my Lenten prayer

“I’ll give up ice cream,” one boy declares. “Or maybe my blanket….. No, ice cream. I don’t think I could live without my blanket.”

Today I explained Lent to the children. Forty days of sacrifice, a time to walk into discomfort to remember what our eternal comfort cost God.

Fasting has been an enormous blessing in my life. I am grateful for the discipline that puts my spiritual need for God above my physical need for food. There is a clarity that comes in my soul when I fast, and God has healed me physically and emotionally at various times while fasting.

But, sometimes, I like fasting for reasons I shouldn’t.

In this modern world, with the modern idea that there is no such thing as too skinny, fasting can seem like a good way to lose some left-over baby weight/Christmas cookie pounds/love-of-onion-rings-and-coke weight. During busy days, fasting can become a tool for getting more done: time usually spent eating can easily become time spent working. Sometimes fasting can puff up Christian pride, or make it seem as if God is obligated by the act of sacrifice. After all, I am fasting for God!

If you read Isaiah 58, it is plain to see how God feels about selfish fasts hidden under a fake holy façade. He isn’t a fan at all. God goes on to define true fasting:

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

When I quieted myself and listened for the voice of God, I heard so clearly what I should sacrifice during Lent. It’s something from which I derive a great deal of comfort and control in my life. Can I live without it? Yes. Do I like life without it? Not so much. But I know that when I live without it, I draw nearer to the One who loves me most.

I am convinced I really need Lent this year.

I think forty days of living with Jesus and the cross at the forefront of my mind will make Easter more than a celebratory Sunday. Embracing the sacrificial season of Lent will only add to Resurrection Sunday’s true purpose: everything Isaiah 55 promises. Because of Jesus we receive light, righteousness, healing, and a God who is present within our souls every day.

So here is my Lenten prayer:

Dear Jesus, Thank you for the next forty days. Thank you for being a God whom I can trust and draw near to. Purify my soul as I anticipate the coming celebration of Easter. May light shine in my darkness, and resurrection power give life to the hard parts of my soul. Please write your righteous law on my heart, and show me where I have strayed from Your truth. Use my life to accomplish Your will in the lives around me. When Easter morning comes, I hope to know You in deeper ways, and love You more than I do today. In Jesus name, Amen.