ASH WEDNESDAY

Return to the Lord, your God. 

Happy Lent! We might not think of Lent as a “happy” time, but that’s the way God thinks about this season. He looks forward to it! To him, Lent is an exciting time, a hopeful time, a time for his children to come home to him. Our Father longs for each of us to grow closer to him and experience his love. And so he calls us through the prophet Joel: “Return to me with your whole heart” (2:12).

This is the “why” behind all our Lenten practices of fasting and repentance, of giving alms and setting aside extra time for prayer. We make these efforts not merely as an obligation or an attempt to detach from the world but as a response to God’s loving call. They help us to return to him and reconnect with the One who has loved us from the beginning. With each prayer, each sacrifice, and each act of mercy, we can take one step closer to our Father.

The good news is that God has already made the first move toward us. By sending his Son among us as a man and by giving us his Holy Spirit, God has already come close to us. He is always near, but in our human weakness and sin, we drift away from him at times and lose sight of his love. So we need to repent and return to him—and there’s no better time to do this than Lent!

This year our opening articles focus on the parable of the prodigal son from Luke 15. Let’s put ourselves into this moving story. Like the two sons in this parable, we have a choice to make. We can seize the opportunity that Lent offers us and take a step closer to the Lord. Or we can pull back and ignore God’s generous invitation.

Let’s not miss out on all that God has in store for us.

“Father, I want to return to you with all my heart this Lent!”

Joel 2:12-18
Psalm 51:3-6, 12-14, 17
2 Corinthians 5:20–6:2
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18