A Place at the Table 01 - Pharaohs
A Place at the Table 01 - Pharaohs
God, give us the clarity to battle our Pharaohs and bring a new sense of freedom to this generation and the next. We thank You for the beauty of Your sacred and divine story that declares to us clearly that we are a people freed from a cruel master. We have been bought by one who came to redeem and free us. He called us to live as we are intended to live: in grace and hope. Lord, may we find that new freedom as we declare your lordship in our lives. You are our one true master. Amen.
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The above is a prayer for day one of Chris Seay’s Place at the Table devotions for Lent. It comes from his book, A Place at the Table: 40 Days of Solidarity with the Poor. His reflections today center on the story of the Hebrews in slavery to the Pharaoh in Egypt as told in Exodus. He asks the question about whether we will stand up to the Pharaohs that are in our lives? Lent is a time of seeking to move beyond those Pharaohs - those things that we allow to control us. So much of what we hold to in our lives are the Pharaohs that not only oppress us, but lead to the oppression of others. The Pharaohs that hold us captive of stuff, of food, of entertainment, of the distractions that we let take our eyes off God and the call of God in our lives.
The picture for today is of us burning some of those things in our lives. These are the commitments that we made tonight in our Ash Wednesday service. We aren’t burning them to “get rid of them” but as offering them before the Lord. We each wrote these commitments out - our sacrifices we will make, the commitments we are choosing, the area want to change - all things that the Lord has led us to. Mine is in there along with those who came to be a part of worship tonight. And we offer them to God asking that God be the one to take control of our lives, not these areas. Not these “pharaohs.”