Jan 29, 2021
Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. (Psalm 119:105)
As I reflect on my life and even our church life together right now objectively, I see some great things. We’ve begun a time of prayer for one another together over Zoom. We’re gathering around the Lord’s Table with some intentionality and curiosity. We’re still caring for and supporting one another as a church family, and still worshiping together too. Obviously, there are also any number of things that aren't so great.
But, even when just looking at the good things, the subjective reality is quite different. Good things or not: the life just seems to be sucked right out of them. Everything seems rather flat and dreary, even on sunny days. The isolation and fatigue of COVID and this second lockdown is draining us. And we are weary.
If ever there was a time that our path seemed dark, it’s now. Uplifting worship, sunshine, a good conversation—none of it seems to pierce the all-consuming darkness that we drag ourselves monotonously through between our same four walls each day.
And yet, the strange inviting promises of our God are to look for him in just such dark and desolate wilderness places to see if he won’t light our way. Put our ear to the ground to see if He won’t speak.
Reading Scripture can be just that way that God grounds us back into reality as he defines and illuminates it, not as our circumstances or weariness does. Listening to God speak to us through his Word is an act of attention that can transport us out of the monotony of our time, and into the pregnant, creative possibilities of his.
Many of us have had a hard time staying faithful to rhythms of reading or prayer since the pandemic first hit. But, I’d like to invite you to try it again. Maybe through these devotions. Through an app that sends you a verse of the day. Through picking up the physical book and reading a chapter or so. Whatever bit of listening to the word you can take on faithfully each day, no matter how bite-sized, is the right place to start.
Our Youth Group talked about this Spiritual Discipline of Scripture reading this past Tuesday night. So, try it out: join them. If you’re a prayer partner, connect with your partner and encourage them.
Here are some further anecdotes, resources, ideas, and scriptures to invite us into this healthy discipline of faith from our denomination’s faith formation team. Check it out here.