Lent: Day Thirty-six

Lots of things happening at my conference with big news relating to one the vendors I support with training and consulting, which will change my professional landscape. This news may force me to make a decision on the direction of my work life sooner than I expected.

Life is like that, long periods of relative sameness punctuated by moments of monumental change. I guess that is one of the hopes of making a Lenten observance: you hope that God will use your focus, dedication, and prayer to make a monumental change in your life.

Change can be really scary. It is very hard to look ahead and see the results of substantive change, to see how your life will be a year or two afterward. I think that is why we are warned in the book of James to hold lightly to a specific future, instead trusting to God’s willingness to do the right thing for us.

Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a city and spend a year there and carry on our business and make money. Yet you do not know [the least thing] about what may happen tomorrow. What is the nature of your life? You are [really] but a wisp of vapor (a puff of smoke, a mist) that is visible for a little while and then disappears [into thin air]. You ought instead to say, If the Lord is willing, we shall live and we shall do this or that [thing]. But as it is, you boast [falsely] in your presumption and your self-conceit. All such boasting is wrong. James 4:13-16 Amplified Bible

It is entirely possible that I may wind down from what I am doing professionally and focus entirely on Moses, especially on my decision to finish the first book covering only the first twenty-four hours of the story. I have gotten mixed feelings on the idea, some people loving the concept, others concerned it will not get me off to a good start with readers. I understand the reservations, but I am firmly committed to doing The Chronicles of the Lawgiver: Beginnings as the record of the first day that Moses appeared on the stage of history.

Last Seven Words of Jesus

Changes, as we saw above, are part of life and at this moment in the redemptive drama change comes for two people important to Jesus.

Third phrase: “…he said to his mother, ‘Dear woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.'”

The author of Hebrews will later write, “Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.” In this exchange with his mother Mary and his disciple John, Jesus does something fundamental. Through the disciple John he brings all of us into his family, the Holy Family of God, and in doing, makes all redeemed mankind his brethren.

Earlier Jesus had told his disciples, “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” What greater freedom than to become part of the family of God.

As Jesus counseled his disciples the night before he was crucified, he said to them, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit–fruit that will last.”

We are brothers and friends, members of a sacred company, the family of God, our adoption assured by the words of him who has the power to adopt us all.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12-13

Dear Lord, teach me to understand and appreciate the absolute significance of my adoption into the family of God. Help me to embrace the change and responsibility that becoming one of God’s children requires. From this day forward may I always bring honor and glory to my heavenly Father and to the sacrifice Jesus made for me. Amen.