Ash Wednesday SEEKING
Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of lent - the 40 days leading up to Easter (excluding Sundays) when we intentionally lean into grief and lament, often practicing habits that help us connect more deeply with our own need for God and our world’s need for God.
For this journey we’ll be hearing often from our friends over at Sanctified Art who have put together a set of helpful resources. If you would like to read their thoughtful, thorough, artful devotional book, just email Bill@CityChurchLB.org and he’ll send it to you. And if you’d like to gather with others to think about this journey, there will be a potluck tonight at 6:30pm at Bill & Katy White’s home (2490 Maine Ave) and at 7:30 there will be a short Ash Wednesday worship service (it’ll be a bigger crowd, so some people may want to sit outside - if that’s you, you might want to dress warmly!).
Seeking is a huge theme in scripture. And it’s not just God that we seek… these verses all positively command seeking things like peace in the city, God’s reign on earth, and even glory for yourself:
Seek…. - Deuteronomy 4:29
Seek… - Psalm 27:8
Seek… - Jeremiah 29:7
Seek… - Matthew 6:33
Seek… - Romans 2:7
One way or the other, seeking matters.
Like the characters in our Lenten scriptures, we are also seeking many things: clarity, connection, wonder, justice, balance. We are seeking our calling, the sacred, and how to live as a disciple. Throughout this season, we hope you will continually ask yourself: what am I seeking? What is God seeking?
This Lent, we invite you to engage in the spiritual practice of seeking. We encourage you to stay curious, open, and nimble. We hope you will soften your assumptions and expand your perspectives. We pray that these questions will create a safe space to explore—to be drawn more deeply into the fullness of life, into the heart of God.
@sanctifiedart