Lent Reading Guide

What follows is a 40-day Lent reading plan to read Beloved Dust. This 40 day period excludes Sundays, where the focus of your time will be on the movement of the Lenten season to the Cross and Resurrection. We encourage you to follow lectionary readings for this season alongside your reading of Beloved Dust. The Lenten season starts by hearing: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return” (starting on Ash Wednesday). Our hope is that Beloved Dust will take us into this season in a much deeper way than merely coming up with something to “give up” for a while. We hope that we can penetrate to the heart of the Gospel by attending to the entire movement of God to be with us. This is really the heart of Lent.

What you will find below is a list of your daily readings. We have listed the section, followed by the page numbers, to try to make this as easy as possible. The readings will not take long but there is a lot to ponder. We encourage you to sit with the readings, open up Scripture to one (or more) of the Bible passages mentioned, and be with your Lord in this season as you meditate on Christ’s movement to the cross.

1. “Introduction” xiii-xviii
2. “Chapter One: Created to be with God” 1-6
3. “It was very Good” 7-11
4. “An Apocalypse of Dust” 12-16
5. “Chapter 2: Stuck in the Sands of Time” 17-22
6. “The Oppression of Time” 22-24; “Locked in History” 24-25
7. “The Fruit of Idolatry” 25-29
8. “The Space of Grace” 29-32
9. “Chapter Three: Unlimited Limitation” 33-36
10. “Fantasy Life” 36-40
11. “Surprised by Frailty” 40-46
12. “Chapter Four: Hiding in the Dust” 47-49; “The Dusty Road” 49-52
13. “Hide and Cover” 52-57
14. “Clothed by God” 57-60; “Worldly Strategies” 61-62; “Rest or Escape?” 62-63
15. “Prayer as a Tool of Our Flesh” 63-68
16. “Chapter Five: I am Dust: Now Everything Changes” 69-72
17. “The Word Became Dust” 72-74; “Not by Magic” 74-76
18. “The New Temple” 76-78; “Something Greater” 78-81; “The Son of Heaven and Dust” 81-82
19. “It’s a Family Matter” 82-88
20. “To Dust You Shall Return” 88-91; “Abba! Father!” 91-92
21. “Chapter Six: The Son of the Beloved” 93-94; “Practice the Music” 94-99; “The Sheet Music of Prayer” 99-101
22. “From Garden to Garden” 101-105
23. “The Silence of the Cross” 105-111
24. “Our Most True Selves” 112-116
25. “Chapter 7: Following the One Who Prayed” 117-118; “The Abiding Life” 119-122
26. “Praying to the Father” 122-128
27. “Praying with the Pray-er” 128-130; “Recreated for Prayer” 130-131; “Grasping Prayer” 131-134
28. “Chapter Eight: With God in the Temple” 135-136; “Starting at the End” 137-40
29. “Taste and See” 140-141; “A Better Hope” 141-143
30. “Praying in the Temple” 143-145; “Our Identity at the Throne of Grace” 145-148
31. “Praying His Name in Vain” 148-149; “Standing Before the Father” 149-150
32. “Life in the Temple” 150-156
33. “Chapter Nine: The Silent Embrace” 157-159
34. “The Experience of Love” 159-161
35. “The God Who Prays” 161-166
36. “God’s Life of Love” 167-168; “Entering God’s Rest”168-174
37. “Walking Forward in Silence” 174-177
38. “Practicing the Prayer of Silence” 177-179
39. “Resting on God” 179-182
40. “Afterword: Carving Out Space to be With God” 183-193