While many of us may have been more aware of Valentine’s Day
this week, another significant day quietly preceded it: Ash Wednesday. In the
church’s liturgical calendar, Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, a 40-day
season of spiritual preparation before Easter that has historically involved
fasting and prayer as we intentionally seek to reflect upon Jesus’ sacrifice on
our behalf.
I grew up in a small, independent Bible church, and Lent was
not a spiritual practice that we observed. Until I got married and joined my
wife at her Presbyterian church nine years ago, I’d never had much experience with
Lent. Since then I’ve come to appreciate this annual opportunity to yield
something that my heart (and, sometimes, my body) hungers for to God, for the
purpose of drawing more closely to Him.
Observing Lent has traditionally involved abstaining from
certain foods, such as meat in the Catholic tradition, for instance. In more
recent decades, some Christians have broadened the scope of Lenten fasting to
include abstaining from anything that our hearts or bodies fixate upon or seek
to find satisfaction in. The goal, then, becomes one of yielding a particular
appetite to God and inviting Him into the void that abstaining from that thing
leaves.
I’ve fasted from various things over the years, usually
related to some particular appetite. A couple of years ago, my wife and I gave
up Starbucks for Lent. (That was a tough year!) More recently, I’ve gravitated
toward giving up something related to technology and media, since those things
can seep so easily into every available crevice of my life, it seems.
This year, I’m giving up visiting one of my favorite
websites for Lent (a guitar oriented website, if you must know). And while that
may not seem a huge sacrifice, frankly, I go there too much, and I’m
occasionally aware that it reinforces my already strong materialistic impulses.
In moments where I might ordinarily take a quick “break” to see what’s
happening on that forum, I’m trying to talk to God and ask Him to fill me
instead of looking for something in the world to try to accomplish that
purpose.
It turns out that I’m not alone in my 21st-century
approach to Lent. Since 2009, the social networking site Twitter (of all things!)
has kept track of what its members say they are relinquishing. The 2013 Twitter
Lent Tracker gathered information from more than a quarter of a million tweets
last week, and among the top 10 responses, there were some that were obviously
sarcastic (being pope, virginity) but a number of other ones that are likely
earnest Lenten resolutions, such as fasting from soda, social networking, alcohol, junk food,
fast food, Instagram, sweets, chocolate and smoking, among many others in the
100-item list.
While I think there’s real benefit in such fasts, whether
during a season such as Lent or simply because we feel convicted to cut back on
something, I also think we need to be clear about our motivations and what we
are hoping to accomplish.
Whatever we choose to abstain from during Lent doesn’t make
us more holy or acceptable to God. I think the real value of such a fast, be it
from food or anything else we have an appetite for, is that we begin to cultivate
a deeper sense of how much we rely on whatever we’ve given up to fill us, to
satisfy us, to help us cope or to give us hope.
These fasts, then, don’t make us more “saintly.” They may
not even make us become disciplined or self-controlled (though, perhaps they
might help in that area — another discussion for another time). Instead, they force
us into a posture of dependence upon God as we begin to
experience more viscerally how much we need Him and how we often choose something
other than Him to try to fill that hungry space inside all of us.
