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  Welcome to the Second Week of Lent 2026 Prayers & Ponderings page!  Here you will find the resources for your weekly prayers and reflections - Weekly Prayer & Pondering Guide and Small Group Discussion Notes.

  If you are more of a visual learner, a video version of the Prayer & Pondering Guide is right here!  You can pause the video when you need more time to read, pray, or ponder.  Also, in case you wish to have the background music continue playing during your moments of prayer and pondering, the video guide will play 4 times so you will have the opportunity to catch up when you are ready to continue.  Here is the second installment:

   For those who rather have a continual flow of the Prayer & Pondering Guide, here it is:

 

Yearning!

  God invites us to come to Him and He desires for our hearts to yearn for Him.  He wants this yearning to become action in worship – praise (declaring He is GLORIOUS), proclamation (testifying to His GLORY), and practice (tangibly sharing His Glory through our lives by our behavior, our words, and our love for others).

  From the beginning, God wanted a relationship with His highest creation, humanity. He created us in His Own Image.  He communicated directly with the first man and woman.  He apparently took walks with them.  He was concerned about their earthly relationships.  When sin entered the picture and Adam & Eve hid, God searched for them.  If you wish, read Genesis 1:26 thru 3:9.  The entire scope of the Bible clearly depicts God’s desire for relationship with people like us.

  Take some time to reflect on the significance that God, the Maker of ALL things in heaven and on earth, wants a relationship with you AND He has gone to extreme measures to make this relationship possible.  If you wish to ponder some texts, here are just a few examples, and only from the New Testament:

  • John 3:10-17
  • Ephesians 2:1-10
  • Philippians 2:6-8
  • Colossians 1:15-23
  • 1 Peter 2:9-10
  • What are other texts that come to your mind?

Pause, Pray, and Ponder.

  Knowing God desires to have a relationship with you and the extent to which He has gone and still goes for such a relationship, contemplate these points and pray, mostly giving thanks and listening for how God might want to deepen your relationship with Him:

  • What is your level of yearning for a relationship with God?
    • Is your yearning greater or lesser than it has ever been?
    • Is your yearning sort of stale at the present time?

Pause, Pray, and Ponder.

  • Is there anything impacting this yearning, either positively or negatively? CELEBRATE the positives and submit the negatives to God.

Pause, Pray, and Ponder.

  Keep your eyes on Christ as you reflect and don’t believe lies that may pop into your mind. Remember that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!

    After you are done with your time of pause and prayer, you can continue to engage some further reflective thought or possibly, some e-discussion by using the Small Group Discussion Guide that follows. If you want to have some e-chat about this topic and what God might be revealing to you, feel free to reach out to Terry via email @ tfnaz1@gmail.com.

Ministries
The Seasons of The Church
Yearning!

   God invites you to come to Him because He is the “destination” you need.  There is nothing, actually NO ONE, we need more than God and His Presence as He is the One who truly sustains us. Do we YEARN for Him?

  Have you ever found yourself NOT BELONGING, like a refugee, the incarcerated, the homeless, an orphan, children and teens in foster homes, displaced because of disaster?  If so, you know what yearning is about … yearning for a home .. a place … a destination of stability.  If you have ever experienced any of these, you also know what it is like to live with a constant feeling of “lostness,” “wondering,” and perhaps, “wandering” when will you find “home”.

  Jesus has, actually IS, a “home” for everyone as He is the mediator, the priest, our Savior Who opens the Door and makes the Way for us to have a relationship with God. Isn’t that AMAZING?! God WANTS a relationship with you!

  Based on your pausing, praying, and pondering about God’s desire to have a relationship with you …

  • What is the most significant thought(s) you have about God's desire for such a relationship?

 

  • Why do you think God would go to such extremes to convey, act, and reiterate His desire for a relationship with you?

 

  The Old Testament is foundational in so many ways. From one text in Deuteronomy, we can learn a lot about God’s yearning for a relationship with us.

31 For the Lord your God is a merciful God; He will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which He confirmed to them by oath.  ~ Deuteronomy 4:31

  What does this verse reveal to you about God?

 

  To have the full context, read Deuteronomy 4:15-31. Now, reconsider that first question as the following:

What does Deuteronomy 4:31 reveal to you about God, His desire to have a relationship with His People, and the extent to which He will go to have such a relationship?

  This text and its context of Deuteronomy 4:15-31 are only one example of God’s desire to have a relationship with us and the extent to which He will go to have one. Now, think about the psalmist’s yearning for God in Psalm 84 and think about how you are yearning for a relationship with God.

1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
    Lord Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
    for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out
    for the living God.

  • With the thoughts of God’s yearning for a relationship with you, how might it look for you to “yearn, even faint” for God?

 

  • Look at the balance of Psalm 84 and think about, even list, the extent to which the psalmist yearns for a deeper relationship with God and the “results” of this yearning.

 

Terry's Notes

  Deuteronomy 4:31 reveals that God is not out to get you or to condemn you or pressure you into having a relationship with Him. Rather, this verse declares God is “merciful,” He is present, He does not want to “destroy” you, He remembers His promises, and He is faithful to keep them.

  However, looking at the larger context of Deuteronomy 4:15-31 helps us see to even a great extent how much God wants to have a relationship with people and the length to which He will go to keep that relationship.  In these verses, God warns Israel against idolatry and specifically that they not forget Who He is after they start enjoying the Promised Land.  However, He has already seen them turn to idolatry along with other acts of rebellion against His covenantal relationship with them. So, He has Moses share the reality of Israel’s likely failure and the results of that failure in 4:25ff:

25 After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and arousing his anger, 26 I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. 27 The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. 28 There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. 

  These verses are clear that if (and when) Israel “forgets” God and turns to idolatry, God will be ANGRY and they will face the consequences of this rebellion, i.e. they will …

  • … quickly perish from the land
  • … not live there long
  • … certainly be destroyed.
  • … be scattered among the peoples (who destroy them)
  • … be fewer in number as not many will survive among the nations to which the Lordwill drive them.
  • … worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell, and thereby, cannot answer or deliver them.

 … BUT hear what God has Moses tell them next:

29 But if from there (the foreign nations where they will be scattered) you seek the Lord your God, you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. 

Then, Moses shares our verse of focus. Deuteronomy 4:31:

31 For the Lord your God is a merciful God; He will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which He confirmed to them by oath.

  NOW, think about this more contextual question:

What does Deuteronomy 4:31 reveal to you about God, His desire to have a relationship with His People, and the extent to which He will go to have such a relationship?

  God is willing to continue a relationship that has been SEVERELY BROKEN, even by complete rejection of Him and seeking other ways to “replace” Him in our lives …. IDOLATRY! The foundational key to this renewed, continued relationship is certainly God’s grace & love.  HOWEVER, we must COME BACK to Him, TURN, REPENT, even as this pre-Gospel text declares:

29 But if from there (the foreign nations where they will be scattered) you seek the Lord your God, you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. 

That is a YEARNING desire to return and relate to God!

  This text and its context of Deuteronomy 4:15-31 are only one example of God’s desire to have a relationship with us and the extent to which He will go to have one. Now, think about the psalmist’s yearning for God in Psalm 84 and ponder how you are yearning for God.

1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
    Lord Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
    for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out
    for the living God.

  Remember these things:

  • The psalmist wants to be at “home” in the presence of God but he isn’t there yet. This reason is why the psalmist LONGS to be in the House of the Lord … The Temple!

  Our translations cannot depict the depth of the psalmist’s yearning but they could do a better job.  For instance, the actual first expression in the Hebrew of this longing is NOT “yearning”, it is that the psalmist “faints” for the courts of the Lord.  In other words, the psalmist desired God’s Presence for so long, so diligently, that he is EXHAUSTED, worn-out from longing, spent, wasted away over it. Have you ever been that tired from waiting & wanting?

  Other psalms use this term to express inward, emotional, mental, or spiritual exhaustion.  As examples, Psalm 119 makes use of this word as follows:

    • ”My soul LANGUISHES for Your salvation (119:81)
    •  “My eyes FAIL, looking for Your promises” (119:82)

 This experience is not hopeless; it is a weariness that precedes hope’s fulfillment. It is like I shared on Sunday but thankfully not in singing Beulah Land.

 I’m kind of home sick for a country

Where I”ve never been before. 

No sad goodbyes,

will there be spoken,

for time won’t matter anymore

Beulah Land, I’m longing for you

and someday on thee I’ll stand. 

Where my home shall be eternal,

Beulah land, sweet Beulah Land.

Here’s a link to the full song, Beulah Land.

  That is the kind of longing the psalmist expresses … WORN OUT WISHING FOR IT!

  •   The text then goes on to declare that the psalmist YEARNS for this place, God’s Presence … He desires it, is GREEDY for it .. eager to arrive there … pines for it! … The psalmist is almost OBSESSED with getting “there”.  This word consistently marks an intense emotional pull .. an upward reaching ache of the soul … It’s the PASSION of the SOUL!

  Am I, are we, are you YEARNING for God in such a way?

  Oh, the blessings, the joy, the assurance that awaits those who that are on such a journey toward God’s Eternal Presence … He is with those who are on that path, even NOW because He is a merciful God Who will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant He has made with those Who trust in Him through Jesus!