Lenten Devotional: March 16, 2026

by Loren Russell 

God Is Looking for You

Have you ever walked into a party where you didn’t know many people?

You step inside and immediately feel a little unsure. You look around the room wondering where to stand, who to talk to, and whether anyone even notices that you’re there.

Then someone taps you on the shoulder and says something unexpected.

“Hey… the host has been asking about you all night. He keeps saying he can’t wait for you to get here.”

Suddenly the whole room feels different.

The most respected, kind, generous person in the room, the one everyone wants to talk to, has actually been looking for you.

Pastor Bob shared something similar this past Ash Wednesday that really stuck out to me: “God is looking for you.”

During this season of Lent, it is easy to think of ourselves as the ones searching for God. We pray more. We reflect more. We give things up. We try a little harder to get our lives right.

But what if we have been looking at it backwards?

What if Lent is really about remembering that God has been looking for us all along?

Many of us spend our lives striving. Trying to please people. Trying to prove ourselves. Sometimes even trying to earn God’s approval. We run faster. Work harder. Do more.

But sometimes all that striving makes us miss the point.

This reminds me of one of my favorite songs, a song about running against the wind.

That line resonates because it feels true. Life can feel like constant effort. Pushing forward. Trying to get somewhere. Trying to be enough.

But the good news of the gospel is that God is not standing at the finish line waiting for us to get everything just right before we get a seat at his table, before we get an invite to the party.

He is the host of the party.

And he has been looking for you.

The truth is, we are not just guests who barely made the list. In Christ, we are the ones the host has been waiting for. The Father is not asking us to impress him. He is inviting us to come in, sit down, and receive the grace that has already been prepared for us.

And here is the beautiful part.

We can never truly invite others to the Lord’s table until we first understand that we were invited ourselves.

Our call to love St. Pete, to welcome others, to share the grace of Christ with our neighbors does not begin with our effort.

It begins with God’s.

We love because he first loved us.

We seek others because he first sought us.

We invite because we were invited first.

So during this season of Lent, maybe the invitation is simpler than we think.

Stop running against the wind.

And remember the good news.

The host has been looking for you.

“The years rolled slowly past

And I found myself alone

Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends

I found myself further and further from my home, and I

Guess I lost my way

There were oh-so-many roads

I was living to run and running to live

Never worried about paying or even how much I owed

Moving eight miles a minute for months at a time

Breaking all of the rules that would bend

I began to find myself searching

Searching for shelter again and again

Against the wind

We were running against the wind

I found myself seeking shelter against the wind”

-Bob Seger

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A Lenten Invitation from Pastor Bob

• Set aside time each Monday for prayer. Step away from distractions and enter into God’s presence, remembering that apart from Him we are lost. Spend time not only in confession, but also in quiet listening for God’s voice.

• Loosen the grip of sin through generosity. Release your attachment to the riches of this world and return your treasures to God. This is not to earn favor, but to free your heart from the hold the world can have on you.

• Practice fasting on Mondays. Set aside the things that normally claim your attention and instead focus fully on God, offering Him your time, your thoughts, and your devotion.