Kyknet Lent Guide 2022Sample

“Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’” (Acts 17:22 – 28 NIV)

Paul finds himself in the city of Athens, considered the mecca of many of the religions of that time. He starts his speech by connecting with their culture and customs (Acts 17:23 NIV), but then invites them to interpret their customs and experiences differently (Acts 17:24 NIV).

Everything they have, their very lives, come from God the creator. Not only did He give them everything, but He even gives them their lives (Acts 17:25 NIV). He is both the Giver and Maintainer of the gift of life they have received.

A conviction and awareness of this will bring about a search for Him, and you will find Him and experience Him (Acts 17:27). Your life will become larger and you will experience true life.

You are invited to awaken to this life.

Call yourself alive? Look, I promise you

that for the first time you’ll feel your pores opening like fish mouths, and you’ll actually be able to hear your blood surging though all those lanes,

and you’ll feel light gliding across the cornea

like the train of a dress. For the first time

you’ll be aware of gravity

like a thorn in your heel,

and your shoulder blades will ache for want of wings. Call yourself alive? I promise you

you’ll be deafened by dust falling on the furniture, you’ll feel your eyebrows turning into two gashes, and every memory you have – will begin

a Genesis.

Nina Cassian