God Wants To

Mark 1:29-45
Wednesday, 13 February 2008

Several of the devotions in this Lenten season have focused on the difference between God's agenda and ours. Thus far, the theme of my musings could be encapsulated in the oracle of Isaiah, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, declares the Lord." (Isaiah 55:8) And yet today I sense a need to recall that there are some desires about which God and I agree.

In our text, Jesus' ministry is in its full swing. He has ministered to Peter's mother-in-law and has entertained a whole community, healing all the people's diseases Early in the morning, Jesus stole away for some solitary time of refueling and centering in the presence of God, I suspect, in order to make certain that with all of the people who were tugging at him he never lost sight of the divine agenda. Armed with this clarity,he expands his ministry into other regions where he encounters a man with leprosy. The man's supplication is simultaneously faith-filled and uncertain. "If you want to, you can make me clean." He is a person who knows what Jesus is able to do, but is unsure about what Jesus wants to do. Jesus' voice resounds, speaking both to the man of two millennia ago and to us today, "I want to."

The lesson of these first days of the Lenten season is one of aligning our desires with God's design. Like Jesus we seek out the solitary place for communion with our God and Savior. In this space, our prayers are being conformed to the will of God, so that we learn to ask for the things that God most wants to provide. Here we realize that we need to be cleansed and that God wants to wash us. We need to be delivered and God wants to save us. We need to be restored and God wants to bring us back. We need to be focused and God wants to direct us. No "ifs" about it. God wants to.

Sing "Search me O God"

Pray the prayer that emerges from your own solitary space. As you offer your requests, meditate on the words, "God wants to...."