A guy goes to an eye doctor for an eye exam, and the doctor says, “Cover your right eye.” The guy goes like this. The eye doctor says, “No, no, cover your left eye.” The guy goes like this. So, the doctor goes in the back room, gets a brown bag, comes back, cuts out two holes over the eyes, puts it over the guy’s head.

At that time the phone rings, so the doctor goes, gets it, comes back. When he comes back, the patient is crying hysterically. The bag is soaking wet. The eye doctor asks the patient, says, “Why are you crying hysterically?” And the guys says, “I was hoping for wire rims.”

You know, sometimes in life we miss the whole point. The characters involved in today’s readings could’ve missed the entire point and deeper meaning, if they had not listened. Abraham is called trust God, to trust life. “I need to be grounded in faith, rooted in God, rooted in life.”

St. Paul to the Romans, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” And Peter, James and John, really all of us, searching is sometimes missing the entire point. God meets us where we are. Let the Lord come to us. It’s okay not always to be in control, where of life always on my terms.

How do we do this? Maybe following a true story from my own life. Many years ago, one day while around a lake, I turned a wooded corner and came suddenly face to face with a doe and a fawn, not more than 10 feet from me. We both stared each other for about five or 10 seconds before the two of them quietly slipped into the woods. At that moment for me, it was a moment of grace. God’s presence in a transforming way that I still remember and look back at it with absolute delight.

One thing I’ve come to realize over the years is that the deer are free, and when I seek the deer on their terms, not expecting or demanding to see them on my terms, they eventually will appear. Searching for deer has become a symbol of my own quest for God in my life, that I cannot control God.

I recently came to this conclusion. God does not need Lent. God does not need Lent. We need this Lenten season and journey, and Lent is not so much what we do for God, Lent is rather what God does in us, if I’m willing to let go and trust like the followers in today’s readings.