'As the
deer pants for the water...' the opening lines of this beautiful Psalm,
are also words of a worship song I remember learning in my teenage years.
My teenage years were not easy (actually probably less easy for my family) but
I knew I believed in God and I wanted to live my life as a Christian but I
really did not know how to do so. In a way, my soul longed for God but my
mind wanted to be elsewhere. I found it difficult to reconcile this
longing with the reality of teenage and student life - 'when could I go and
meet with God?' as the Psalmist puts it. Eventually, God brought me friends who
were Christians and also (in my view) cool and fun. I found a church, got
over my fear of admitting my faith and started to quench my thirst for
God. Christ fed me on those years, just as He fed the five thousand, with
love and patience as I found my way. Some days, my soul is
downcast, like the Psalmist, but most days I can sense the direction of Gods'
love towards me. I try to keep God as my rock (sometimes I fall off that
rock) but most of all I try to put my hope in God - because I believe God puts
hope in me, just as He puts hope in all of us. Gods hope in all of us is
reflected in the promise he made never to be separated from his people again,
the covenant with Noah, the promises to the sons of Jacob, the fulfilment of
the prophecies of Isaiah and many others, the arrival of Christ the child and
the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
Lent
gives me hope that my soul will never stop longing for God, that I can find
ways to quench that thirst in our church community, in the word of God, in prayer
and even in singing. It prepares me for accepting once again that
ultimate sign of hope, of the victory of life over death and the presence of
Christ among us forever - 'Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my
saviour and my God'.
Le Carême me donne espoir que mon âme ne s’arrêtera
jamais de désirer Dieu.
Heather Roy
No comments:
Post a Comment