How do I look?

Now we see a reflection in a mirror; then we will see face-to-face. Now I know partially, but then I will know completely in the same way that I have been completely known. --1Corinthians 13:12

Yesterday I suggested churches need to take a closer look at themselves. Today-- well, churches are made up of people. Us. You and you and you-- and me. And it is Lent, after all.

So let's take a look in the mirror and see what God sees. If we dare.

Frederick Buechner (Listening to Your Life) posits that when Jesus went off into the wilderness for forty days, he was pondering what it meant to be Jesus. And these forty days of Lent can (should) be a time of similar introspection for us, as well. 

How are you doing-- at being you?

When you look in the mirror, what about you pleases you? And what displeases you? Do you think God sees you the same way?

You have twenty-five words or less to deliver a message to your family and closest friends at the end of your life. What would you want them to know?

If you could have one "do-over" in your life, what would it be?

Parker J. Palmer reminds us that we are to let our lives speak. Whatever we are designed to do in this brief time we have on earth, we need to do it with gusto and without apology. 

What is your vocation, your calling in life?

Lent can be a glum, discouraging time if you let it. It can be about desert and deprivation, questions that go unanswered and answers called into question.

Are you all discouraged now? Wishing you hadn't clicked this one today?

Fear not. For no matter what, no matter when-- the Lord is with you. Even as Jesus was tempted in the desert, he knew the presence of the father.

And no matter what, when sun comes up tomorrow you will receive a fresh dawn, a new chance. A chance to tell someone you love them, a chance to be the hands and feet of Jesus to someone seeking.

Buechner offers this thought: "If sackcloth and ashes are at the start of [Lent], then something like Easter may be at the end of it."

Lord, no matter how discouraged I may become, help me, always, to remember that even when you were dead and buried for three interminably long days, on the third day the sun came up and the tomb was empty. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Buechner, Frederick. Listening to Your Life. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.