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Week I
Scripture Reading: Genesis 28:10-19
“Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said,
“Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!”(vs 16)
Every year for the last 15 or so years I have gone back to Oregon where I grew up to spend a week camping and fishing on the river were I first learned to fly fish. Getting away is really refreshing. When I am among the tall cedars and lush ferns, something touches a place in my spirit that heals many hurts. I go with old friends, and even though we tell the same stories over and again, there is something in the renewed relationships that brings me joy. Over the years, I have thought that it was the fishing that I enjoyed so much—or the camping—or the friends—it’s always hard to decide what it is that keeps me going back. But the truth is that it is none of these things or even the combination that makes the trip so special. I am spiritually renewed because the river where I go has become a sacred place for me.
In my sacred place I can see God in living, growing things. I can hear God in rushing waters. I can feel God in warm sunlight or refreshing rain. It is no longer simply the North Umpqua River; it is now a sanctuary—a holy of holies where my spirit soars and where God moves and breathes with me. I could go on for a good many more paragraphs describing the beauty and the spiritual vitality of my sacred place, but it is my space, and words cannot make it your space. You have to find your own in order to really understand what all this means to me.
This is precisely what I am suggesting as we approach yet another Lenten season. If you are one of the rare Baptists who actually gives up something for Lent, I want to propose an alternate discipline. If you have never really observed Lent as a time of personal spiritual reflection, then I want to propose something new. Find a sacred place and go there as often as you can during the weeks leading up to Easter.
Your sacred place can be almost anywhere. It becomes sacred because it is there that you become keenly aware of the power and presence of God. It may be a place where you really enjoy yourself or a place where you are drawn into a more serious mode. It may be a place where you are quite alone or one where you are surrounded by voices and faces. The secret of finding a sacred place lies in your ability to connect with God while you are there. It is a place where God is drawn from behind the scenes into the forefront. It is a place where, when you really think about it, God is the presence that makes everything else so special.
While others are fooling around giving up chocolate or ice cream for Lent, you can be filling your spiritual senses with the healing, refreshing presence of God.
Prayer: Loving God, come to us in surprising, refreshing, renewing places. Open us to sense Your presence in all times and places, and we thank You for those very special places where we find You nearest of all. Amen.
Stan Smith
(pictured here
in his sacred place)
Interim Minister
Berkeley Baptist Church,
Denver, CO
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