To adore God is to exalt him in the highest while humbling ourselves to the lowest. That is our posture on Ash Wednesday: humble repentance.
It’s the posture called for in the heart of the Lord’s Prayer:
Forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
– Matthew 6:12 (NLT)
C. S. Lewis described the way we learn about God through the faithful habit of spending time with him:
We – or at least I – shall not be able to adore God on the highest occasions if we have learned no habit of doing so on the lowest. At best, our faith and reason will tell us that He is adorable, but we shall not have found him so, not have ‘tasted and seen’.
Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.
– C. S. Lewis
While the observance of Lent is optional, the three disciplines practiced in Lent are not. Thankfully, Jesus provides further instructions on giving, prayer, and fasting.
In our Lenten journey, we will explore these various texts alongside thoughts from saints throughout history who have walked this way before us. For now, let’s join them by starting with adoration and repentance. This is the first step to learning new habits linked to giving, prayer, and fasting.
May we see “patches of Godlight” as we read together.
* Letters to Malcomb: Chiefly on Prayer (Orlando: Harcourt, 1963) 91.
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