world. They simply needed to be directed by God, do as God said, and let Him do the rest. I pray that God will do the same with us.

One of the things that really attracted me to Christianity as an adult--in particular certain expressions of it--was that it produced results. From my time with the Jesus People and with MRA (Moral Re-Armament, the parent group of Alcoholics Anonymous) I saw people getting saved, healed, and delivered. I saw incredible answers to prayer and dramatic examples of how God had truly directed people's lives. It was a kind of robust, dynamic Christianity that I had never seen during my upbringing in the Anglican Church, something that I truly believe to still be possible today. In fact, I happen to think that God desires it.

Surely Jesus and the four men in Capernaum were 'holy disruptors', used by God's to overturn things and produce results. They simply needed to be directed by God, do as God said, and let Him do the rest. I pray that God will do the same with us.

Someone once described me as a 'spiritual magpie' in that I love picking up bits and pieces of information and stowing them away in the nest of my brain. I think that this description is probably quite accurate as I do in fact love learning and accumulating information and knowledge. But then, with this, comes a couple of attendant problems. First off, how do we assess the accuracy and worth of that information or knowledge, and secondly, how do we know how to make use of it. That is where wisdom comes in.

But even here, there is a problem. There is the 'wisdom' that our world holds on to and is guided by and then there is the wisdom that comes from God. There is often a difference between the two because our world's wisdom, our society's wisdom, is often based on a set of values or parameters or assumptions that do not align up with God's. That is the problem addressed in today's meditation. But, as I suggest in my meditation, the answer to this problem is to make sure that we spend quality time with God and with His word. That way His wisdom becomes ingrained in us and part of our very way of thinking, deciding and acting.

I have read the stories of Jesus calling the four fishermen, Peter, Andrew, James and John, but had never thought of their time with Jesus as a kind of mentorship. Of course, most of us have called it discipleship, but somehow that lacks the modern, contemporary 'feel' of mentorship. And neither does it have the sense of friendship and intimacy, the sense of intentionally 'being together' that is embedded in the modern idea of mentorship.

Somehow I think that this practice of mentorship has far too often been neglected within the modern church. We speak of discipleship programs but often this is more institutional, more 'organized', more 'scheduled.' There is less of the day-to-day 'hanging out together', working together, experiencing today, that Jesus and His disciples, or Paul and his coworkers, enjoyed back then.

Today's psalm and meditation focus on what has to be a recurrent situation for almost all of us. What do we do or say when 'all hell seems to break loose, when troubles and difficulties seem to multiply endlessly and for no discernible reason, and none of it seems to be our fault? That was the situation that had enveloped ancient Israel. While they did what many people have done over the years, and that is, to question where God was in all this, they did not, as a consequence, give up on God. Instead, they kept faithful to God, but also kept faithful in prayer, demanding that He act in their situation and help them. It is a good model and example for all of us.

Temptation is something that we all know all too well, and may often feel totally alone in it. To me, it comes as a great comfort, and help, to know that Jesus has also experienced it, in fact, in every way that we do. And what is even more reassuring is that He faced it, and overcame it, equipped with no resources other than the ones that we have available to us.

When things are topsy turvey, problems seem rampant, and everything seems to be in disarray, it is easy to wonder where God is and what God is doing. Many of the past 'greats' of the Christian faith experienced this on a personal basis, but now, for many of us, this has come down to rest on a larger, more societal and global levels. It is easy to question, and doubt, at times like this.

Our psalmist encountered this on a personal level, but regardless of his doubts and regardless of the fact that God seemed to be absent and uninvolved, still persisted in his faith in God, still persisted in prayer, and still persisted in holding on to God. To me, that adamant faith is certainly 'something' for our times, something worth imitating in our lives.