From Ash Wednesday to Holy Week, Lent invites us into a 40-day journey with Jesus through the wilderness to the Cross. We watch Jesus battle Satan as good and evil combat. We catch a glimpse of Satan who tries to lure Jesus, and how the enemy of our soul tries to lure us also in the struggle between what is true and what is false.

 

Lent, solemn and serious, summons us to examine our own story, our own choices, and our own temptations. We reflect, confess, and repent. Spiritual practices engaged in during Lent prepare our hearts for Holy Week where we see Jesus upon the Cross and find the gloriously empty tomb of Easter morning. 

 

As we enter Lent’s six-week journey, aware of our human frailty, dust-made and dusty of heart, we see afresh our utter need for Christ. We trace Christ’s sojourn in the desert, finding that what tempts Him mirrors what tempts us. In the desert, the devil attempts to entice, lure, and provoke Jesus. Watching all this, we recognize how Satan attempts to distract us. He attempts to obstruct the path that leads to the heart of God and the heart of God’s calling for each of us. 

 

In reflection, we notice our waywardness amid skirmishes of the heart. Just one step this way or that, and suddenly we are far away from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet God ever desires our presence, so He keeps inviting us back. “Return to Me,” He says. We ache to return. We desire a way forward into deep intimacy and more integration with God. 

 

Repentance turns us from the clash of where we are and how we are being to the conviction of who God is and how He invites us to become fully His. Renewed through reflection, confession, and repentance, we engage more fully with our God. Our hearts more deeply surrender, moving ever towards the call God offers us as His delightful beloveds, His Kingdom people.

 

This Lent, I invite you to take time to explore and meditate on scriptures, to examine the Bible’s words, seeing them from several angles. Such a long journey over six weeks requests a steadfast pace with sturdy rhythms. As we read, reflect, and repent, we find ourselves in the journey of transformation. We come to know fresh restoration. Let’s recognize and remember the past, stay present in the moment, and consider the way forward for the future. 

 

Spiritual Practices During Lent 

Practices of any kind enable us to take what we know in our heads and synthesize them into our daily lives. We practice so integration of habits becomes core muscle memory that transforms us towards the way we want to be as we live on this earth. Spiritual practices provide a trellis, room for growth to occur. 

In Lent, we choose spiritual practices to accompany us across the desert wilderness with Jesus on His 40-day fast as He encounters Satan who tries to tempt Him. Lent’s classical Spiritual Practices include: 

• • Fasting FROM something (and fasting TO something)
  • Confession
  • Repentance
  • Generosity

 

Fasting FROM Something

Fasting allows us to enter into Lent as an echo in some small way of the 40-day fast Jesus experienced in the wilderness. It requires discipline: a sacrifice of time, energy, emotions, and physical body. As we fast, our hearts notice what fills us up too easily with the things of this world. Here we are invited to use the time reclaimed through fasting to increase our focus on Christ’s sacrifice for us. We fast to feast on God. 

 

Choices for your Lenten Fast:

Many Christ-followers traditionally abstain from certain foods all during Lent. For some, this means no meat on Ash Wednesday in addition to all the Fridays in Lent. For others, it’s another iteration of what food to refrain from over this holy season. This letting go of certain foods is not about a diet, but rather clearing the palate of our disordered appetites and releasing what lures us to fill up the emptiness within. When we overconsume or overindulge, we discover that our soul is misaligned and distant from God. 

 

Lenten fasts can include abstaining from some habit, rather than a traditionally chosen food item. What habit grips us in some manner? To refrain from this habit involves a layer of intentionality to give it up for the six weeks of Lent, excluding Sundays. Traditionally Sundays in Lent offer an oasis from the desert sojourn of Lent, from the chosen spiritual disciplines of Lent. Let’s step into Sundays as mini-feast days. Let’s celebrate the great love Jesus offers. Let’s allow Sundays to be a day to rejoice in the ordinary moments as we prepare to rejoice in the eternal glory of Easter: Resurrection Sunday.

 

We all have something that curtails our spiritual growth, for like Jesus, we too are engaged in a battle between what is good and what is evil. Satan attempts to pull us away from God by small habits. Lent offers an opportunity to set those aside. Perhaps instead of fasting from food, we might choose to go without gossip, grumbling, gazing at social media, going shopping for items beyond essentials, or saying no to ___, ___, or ____.

 

Prayerfully consider what you might fast from during Lent. What might help you draw near to God, go deeper with Jesus, and lean on the Spirit’s guidance? Allow Holy Spirit’s wisdom and invitation for what to fast from in Lent. Ponder what holds your heart, body, mind, or spirit a bit too tightly. What’s an idol, an indulgence, a place that too easily sways you away from God? Turn aside from that for six weeks, excepting Sunday’s Feast Days. 

 

Fasting TO Something

Quite often what we fast from gives a hint as to where we need more core strength of soul, mind, or body. We give up a habit that weakens the soul, mind, or body to tuck in closer to God and be remade. We add a spiritual practice to declare a way to grow steadfastly towards maturity in our life with God. We invite God’s gracious kindness to be a gift to encourage us. 

 

For example:

• • Gossip – If I fall into the too-easy habit of gossip, whether a quiet though nasty attitude or one said aloud, to keep my soul/mouth shut from thinking or talking poorly of others creates a sacrificial fast for Lent. Using time normally spent in gossip, instead perhaps I read through the book of Proverbs, refreshing my mind about what is wise in terms of thoughts and speech, and then I enter the prayerful practice of intercession, intentionally praying for those people I’ve lambasted.

 

• • Budget – If I shatter my budget every single month on something indulgent for me, a fast from purchases brings attentiveness to that troublesome habit and helps realign my heart to God. A holy practice to counteract that overindulgence might be to offer time and energy to those with financial needs among family, friends, or neighbors. I might spend time at the local food bank or on a yard or house renovation for someone in need as well as make a financial donation equivalent to my too-easy indulgence purchases.

 

• • TV – Endless mindless TV watching? Fast from that. Head to bed earlier than usual during Lent to let Morning Prayers gain spaciousness. Or fill that time with a leisurely intake of a book in the Bible or a classic Christian book.

 

• • Hurry – We might fast from hurry, busy, overly full days to slower days full of contemplative lingering in God’s presence. 

 

Our besetting sins give us hints as to what we need healing around so we might become more whole and holy, full instead of besetting wonders, prayers, and strengths.  

 

Confession & Repentance

Confession: What hinders our holiness? 

Our greatest desire as Christ’s followers is to become like He is. However, we are not there yet. We read in Romans 3:23 that we all sin, delving into choices not in harmony with God. We fall short of, miss the mark of, the complete picture of being fully in the goodness and holiness of God. Isaiah 53:6 reminds us that we each are sheep gone astray, headed out on our mighty independent way. 

 

Lent invites us to consider ways we stray and then involves time for confession as well. Confession feels daunting yet offers us a way home to God’s heart. Spending time with God in prayerful confession allows space to discover the weeds and stones that restrain our spiritual growth. In addition to confession with God alone, we may also choose to meet with a safe wise godly person, someone trained in listening to the heart. Consider who grasps the layers of the soul and offers the ministry of listening, such as a spiritual director, pastor, wise mentor, or a trustworthy friend who walks deeply with Jesus.

 

Confession: Seeing my soul more clearly

Where might we unearth things for confession? Sometimes we do not notice what’s out of sync with what God desires, and we are blind to the conflict between true and false, good and evil in our own daily familiar-to-us story. 

 

When I find I’m not sure where I am misaligned with God’s heart, where I am disordered in my thinking, being, or doing, I need another perspective. I spend time with God in places in His Word that help me examine and sort through my heart, mind, body, and spirit. 

 

As we read slowly through passages such as Matthew 5:1-10, the Sermon on the Mount, or the Ten Commandments, we discover what God has to say. We can ponder scriptures and questions such as these:

• • Where is your heart, mind, and body misaligned with the Kingdom of God? 
  • What besetting sins, things to which you easily return, draw you away from intimacy with God? What specifically needs naming and confessing? 
  • What tempts you and persuades you away from Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? What places in you need or resist forgiveness from God?  

Allow one or two places to rise to the surface, a place of brokenness that could use more healing. Be kind to yourself by honing in on only one or two areas. Let it be a place of contrition and confession offered to God. With open hands and heart, receive His kind generous heart of forgiveness. 

 

Repentance: Where we head home a new way

Repentance goes hand-in-hand with confession. We weep as we confess then we rise to head home another way. Metanoia, the Greek word for repent, could be described best with a U-turn sign. We literally change our minds and our ways, turning from the mindset and path we have been on to the path that leads us back to the haven of home in God’s heart. 

 

Often read in Ash Wednesday services, Joel 2:12-13 says,

“Even now,” declares the Lord,
  “return to me with all your heart,
    with fasting and weeping and mourning.”

Rend your heart
    and not your garments.
Return to the Lord your God,
    for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
    and he relents from sending calamity.”

 

Our fasting, weeping, and mourning rends our hearts. Our heart recognizes the grief of our sins. Then, repentant, we return to the Lord. Like the Prodigal Son, we discover a Father who runs to greet us with delight that we are back in His arms. He desires our company, delights in us, and declares us as His own. 

 

The Apostle Paul’s life clearly shows what happens when we rend our hearts and change directions. In repentance, we do not return to our old ways. We move forward with a change of mind, body, and heart, craving the Kingdom of God more than the kingdom of me or the kingdom of man. Consider what repentance might look like as you delve deep into the way Lent invites new pathways homeward.

 

Generosity: A Heart Practice Reexamined in Lent 

When we stand before the words in Isaiah 58:10-11, we look in the mirror of our state of generosity. What we offer God comes from what He offers us. It’s all His. Jesus left heaven for the Cross for you and me. From the Cross, the emptied tomb shimmers Resurrection glory. Sometimes it’s easier to offer our heart than our finances. Physical and emotional scarcity taunt us that we won’t be cared for, that there won’t be enough. God wraps provision up in a blanket of trust, asking us to be wildly bold with our resources, which all come from His hands. Yet when we look at our budget and our buying habits, we often see that fear reigns as the state of our hearts. 

 

When we say the words in the Lord’s Prayer, we say, “I shall not want.” Yet when we overbuy or are stingy to share, the truth of how much we trust God is unveiled. Fasting from something, such as food or spending, frees up both our hearts and our wallets. With the funds, time, and energy saved during our Lenten fast, those resources become available for us to generously give to others in need through both pragmatic service and sacrificial giving.

 

As you consider your journey with Jesus through the wilderness across the season of Lent, what Lenten spiritual practice is Jesus asking you to step into that will deepen your life with God?  What will help your body, mind, and spirit mature into the person Jesus knows you can become? 

 

Lent spreads itself across slow weeks, inviting us to prepare our souls afresh to life with Jesus as we walk with Him to the Cross and the Resurrection. May you find this Lent to be a holy season as you draw near god as you engage in 

• • Fasting
  • Confession
  • Repentance
  • Generosity

 

If you desire a guide on an even deeper walk with Jesus this Lent, check out my “Jesus in the Wilderness” resource. I’d love to walk with you!