Dust In The Wind… Hello Hump Day readers on this Ash Wednesday which starts the Lenten season. This may sound crazy, but Ash Wednesday reminds me of an old song from the band ‘Kansas’, ‘Dust In The Wind’. The opening stanza is “I close my eyes only for a moment and the moment’s gone. All my dreams pass before my eyes with curiosity. Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind.” This is a fitting song for Ash Wednesday…and you are wondering if I have lost my mind, right? Well, let’s share about dust, mortality and eternal life—starting with Scripture…

Genesis 3:19 [ERV] “You will work hard for your food until your face is covered with sweat. You will work hard until the day you die, and then you will become dust again. I used dust to make you and when you die, you will become dust again.”

Ecclesiastes 3:19-20 [CSB] “For the fate of the children of Adam and the fate of animals is the same. As one dies, the other; they all have the same breath. People have no advantage over animals since everything is futile. All are going to the same place; all come from dust and all return to dust.”

So, “Dust in the Wind” is a fitting song for Ash Wednesday! Christians throughout the world will ponder this Lenten time with the fact that we are from dust. And, because of sin, we will return to dust. We are mortals-we will die. Our own mortality points to the brokenness of the whole creation. It’s not just that we are dust in the wind, everything is dust in the wind, apart from God. The Kansas band songwriter, Kerry Livgren, said that this song came right from Ecclesiastes, while he was on a spiritual quest to know God. 3 years later he embraced the Lord and became a Christian. The next thing he did was to put that passage into a song!

God does not grant us immediate immortality when we accept his grace through faith, and though our bodies will die, that’s not the end of the story either. We are not merely dust in the wind because the God who once breathed life into our dustiness now breathes eternal life into us through Jesus! Though we live in a world that is still broken by sin, the mending of this world has begun through Jesus. What we do with our lives is not simply dust that will be blown away by the wind. Instead, it can have eternal significance and that’s why Ash Wednesday is so powerful and a path that we need daily. That’s why we must take seriously our dustiness, mortality, brokenness and lostness. We feel the pain of human sin, our own sin and the sin of the world. We ache for victims of tragedy and injustice. We let the sufferings of the poor and oppressed into our hearts. As the Psalmist said “How long, O LORD? Will you hide yourself forever?” [Psalm 89:46]

It’s not true that “all we are is dust in the wind” because we are also people marked by the cross. We are blessed as the children of God who loves us beyond all measure. By taking our dustiness seriously, we are ready to celebrate even more fully our beloved-ness! But that’s not for this day. That celebration comes after Lent. Today—we’re just beginning. So, here are two ideas to start our Lenten journey:  1) What reminds us of our mortality and our dustiness? 2) What might we do in the next 40 days (plus six Sundays) to prepare for a deeper experience of the reality of Good Friday and a more joyous celebration of the truth of Easter?

We pray, “O Lord, I experience my dustiness in so many different ways. Usually, I try to ignore it, or I complain about it, but today on this Ash Wednesday, I am letting the fact of my mortality sink in. I am reminded of how much I need to be saved and set free from my sins. And, I am reminded of how much I need you, my Lord and Savior, Amen.”