The common refrain is that this Lent began in 2020; the last two years have been one long Lent. It’s easy to understand that train of thought. So much has happened since March 2020, and so much of it has been hard. Very little of the suffering has been of our choosing. No one sat down and prayerfully discerned that a pandemic followed closely by a war in Europe is just exactly what she needed to pursue holiness.
Yet, here we are.
When we are called to follow Jesus into the desert, it is for the purpose of sanctification. These are 40 days set aside to become more like Christ. We become like the ones with whom we spend the most time. So, ideally whatever you choose to do for Lent allows you to spend more time with God so that you become more intimate with God.
Every Lent, we make our plans. We decide on what we will pray, how we will serve and give, and how we will fast. It all looks so good on paper. And then, more often than not, our children wake up the day after Ash Wednesday and life starts to encroach on those well-laid plans and we become so frustrated. Throw in a pandemic (or a war), and the frustration only increases exponentially. We could all be so holy if it weren’t for this fallen world in which we live.
On Ash Wednesday this year, I learned that our kitchen renovation is going to take longer than anticipated. We began in January and I’d hoped we’d finish in mid-March. Now, I’m telling myself that Easter would be just perfect. It turns out that when you renovate a house that’s more than 200 years old, there’s more to making all things new than meets the eye. You might have to go inside every wall and replace every knob and tube wire and update every very old pipe. Every detail demands attention.
What if God wants more attention than what you planned? What if he wants all your attention? What if the real plan for Lent is something like C. S. Lewis described?
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage; but he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself.”
These things take time. And they take a new set of plans. And they require close consultation with the Creator who drew up the plans. He wants you to spend more time with him. He can’t finish this renovation in just a few moments of prayer a day. He needs to walk closely with you all day, every day, for many days.
“If you feel as if you have been living it for a very long time already, consider the idea that the very best Lent might be the one you didn’t choose yourself.”
If Lent doesn’t look like you wanted it to look or if you feel as if you have been living it for a very long time already, consider the idea that the very best Lent might be the one you didn’t choose yourself. It might be the one that the Holy Spirit planned for you. And it might begin in earnest today.
Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, writes from Connecticut.
Recognizing our need