Lenten Days

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and thus begins the Lenten season. Raised Baptist, I didn't really hear about the "give up something for Lent" concept as a kid.  I'm sure the word "Lent" was used in my childhood churches but I didn't really grasp the idea of Christ's last days until I was much older. And while I would sometimes half-heartedly (and, more often than not, belatedly) give up a certain activity or food for a couple weeks, I'd usually mistakenly fall back into it at some point. Out to dinner with friends, I'd remember I'd given up dairy midway through cheese pizza slice number two.

I think I struggled with the sacrificial concept in the past because it just seemed like such a ridiculous comparison. Giving up cheese to mimic my Savior's pain on the cross?  Am I really comparing these two things? Or, I'd commit to doing a particularly grueling workout everyday for Lent, telling myself it was all for the glory of God, enduring something arduous, just like Jesus. Please. Jesus had zero to do with that. I wanted to lose 10 lbs before prom. I'd last maybe a week, chide myself for being a poor, ineffective Christian, and then console myself with the knowledge that Baptists don't really care if you give anything up anyway. Leave the sacrificing to the Catholics, I'll take my sola gratia, please.

I'll admit, it's a sloppy relationship with a legitimate concept.

But what makes it a legitimate idea, a potentially encouraging spiritual exercise, has nothing to do with comparisons. The beauty of "by Grace alone" rests on this idea that we have nothing to offer capable of echoing Christ's sacrifice.  What we do have, what we are capable of, is obedience. Not perfect obedience, hence the need for Grace, but we can look to Christ and do our best to emulate Him, do our best to follow his teachings, and do our best to remember Him in every moment.

And that's how Lenten changes began to work for me, began to make sense.  Not when they had anything to do with sacrifice, but when their purpose was  to remind me of Grace, remind me of how big Grace is and yet how specific it is in its embrace of me. And so I try to make changes that I must revisit and remember multiple times a day. The easiest way to do this for me is with food.  One of my most effective changes was when I made a rule that I would never read and/or watch TV and/or play on my computer while eating.  This seems like it would be easy.  But I live alone, and with nobody to talk to across the table for many meals, I found myself reading the paper, emailing, or watching TV during almost all meals.  At work, I ate at my desk, typing away between bites.  Forcing myself to just sit and eat was excruciating for the first couple of weeks. I broke down a couple times and "cheated" by allowing myself to call a friend and talk while I sipped my soup. But for the most part, I held fast. And every time I sat down, I remembered why I'd turned all that extra noise off, why the action was important. That change actually became a fairly solid habit so it's no longer something I'd consider for Lent. But food changes work for me so I'm sticking to that genre.

I've been a vegetarian before, for several years actually.  And I can easily go a week without eating meat, although fish is almost always in the equation.  But I'm giving up meat (red and white) and fish this Lent because removing it as a possibility will require thought. I will have to think about it when I make my lunch each night.  I will have to see the meats in my freezer and remember that they are not an option.  When I try out new restaurants, something I love to do, I will have to review menus with an eye as to what my meatless self can eat.  This will rarely feel like sacrifice to me, but it will always require planning. And it's the planning and the thinking that I desperately need where God is concerned.

Because the sacrifice I can take for granted.  The Cross, the Grace, all of it.  If I do not force myself to remember what has been done for me, I will ignore that sacrifice because it is so easy to do so. I will go to work, I will see my friends, I will date, I will write, I will explore the world God gave me and I will never think of Him. This is how I am programmed, my easiest temptation, to wander away not because I'm angry or disappointed in God, but because I stopped caring enough to remember Him. And Lent is the season I try to reel my wandering self back in and remember several times a day, that God is in my life, in my heart, and on the Cross for me.