In the Drying Process

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The theme for this week is Transformation.

“Not all who wonder are lost.” J. R. R. Tolkien

The hardest part of doing laundry is waiting on the clothes to dry.  Washing seems to have no real affect on a person's patience - there's not much that can be done to hurry the cleaning process.  But drying has many variables; clothes may still be damp and will need additional time to "damp dry"; or there's an event contingent upon the finishing of the task, whether it's to wear the clothes or just concluding the chore.  Drying is what completes the cycle - dyes are made permanent, a sweater's shape is set, and a towel could be deemed ready to dirty up once more.

Our Lenten journey is very much the drying cycle - for these 40 days and nights, we tumble along the path, or lay out in the open our desire to align ourselves closer spiritually.  We hope we don't catch too many snags, shrink, fade under the intense heat or lose the other half of ourselves.  And we anxiously await the timer signaling the end of the journey - Easter Day - probably mostly to say we've been through it.  But what if, by focusing on the chimes, we miss the magic of the glowing coils, whose blown heat is the key reason the process occurs?

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were also in a dryer of sorts - a huge fiery furnace (Daniel 3:19-30).  Many of us often look to the miracle of them being released and unburned, however while inside the heat is where their faith deepened.  The furnace was turned up 7 times the normal temperature and killed the men who placed them in; but inside with the brothers was a fourth man who looked like a god.  Whatever was said or done inside of the furnace was enough to solidify the presence of God as the source of the miracle in that moment and for the rest of their lives.  Even Nebuchadnezzar and his subjects, waiting on the side, were amazed at their survival. 

This week, consider, while on the Lenten journey, paying more attention to the inner transformation, for we never know what we can learn from the presence of God there in the fire with us.