So what do you think might happen if you spend the 40 days of Lent this year expectantly praying these two verses every day? You would be asking God every day to help you know your heart and your anxious thoughts better and to help lead you out of any way you might be offending Him and into the way everlasting.
Lots of things can change your life forever while you are just trying to make it through your normal day. I have always remembered the story of Bobby Leech who rode over Niagara Falls in a barrel only to die from complications of slipping on an orange peel a few years later.
In many cases, the church in the West has circumvented the process and procedures because we believe we know how to form ourselves better than God does. We go all-in on shortcuts that make it easier on us and in so doing greatly undermine the quality of the product produced.
I found myself shocked and frightened, because I realized we live in a world where a soundbite from a bad sermon in the random town of Malden, Missouri (Population: 4,277 – 3 hours south of St Louis), can become FRONT PAGE NATIONAL NEWS. . .I’m concerned, because we seem to live in a culture where we have an overabundance of religiously and politically motivated rock-bearing Pharisees and a critical shortage of extravagant grace.