How is God Calling You Home?

Dear Friends,

Ash Wednesday is an uncomfortable day, some say, the most uncomfortable day of the year.  The prayers seem to rub our noses in our mortality, our failings, our limitations, and sin. But I think Ash Wednesday is really an invitation from our loving Heavenly Father to give up and come home. 

They say home is the place you go and they always have to let you in. With God, home is the place we go and he always lets us in. He invites us to surrender the good and bad of our lives, the worry, regrets, fear, the sadness, the secrets and shame, all to him.  To lay down those things that stand in our way of walking in peace and love with God and our neighbors.

In our searching and our worship, we’ll find that love endures and persists.  That’s what love does. It never gives up on us. Today, God invites us to come to the altar, twice. The first time for repentance and forgiveness, and the second, for healing and nourishment.

And if we find ourselves unable, God will come to us. It’s a mysterious gift, divine love, undeserved, unearned. Our prayer today says, “Almighty God you hate nothing you have made…” Our Father in heaven is waiting for us to come to the end of ourselves, ready and willing to accept the burden of our hurts, losses, anger, and hate. We are all guilty of misdirected love and misguided passions, even indifference and deliberate denial.

How is God calling you home? That’s a question for each of us to answer this Lent. But He invites us to lay our sin on Jesus and remember we’re forgiven and loved, and the first step is ashes on our heads.  And if you missed this sacrament today, it’s not too late, remember that Lent lasts for forty days. I invite you to find one of our 87 churches in over 50 counties in Alabama. All are invited and welcome.

I hope I see you at church somewhere soon.

Blessings,

Bishop G.