Return to Me

Yet even now, says the Lord, return to Me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God. For gracious and merciful is He, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment (Joel 2:12-13).

The season of Lent has come very early this year. We’ve barely got the Christmas decorations put away, and already it’s time to break out the sackcloth and ashes. Four words in the above Scripture passage have significant meaning for me: with your whole heart.

In my Lenten journey this year, a key question is, “What am I still withholding from God?” No matter how much I want to love the Lord, there always seems to be something that I keep tucked away - a habit I find hard to break, or an attitude that needs an adjustment. More often than not, I’m blinded by pride and/or fear that keeps me from bringing those things out into God’s light.

Some of you know that I make a silent, week-long retreat in Colorado each summer. On the first day of last year’s retreat, the Lord asked me in prayer a number of questions that would become significant throughout the week that followed. One of them was, “Why won’t you let Me wash your feet?” (cf. Jn. 13:6-10). I didn’t understand the question at the time, but it became crystal clear as I meditated a few days later on the Passion narrative in the Gospel of John.

As I was contemplating the crucifixion scene, the Lord brought to my memory some long-forgotten, unconfessed sins from my past. I can remember stiffening up as I fought to push those memories out of my mind. I didn’t want to go there. But my conscience wouldn’t relent, and all day long, I struggled with myself, feeling like Jacob wrestling with the angel. With my heals still dug in, I saw the Lord in my soul’s eye, hanging on the Cross. He looked at Me with a look of love that I had never seen before and asked me, “Are you going to do this to Me all over again?” My heart was cut to the quick and I collapsed in a pool of tears. I don’t remember ever weeping that hard or that deeply. In that moment, I understood how King David must have felt when the prophet Nathan told him, You are that man. (2 Sam. 12:7, 13).

But returning with our whole heart doesn’t have to involve some great revelation. Small cobwebs are still cobwebs that need to be swept out for the house to be truly clean. And that’s what I want to do – give my spiritual house a really good cleaning, for nothing unclean can enter heaven (cf. Rev. 21:27).

Prayer Request: That we will have the courage to leave no stone unturned as we do our spiritual housecleaning.

Prayer: O Lord, our God, we thank You for the mercy that constantly calls us to return to You with our whole hearts. Reveal to us those things that impede our relationship with You and grant us the grace and courage to do what we must to eradicate them from our lives. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.