Week 2

by Kate DiTullio on March 13, 2025

The Second Week in Lent

Devotion Guide for the Week of Thursday, March 13, 2025

Imagine Worship Theme: "Listening for the Truth" (Hearing)

Gospel — Luke 4:1-13

Jesus had just been baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit, God’s life-filled Breath, when that same Spirit led him into the wilderness where he would be tempted by the devil. The wilderness features heavily in Jewish and Christian scriptures. It was there that Moses met God in the form of a burning bush and later received the Ten Commandments; it was in a desolate place that the prophet Elijah encountered God in the form of “a still, small voice”, as the KJV puts it. The various forms of “wilderness” we go through differ from Jesus’: a life-changing diagnosis. A rejection letter. Mental health challenges. Financial insecurity. Political turmoil. Discrimination and oppression.

One common thread in these wildernesses we face also shows up in the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. When tempting Jesus, the devil said, “If you are the Son of God…” more than once. If you are who God says you are, turn this stone to bread. If you are who God says you are, jump off the temple. Jesus, secure in his identity, batted the devil’s darts away easily.

We are not always so sure of our status in God’s eyes, and the wilderness can prey on our deepest insecurities in ways that often feel unbearable.

But the wilderness holds gifts, too. Like a refining fire, it can burn away the impurities of false beliefs about earning God’s love or forgiveness. More than that, God seems to have a tendency to meet her people in the wild, deserted places of our lives.
Jesus overcame the devil’s temptations by reminding himself of God’s promises and teachings as recorded in scripture. He felt no need to prove himself to the tempter. Secure in God’s love for him, satiated in God’s presence, he walked the wilderness with God.

Questions for Reflection

What forms has “the wilderness” taken in your life? What questions has the wilderness brought up in your heart? (Try sharing them with God.)
How has God been with you in these wildernesses?

Practice

This week, spend time meditating on this week’s Gospel reading, as well as Psalm 23. What images in these readings feel most resonant to you at this point? Spend some time recording your thoughts and feelings as you ponder how God has provided for you in the desolate places in your life.

Prayer

Jesus,
Bearer of our burdens,
Fellow-sufferer,

We confess our doubts freely.
We sometimes doubt that you love us.
We often doubt that we can do the work you have called us to do, or that we can even know what that work is.

Give us your courage to believe that we are who God says we are:
Marvelously created children,
Whom neither hardship nor distress,
Persecution nor famine can ever separate from your love.

Give us your strength to resist the temptation to despair,
for you conquered all the hatred Earth could launch,
and now you shelter us under your Mother Hen wings.

Make us bold in the face of accusations and our own doubts.
May we learn how to trust you to provide our every need.

Amen.

Awakened To The Mystery Sensing Gods Presence In Lent