We are currently in the season of Lent. Lent is a period of forty days on the church calendar when Christians prepare for Easter by focusing on fasting, prayer, and self-examination. Lent is meant to be a journey toward joy and hope realized.
I’ve heard it said we appreciate a gift more when we realize our deep desire and/or desperation for a particular gift. When we participate in Lent, we open the door to grasp our great need for grace. As we approach Easter, we experience greater anticipation of the joy and glory that awaits us when we celebrate His resurrection and victory over sin and death.
I appreciate the idea of Lent; however, I struggle every year. For me personally, I easily journey down a dark path of self-incrimination and judgement when I focus for a full forty days on my sin and desperation. Sadly, I tend to miss the notes of grace from a loving Father.
Lent can be a Struggle
Just as I struggle during Lent, I know some of you struggle as well. You feel the joy and hope of Easter is just too far away. You live life in the trenches of a war not everyone else sees or knows about.
Some of you chose to fast something for Lent and now, two weeks in, you find it’s been too hard to manage. You feel like a failure. Perhaps you anticipated your journey to follow a distinct path, and nothing is as you imagined. You may not have felt led to fast anything this Lenten season, and you struggle with feeling less-than as people around you discuss their fasting journey. Or you have a close friend who experiences deep growth as they participate in Lent, and you are not.
Hope from God’s Word
I see you. I know your myriad of emotions because they are mine. Allow me the privilege of reminding you of three truths from God’s Word which God presented to my needy heart.
“…I remember you in my prayers and ask the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, to give you the Spirit, who will make you wise and reveal God to you, so that you will know Him. I ask that your minds may be opened to see His light, so that you will know what is the hope to which He has called you, how rich are the wonderful blessings He promises His people, and how very great is His power at work in us who believe…”
First of all, the Spirit wants to reveal God to you. Both the Father and the Holy Spirit want you to know God. Jesus came to reveal the Father to us. In the gospel of John, chapter 14, Jesus says, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! … Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but the Father who lives in me does His work through me.” (vv9-10, NLT)
We are not on a can’t-win scavenger hunt. God doesn’t play hide-and-seek with us. Unfortunately, we get in our own way and struggle to believe what scripture tells us about God. Instead, we believe lies such as we aren’t good enough to be loved, or we must act with greater kindness and compassion to earn more love, or God meant for us to be lower on an imaginary love scale.
“Even before the world was made, God had already chosen us to be His through our union with Christ, so that we would be holy and without fault before Him. Because of His love God had already decided that through Jesus Christ He would make us His children – this was His pleasure and purpose.”
Ephesians 1:4-5, GNT
Pray and Know God’s Revelation
Second, God welcomes us to pray and ask Him to open our minds and see His light. In Ephesians 1, Paul tells us he asked God to open the minds of the Ephesians. We don’t have Paul standing in our corner; however, we can follow his wisdom.
We often get trapped in our circumstances. Once we begin to struggle, we tend to see the struggle always around us. If we experience a particular fear, we will begin to filter ideas, thoughts, emotions, and situations through that fear. We respond similarly with failure, exhaustion, emotional hurt, and/or physical pain.
We can move toward freedom by humbling ourselves before God and requesting His assistance. When we ask God to open our minds and see His light, we are petitioning God to enable us to see how He moves, the ways in which He chooses to bless, encourage and assist us. The more we become aware of God in our lives, the more we experience hope.
Live in God’s Power
Last, we don’t battle alone, nor rely on our own strength. According to Paul in Ephesians one, God’s great power is at work in us who believe. Paul goes on to say this power is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.
Imagine if you could look at someone who has passed away, and with just a word, they regained their life. Would you not live with greater confidence? Wouldn’t you be less concerned about what others said, how they treated you, or the circumstances you could find yourself in?
I know I don’t always face my fears or my circumstances with the confidence dead-raising power offers. If we are to rely on such limitless strength, we must release control. For us to live grounded in God’s power, we must humbly do what God directs, regardless of what our humanity perceives.
We are Easter People
We believe Jesus Christ is the Messiah. Because of this belief, we are Easter people. We know we desperately need the grace and forgiveness of our resurrected Savior. We only receive holiness and restored relationship with our Creator through Jesus. Remind yourself every day if need be.
Jesus’ journey to the cross wasn’t easy. His day-to-day reality wasn’t filled with joyous expectation. He lived with heartache, rejection, and a human desire to avoid great physical pain. If our Lenten journey is difficult, perhaps we will gain a better understanding of what Jesus endured for our sake.
We will not endure difficulty forever. Some of us will get beyond Lent, celebrate Easter, and life will gain a more even keel. Others will continue to endure great pain and heartache. However, Paul ends Ephesians one with this hope: “Christ rules … above all heavenly rulers, authorities, powers, and lords; he has a title superior to all titles of authority in this world and in the next.” (v21, GNT)
Jesus Christ is sovereign. He gets the last word. He is the Alpha and Omega (Revelation 1:8), our beginning and our end. Jesus IS the journey. None of us who are struggling are losing at Lent. With Jesus, we always win. Hallelujah!
