What does Lent symbolize to you?
Ideally, the purpose of the Lenten season is to set aside time for reflection on Jesus Christ, and your faith in God. Lent is one of those things that is not in the Bible, yet is very important in church life.
The word fasting gets brought into the Lent conversation. As Biblical as fasting can be, I would like to go a different route: Lent represents our hunger for Jesus and all things holy.
I am not here to critique Lent as a whole. There is a lot wrong with church. Perhaps in a future post, we can deconstruct the verses that they read during Lent and why. A lot of churches say that Lent is a way to analyze sins in your life and focus on one. If you are living a life of sin, you need more than Lent. Thus, Lent can represent a start of said deconstruction of those vices. We all have ways that we can improve our life. This is why I believe that Lent at its best is having some self reflection.
When done right, Lent is a time of self-reflection. In improving yourself, you also improve yourself to give more to your faith. Lent is a win-win. I also enjoy Lent because I am giving a piece of myself to God- this can be covered in my past articles on this site. Lent is a rare time that we can show that our faith is a true symbiotic relationship- it can be hard to discern what you do for your church and what you do for God.
I made the decision to start my Lenten journey now because I noticed a part of my life that can be improved and want to attack it now. This self reflection fits the Lent timeline. I want to take 40 days to see if this habit is doing more harm than good in my life. So I figured ‘why not use it as Lent.’ I have faith that I will honor God by doing this. This was not an easy decision to start my Lenten commitment early. I did a lot of praying on if this was the right thing to do. I kept coming back to the fact that trying to practice good habits is something that should be done regardless. Some people use New Year’s Resolutions to try to tackle their sins. Resolutions fail where Lent succeeds because of the 40 day timeline.
A beauty that I find in doing this early, is that I am showing God that I am willing to better myself in the name of faith, whenever that needs to be done. You should never stop trying to have a symbiotic relationship with God.
Another reason that I am able to rationalize doing this is because Lent is a man-made tradition. All of the rules, especially fasting are not in the Bible. Lent has Biblical representations that should not be lost. Some great Bible verses can be found below:
Mark 1:13 Good News Translation
“…where he stayed forty days, being tempted by Satan. Wild animals were there also, but angels came and helped him.“
Luke 4:1-2
Good News Translation
The Temptation of Jesus
“Jesus returned from the Jordan full of the Holy Spirit and was led by the Spirit into the desert, where he was tempted by the Devil for forty days. In all that time he ate nothing, so that he was hungry when it was over.“
It is not lost on me that Ash Wednesday to Easter honors the death and resurrection of Jesus. Tracking 40 days can be hard, when you are not doing this on the church calendar. Google Calendar makes it so easy. For 40 days, I have set a reminder that states:
“What are you doing for God today?”
This is yet another thing that I am doing to remind myself that this is for God.
Church is a great way to improve yourself year round. As humans, it is up to us to take the lessons from it. Just because something doesn’t fit on the church timeline, doesn’t mean you can’t allow it to fit on yours. Everyone in church is there to improve themselves in one way or another. Lent is a great guide for that.
Here is another reason: we do this for us. Unless you need the structure and rigidness of someone telling you what to do, then you can do whatever you want. Free thought is not a sin. I am on my church journey for three reasons:
- To improve myself
- To do some good in the world
- By doing the first two items, it shows God that I have more room for God. In exchange all I want is more room to keep this cycle going.
Lent is great because it is not always easy. Christ did not walk an easy journey. In church we are constantly asked how can we be more Christ-like? The easiest way is self improvement so that we can be better for others around us.
Does this timeline make Lent not special to me? On the contrary, I feel that it makes it more. I feel that I am taking the initiative to improve myself and that something that we can all agree on: celebrating God in the best way that I can, with the intention of getting better so I can do it more for God in return.
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