Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. –Psalm 51:12
Dear Lord Jesus, I’m realizing afresh that Lent, like the rest of the Christian life, is a personal but not a privatized affair. I cannot seek you alone and remain alone. Soon after I bring my longings and needs before you, you expand my gaze to see the faces and engage with the cries of others. Your words to Peter echo in the chambers of my meditation. “Do you love me? Then feed and care for my lambs.” Any fresh grace-bread you bake and serve me is always to be shared.
So today, I bring before your occupied throne of grace a whole bevy of family members, friends, and colleagues. Every one of us is like King David. Every one of us has stories of failure and fear… disconnect and disillusionment… brokenness and brooding… heartache and heart-need. The details of our stories differ, but each of us needs you, Jesus, just as much as the other.
So I ask with confidence… I appeal with hope, restore to us the joy of your salvation for us, Lord Jesus. It’s your salvation, because we could never ever save ourselves. Like Jonah, we humbly cry from within our own hard places, “Salvation comes from the Lord!” (Jonah 2:9). Bring us back to the joyful, childlike love we had for you at first, Jesus (Revelation 2:4)-a love totally generated in response to the undeserved, unparalleled, unwavering love you have for us (1 John 4:19).
For your joy is our strength, Jesus-strength for repenting… strength for obeying… strength for hoping… strength for serving others… above all, strength for adoring you, for you alone are worthy of our heart’s attention, affection, and allegiance.
The only sacrifice we cling to is yours, Jesus. Only your cross… only the gospel enables us to offer up a contrite heart free of all condemnation… a broken spirit free of all self-contempt. And we cry out together, “Hallelujah, what a salvation! Hallelujah, what a Savior!”
So very Amen, I pray… we pray, in your most holy and loving name.