Lent is a precious time of grace given to us by the Lord, to help us in our journey towards sainthood. Over a period of 40 days, we allow ourselves to be drawn away from those things that distract us from God and lure us into sin, and we seek to deepen our loving relationship with him.
Many of us will be familiar with the notion of giving up things like chocolate, or social media, for Lent, and perhaps we even succeed in refraining from them for the whole 40 days. And whilst we may choose these particular challenges with the desire to grow in our relationship with God, it is very easy to fall into one of two traps.
The first is to turn Lent into a self-improvement challenge. Giving up chocolate or social media will be great for our physical and mental health, and we will undoubtedly enjoy the benefits that this will bring to our lives. So much so, that this can easily overshadow the call to spiritual growth that Lent entails. Within a fortnight, the priority at the forefront of our minds can become improving our physical health and championing our mental discipline, rather than seeking humble encounter and relationship with the Lord.
The second is to mistakenly believe that Lent is about self-punishment through denying ourselves good things that we feel we do not deserve, making ourselves mournful and miserable, adopting a ‘woe-is-me’ attitude. True, we hear an instruction in the Bible to be mournful during times of repentence, but we must not misunderstand this: the calling is to mourn those parts of us that turn us away from God, but never to regard our very selves as wretched. God created our souls as inherently good; it’s our minds that need healing. We can make Lent about our own endless insuffiency, rather than the Lord’s endless grace and abundance. The fruit of this is spending the entirety of Lent transfixed by ourselves, rather than allowing ourselves to gaze upon God and freely allowing him to love us.
Lent is about LIFE. It is a beautiful gift to us, as it is a time of re-kindled hope and revival of the soul. We should not give up some unhealthy or unnecessary habit out of a desire to simply suffer hardship, grow in strength or receive some form of just punishment. But instead, we prayerfully identify the parts of our life that do not leave space for God, which smother our spiritual lives, and we willingly suspend them for a time. Think of it as a trial period for a subscription to prayer life you’ve been thinking about but haven’t gotten round to establishing; for 40 days, you adopt the lifestyle that you feel God inviting you live in order to encounter him. And crucially, you allow some empty space in your life so that you can hear him guiding you in it (hence we give certain things up – it’s about creating space, not taking on extra challenges).
What we tend to discover is that those lifestyle factors that we suspend, such as eating junk food, or doomscrolling through meaningless social media feeds, are layers that, once removed, leave us feeling more free and able to remain present to God.
The best prayer life is not one in which specific conditions have been painstakingly designed and squeezed into a busy lifestyle; but rather, we need to create space to rest with God, and this is where the encounter can take place on God’s terms, rather than our own.
God doesn’t want to be just one more item on our to-do list, competing for our time and attention amongst a myriad of tasks, health routines, and entertainment channels. He wants to be the one you see when you step out of the mental bubble within which your unhealthy attachments have trapped you, outside of which you can breathe clearly and have the mental space to re-connect with your Creator.
So in choosing your Lent focus, don’t just pick a stock-standard challenge for the sake of some growth or self-discipline. Identify what areas of your life are anaesthetising your desire for God, and blocking him out. Prayerfully (and honestly!) consider whether they are necessary in your life, and dedicate these forty days to a trial of replacing them with intentional S P A C E for God. If you don’t like how it feels to refrain from those things, you are free to pick them back up after Lent finishes, but at least give God the opportunity to encounter you and grow your relationship with him during these forty days.
And no, you won’t always enjoy the feeling of cutting out your entertainments and lifestyle benefits during this period. As Lent wears on, your enthusiasm will weaken, you may become bored and restless, and you may wonder whether any of this is worth the trouble. Let’s call this out now so that this doesn’t sneak up on you and catch you unaware! Commitment is not a decision you make in the moment of zeal, it’s about your steadfast dedication when that initial moment of ardour has passed. And in the spiritual life, it’s precisely that period in which God draws you closest to himself and grows your heart most profoundly. We are called to grow in this in all areas of our lives, but Lent is a particular time of intentionality in this area. So don’t give up halfway through Lent; stay strong and run the race to the finish, and you’ll encounter God’s heart in a way you could never do by just chasing good feelings.
Lent is about life, and what that life looks like is something you’ll have to discover for yourself. You’ll find it when you leave space for God.