Throughout Lent, we’ve been using John Kass’ column “O Holy Night” as a guide for prayer. It continues,
For all the young who are lonely and feel lost and don’t know why.
There is a younger generation, growing up without the stability of an intact nuclear family, a close network of neighbors, and mentoring relationships of significance who now seek therapy or make-believe friends on Chat GPT as a replacement. They cannot imagine why they feel the way they do, having grown up in an entirely different era.
How many of us have friends on the Internet whom we’ve never met in person? Almost all of us have added virtual friendships to augment or substitute for real ones. Never have we been more connected in superficial ways, yet simultaneously we are deeply isolated, depressed, and adrift. COVID made that abundantly clear.
Alone in a crowd, what an awful thought leaning into meaninglessness! So busy with shallow scrolling of followers and followings that it feels like we are scrambling to fill the void in our lives with anything … so life doesn’t seem so empty.
We may have thousands of followers online,
but few close face-to-face friends and family with whom we can be real.
In search of meaning.
In search of answers.
In search of relationship!
Lord, Have Mercy!
Lord, bring Your Church into their lives and circumstances so they’d know they are not alone. They’d know the depth of Your love. And they’d know the joy of true community and family of the spiritual kind. Lord, Have Mercy!
Let them give thanks to the LORD for His unfailing love and His wonderful deeds for men. Let them exalt Him in the assembly of the people and praise Him in the council of the elders. (Psalm 107:31-32)
Prayer Focus: God would provide companionship and community through His Church.
===
You can find these “Κύριε, ἐλέησον, ‘Lord, have mercy” devotionals here or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter!
Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time:
Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014.
Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations. We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17.
ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ. It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.
Lent 2018, we explored the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We asked and answered the questions “Why?” from the movie Life of Pi as we discovered the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in a world of many faiths.
Lent 2019 gave us a deeper window into Easter “More to the Easter Story” since we miss so much when we rely only on a superficial understanding of the work of Christ. These devotionals are archived beginning March 6, 2019.
Our Lent 2020 devotional series offered prayer points surrounding “Be Thou My Vision” and were aimed at helping us to see God for who He is. The full set of devotionals are archived beginning February 26, 2020.
The theme for 2021 Lent Devotionals was how to live between two worlds while waiting for Christ’s return. Into the gap between the City of Man and its fixation upon sin and the City of God with its demand for holiness, two words minister peace: But God. Praise God for His intervention! They are archived beginning February 17, 2021.
Revelation in 40 devotionals for 2022 offered 40 vignettes, scenes, concepts, and thoughts to inspire us to read the Book of Revelation as it is written and to go deeper. They are archived beginning March 2, 2022.
“Created to Display His Image” explored what it truly means to be made in God’s Image and the profound significance of that fact. They are archived beginning February 22, 2023.
“Seeing His Love with New Eyes” was the topic for 2024 and it explored looking at God’s love beyond the superficial and trite notions of love. They are archived beginning February 14, 2024.
“The Way it Had to Be” explored the conversation in Luke 24 by the men on the Road to Emmaus as they walked with Jesus. They discovered their assumption “This is not how it was supposed to be” was precisely what had to happen and had been predicted throughout the Old Testament and fulfilled in Jesus’ ministry. These devotionals are archived beginning March 5, 2025.