Why I Didn't Give Anything Up for Lent

Happy mid-Lent everybody. I hope you're having a wonderfully somber time.

Really, though, every year since I was about eleven I have done something for Lent. I started out when I was younger by doing easy things like giving up chocolate. It was a good start to getting me in the practice of spiritual disciplines.

When I got older, I started doing harder things, like committing to reading my Bible every day, giving up meat, committing to being in bed by 11 p.m. every night, or fasting one day a week. I tried to keep these things pretty secretive when I was doing them because of their introspective nature. I share them with you now so that 1) you can see that Lent does not need to be confined to giving up pop or something like that 2) you can see where I stand on this: I am all for spiritual disciplines. I don't intend to flaunt my spirituality either, because I've definitely flubbed up on some of those commitments or had a hard time finding the spiritual benefit in them.

This year, I had several ideas for what I could do. My problem (if you could call it that) is that I often take things literally, like when I considered taking a vow of silence or when I cut my dreads, to name a few instances. I also have a weird desire to be a radical, to live out my beliefs as practically and externally as possible, not to prove a point to anybody, but because it's the right thing to do, the most genuine way to live.

I think that's why I admire Chris McCandless so much. He had passionate beliefs, like hunger is wrong and money causes greed. So after graduating college, he donated his $24,000 of savings to Oxfam and lived an intentionally minimalistic life for his remaining two years. Maybe his lifestyle is not the one I would strive for, but he acted on his beliefs, and that, to me, is incredibly important. I'm convinced that he found his life to be very meaningful and fulfilling. I can only hope to live as genuinely as him. Same with Jesus.

Anyway, I had all these ideas for changing myself, but was having a hard time finding both spiritual merit and practicality behind any of them.

It was Ash Wednesday and I still didn't have anything. Church was an emotional time for me that night, and I realized during the service that my efforts to change myself are futile. As I experienced last summer and fall, God is capable of radically transforming my heart where my own efforts failed.

So I gave it up and decided, fine, let's see how God changes me.

I can't look back and say yet what has changed, but I do think he is helping me to recognize my sin and repent. I don't really know what else. We'll see.


God bless.