Day 32 – You’ve Been Called

We are deep now into our Great Lenten Journey. We can’t quite see the end, so we focus on today. Today is all we really have when it comes to our relationship with God. We learn to make the most of today to honor Him. That’s why today I wanted to remind you that you’ve been called by God.

You’ve been called by God to a higher life than just the monotony of wake up, go to the work, come home, go to sleep. In today’s reading from Isaiah, (you can read it below) we are reminded of our high calling. “I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness.” Take a moment and read the entire passage, I’ll wait…..God has called us to be an inspiration to others, not so they honor us, but so that they are drawn to God.

In our effort to reduce anxiety this week, YOU have been called by God to lift people up. YOU have been called by God to be “a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind.” Are you up to the task? We are slowly coming to accept the different reality of Great Lent and Holy Week this year, albeit begrudgingly. Now we can return to the focus that our souls need to experience the coming Feast of Pascha. Now we can return to our attention to healing our soul that we can see God.

It might not be an easy task to which God has called you. In fact it can be daunting if you attempt it by yourself, but you are not by yourself. Go back and read the passage below again. God has “taken you by the hand and kept you.” He is walking this Great Lenten Journey with you this year, just as He does every other year. He feels your longing to be in Church, but He is keeping you safe. In the end, God will be victorious. He will conquer sin once and for all. In the meantime, He depends upon YOU to be a light for others in this dark work.

Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: “I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the LORD, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to graven images. Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.” Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the end of the earth! Let the sea roar and all that fills it, the coastlands and their inhabitants. Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar inhabits; let the inhabitants of Sela sing for joy, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory to the LORD, and declare his praise in the coastlands. The LORD goes forth like a mighty man, like a man of war he stirs up his fury; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes. For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in travail, I will gasp and pant. I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbage; I will turn the rivers into islands, and dry up the pools. And I will lead the blind in a way that they know not, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I will do, and I will not forsake them. – Isaiah 42.5-16