The God of Surprises

Lent begins with an invitation to join Jesus in the wilderness. There, as scripture tells us, we encounter the barrenness of solitude and even the wild beasts of our fears and anxieties.

  

I think we all wrestle with our liturgical times of listening, waiting, watching, and hoping. I see Spring dawning into full glory all around me and I long to see an increased creativity blossoming, a strengthened capacity to love emerging, and a greater openness to surprise being yielded.  As reluctant as we are about talking about our spiritual lives, this is precisely where our Lenten journey takes us in Holy Week:  to the Cross and to the barest essence of who we are and what we are called to be.

As I see it, spiritual growth often means learning to expect and even nourish a surprise of any kind. I don’t know about you, but I have never been especially fond of surprises. The hard part of this growth process comes in accepting that we are not in control. During our Lenten journey, as we clear space and watch for new growth, new growth can blossom in ways that we do not plan or even believe can happen. Because our growth is from God, we must be ready to embrace this new growth in faith and with the courage in knowing that whatever gifts of new growth we are given they are given by a God who loves us and desires our well being and growth.

As we journey closer to the Cross this Holy Week, we do well to remember Brennan Manning’s injunction about spiritual steadfastness: "Hope knows that if great trials are avoided great deeds remain undone and the possibility of growth into greatness of soul is aborted."  We stand here in the open space, holy ground, and we know that suffering may lie ahead.  It takes courage and faith in God’s purpose to continue our work, to devote ourselves honestly to God’s guidance, and to remember the promise: we will find our lives by first losing them.

What has your wilderness looked like this Lent?  Where do you see signs of new growth?  Are there any buds of creativity germinating in you?  Have you found your heart stretched to a deeper capacity? Where has God surprised you with grace and joy?

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann:

You are the God who creates and recreates,

who judges and delivers,

who calls by name and makes new.

This much we gladly confess in praise and thanksgiving.

This much we trust and affirm...

only to ponder the chance that we are too glib,

that we say more than we mean,

that we say more

than we can in fact risk.

We make our gingerly confession in a world filled

with those who cynically acknowledge none but themselves...

we are their fellow travelers

with those who in vulnerability have no chance

but prayer to you...

and we stand in solidarity with them.

Thus we ask, beyond our critical reservations,

that you be your powerful, active, sovereign self.

Give us eyes to see your wonders around us;

Give us hearts to live into your risky miracles;

Give us tongues to praise you beyond our doubt.

For it is you, only you, that we turn on behalf of the world

that waits in its deathliness for your act of life. 

Amen.