This year, instead of giving up chocolate, ice cream or some other decadent food for Lent -- disguising my effort to lose weight with a spiritual discipline -- my husband Ted and I decided to take on a practice suggested at the Ash Wednesday service that we attended. At the end of each day, ask yourself two simple questions: When did you feel closest to God? And when did you feel less connected? We've been trying to do this together each day, even though we've missed more than one of our evening chats. What we've found is that talking about God's presence encourages us to look for when, where and how God is present in our lives. And perhaps even more importantly, it gives us clues as to how our behavior impacts the way we sense God with us.
In many ways, the Bible can be understood as the story of how God's people have sensed God's presence with them. Throughout Scripture, the places and times where God's presence was discerned were chronicled, from Adam and Eve hiding from God's presence in the garden after they disobeyed God; through the erection of cairns -- piles of stones at places where one of God's followers encountered God; through Moses sensing God's presence in the burning bush that wasn't consumed; and the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night when the people of Israel were led by God through the Sinai peninsula; to believing that the tabernacle and temple were God's house.
We yearn for God's presence in our lives every bit as much as God's people in Biblical times. Even Jesus the Christ -- Jesus of Nazareth -- in his humanity sought his heavenly father's counsel through prayerful conversations with God. In his death on the cross, Jesus cried out using the words from Psalm 22: "My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?" It seems that in that moment Jesus did not feel the presence of God -- perhaps did not even sense God within himself. What a moment of agony that must have been for him who was the very presence of God with us.
And perhaps because Jesus himself knew the depth of despair when feeling distanced from God, that is why he promised his followers that he would not leave them orphaned -- that he would send them the Holy Spirit. In this way Jesus would always be with them -- and with us -- through the presence of God's Holy Spirit.
We do not always sense God's Spirit -- we feel distanced. Which is why I am finding that asking myself daily about when I have or have not sensed God with me is a good Lenten practice. I am finding that more often than not it is something that I am doing, or not doing, that creates those times in my day that I feel less connected with God.
I hope that I continue this practice long after Lent as a nighttime ritual along with prayer. And if you sense that you yearn for God's presence in your life but don't feel as close to God as you wish, I encourage you to try it too. Just ask yourself two simple questions at the end of each day: When did you feel closest to God? And when did you feel less connected?
NAN Religion on 03/30/2019