Facebook, Coffee, Beer, TV, Sugar, Chocolate
And that list is just the beginning of things people give up for lent. Lent is to be a time of fasting, repentance, and preparation not a way to jump start your diet or revive the New Year's resolution you haven't followed through on. So when I have friends say they are giving up Facebook or Slurpees for 40 days I'm not all that impressed because they are giving that thing up for the wrong reason(s). I think this is why every year I consider observing Lent and every year, without fail thus far, on Ash Wednesday I change my mind and don't do it. Oh sure I could pick something to not do or eat for 40 days but I know, deep down, it's not going to change my relationship with God one bit. All it will do is create a hunger in me so by the time I hit day 40 I'm so jumpy from withdrawals that on day 41 I binge out on the thing I had just given up for 40 days. Or I find a replacement for the thing I gave up and it becomes just as much of an addiction as the thing I could finally shake loose from.
I grew up Baptist and Lent wasn't observed or actually even mentioned. I had no idea what it was until some point in my adult life when all the puzzle pieces came together and I finally figured out why the fish sandwich at McDonald's was so popular with Catholics on Fridays. It all seem shrouded in mystery or perhaps mysticism especially since it directly followed Mardi Gras each year. And everyone knows what kind of spirits hang out in New Orleans and the Mardi Gras parties. *wink* Ash Wednesday follows Fat Tuesday and I always thought that was very clever of the Church. Make a day of repentance following a day of excess and hedonism and then attempt to spend the next 39 days atoning for and/or recovering from that "one night" of excess.
But in my mid-30's I started getting really interested in the actual purpose of Lent. Not the Lent that so many I know practice to shake the monkey off their back, not the Lent that so many I know use to beat themselves into some sort of weird submission to some guilt induced behavior, not the Lent I know that means nothing except fish on Fridays and Mass on Sundays. No, I started getting interested in Lent - the Lent that is a true preparation of spirit, the Lent that spends time examining the heart, the Lent that has its focus on Christ and not on self, the Lent that leads to a simultaneous decrease and increase.
The history of Lent itself is not something I am interested in getting into here but suffice it to say it has a long history. In fact, the book 40 Days of Decrease by Alicia Britt Chole gives a brief history of Lent for each of the 40 days along with the rest of the focus for that day. It's an in-depth history of the practice of Lent but in bite-sized pieces so you don't get too full too fast.
The practice of Lent is the thing I am the most interested in getting into. If it was just jump starting a diet or shaking some monkey off my back I would have attempted it long ago. But since it isn't, since I believe it is to be taken more seriously than that, I have abstained until this year. And I wouldn't necessarily say I practiced it this year, I would say I am warming up to the practice of it.
When I think of decrease I think of John 3:30. Of course I do.
"He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less."
But just because it's kind of an obvious scripture to think of doesn't make it less important or invalidate it. It is, in my opinion, one the the most important and hardest scriptures to live out and become. Us humans don't like to decrease, it stings our flesh and the desires of our flesh. We like being number one - self important and entitled. We are addicted to the illusion of control we have over our lives. Decreasing means we have to give up that illusion.
Decreasing means reduction. Becoming progressively less. Lent is a time to pinpoint those areas in which I need to become progressively less invested because it affects my health. And I'm not talking about physical health, although that is certainly a side effect. Decreasing is an inside out process. It must start from within, eventually it is seen externally. This past Lent season I used a guide for my warm-up to the practice of Lent. The guide helped me to pinpoint the things in my life, and heart, that are the obstacles to complete health. Things like: using something like Lent as a project for jump starting a lifestyle change (that's day 1), ignoring or rushing through things that cause sorrow and grief, isolating self, being a spectator when God has asked us to be a participant, profiling people, treating God like he is a job and not a relationship, the comparison trap, self-protection, rationalizing, revising for comfort, needing praise from others and seeking it out. And the list went on. I don't know about you but some of those made me go, "Ouch." And if I'm honest with myself, if I practice the self-awareness I tell other people it is necessary to have, then I have to confront those ugly things about myself and reduce their influence in my heart and mind and therefore life. Do I profile people? Yes. I try so very hard not to but I do. Have I treated God like he's another thing to mark off my to-do list for the day? I have. I have tried not to but I'm guilty of treating him like a task and not like the Creator of my life. I've sat on the sidelines and watched life pass me by instead of joining in life. I allow so many things and reasons to keep me "sidelined." There's some scriptures that make me wince internally and I have tried to revise them so that I'm not stung with conviction each time they appear in my life. The fact is I need the sting of the truth to encourage the necessary decrease.
For the past three, maybe four, years I have been observing the Feast of Unleavened Bread. You can read my past posts about it here and here. Observing this feast is similar to Lent. It's purpose is to highlight the things in my life that need to reduce. The fact is, this process of decreasing is ongoing. I will never "arrive" at a place or time in which I don't need a reduction of some sort in my life. Philippians 1:6 supports this truth. As long as I have breath I am in continuing education about myself which includes decreasing in the things that make me unhealthy.
What does it mean to decrease? It means to become less and less and allow him, the Creator of your life, to become more and more.
Supplemental Thoughts on Ways to Observe Lent:
Eugene Cho
Pope Francis
Anna Whittaker
The Art of Simple
Here's a visual of a decrease idea, as your stuff decreases allow God to have an increase.
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