Thursday,
March 9, 2023
For I am about to do
something new. See, I have already
begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. Isaiah 43:19
Our missional group in South Davidson County cooperates to provide midweek
Lenten services and lunch for the community.
It’s a small town, so most everyone knows everyone. It’s a relaxed, joyful lunch hour of worship,
soup, and sandwiches before heading back to work, or whatever you do with your day.
Since this is my first year in the community I wasn’t sure what to
expect, but I’d been told it was quite informal. While I was getting dressed for the first
service of the season three weeks ago, I pulled out my old Lenten-appropriate
shirt, quite the liturgical purple! My
bride walked past me and questioned my sanity.
You’re not wearing THAT are you? I immediately thought: Fashion police have arrived.
What followed was a brief discussion…well, it was more of a one-sided
sermon from the pew…about not wearing a twenty-year-old rumpled, faded, and
threadbare shirt to a worship service. I
began to protest; I wasn’t leading this service, so I didn’t need to get all
formal. But after taking a closer look
at my old favorite Lenten shirt, I decided the fashion cop could probably get a
conviction if the thing went to trial. I
upgraded my wardrobe choice with a deep sigh.
It was one of those moments when you realize you’ve become
your father. If my Dad liked a shirt, he
wore it…often. And when Mom did the
laundry, the first thing Dad would hunt for in the pile of clean stuff was that
shirt. I guess my father understood the
old saying: If it ain’t broke…!
Understanding that we humans become comfortable with our surroundings is
a necessary thing. We lived on the North
side of Jacksonville, Florida in the 1990’s.
Just across the river was a paper mill.
Whenever the wind changed, you knew there was a paper mill close-by. The old story my friend Rodney used to tell about
that mill was about a family of skunks moving from Georgia to Florida. As they were crossing the bridge one of the
little baby skunks asked: Mama…oh,
Mama, what IS that SMELL? The
mama skunk said: I’m not really
sure, darlin’, but we got to get us some o’ that!
In our daily lives the routines, familiar surroundings, and possessions
can become our lives. It’s a way of
reliving the past, and being relieved of the thought of facing the future. Wearing my old, comfortable,
Lenten-appropriate shirt, may have been a connection for me with bygone meaningful
moments spent in Lent’s confession, forgiveness, and spiritual growth. But, without that history, to others it just
looks like an old man in a faded and tattered purple shirt.
For You Today
There are about 2,500 devotional
posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions
library. To dig deeper explore
some of these: New Creation or Trapped!
Title Image: via Pixabay.com Images without citation are in public
domain.
Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
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