It's time for the familiar, seasonal conversation. Every
year, it's about the same, just with different combinations
of children. They talk about what to give up for Lent. They
weigh one thing against another, testing the viability of
various options. They bounce ideas off one another, and they
are honest in rejecting or applauding those ideas. One
refrain always makes itself heard.
"No, I'm not going to do that. I could never stick to that
for 40 days."
"He's right. That's too hard. I tried it last year and
couldn't do it."
And then it's my turn to weigh in. If you can't do it, if you
really, really know that you can't possibly do it, that's
exactly what you should do. Go ahead. Set yourself up for
failure. When the time comes that you falter and you stumble
and you do the thing you expressly resolved not to do, you
will see what it is to come to the end of yourself. You will
know that you have to reach the point where you need grace,
and you will beg for it.
All the tricks and tips will present themselves at the
beginning of Lent. Don't want to eat chocolate? Don't buy it,
and make sure no one brings it into the house. Want to give
up coffee? Stay away from Instagram between the hours of 6
and 10 a.m. lest you be tempted by all the carefully staged
photos of foamy latte art. And all the tricks will fail if
you have chosen your sacrifice well. The things of the world
- the tricks and the tips - will sustain you only so long.
Your soul will be filled only when it is emptied of worldly
tricks and tips, emptied of your own resolve and good
intentions, and looks to God to fill it.
People who don't understand Lent object by saying that we are
trying to live under God's law, that it is unnecessary to
observe Lent because Jesus already has done the work of
salvation on the cross. We don't have to work out our
salvation with self-imposed suffering. He's done it all. It
is finished. We are saved.
They're right, in a way. Lent teaches us that even if we
wanted to, even if we were of iron will and utter devotion,
we will break God's law. We cannot keep it perfectly. We are
a people born into sin, and there is no way out without God.
For 40 days, every time we bump up against the struggle of
making our sacrifice well, we are reminded of death in sin,
and we look with hope toward Christ, who brings light and
life to the darkness. Lent is precisely about making us aware
that it is Jesus Christ, crucified, who has opened the gates
of heaven.
This, then, is Lent: to falter, to fail, to find Him. Choose
the hard thing, the thing that brings you to your knees, the
thing that reminds you to ask again and again for His mercy
and His grace. Choose the thing that will empty your soul of
you and fill it with God. (It's likely that is not
chocolate.) Let Lent teach you the places you will fail, the
places where you are frail. Let it remind you that you are
dust and to dust you will return. Let it break you and bring
you down. Let it find you kneeling in the dirt - soft,
yielding, fertile dirt that will bloom in time with Easter
glory. Let it empty you of your weak and weary self and fill
you with His strength.
Foss, whose website is elizabethfoss.com, is a
freelance writer from Northern Virginia.