(February 17, 2021) “Teach us to discipline our wills and follow, Lord, Your way.”
From the hymn, “These Forty Days of Lent”
Lent is a time Christians set aside to prepare for the joyous celebration of Easter. Much like the discipline a student, athlete, or musician puts himself or herself through to achieve a desired goal, the discipline of Lent strengthens us spiritually. For 40 days, Christians are called to pray, fast, and give alms in order to experience God’s immense love more profoundly and then share that love with others. My dear late mother-in-law used to say, “I love Lent. It makes us stronger.”
When we were kids, the standard question was, “What are you giving up for Lent?” Yet the goal of Lent is not to see if we can make it all the way to Easter without eating chocolate or watching TV; its purpose is not to give us Friday fish fries. Giving up something good won’t make us better people, but it might make us stronger. For example, if we want to eat a burger on a Friday and then we stop and think, “Oh, wait. It’s Lent,” that’s a reminder to us that we’re trying to grow spiritually. This reminder might later help us to, say, bite our tongue instead of curse at a driver who cuts us off.
Still, Lent is less about what we do and more about what we allow God to do in us. Our praying, fasting, and almsgiving during these 40 days help us move thoughts of God and His love for us from the back of our mind to the front. It’s about being more mindful about how we spend our time and use our God-given talents. It’s about doing without and remembering that many people go without every day – and then allowing God to give us the strength to share more of what we have with those in need. It’s about letting God move us out of our slothful routines and our old unloving ways of doing things
Think about the attention we give to our highway driving when we’re traveling to a new destination versus when we’re going for a routine drive. When we’re traveling to somewhere new, we don’t just get in the car and go; we take time to prepare. We use a maps app to find the best route to take. We set the GPS and keep our eyes alert for signs, telling us when it’s time to exit or make a turn. Our attention is sharp and we’re focused on the journey. On the other hand, when we’re driving somewhere that we’ve been to many times before, we’re more nonchalant. We don’t prepare as much and we don’t use the GPS. We settle into our seat, set the cruise control, and casually follow the cars in front of us. We pay attention to traffic but don’t have to watch for signs too closely. Sometimes we don’t even think about where we’re going and might lose track of where we are between signs.
In a similar way, maybe spiritually we’ve been coasting along for some time. We’ve been operating on cruise control, set in a routine, trying to be good people and live good lives. We haven’t done anything terribly awful to anyone – and we haven’t done anything exceptionally great for anyone, either. Maybe we’ve stopped thinking about God’s immense love for us. Maybe we’ve become lukewarm and lethargic in how we treat the people around us. Maybe we’ve forgotten about giving to those in need.
Lent is a time for us to drive, spiritually, more deliberately. It’s a chance for God to show us signs we hadn’t seen before. Here are just a few examples; we all have our own ideas we can add to this list:
If we take a few moments in the morning to thank God for another day and ask Him to be with us, we may notice blessings in our day that have always been there but we never paid attention to.
If we take a moment in the evening to write down what was good about our day, we may notice more things to be grateful for.
If we choose to give up griping, we may find it takes just a little effort – not heroic effort -- to be patient with our spouse or a coworker.
If we decide to look for opportunities to compliment someone each day, we’ll find something worth complimenting.
If we set aside time each day to read a page from a devotional, we may become more aware of God’s presence and power in our life. Here are two of the many devotionals available online: https://www.morningoffering.com/
https://www.guideposts.org/faith-and-prayer/daily-devotions
In her reflection titled, ’Give Lent a Chance to Change Your Life Forever,’ Regina Brett makes some beautiful statements about Lent:
“Lent doesn’t have to be a 40-day guilt trip or an endurance test. We could make it a 40-day gratitude journey and spend 40 days practicing that greatest commandment of all: Love… Make it something with meaning that will make your life or someone else's better.”
I encourage all of us to read her inspiring piece, in which she gives many practical suggestions on making Lent more meaningful:
Regina Brett is one of my favorite authors and is from our area. I highly recommend her books, including Be the Miracle and God Never Blinks.
God loves us so much that He wants to spend eternity with us (see John 3:16). He sends us His Spirit to guide us and bring us closer to Him (see John 14:15-21). So let’s turn off the cruise control of our lives and, instead, take advantage of the 40 days of Lent to receive God’s love, strength, and power that He wants so much to give us.
“For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid,
but gives us power, love and self-discipline.”
2 Timothy 1:7
PRAYER:
“Lord, thank You for these 40 days to draw closer to You and each other. We ask You to accompany us on our journey through Lent so that, strengthened by its discipline, we may celebrate Your resurrection triumphantly on Easter morning.”
This article is a personal reflection by Gina Bedell © 2021. It and other reflections written by her invite the reader to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other persons who may guide the reader to a deeper faith and understanding of God’s love and will for their life.
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