As is said in yesterday’s reading from our Lenten devotional, Lent is a time for special reflection.  It is a time to reflect on why you give up what you do.  But more importantly, to reflect on what God has done for you.

It is very easy to see what God has done for the Israelites when we look at Deuteronomy 26.  Poised and ready to enter the promised land, Moses told them that the very first thing they were to do, when they entered the promised land, was to make an offering to God.  And when they made that offering they were to declare before God,

To remind God, like God needs reminding.  No, to remind the Israelites of what God has done; to remind the Israelites of the history of their relationship with God?

That is the history of your relationship with God?

Can you put into clear and concise words what God has done for you?

I know that giving testimonies is not part of our tradition. In some ways I think that is fortunate and unfortunate. Fortunate for the person giving his testimony because so often what people hear and remember is the sin of the individual.  Unfortunate for the person who would hear the testimony because we miss hearing how God’s power and grace has changed that person’s life from a life of wandering and slavery to sin to a life of following and freedom from sin.

What we should hear in someone’s testimony is the history of that person’s relationship with God.  And hearing that history we should,

Lent is the perfect time for you to remember, to recall your history with God.  If you don’t know where to start, then start here.  At the Lord’s Table, the bread and cup are symbols of the body and blood of Christ, broken and shed for you.  Start with today and go back into your past.  Take into account everything you have, the people who love and loved you, the trials and tribulations, the joys and the sorrows, the defeats and the victories, the pains and the healings, the sin and the righteousness. When you get in touch with your history with God and see where you have come from and where you are today.  I am certain that it will reveal as penetrating a picture of Psalm 91:4,

As the National Geographic provided several years ago.

After a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park, forest rangers began their trek up a mountain to assess the inferno’s damage.  One ranger found a bird literally petrified in ashes, perched statuesquely on the ground at the base of a tree.

Somewhat sickened by the eerie sight, he knocked over the bird with a stick. When he did, three tiny chicks scurried from under the dead mother bird’s wings.  The loving mother, keenly aware of the impending disaster, had carried her young chicks to the base of the tree and gathered them under her wings.

She could have flown to safety but had refused to abandon her babies.  When the blaze arrived and the heat scorched her body, the mother remained steadfast. Because she had been willing to die, those chicks under the cover of her wings lived.

Now God asks you that you put sins out of your life.