Lent reflections and looking ahead
Well, Lent has been over for a couple weeks, but I just wanted to let you guys know I made it. Forty days without chocolate, desserts, or anything sweeter than an apple or grapes. Lent has come and gone, and now it’s time to ponder.
I did Lent for the second time in my life this year, opting to give up sweets. A little cliche perhaps, but my sweet tooth is definitely one of my downfalls. If there was a club for people like me, I might not be the president, but I’d at least be the secretary or treasurer. As you can imagine, I was a little worried about how tough those 40 days were going to be.
But you know what? In my nonchalant Kentuckyese I say, “It wudn’t that bad.”
Without a doubt, it’s my Christian upbringing that instilled in me the notion that a promise to God is 1,000 percent fo’ shizzle serious. The Pinkie Promise to end all pinkie promises. Like, Game of Thrones’ Brienne of Tarth “I made a vow and I’m dead serious, try to stop me and see what happens” kind of promise. (Side note: Y’all, how ’bout this final season?!)
So basically, I just removed sweets from my mind as a possibility. I’m not saying I didn’t sometimes have to leave the kitchen if I found myself eyeing the Nutella, or that I never once envied a coworker nibbling on a piece of candy, because I definitely did; I just told myself I’d made a promise to God, and that was more important than momentary chocolatey bliss. I wish I had some grandiose explanation, some simple steps for others to follow who want to cut out food temptations for religious or dietary reasons, but that’s all I got. Godspeed (literally).
But when Easter finally arrived and I got to enjoy some dessert from the brunch buffet after church, a comparison between Lent and human life in general began to form in my mind. It was almost like God was saying, “You know how good these desserts are, how much you’re enjoying yourself? You know how you feel like you’ve reached the end of a long tunnel where you struggled to blind yourself to everything but the light at the end? You know how you feel satisfied that you kept your promise to Me and now get to indulge? Yeah, that’s what I want for your life. Sometimes your life will be hard, but you’ve given Me your heart, and there’s something sweeter than chocolate at the end.”
And that made me feel pretty darn good.
I thought a lot about heaven during Lent. I think it’s pretty common for Christians and non-Christians alike to view heaven as a reward. While I don’t think that’s totally inaccurate, I’ve also always felt kind of funny thinking of the final destination with Jesus as a carrot at the end of this stick we call life. Is that the only thing that’s supposed to motivate humans to give their hearts to Jesus? “Do this thing, and you’ll get a treat!” It feels like such a superficial thing to say, like what we’d say to a dog or a child. It sounds like a bribe.
As I continued to think about it, though, I considered how Christians refer to heaven as our home. If heaven is our home, then we’re just on vacation here on earth. I don’t know about you, but when I’ve been on vacation, I don’t think of returning home as a reward; I think of it as a relief, a place of rest where my wandering is over. Did I enjoy vacation? Sure, for the vast majority of it. But I’m always ready to go home because it’s where I belong.
So I believe that heaven is more than a perk in the benefits package of being a Christian; it’s where God wants us. It’s why He sent His son to die.
Which brings me to another realization I had after Lent. I have to humble myself here and admit that I used to borderline make fun of people who fasted. I’d internally criticize people who posted woe-is-me updates on social media about how they’d kill for some ice cream or a giant soft drink while they were fasting. I’d snort and say to myself, “Yeah, looks like they’re reeeeally benefiting from this fast. All they can think about is food. Shouldn’t they be focusing on God?”
You can say I started throwing some stones from the porch of my glass domicile, which was not cool.
When I actually participated in a fast of sorts myself, I learned firsthand that, while my commitment didn’t stop me from wanting a Reese’s shake from Cook Out, I was gaining the insight I detailed in the above paragraphs. I also had to remind myself of one of my favorite stories in the Bible: the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Matthew 4:2 actually says, “After fasting forty days and forty nights, He (Jesus) was hungry.” In other words, Jesus was committed to fasting to prepare Himself for His ministry, but that didn’t mean He just stopped wanting food. The Devil tried to tempt Jesus to turn the stones to bread, but Jesus refused.
That hit me. Jesus being hungry wasn’t a sin; acting on the hunger (giving into temptation) and breaking the fast He’d committed to would have been a sin, which He didn’t do.
It was easy for me to sit on the outside and say someone else wasn’t being “holy enough,” but I was wrong. That’s a gift Lent gave me this year.
And that’s better than any of the Easter candy I snagged at 50 percent off at Meijer.
The Weight Is Over 