Amy Welborn is a contributor - five devotions per issue - to the Living Faith daily devotional .
Those who saw Paul heal a crippled man wanted to call him a god. Idols, though, come in many forms. The temptation is often great to put a person, an event, an interest, a goal at the center of my life—where God should be instead.
It also gives me a way to envision this coming week, this Holy Week. It’s not just me walking with Jesus on this path—it’s all of us: hurt, seeking, wounded survivors. We are moving through the week together, accompanying Jesus who will heal our blindness, free us and bring us into life where we do more than survive: We live.
For, as the people of Israel learned again and again, the Lord is always waiting. As Hosea tells us, God welcomes us into his loving embrace, no matter who we are, what we’ve done, no matter what time of day it is or what stage of life we’re in.
It’s never too late.
On Ash Wednesday morning last year, I was in Putignano, Italy, looking for Mass. I found an open church with people sitting inside. I joined them. A man started lighting the altar candles. Mass must begin soon, I thought. But then what? Why is he lighting the paschal candle?
For we need both, don’t we? We need the wisdom of the experienced, and we need the energy and the idealism of the young. Without the young around, we can become settled and cynical. Without their elders’ long view, youthful idealism can veer off course.
I was sitting on a plane, waiting to take off on a flight across the ocean. A long flight. The seat next to me was empty. Passengers streamed in. Still empty. I grew hopeful. Was I going to luck out and have the row to myself for those eight hours? How thankful I would be if that were so! Please, please…thank you, thank you!
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