Lent Day 31: Gracious Rebuke

I greet you with joy and peace, my fellow sojourner, on this thirty-first lenten morning!

It is a gracious opportunity for us to continue traveling on this path especially with so many distractions and enticements vying for our attention and allegiance.

A line from the beloved hymn Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing has been on replay in my head throughout this Lenten season:

“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.”

True, Christ-followers are encouraged to renounce and rend; yet, our rending Christ Himself—causing incalculable grief to the Father—all too often marks our lifelong Lent. 

To that effect He says, 

“ ‘My people have committed two sins: 

They have forsaken Me, 

the Spring of living water, 

and have dug their own cisterns, 

broken cisterns that cannot hold water . . . 

Your wickedness will punish you; 

your backsliding will rebuke you. 

Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you 

when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe for Me,’ 

declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.” 

Jeremiah 2:13 & 19, NIV

It is indeed evil and bitter for us to forsake the hand that built and crafted the universe with all its grandeur and intricacies. It is foolish to reject the hand that directs stars and constellations to their places, knits together the cells of the human body, “tends His flock like a shepherd, gathers the lambs in His arms, and carries them close to His heart” (Isaiah 40:11, NIV). It is fatal to despise the Hand that was nailed to the Cross because that is the very One that clings to us, that gives us everlasting life, and that never lets us go.

So, the Father’s rebuke is a work of grace.

The Father's gracious reproof is a tremendous blessing. 

Without it, we who are so prone to err would simply fritter our time away until destruction tolls its bell. We who are so bent toward foolishness would continue to chase after counterfeit gods -- pride, power, lust, apathy, and the like -- until death swallows us whole.

The Father's grace invites us to not let the warning of His Word fall on deaf ears—we are indeed blessed to hear and heed its summons. 

It means that we have a choice. 

Shall we choose springs or cisterns—broken ones, at that? Shall we reject the flowing life of His abundance? Shall we run wildly after our pitiful, stagnant, leaky attempts to make life work on our own? 

No. 

Grace, gratefully, rescues us from a mind that is prone to obey its own ideas and fallacies increasing our thirst and deepening our hunger. Christ alone is the Spring of joy and fulfillment—refreshing, renewing, and replenishing. Only He can replace our rebellious cisterns with the deep springs of living water freely flowing from His generous Holy Spirit.

Father of Truth and Love, 

grant that we never lose the sense of reverence 

that accompanies Your righteousness, 

the awe that surrounds Your chiding and charity, 

the wonder of Your presence as we worship You. 

Fill us with a greater sense of wide-eyed amazement when we think of You, 

an ever-present awe that will draw us back to You and away from our rebellious nature. 

Thank You for rebuking us and drawing us back to Your holy ways! 

We pray in the name of Jesus. 

Amen.