Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. During Lent, the believing community accepts its mortality. I have been watching the workers erecting our new church addition plod slowly through the thick mud today. They look ever so mortal.
In an act of humility and as a sign of mortality with all of humankind, many believers worldwide had their foreheads marked with ashes. From his hospital room, the frail 84-year-old Pope (recovering from a bad case of the flu) got ashes afixed to his forehead. The Polish-born Pontiff is mortal, too.
Lent is a good time to let God set the parameters instead of us. We let him be God. Those who received the cross of ashes on their foreheads heard the priest repeat those ancient words given to Adam: "… for dust you are and to dust you will return."
None sets the boundaries for his life. The Psalms make it clear that God himself sets the boundaries for every man. God made man from the dust of the ground and to the earth man shall return. Indeed, no man knows his time. There is a time to be born and a time to die. Each man lives day by day by the grace and mercy of God.
"So Sovereign God, creator of heaven and earth, would you come to me, a mortal. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. Gladly do I acknowledge that each breath I breathe comes as a gift from your mighty hand. Thank you for this day, this hour, this very moment. Great are your ways, O Sovereign God of the universe. During Lent please fill this mortal body with your power. Reign in my life, Lord Jesus. Breakthrough with your kingdom."
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