Lent Meditation: Day 16 - March 5, 2026
📖 Scripture Verse
[Jesus] also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” — Mark 4:26-27
🕯️Meditation
Sometimes we do not see or feel God at work in our lives. Sometimes the disciplines of the Christian life can feel like just going through the motions. We sleep and rise, sleep and rise over and over again. The habits of prayer, scripture reading, and worshipping God in community put us the the path of the Heavenly Sower of the Kingdom though. God works in our lives and in the world sometimes in slow, seemingly secret and mysterious ways. The growth that suddenly breaks through may be the result of seeds sown weeks, months, or years ago. Eugene Peterson, the translator of the popular Bible paraphrase, The Message, wrote many books on the Christian life and ministry before his death in 2018. He titled his book on discipleship in the fast-paced, disposable society that characterizes so much of American life, “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction”. Whether you are new to the faith or have been a Christian for many years, it is over the long, seemingly unremarkable stretches of time that make up much of our lives, where God is doing the mysterious work of bringing new growth and new life in our spirits. As Lent slowly unfolds, God may be at work in your life in ways you don’t see now, perhaps in ways you won’t see for years—but the seeds of the kingdom of God grow in the quiet, mysterious soil of our hearts, yielding fruit in God’s good time.
🙏 Prayer
O God, our times are in your hand—in the long, quiet, stretches of life, sometimes I do not understand where you are or what you are doing. Bring forth growth in my life, let the seeds sown over the years of my discipleship to your Son, bear fruit. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
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