In the spirit of this penitential season, I have a confession to make…that it’s been just over two years since, due to some issues with plantar fasciitis, I started supplementing my running with riding the Peloton. 

One theme that the instructors emphasize as they coach you through the most grueling parts of a long hill climb ride or the final minutes of high intensity interval training (HIIT) are the power of words. One coach says “Give me all you have. Don’t give up. Remind yourself why you shouldn’t give up.” Another says: “I am. I can. I will. I do.”

I think it’s worth contemplating the words that we have, not only to keep ourselves motivated, to keep ourselves from giving up and to remind ourselves why we do what we do, but because so often our minds and hearts are filled with all kinds of other words and mantras. These words and mantras can distract us, pull us off course or even convince us that we, or the endeavor we have chosen to engage in is somehow not worth it anymore. They could be the lies that we have come to believe, or what we tell ourselves so many times over that they have become “our truth.” Not only can these words be discouraging, but they can also be deceiving, all-consuming and destructive.

Today, Jesus, the incarnate Word of God, reminds us in the antiphon from John 3:16 that “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might have eternal life.” But then, in the Gospel, he speaks to the tragedy that although “the Father has sent me, you have not heard His voice. You do not have His word remaining in you. You do not want to come to me to have life. You do not have the love of God in you. You will not accept me. How will you believe my words?”

These are some sobering words indeed. And as I contemplate these words while powering through an hour-long ride early this morning, the word that strikes me is have. “You do not have God’s word – you do not have the love of God – remaining in you.” The Greek word for have, έχω, can also mean “to hold” or “to possess.” We have been created through the Word of God. God’s word and love have been planted deep within us. But to have the Word, to really hold onto it, we have to make an active choice, to be deliberate about the words we choose to say and to listen to, to be intentional about making God’s Word the center of our lives. We must hold onto that Word and let it shape our desires and inform and inspire us in all that we do. 

Otherwise, like our ancestors in the dessert who “forgot the God who saved them,” and “made for themselves” an idol to worship, to sacrifice to and to cry out to, we hold onto and cling to those words that cause us to forget about the God whose Word loved us into being and saves us. In these last two weeks of Lent, what words are you holding onto to stay the course, to not give up, to remind you of why you chose to engage the saving work of this season in the first place? It’s not too late to accept and to believe in God’s Word, that we may have it and hold on to it wherever we go and with whatever we do.