Lenten Devotion written for LSTC

“And the Spirit immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness” (Mark 1:12). After descending on Jesus in the Jordan, the Spirit compelled, forced, exerted and obliged God’s Son, the Beloved, with whom God is well pleased into a desert place. So, beloved child of God, where is the Spirit driving you this Lent? So often I think the way I will observe Lent is my choice, my decision. Lent is something I commit or do not commit to. I determine whether to give up dessert, volunteer more, take on another (or different) spiritual discipline, or not. So what if, rather than choosing, deciding, committing or not committing, I spend these first days of Lent allowing myself to be driven by the Spirit? What if my Lenten discipline is to give up resisting? What if my Lenten discipline is to go where the Spirit is driving me? Where might that place be? If I am going to follow Jesus, I am probably on my way to some wilderness, to a time of temptation, to wrestle once again with what it means for my life that God has named me “beloved child.” It’s much easier and safer simply to give up sweets. But where the Spirit drive me, Jesus has been, Jesus is there. And so I pause to consider what it means to stop resisting this Lent, and to allow the Spirit to drive me.

Come, Holy Spirit. Goad, compel, force, exert, oblige, . . . drive me, just maybe not immediately.