God does not need our external acts of piety. Rather, he asks us to sacrifice our arrogance, our insistence on autonomy, our selfishness, our fickleness, all of our shortcomings, upon his altar.

As we draw near the halfway mark of Lent, it would behoove us to reflect upon which gods we are honoring, admiring and loving more than God who gave us life. And then to show them the door.

Rather than subordinate our own ambitions and desires to God’s plan, we often close our ears and tune out his voice.

With the smartphone now functioning as an essential anatomical appendage, it is harder than it has ever been to make distinctions, to turn off the noise, to say “Enough.”

We have experienced God’s benevolent interventions in our own lives.

We are invited, today, to listen—and as the psalmist today colorfully puts it, God has even done us the courtesy of digging out our ears so that we can hear.