I was reminded yesterday of how small my faith is. Sometimes I pretend to be exercising faith in God, but it’s really just a smoke screen for me to keep believing in myself. There are 2 opportunities that I’ve been “praying” about for the past 6 months. Both of these were things I hoped our family could do this coming year. Both opportunities would require a size-able amount of money.

When I first began to pray about them, it was just a request of my Father who I know loves me and I trust knows what is best for me and my family. But very quickly, probably within the first month of regularly praying about them, I began to develop a game plan. I soon realized that trying to save enough money for both opportunities was impossible, so I immediately wrote off the first one. As I kept strategizing, I decided that we could use our tax refund for the second opportunity. I began to set my hope there and started planning accordingly.

After 4 more months of “praying”, our tax refund came in at substantially less than I’d hoped for. Because I had this all worked out in my head, I took this as a sign that God was saying no to the second opportunity.

You’ve probably already spotted my faulty logic, but I didn’t until yesterday when I came across the prayer card I had originally made for these opportunities. Yesterday I saw clearly that I wasn’t trusting God. I wasn’t placing my hope in His care and provision. I was just spiritualizing my self-made plans and practically living as a Deist. I don’t know if God wants the Carters to do either of these things. However I’ve begun to pray about them again and am choosing to leave the results in His hands and trust His sovereignty in the matter.

Whenever someone asks me where I am from, I always begin by telling them where I was born. That’s because I grew up (and my parents still live) in a different state than in which I was born. So although I must admit that I am from Missouri, I always begin by proudly informing the other person that “I was born in Texas.” That Texas pride always has to show up, you know!

The other day in my readings I came across Psalm 87, a strange psalm that I felt like I had never read before. The most familiar verse is verse 3 (“Glorious things of you are spoken, O city of God”) which provides the words for one of John Newton’s hymns. The subject of the psalm is the city, Zion.  In the Old Testament this was a reference to part or all of the city of Jerusalem, but this earthly Jerusalem was only symbolic of a heavenly reality that was far more superior (Heb 12:22). The important thing about Zion, however, was that it was the city of God. Here God dwelled in the midst of his people, reigning as a good and great King over all his loyal subjects.

So what are these “glorious things” about the city of God to which the psalmist refers?

The Lenten season has begun and many of us wonder what we can do to help prepare ourselves for the celebration of Easter that comes in about six weeks. Some follow the traditional practice of observing a fast during the 40 days of Lent. But there are other ways.

Yesterday we studied Mark 12:35-44 in a sermon entitled Jesus Changes Everything. You can read the sermon here. This post is for a continuing conversation on what we learned from this text. Feel free to post your comments, questions, and thoughts from the text and sermon.

Chapters 11 and 12 of Mark’s Gospel highlight the authority of Jesus, first regarding his claim to divine authority followed by various tests to substantiate that claim. Now at the end of Chapter 12 the questions have ended and Jesus goes on the offensive. He demonstrates how his divine authority changes everything.