Thursday, February 26, 2026
“Courage calls to courage everywhere”- Millicent Garrett Fawcett
As we enter this Lenten season, I’m not sure my desire to be well-informed and my desire to stay sane have ever been at greater odds. While reading the news and listening to podcasts covering national and international politics feels important and necessary, the negative impact it can have on my mood and outlook cannot be ignored.
In today’s liturgical readings, the phrases like, in my alarm I said, ‘Everyone is a liar’ (Psalm 116:11) and Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves (Luke 10:3) seem a prescient warning of our current times. Everywhere we look, there is blatant dishonesty amongst those who claim to lead and active disenfranchisement of those who wish to set things right. Like psalmists of old, we walk in the midst of trouble (Psalm 138:7) often overcome by distress and sorrow (Psalm 116: 3). As author Jonathan Edward Durham more recently put it, “If you want us to stop doomscrolling so much you’re going to have to stop pumping out such top-notch doom all the time.”
What is our call in such a time as this? Do we, like Mordecai, tear our clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes and go out into the city wailing loudly and bitterly? (Esther 4:1). It does not feel like an entirely inappropriate response. There is much to wail about. We can complain and find fault until we are out of breath and hope. We can compose scathing posts and roasts to publish online or elsewhere. This may bring satisfaction for a moment, but kingdom work requires more of us.
In Mordecai’s time King Xerxes did as he pleased, putting his pride and whims ahead of all else. He was obsessed with displaying his wealth and power, and allowed his advisor Haman to issue an edict of murder in his name. Top-notch doom indeed. While the city of Susa was bewildered by the violence of this law, there was seemingly nothing they could do to stop it. Only Esther, made queen by an earlier edict declaring a search be made for beautiful young virgins for the king (Est 2:2) is placed in a position to make change. In the final verses of Esther 4, Mordecai warns Esther:
Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?
What position have you been placed in for such a time as this? What knowledge, access or ability has God given you to use and develop for His service? Let us not remain silent in either our circles of influence or in our prayers. Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matthew 7:7-8)
The season of Lent calls us to recalibrate our lives with the will of God. To ask, seek and knock. To put aside whatever distractions keep us from prayer, reflection and personal connections to the Almighty and our fellow image bearers. Remember that even when we walk in the midst of trouble, He preserves our lives, looks kindly on the lowly, and stretches out His hand against the anger of our foes (Psalm 138). There is no amount of doom our faithful God cannot handle.
Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:9-12).
Jennifer Griffioen
Faithful God I AM THEY
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