Day 1: Wednesday 2/18

Ash Wednesday

READ: James 1:1-4

From James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. To the twelve tribes who are scattered outside the land of Israel. Greetings! My brothers and sisters, think of the various tests you encounter as occasions for joy. After all, you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Let this endurance complete its work so that you may be fully mature, complete, and lacking in nothing.

REFLECT

We begin Lent the way James begins his letter: with trials and joy in the same breath. James is writing to scattered people—displaced, persecuted, trying to survive under empire. He knows they're suffering. He doesn't minimize it or spiritualize it away. But he also won't let them waste it. The trials that come from living faithfully in a hostile world can produce something empire can't touch: perseverance, maturity, wholeness. Lent is a season for letting that work finish.

RESPOND

Name one current difficulty in your life. Is this a trial that comes from living faithfully, or suffering you can actually change? Ask God to show you the difference.

PRAY

God of the scattered, you meet us in our trials, not after them. Give us eyes to see what you're growing in us through resistance. Amen.