Are we lost?

Perhaps you to have memories of traveling in the loaded down family station wagon to unique points of interest. Nearly all of the memories I choose to keep are good ones. I was thinking this week of the number of times I heard Dad say, "We aren't lost. We're just taking a more scenic route!"

That comment was often followed by comments like:

"Haven't we already passed this place?"
"This doesn't look like (fill in the blank)"
"Daddy, are we lost?"

I think that scene played out in more than a dozen states during my youth. It made me think about this week and the beginning of the Lent season. Every year it seems Lent sneaks up on us. With snow on the ground it can't be Lent! Spring and Easter seem so far off on the calendar. Are you sure it's time for Lent?

And yet it is time to do this Lent thing all over again. Lent is time to remind us that although we know where we are going, we aren't there yet. It serves as a time to remind us that we are lost. It is a time to expereience "deja vu" all over again, as we travel this seemingly familiar path.

So, hear again the words of John the Baptist, "Prepare the way of the Lord and make straight the paths!" (Mark 1:3b NIV)

Perhaps your path has become overgrown with the weeds of life. Perhaps this familiar path seems strangely different this year. Perhaps life has cluttered this once familiar path. I invite you to use this season of Lent to discover again the path that leads to Easter and an empty tomb.

We are lost, but the path to being found lies just ahead.

So, Prepare the way . . . .