Archives by: Gary Hoag

Feast Day 5 of 7 | Fifth Sunday of Lent

“Then He took the seven loaves and the fish, and when He had given thanks, He broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people.” Matthew 15:36

Today we recall the seven loaves that Jesus used to feed four thousand people. What a feast! Or was it? Is it possible to feast wrongly?

Jeremy Taylor offers keen insight here. “Do not seek for deliciousness and sensible consolations in the actions of religion, but only regard the duty and the conscience of it; for although in the beginning of religion most frequently, and at some other times irregularly, God complies with our infirmity, and encourages our duty with little overflowings of spiritual joy, and sensible pleasure, and delicacies in prayer, so as we seem to feel some little beam of heaven, and great refreshments from the spirit of consolation, yet this is not always safe for us to have, neither safe for us to expect and look for; and when we do, it is apt to make us cool in our inquires and waitings upon Christ when we want them: it is a running after Him, not for the miracles but for the loaves; not for the wonderful things of God, and the desires of pleasing Him, but for the pleasures of pleasing ourselves.

Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) in The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living (Grand Rapids: CCEL) p. 273.

Many people come to Jesus for what they think they can get. That would be the wrong kind of feasting. Don’t let that be you.

Jesus, I want more than loaves. I want to learn to please You. Amen.

Celebrate today not what you get from Jesus, but for the priceless gift of a having relationship with Jesus. Write a prayer of thanksgiving.

Fasting Day 28 of 40 | Fifth Saturday of Lent

“And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness?” Hebrews 3:17

As a metaphrast, Symeon collected stories and sermons of the saints. Read his paraphrase of a Homily on Hebrews by Makarios of Egypt.

“People who think it is impossible to attain through the Spirit the ‘new creation’ of the pure heart (2 Corinthians 5:17) are rightly and explicitly likened by the apostle to those who, because of their unbelief, were found unworthy of entering the promised land and whose bodies on that account ‘were left lying in the desert’ (Hebrews 3:17). What is here outwardly described as the Promised Land signifies inwardly that deliverance from the passions which the apostle regards as the goal of every commandment… To protect his disciples from yielding to unbelief the apostle says to them: ‘Make sure, my brethren, that no one among you has an evil heart of unbelief, turning away from the living God’ (Hebrews 3:12). By ‘turning away’ he means not the denial of God but disbelief in His promises.”

Symeon the Metaphrast (c.900-987) in Philokalia 3.297 (Holy Books) p. 831.

Think today about what Lent delivers us from and what it leads us to.

The disciplines of giving, prayer, and fasting deliver us from disbelief to new life. How? They put us in a place of reliance upon God. There we discover His faithfulness. And He makes us new creations in the process.

God, deliver me from disbelief to trust in Your promises. Amen.

By now in Lent, the Promised Land – life after Lent – starts to come into sight. Journal with Jesus about what you want life to look like.

Fasting Day 27 of 40 | Fifth Friday of Lent

“After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.” Acts 7:30

Have you sensed a call from God? Yet you find yourself feeding sheep?

“Moses saw the oppression of his people and felt certain that he was the one to deliver them, and in the righteous indignation of his own spirit he started to right their wrongs… God sent him into the desert to feed sheep for forty years. At the end of that time, God appeared and told Moses to go and bring forth His people… In the beginning Moses realized that he was the man to deliver the people, but he had to be trained and disciplined by God first. He was right in the individual aspect, but he was not the man for the work until he had learned communion with God. We may have the vision of God and a very clear understanding of what God wants, and we start to do the thing, then comes something equivalent to the forty years in the wilderness, as if God had ignored the whole thing, and when we are thoroughly discouraged God comes back and revives the call… We have to learn that our individual effort for God is an impertinence; our individuality is to be rendered incandescent by a personal relationship to God.”

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) in My Utmost for His Highest (Oswald Chambers Publications Association Limited, 1963) excerpt from reading for October 13.

God did not need Moses to do anything for Him. God wanted Moses to deliver the people with Him. What is God calling you to do with Him?

God, I surrender to your training and discipline. Revive my call. Amen.

Practice Lent to deepen your walk with God. Decide what disciplines you will continue in life after Lent to stay responsive to His call.

Fasting Day 26 of 40 | Fifth Thursday of Lent

“Then once again I fell prostrate before the LORD for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the LORD’s sight and so arousing his anger.” Deuteronomy 9:18

Yesterday, we read about the forty martyrs and one who fell away losing heart in 320. Today we notice that Peter of Damascus (c. 1156) recounts the response of Basil the Great (330-379) regarding the one who fell. Basil seems to take the posture of Moses in today’s Scripture – humble, grieving, and praying for people not to fall away into eternal fire.

“One of the forty martyrs lapsed, as Basil the Great says, ‘Gleefully the prince of evil entrapped the mean-spirited Judas, one of the twelve; he snatched man from Eden and ensnared one of the forty martyrs.’ Grieving for him the same Basil the Great says, ‘Foolish and worthy of our tears is he, for he went astray in both lives: in this life he was destroyed by fire and in the next went to eternal fire. And I see many others, numberless, who fell; not only unbelievers, but also many of the fathers, in spite of all their labors.”

Peter of Damascus (c. 1156) in Philokalia 3.111 (Holy Books) p. 679.

This post teaches us lessons about life and prayer.

For life, it’s not how you start but how you finish that matters. For prayer, we learn that we can finish well with God’s help or follow the lapsed one to eternal fire.

God, I want to finish well and not fall away. Please help me. Amen.

Think about your weaknesses. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you not fall but stand firm in the face of trial and generously aid others on the way.

If you want help in this area, you can freely download my ebook entitled, Finishing Well, here.

Fasting Day 25 of 40 | Fifth Wednesday of Lent

“More than forty men were involved in this plot.” Acts 23:13

Even as soldiers plotted to kill the apostle Paul in today’s Scripture, we have record of forty Roman soldiers from the Legio XII Fulminata in 320 whose comrades executed for refusing to renounce their Christian faith.

“After they had been torn by scourges and iron hooks they were chained together and led to a lingering death. It was a cruel winter, and they were condemned to lie naked on the icy surface of a pond in the open air till they were frozen to death. But they ran undismayed to the place of their combat, joyfully stripped off their garments, and with one voice besought God to keep their ranks unbroken. “Forty,” they cried, “we have come to combat: grant that forty may be crowned.” There were warm baths nearby, ready for any one amongst them who would deny Christ. The soldiers who watched saw angels descending with thirty-nine crowns, and, while they wondered at the deficiency in the number, one of the confessors lost heart, renounced his faith, and, crawling to the fire, died body and soul at the spot where he expected relief. But a soldier was inspired to confess Christ and take his place, and again the number of forty was complete. They remained steadfast while their limbs grew stiff and frozen, and died one by one.”

The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (320) in The Lives of the Saints by Alban Butler (Benziger Brothers: Global Grey, 2019) reading for March 10.

Pray for the persecuted church today. Ask God to help them persevere and receive their crowns. Remember them each day for the rest of Lent.

Jesus, help the persecuted church persevere to the end. Amen.

Make a gift today to support workers who serve the persecuted church.

If you need inspiration, click here send a gift to the Generosity Monk Fund to support my April 2026 trip to Pakistan to serve workers there.

And in Jesus name, I hope to return to China later in 2026.

Fasting Day 24 of 40 | Fourth Tuesday of Lent

“The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a land that was settled; they ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan.” Exodus 16:35

“I feel that we are in such a hurry that we do not even have time to look at one another and smile. Today it is very fashionable to talk about the poor. Unfortunately, it is not fashionable to talk with them. The Irish aid workers, though, reach out to the desolation of the poor – not only their material poverty but also their spiritual wounds as well. They know the best way of satisfying our brethren’s hunger is to share with them whatever we have – to share with them until we ourselves feel what they feel because the poor do not need our condescending attitude or our pity but our love and tenderness. They also know that the less we have, the more we give. It seems absurd, but it’s the logic of love. When they place themselves at the service of the poor, it causes an authentic revolution, the biggest, the most difficult one: the revolution of love.”

Mother Teresa (1910-1997) in Mother Teresa: The Irish Connection by John Scalley (Dublin: Poolbeg, 2010) excerpt from chapter 5.

Teresa says to slow down. Lent helps us do that. We see life differently and experience the revolution of love.

God supplied manna every day for the Israelites for forty years. Why? He cares for those He loves. God wants us to do the same for us as His people.

The Irish aid workers modeled the way as conduits of love. Like the Israelites, we do well to trust Him for daily bread and not try to store it up but to share with love.

Jesus, teach me to serve the poor with love like Patrick. Amen

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Research how Patrick returned to the land of his captors not for revenge but to serve them. He won the nation of Ireland with a revolution of love.

Years later, Mother Teresa won India the same way.

Each of us can start a revolution where God has us.

Fasting Day 23 of 40 | Fourth Monday of Lent

“At the end of forty days they returned from exploring the land.” Numbers 13:25

After God’s people surveyed the Promised Land, the book of Numbers recounts the even distribution of land. Larger tribes got more parcels and smaller tribe received less so each person had enough.

In 1862, the Homestead Act allowed Americans to settle on 160-acre quarters of land divided into forty-acre quarters for deeds. Soon after, Leo Tolstoy wrote How much land does a man need? in 1886.

Therein Tolstoy writes, “Pahóm chose out a farm of forty acres…so he became a landowner, plowing and sowing his own land, making hay on his own land, cutting his own trees, and feeding his cattle on his own pasture. When he went out to plow his fields, or to look at his growing corn, or at his grass-meadows, his heart would fill with joy… Pahóm was pleased with it all, but when he got used to it he began to think that even here he had not enough land.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) in How much land does a man need? (Maclean: Trinity Forum, 2007), pp. 14, 17.

Pahóm’s quest for more contributed to his demise.

Read the short story to see how the Devil used the insatiability of greed and the desire for more land to destroy him. Be warned.

Download it here. It’s only 4 pages long. Share it with your children. Read it to your grandchildren! And find contentment in your humble homestead.

God, teach me to find contentment in having enough. Amen.

Take inventory. Do you have less than you need, enough to live, or surplus? What could you give to make sure greed does not destroy you?

Feast Day 4 of 7 | Fourth Sunday of Lent

“There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to Him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.” Proverbs 6:16-19

Today’s Scripture reports the seven things the Lord detests. We observe Lent, in part, to cleans us from these sins. But the work needs to happen on the inside, not the outside.

In The Seven Storey Mountain. Thomas Merton parallels his spiritual journey with the ascent of a seven-tiered mountain representing the purification of the seven deadly sins. Merton, writes. “It can be said, as a general rule, that the greatest saints are seldom the ones whose piety is most evident in their expression when they are kneeling at prayer, and the holiest men in a monastery are almost never the ones who get that exalted look, on feast days, in the choir.”

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) in The Seven Storey Mountain (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1948), p. 440.

As you feast today, give thanks for the work of Christ which sets you free from slavery to these sins. And be sure to direct your piety inwardly. While Lent is made up of a series of external observances – giving, prayer, and fasting – they are designed to transform us from the inside out. They wash away the sins that so easily beset us.

Lord, rid my life of the seven deadly sins, inside and out. Amen.

The work of Christ on the cross frees us from the penalty and the power of sin. Give thanks for that as you feast and practice piety for Him alone.

Fasting Day 22 of 40 | Fourth Saturday of Lent

“During Gideon’s lifetime, the land had peace forty years.” Judges 8:28b

As I write this, I am 58 years old. When Brother Lawrence was that age he wrote of a divine favor that he experienced at 18. It shaped his life for the next 40 years. I hope this reading does the same for you.

“The first time I saw Brother Lawrence was upon the 3rd of August 1666. He told me that GOD had done him a singular favor, in his conversion at the age of eighteen. That in the winter, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves, and considering that within a little time, the leaves would be renewed, and after that the flowers and fruit appear, he received a high view of the providence and power of GOD, which has never since been effaced from his soul. That this view had perfectly set him loose from the world, and kindled in him such a love for GOD, that he could not tell whether it had increased in above forty years that he had lived since.”

Brother Lawrence (1614-1691) in The Practice of the Presence of God, excerpt from the First Conversation.

For those of us reading this during Lent in the Northern Hemisphere, Spring is upon us. We see new buds form and the life appear on trees. We see this all over the world. Next time you notice it, consider the providence and power of God at work in them. Ask God to have that same providence and power at work in you to enable you to live, give, serve, and love generously like a fruitful tree.

God, thank you for your love, providence, and power. Amen.

Take a walk today and look for favors, signs of God’s love, providence, and power. Tell someone what you saw.

Fasting Day 21 of 40 | Friday Thursday of Lent

“For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.’” Psalm 95:10

As we practice the discipline of prayer during Lent, we do well to read the Psalms. We find God’s heart there. Today’s Scripture reveals how much He wants us to stay on track and know His ways.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes this about the Psalms and prayer. “The Psalter is the great school of prayer. Here we learn, first, what prayer means. It means praying according to the Word of God, on the basis of promises… Second, we learn from the prayer of the psalms what we should pray… Third, the psalms teach us to pray as a fellowship. The Body of Christ is praying, and as an individual one acknowledges that his prayer is only a fragment of the whole prayer of the Church. He learns to pray the prayer of the Body of Christ. And that lifts him above his personal concerns and allows him to pray selflessly… The more deeply we grow into the psalms and the more often we pray them as our own, the more simple and rich will our prayer become.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) in Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1954) 47-50.

When we pray the Psalms, we align our ways with God’s ways and our hearts with God’s heart. We welcome His care and join the fellowship of believers praying around the world. This lifts us beyond our personal concerns and positions us for generous living rooted in His promises.

God, teach me to pray by praying the Psalms. Amen.

Take time to read at least one Psalm today as a prayer. Journal about your experience. Tell at least one other person how it made you feel.