Mind the Gap: Morning Devotion

Luke 2:21-24, 36-38

After seven years of marriage, Anna’s husband dies. She does not marry again. She does not attempt to return to a “normal life.” She spends the next, probably, 60 years in the temple, worshipping, fasting, and praying. Bear in mind that women do not have an established, sanctified job in the temple (the priests are all men). Yet there she was, passing through a 60-year gap without productive labor, without bearing children, possibly living off alms given by pilgrims.

60 years. Can you imagine?

Monks and nuns who dedicate their lives to worshipping, fasting, and praying may be the only people who have experience with what Anna’s life must have been like. As Luke’s story makes clear, Anna is waiting and watching for something. Her spiritual disciplines are charged with expectation. When Jesus shows up, eight days old and just become a real Jew, Anna is moved to action. Whatever else she has been watching for, she has been waiting for Jesus, the redeemer of Jerusalem.

There are seasons in our lives in which we are called to embrace a spiritual discipline: a practice of faith which has no outward effect except to bring us closer to God.

Perhaps you have dabbled in spiritual disciplines. Perhaps you have rigorously engaged one or another. I invite you to consider whether you may be called to engage in a spiritual discipline for the foreseeable future. Might God be calling you to one?

[pause]

Would you pray with me?

Holy Spirit, as we practice the disciplines of faith, make us shine with the glory of Anna. Put us in places where our knowledge of you allows us to see your redemptive work. Make us ever ready to recognize Jesus right next to us, and praise you for his presence. Make it so, for your great glory. Amen!

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