This weekly devotional series is designed in conjunction with the Lenten worship series called "A Table in the Wilderness" that we are exploring at Covenant CRC Woodstock over the six weeks of Lent.
Each week you will be provided with an image for reflection, prayers, a scripture reading and reflection questions.
Son of Hagar, Painting by Frank Wesley 1923-2002
III. A Table in the Wilderness for Hagar
Opening Prayer
O Lord, can you really spread a table in the wilderness of life? Walk with me as I walk this path of the cross with honest questions of life in my heart and my face turned to find the table you have spread in the wilderness for so many before me, and now also for me. Amen.
Reading
Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy [Ishmael]. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there, she began to sob. God heard the boy crying. . . . Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water (from Genesis 21).
Reflect
What do I notice as I look at this picture?
What is making me sad and thirsty?
Can God really provide a table in the wilderness of sadness and thirst?
Christ Speaks: Words of Encouragement
Take heart, my child. I will not let the cross you bear grow beyond your endurance. My Father attends you. He is your Father too. All that is needed God’s hands will provide.
Closing Prayer
We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you because by your life, your death, and your resurrection you have shown us how God always spreads a table in the wilderness in the face of all our fears. Amen.
This devotional is adapted from a series provided by Pastor Natasha Vedder to Reformed Worship 146 © December 2022 Worship Ministries of the Christian Reformed Church. Used by permission.