A Concord Pastor Comments: Praying 10 Minutes a Day: "Ash Thursday"

Living plants have been generated from the fruit of a little arctic flower, the narrow-leafed campion, that died 32,000 years ago, a team of Russian scientists reports. The fruit was stored by an arctic ground squirrel in its burrow on the tundra of northeastern Siberia and lay permanently frozen until excavated by scientists a few years ago. (New York Times 2/21/12)

The plant in the photo is one generated from the fruit of a flower that died nearly 32,000 years ago: about 30,000 years before Christ! The NYT piece is a story about natural matter and how scientists have coaxed something abandoned and frozen for 32 millennia to blossom to new and beautiful life. Of course: the earth, the plant, the squirrel, the tundra and the scientists were all fashioned by the hand of God. Is Mother Nature not the feminine face of our God?

Imagine... if this is what God can do with a plant frozen 32,000 years ago, what might God do with you and with me - this Lent?

As you spend your 10 Minutes in Prayer today, ask the Lord to help you see what needs to be thawed and coaxed to new life within you. Ask the Lord to nurture to new life, to a blossom, something within that's lain dormant for too long.

Ask the Holy Spirit to help you see what God wants to do in your life -- in your heart, in your soul, in your prayer, this Lent.

Here's a scripture you might bring to your prayer today:

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil. (Matthew 6:25-34)

To help you settle in to Praying 10 Minutes a Day in Lent, you might want to take another look at this earlier post.