by Megan Johnson
Lent is coming. I know we often focus on devotionals during Advent, but this year I felt compelled to write a small devotional prayer guide for use during the season of Lent. (We will make this available to you later this month.) For now, here is a preview of the introduction. It is my hope that this will help you and your family think through any intentional decisions you may want to make during Lent.
40 Days of Quiet
This is an invitation, more than anything else. It is an invitation to feast on the abundance of God and his Word. It is a calling to a quieted soul. It is an offer to drink from deep streams of mercy and grace; to find stillness, and quiet, and soul rest; to lift your eyes and heart to Jesus.
Sometimes we forget that Jesus was not only fully God but also fully man. He talked to God the same way we do – through prayer, silence, and solitude. He showed us what it is like to to commune with God – to create space in our souls for God’s Word and hearing from Him.
So, I invite you to journey with me: 40 days of Lent; not just giving something up and fasting (which is good and needed!) but to also pick something up – a daily offering of prayer, solitude, and Scripture. I’m going to share heartfelt prayers and thoughts from my own journals and also prayers of the saints, prayers from the Psalms, and excerpts from other books of prayer. I’m going to ask heart questions – thoughtful questions to help guide the heart to stillness, as the Lord leads us.
I encourage you to read through a Gospel or two during the course of Lent. Follow Jesus’ life, walk beside Him, sit with Him, watch Him take our place. I’m going to read Luke and Mark. In part, this is because, between these two Gospels, one chapter each day adds up to 40 days of Lent. But it is also partly because these are the two Gospels I tend to read the least and so I’m planning to soak in them some more.
You’re going to see very short prayers some days. Other days, you’ll find much longer thoughts and prayers. Sometimes I’ll quote someone else, or a Scripture, or just a prayer with a question for you to consider.
Short or long, day by day, it’s an invitation – come to the feast.