wednesday of the fifth week in lent

Date:  April 6
Lectionary Link:  https://www.lectionarypage.net/WeekdaysOfLent/WedFifthWeek.html
Contributor:  Becky Lucas

Collect:
Almighty God our heavenly Father, renew in us the gifts of your mercy; increase our faith, strengthen our hope, enlighten our understanding, widen our charity, and make us ready to serve you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
 
The lessons for today were a struggle for me. I am not sure that if I were with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that I would always have the faith to go into the fire. I can remember as a child wondering why the Jewish people put on the yellow star when they knew the horror they might face by doing so. As an adult I understand the importance of keeping faith and better understand the choices the people of great faith make when facing evil.  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had great faith and showed great courage. As they stepped into the fire they had faith that God would be in the fire with them but they had no way of knowing that they would walk out untouched. They might have perished in the fire like millions of people over millennia who stood strong in their faith in the face of  evil and perished. In the collect I can see the beauty of it as it gives up to God the prayer to “ renew in us the gifts of your mercy; increase our faith, strengthen our hope, enlighten our understanding, widen our charity”. I see it as a prayer that empowers us to move forward in the uncertainty we face today and I can only imagine that it was words such as this that helped Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego step forward to the flames. It is my prayer that this lent we can hold these words close and ask God to “ renew in us the gifts of  his mercy; increase our faith, strengthen our hope, enlighten our understanding, widen our charity”
God be with you.