Category: Give Us This Day

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Give Us This Day – Best Gig in the World

There are seasons when it seems like all hell is breaking loose. If those seasons are long, we grow tired of them. We’re sick of playing the long game. We want someone to bring us good news, to tell us our long nightmare is over, to say, “‘Peace, peace!’ . . . though there is no peace” (Jer 6:14).

Imagine being Jeremiah and facing a crowd like that. There are plenty of “prophets” who tell the people what they want to hear. But Jeremiah has heard the word of the Lord and knows it’s not at all what people want to hear. No wonder he’s called the “weeping prophet.” Bringing bad news to desperate people has to be the worst gig in the world. The Babylonians were bearing down on the people of Judah, who wanted to believe that, as God’s chosen, they would not be conquered. Jeremiah gets to tell them, “You will be. Give up.” He knows the false prophets—and even his friends—are watching for his fall, waiting to be vindicated. Yet he speaks the truth he knows, because that is his call.

There are times when faithful Christians have to speak prophetically to the world: “If we continue on this path, it will take us to a very bad place.” But as Christians we know there is always, always good news, even in the darkest hour. Because as another prophet reminds us, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Isa 9:1). When we bring that Light with us, all news is good news.

Susan Pitchford – Mar 26, 2021

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Give Us This Day – From This Vantage Point

To think that a mere forty days of Lent once seemed an arduous journey.  

Who could have guessed at the outset of Lent 2020 how long the desert sojourning would last? That those forty days would be followed by forty more, and forty more, and so on and so forth until . . . Lent x 10. By my calculations—yes, I’m counting—by the time Easter arrives, it will have been about 400 days since the end of the world as most of us knew it.  

Patience worn out by the journey, anyone? Disgusted with the wretched sickness and death? Starving for face-to-face conversations . . . shared meals . . . meetings that are not virtual? Longing to hold a newborn, tickle a toddler, give your grandparents a hug?  

From this vantage point, we might wonder if the Israelites were too quick to classify their desert complaining as sinful. After all, our friends the psalmists had no problem loudly sharing their every thought with God. If complaint and lament are where we are at, shouldn’t we be honest with God? Trusting that somehow, we know not how, God can take it.  

We know not how? Let’s be honest. Where did we begin this Lenten journey? And with whom? In the desert. With Jesus. He gets it.  

Long and painful as the road to Jerusalem was, his undying words are soothing balm: The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone. Jesus spoke this way, and we believe him.  

Deep into this present and seemingly continuous Lent, Easter is on the horizon. Honest to God, we are not alone. Never have been and never will be.