Today’s Lenten reflection was written by Steve Fice, an LLM training through the Licensed Ministry Training programme.
My favourite place in the world is Dartmoor, a wild and rugged area of moorland in the heart of Devon. There is one particular place on Dartmoor that is special to me and my family, going all the way back to my great grandparents.
It’s over a mile from the nearest road and has to be reached on foot. A river flows below a hill topped with a tor, a granite outcrop. And on top of the tor there is a cross, erected to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887, hence the family name we have of ‘Jubilee Tor’.
The cross is over 12 feet tall and it can be seen from miles away, a wonderful symbol of our faith in the midst of the wild moor.
In Psalm 27, David writes of his special place, and how he wants to:
dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple.
When I need to recharge my batteries, when I need to reset my life, I will head to that special place on the moor. I always feel, even though I am in the middle of the wilderness, that I am truly dwelling in the house of the Lord. The peace and quiet I find there always brings me closer to God, whatever trials and tribulations may be going on at that time.
The theme of this psalm is that God offers help for today and hope for the future, and that we can have unwavering confidence in God when we are feeling fearful or lonely.
Those fears can take many forms: fear of rejection, misunderstanding, uncertainty, sickness or even death.
When Jesus was alone in the wilderness for forty days and nights, he put aside his fears and put his trust in God. When we feel alone and abandoned in the wilderness, we should do the same and follow the example of Jesus our Saviour.
But waiting on God is sometimes not easy, especially when it seems that he is not answering us, when he is not responding to our prayers. But God is worth waiting for, as we are taught to do so in Lamentations 3:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
We should always hope in and wait for the Lord, because he often uses waiting to refresh, renew and teach us. We should make good use of our waiting times by discovering what God may be trying to teach us in them.
Psalm 46 extols us to “Be still and know that I am God”. That is what I do when I am at Jubilee Tor. So may we all take time today to be still and hear his voice.
