Good afternoon! Our Lenten Devotional for today was written by Kate Phillips! Kate is a Sophomore majoring in Neuroscience here at TCU. In addition to being heavily involved in her sorority, Kate is also actively involved in a number of areas of campus life. I’ve specifically had the wonderful privilege of working with Kate in an organization that I advise called TCU Better Together, which is an interfaith student religious organization. Kate has been an important and vital part of our interfaith movement here at TCU, and is currently serving as the President of TCU Better Together. If you’ve ever spent any time with Kate you have undoubtedly been touched by her warmth, her smile, and her genuine desire to know you. Spend time with her and you will walk away feeling blessed. It’s because of those qualities that I had no doubt that she would do a fantastic job of writing our devotional for today! I hope her words will inspire and challenge you.
Blessings,
Todd
March 13, 2014 By: Kate Phillips
“Trust in The Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your understanding and all your ways. Acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.”
Proverbs 3: 5-6
Every Lent since I have encountered intentional spirituality in my relationship with God, I have made a goal to “make God a part of my routine.” Now after years of either temporary success that eventually fades or just utter failure, I’ve realized that making God a part of my routine is not part of His design of our faith journey. His goal isn’t to have prayer or scripture as a bullet point on our to-do list, but rather to have our lives centered in His peace.
As students, faculty, and staff, we have incredibly busy days one after another where we need calendars, checklists, schedules, etc. Unfortunately, this often causes us both immense stress and to force our relationships into this mindless routine. And the worst part is that we think we need this lifestyle in order to achieve our goals and complete all our tasks.
Personally I don’t believe that God is calling us to neglect these duties–but to be confident in Him and His divine plan amidst our stress. He purposefully designed our talents to aid us on life’s difficult paths. He has blessed us with our relationships, with Him, with those we care about, and even with others that just touch our lives briefly, so that we may find strength in their capacity of love.
If we can keep this at the forefront of our minds and live in this peace we realize that while our daily routine is important, we obtain a sense of drive and meaningfulness from this love we receive. Likewise, by intentionally contributing to our relationships, others may gain this peace as well. I believe God gave us the teachings and sacrifice of Jesus Christ so that among the schedule and stresses we create for ourselves, we learn that true purpose is found in the relationships around us, with others and with God, and the love abundant in them that provides an everlasting peace.
Amen.
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