I’ve never really done anything for Lent before. I’ve given things up before… music for two days for a tenth grade health class (don’t ask)… “secular” music for some time in high school (again, don’t ask)… limited my time on social media and the Internet in college, but more for productivity purposes than for spiritual purposes. I fasted from food once in my freshman year of college for 30-Hour Famine (a program put on by World Vision and the fellowships on campus). But I never felt a specific spiritual call on my life to do anything for Lent – until now.
Ever since Training Camp, I’ve been exposed to many different concepts within Christian spirituality than I was aware of before. Fasting is one of those ideas. I had never even considered it before they stated at Launch that we weren’t allowed to fast from food for more than three days. THREE DAYS?! That wasn’t ever going to happen anyways. I began to ask some questions from time to time whenever someone on my team chose to fast. One thing that always came up was that you have to be called; it’s so easy to make a fast about legalism and trying to reach God through your super-spiritual-sacrificial self.
As Lent snuck up on us, some of my squadmates began to talk about a three-day fast leading up to Lent and different things they would do for Lent itself. I’ve always struggled with comparing my relationship with God to other people’s relationships with God. I wanted the depth that they seemed to have: that intimacy and sensitivity to God’s voice that made them able to hear that call. So I prayed and thought and journaled myself into a spiral of insecurity and doubt that I wasn’t measuring up and I wasn’t trying hard enough to see God work and I wasn’t worthy of hearing God’s voice. I kept asking and asking for something to give up, thinking that giving something up would flip some switch and I’d suddenly be able to hear His voice.
I was reading the Bible on my iPad one night and searched for the word “fast” – I was still trying to be that super-spiritual-sacrificial self and wanted to know what the Bible had to say. I stumbled across Isaiah 58, one of my supposed favorite passages in the Bible that I had forgotten about. In this passage, God’s people are upset because they’re following the rules about fasting they were given but God doesn’t seem to care. What God really wants from them, though, is not self-denial and a nice packaged box for His rules but hearts that yearn to follow God with and in their entire lives. He reminds them of the big picture that He wants them to step into – a world of justice, freedom, equality, and love. It’s an active choice that He wants them to make. He calls them – us – to follow Him in the steps we are taking together to bring His Kingdom to earth.
So instead of giving something concrete up for Lent this year, I’m stepping into a challenge that God has placed on my heart: to give up hesitations and fears and to step into worshiping Him with more of me, trusting Him to give me inspiration for each day. I’m planning to do 40 days of creative worship and prayer, including things like calligraphy, lettering, writing, and possibly/probably even songwriting (a new challenge that God’s been pretty persistent with). Today’s the first day of Lent and God already is providing loads of inspiration. I also want to step into more prayer and active steps towards the fast God calls His people to in Isaiah 58, but I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet. Good thing God isn’t confined to 40 days of Lent.
Isn’t the fast I choose:
To break the chains of wickedness,
to untie the ropes of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free,
and to tear off every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
to bring the poor and homeless into your house,
to clothe the naked when you see him,
and not to ignore your own flesh and blood?
— Isaiah 58:6-7
