Mar 09 2025 15 mins
Amazon, Instagram, and Facebook (just to mention a few) are frighteningly good at captivating and capturing our imaginations as we spend our days exploring the digital architecture of the modern mall we call the smart phone.
That why I really love that one line from the prayer of confession I shared earlier. “We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.” It’s amazing how prescient a line from 1662 can be today. For, the devices we carry in our pockets absolutely drive the desires of our hearts, and most of the time we don’t even realize it, we don’t notice the water we’re swimming in.
Hence, the remarkable quote from Charles Baudelaire: The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
These forty days between Ash Wednesday and Easter are some of the most countercultural and subversive days in the entire church year. While we swim in the water of a culture driven by success, power, winning, God uses Lent to repent us, to turn us back around to the One who saves us through the waters of baptism, through the bread and cup of communion, through the cross and the empty tomb.
That why I really love that one line from the prayer of confession I shared earlier. “We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.” It’s amazing how prescient a line from 1662 can be today. For, the devices we carry in our pockets absolutely drive the desires of our hearts, and most of the time we don’t even realize it, we don’t notice the water we’re swimming in.
Hence, the remarkable quote from Charles Baudelaire: The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
These forty days between Ash Wednesday and Easter are some of the most countercultural and subversive days in the entire church year. While we swim in the water of a culture driven by success, power, winning, God uses Lent to repent us, to turn us back around to the One who saves us through the waters of baptism, through the bread and cup of communion, through the cross and the empty tomb.