“But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.” Jonah 3:8
Have you ever been with a young child that suddenly cried out, “I have to go” and you knew that it was an urgent request? Yet, as you worked to navigate, the store or the traffic or whatever kept you from the bathroom—some form of distraction emerged and by the time you made it to the destination, somehow that young one no longer had to go. Life sends us messages in urgent form: a friend becomes seriously ill, our finances take a tumble, we are required to make a job change or move to a new town, a relationship crumbles.
As we face these challenges our cries are direct and loud, and we seek fervently for God’s assistance. Yet somehow once calm returns (our friend recovers, the job search succeeds, relationships renew) and mundane sets, our trajectory changes and sometimes falls short. Let us seek God with the urgent need of the young child, with the searching and aching need in our most fragile states. Take every day as that opportunity to be drawn near to God.
This Lent, let not the distractions of every day keep you from the straight path; make urgent the tasks of your Lenten journey—prayer, service, quiet, creativity, giving—what steps can you make today?
What urgent needs do you bring to your God? What will you do today, simple and mundane,
to praise and honor God who is with you always—whether in need or not. How might you be present too?
Submitted by Fredrikson Center
Prayer God of the urgent and the mundane, grant us the wisdom to step toward you when in urgent need and in our every day. May we find companions on this path to remind us, and may we be that reminder too. Today we lift our hearts to you in gratitude and seek you in every way. Amen.