Devotional 3-31-10

Alignment
I have a cross in the windowsill above the kitchen sink. It was made by one of our daughters with 2 sticks held together by a pipecleaner, but it is beautiful in its simplicity. I like having it there to remind me of the most important event that has ever occurred but confess to not often taking time to really look at it. Last night, while washing dishes, I noticed the cross was unbalanced because the pipecleaner had become loose. Repositioning the cross so that it looks "right" is not difficult; however, unless the thing that holds the vertical and horizontal pieces together is tightened, they remain in a rather precarious balance, and it is easy for them to end up out of alignment again. Shoring up the pipecleaner sounds like an easy job, but I don't bother with it because I am too eager to rush off to the next thing, and I worry that if I take it apart I won't be able to put it back together the same way again.

It occurred to me that my spiritual life is like this cross. Without the shoring up that I get from prayer, worship, Bible study, and time spent with others who are also on the Christian journey, it is far too easy for me to get out of balance and find myself becoming too cynical, too judgmental, too caught up with my needs and concerns and less empathetic about the plight of others. I struggle with the thought of turning the misaligned cross of my life over to the one who can bind it back together properly because it means slowing down enough to really communicate with God as well as giving up control to allow him to work in me. It also involves the probability that God, in rebinding me, will shape my life into something that is unfamiliar, putting me in situations and taking me places where I am not comfortable. That takes faith and trust that I do not always seem to possess. During Lent, we are called to honest introspection about our relationship with God and each other and the way we view and respond to our world. If we let him, God will take the off-centeredness in our lives and bring us back into balance; He will help make the vertical way we live align better with the horizontal Christians we proclaim to be. I pray that we all will have the faith and trust to take advantage of this amazing gift.

Prayer: Dear God, forgive our lack of trust and our unbelief. Please help us in this journey to Easter to understand more fully the gift that you gave us by sending your son into the world and the tremendous sacrifice that his life and death entailed, all to prove how much you love us and that our lives can be so much richer if we will just allow you to take control and align us to your will. Amen.

Mary Taylor