Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Behold, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and evil. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you go in to possess it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away and worship other gods, and serve them, I declare to you today that you will surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you pass over the Jordan to go in to possess it. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your descendants, to love the Lord your God, to obey his voice, and to cling to him; for he is your life, and the length of your days, that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.
Blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand on the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the Lord's law. On his law he meditates day and night.
He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that produces its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither. Whatever he does shall prosper.
saying, "The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up."
He said to all, "If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits his own self?
The choice Moses presents sounds almost too simple: life or death, blessing or curse. Yet notice how quickly he moves from this stark binary to something much more intimate—loving God, walking in his ways, clinging to him. The real choice isn't between abstract concepts but between relationships: will we anchor ourselves in God or drift toward lesser things that promise life but deliver emptiness?
This tension runs straight through Luke's Gospel, where Jesus speaks of losing life to save it. The paradox cuts against everything our culture teaches about self-preservation and accumulation. We're told to build our brands, secure our futures, maximize our potential. Yet here stands Jesus, saying the path to authentic life moves in the opposite direction—through self-denial and cross-bearing.
Consider how this plays out in the small moments. When a colleague takes credit for our work, do we fight to protect our reputation or let it go? When our teenager pushes back against reasonable boundaries, do we escalate to win the argument or hold firm with patient love? These aren't dramatic martyrdoms, but they're genuine opportunities to choose the way of the cross.
The psalm offers a beautiful image for this kind of living: a tree planted by streams of water, producing fruit in season. There's something unhurried about this growth, something that trusts in deep roots rather than frantic effort. The tree doesn't strain to produce fruit; it simply draws from the source and bears what comes naturally.
This is what clinging to God looks like in ordinary time—not desperate grasping but steady drawing from the wellspring of his love, even when the world tells us to grasp for more immediate satisfactions.
What lesser gods are competing for your attention today? How might losing something you're trying to protect actually lead to greater freedom?