Deuteronomy 9:17 So I took hold of the two tablets and flung them from my two hands, smashing them before your eyes. 18 Then I lay prostrate before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin you had committed, provoking the Lord by doing what was evil in his sight. 19 For I was afraid that the anger that the Lord bore against you was so fierce that he would destroy you. But the Lord listened to me that time also.
I am stubborn.
Choosing not to hear the Compassionate Voice that guides me can get me into trouble. Mostly it is just my trouble. 
People are stubborn.
Choosing to turn away from the Compassionate Voice, people can destroy others, communities, nations. How easily I can be swayed in that crowd of people to do the very thing I do not want to do. The masses can change my mind. The masses can change my heart. The masses can tempt me with a “beautiful” voice that destroys and hates.
As I return to the Compassionate Voice this Lenten season, I pray that all other voices be silenced. I pray that the love of God in Christ through the Breath will lead me in solitude and worship.
Help me to pray for others as Moses prayed for his people wholly, completely. Help me to pray for the stubborn, the thieves, the haters. Help me to acknowledge their goodness, to believe they too are called to be redeemed in the Compassionate Voice. Help them to know that someone, perhaps someone they don’t even know, loves them and believes in them. I am grateful to those who have done this for me.
(c) 2015 The Rev. Lil Smith
