Doesn't it feel like just yesterday that we celebrate Jesus' birth? Our Lenten journey now enters the most important weeks of the Christian Year in which we are called to reflect with humility and penitence. Lent is an invitation for us to engage life's uncertainties; we cannot just ignore them.

Regardless of how subtly this Lenten Season has snuck up on us, it always starts in the wake of Transfiguration Sunday. Then we follow Jesus through the city gates on Palm Sunday and may we walk with him along the dusty, worn path that will lead us to the hilltop cross.

During this Holy Week, we concentrate on Jesus and his interaction with one or more persons. Here, we focus on Jesus interaction with the Father. Jesus poured his heart to God with deep sadness and distress. At the core of his prayer is this cry of anguish: "My Father, if it's possible, take this cup of suffering away from me. However, not what I want but what you want." (Matthew 26:39) He felt isolated, abandoned, and longed to hear God's voice.

It could be that the while it has resonated with you and your current spiritual condition in some way, the reminder that we are dust calls to mind the precariousness of our existence. Discernment fails, fear looms, doubt increases and temptation grows. Uncertainty abounds in our individual lives. The difficult moment in our faith journey is when we find ourselves unable to hear God's voice, discern God's will, and turn our full life over in surrender.

It seems that many of us will have hearing trouble at some point in our lives, maybe without realizing it. But that's not the real news. The real news is the degree to which all of us- yes, all of us have trouble in some point in our lives with hearing God.

We have all been there, laboring over a decision, struggling with feeling alone, wondering if God really is out there and really listening.

God is speaking to us, but whether we have done enough to listen to God! I pray that we could hear God... I pray that we could interact with Jesus the way Peter and Mary Magdalene could.

Wouldn't life of faith be a whole lot easier? If we are able to do what God is asking us to do with a lot more conviction, if we could hear God's voice as surely as we can hear another person talking!

But when you think about it, if a less certain kind of faith were not necessary, how would we grow?

Learning to listen can be painful and difficult especially in those times when we feel hopeless and alone. But even the act of learning to listen, of trying to listen, is itself a blessed practice that can make you a stronger Christian.

                            Blessings!

                            Pastor Ellie