This week’s Lenten offering was written by Paula Jireh Sampang, a Master’s student at Fuller Seminary and part of our church familia.

These first couple weeks of Lent I have been thinking about what repentance means for me at this time. What do I need to repent from? What do I need to change my mind about? What do I need to turn away from and turn toward? What needs to die in me so that new life can grow forth?

I’m a full-time student who is planning a wedding, discerning the future, applying for jobs, and trying to eat three meals a day. I’m running on full speed on multiple treadmills. I’m sure that’s relatable for some of you! So, when I think about what I need to repent from, it’s self-sufficiency—meeting the demands of life on my own strength.

It’s hustling, producing, striving, and toiling without recognizing my dependence on God or others. But beneath that all is often mistrust. I often don’t trust that God will work things out, so I enslave my spirit, soul, and body to work things out on my own.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 says, “May the God of peace make you holy and whole, may God put you together – spirit, soul and body – and thus ready you for the Presence. The one who calls you is faithful and will not fail you.”

I’m struck by the number of verbs attributed to God in these verses. God who makes you, puts you, readies you, calls you, and wills to not fail you.

Friends, it is not all on our shoulders to work things out. It is not us who makes us holy and whole. It is not us who puts the pieces of us back together. It is not us who is expected to always be ready and never fail.

It’s God.

There is an invitation for us to be recipients of God’s sufficiency.

God invites us to turn away from self-reliance and turn toward God’s gentle face. A promising face with eyes that see your exhaustion, ears that hear your longings, a nose that smells your hunger, and cheekbones that rise to welcome you with a voice that says, “You’ll be more than okay.”

In our repentance, may we give God the benefit of doing for us what we were never responsible for doing by ourselves. Whatever demands of life our spirit, soul and bodies face this week, may we trust God to be God.