Blessed

Mikaela and I attended a Chinese New Year celebration the other day. I photographed the event and Mikaela got to play with children (mostly little Asian ones, to her delight!) It was a fun event!

I received this from a friend the other day and thought it was neat, so I decided to share it.

Chinese New Year or the Spring Festival is a time when we count our blessings for the year just about to end and look forward to perhaps a more blessed one in the new year.
Indeed it’s by Providence that we are so blessed that we can celebrate the incoming year in peace at a time when the world around us seems to be descending into chaos.
For Christians, it’s a double celebration because Lent (Easter Celebrations) - the most important festival in the Christian calendar - begins on Chinese New Year eve this year.

The author goes on to talk about the decorations that are put up for Chinese New Year...

The all time favorite is undoubtedly decorations with the character (福) ,meaning blessed. It is not only quintessentially Chinese, it’s a life giving word that says the same thing in any language because its speaks of the blessings that we all hope for.
It’s an interesting character that is composed of four radicals. The first one on the left is a radical associated with all things divine. The three radicals stacked up on the right hand side consist of the characters for one, mouth and rice field or garden.
The word ‘blessed’(福) is a word picture of the original blessedness of mankind. One man (一口)in a garden(田) with the Divine(示). According to the Bible, Adam was this man, created in the image of God, to keep the Garden of Eden. He had a fellowship with God, thus glorifying and enjoying his Creator. This was true happiness.

During this reflection time of Lent, as we confess those "things we've done and those we've left undone" and as we look toward the cross as that place and point in time where we find forgiveness and reconciliation with God - may we be blessed...

Amidst it all, may the Divine (示) also walk with the one special person that is you(一口) in the garden of your heart (田).
May the Lord bless you (神 祝福 你).

Ashes

We attended an Ash Wednesday service this afternoon and I was struck by a couple of things. First, the call to confession and repentance. How often after reflection and self-examination do I leap forward into "fixing things" without the crucial step of confession before God? I don't really like to name my sin, I just like to fix it. But God knows I need confession and repentance. I need a place to lay it all out before Him and agree with Him as to what it really is.

Secondly, I was struck by the need to confess to one another...something I have no place for, but wonder if that is to my detriment. How serious was God when He said in the scriptures, "Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed..."?

Lord, we confess to You and to one another that we have sinned by our own fault in thought, word, and deed; by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved You with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven.

We have been deaf to Your call to serve as Christ served us. We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved Your Holy Spirit. We confess to You, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness. The pride, hypocrisy, and impatience in our lives; our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people, our anger at our own frustration and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves, our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work; our negligence in prayer and worship and our failure to commend the faith that is in us.

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done. For our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty, for all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us, for our waste and pollution of Your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us.

AMEN

Patterns of Prayer

Do you ever notice patterns? I like patterns. I see them everywhere. From fabric, to fence-posts, to planks on the boardwalk, to repetitive details on the wall of a church, I see them and I enjoy them. They call to someplace deep in me reminding me of how life should be lived – in a rhythm, a pattern consistent with the heart of God. They also convict me of where I have created my own patterns to live by – where I have exchanged God’s design for my own.

This prayer journey that we embark on is all about patterns. Observing and paying attention to old patterns that need to be abandoned and taking up new patterns that we haven’t acted upon yet. It is about the pattern of asking and listening – not just one or the other. It is, if you wish, a time to ask God for His design concerning our praying, our eating (if you choose to fast), our generosity, our repentance, our reconciliation, our allegiances, and our broken world.

We will pray in the pattern of concentric circles – starting with a small inner circle and working our way out little by little each week.

Praying Lent:
Week 1/Circle 1 – We start with ourselves. Pray to see the patterns in our own personal lives that keep us from God. Ask God what rhythms He wants us to embrace and practice during this time. Confess… lay before Him the deep longings of our hearts…let Him know that we believe, but need help in our unbelief. Then…listen.

Living Lent: (some other crazy ideas)
Read Isaiah 58, Psalm 51
Place a mirror as a centerpiece on the dinner table this week – to remind us to look at our lives or place a container of water as a centerpiece to remind us to pray “Create in me, a clean heart, O Lord.”