Lent 32

It's a slow, rainy Saturday, the first of Spring Break. The kids are downstairs watching a Smurfs DVD because I've decided I'm the kind of parent who doesn't worry about stuff like too much TV or bad animation. I've just been visited by my third batch of Jehovah's Witnesses in 10 days, and am reconsidering my Warm and Friendly Open Door policy with those guys. Rosarita and Elsie are welcome but the rest of them are going to have to go.

I can't say it's connected to Lent for sure, but this has happened during Lent: I have been caring less about a lot of things that sometimes I care too much about, TV time and bad animation being just the start of it. I care less about fish sticks for dinner and chocolate chips with snacks. I care less about the parts I'm doing poorly on this parenting trip generally.  I care less about too, about the parts I'm doing poorly on this faith journey too. Caring less is so much nicer.

This verse helps: "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden." (Romans 9:18)  See, it's not up to me. Assuming Paul got this part right, of course.

The thing is, caring less about all of that gives me some energy to actually do more of the stuff I like to do. More energy to pray to a God I may or may not be loving enough for that God to hear me. More energy to put into the parts of parenting I think I'm good at, and like to do. More energy to make the foods I like to make so that the parts I outsource to Captain Highliner don't have to feel so bad.

If that's one of the fruits of Lent - sharper focus on where to care - then I dig Lent.

Romans 9:1-18

New International Version (NIV)

Paul’s Anguish Over Israel

9 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit— ² I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³ For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, ⁴ the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. ⁵ Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised!^[a] Amen.

God’s Sovereign Choice

⁶ It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. ⁷ Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”^{[b] 8} In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. ⁹ For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”^[c]
10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. ¹¹ Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: ¹² not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”^{[d] 13} Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”^[e]
14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! ¹⁵ For he says to Moses,

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
    and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”^[f]

¹⁶ It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. ¹⁷ For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”^{[g] 18} Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.