Prophets

‘I have sent you untiringly all my servants the prophets.’  Jeremiah 7

Many people think of biblical prophets as people to whom God gave the mysterious power to see into the future.  Prophets, however, were not crystal-ball-gazers who ‘predicted’ what was to come.  Most of the time they talked about the present, and sometimes about the past as well.

But their main purpose was to focus on what the people of God were doing – or not doing – in their relationship with God.  In bringing God’s word to a particular situation, they attempted to call people back to God, and showed them that God could still be a guiding force in their lives; that God wanted to be a guiding force in their lives.

When we think about it, that is the purpose of this holy season of Lent, to be reminded of our need to turn back to God in all things, and to remember to let Him be the guiding force in our lives.  Three weeks ago we gathered to be marked by a cross of ashes, making it clear that all the things of this world will one day pass away.  If our ultimate goal is eternal life, then everything we say and do, each and every day, has to assist us on our journey to achieve that goal.

May our Lenten prayers and practices truly assist us in turning back to God, so that we might indeed draw ever closer to eternal life in the Father’s Kingdom of true and lasting peace.