February 20, 2015
The church year has brought us to Lent, the time of penitence and self-reflection before Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I once heard it said that you can’t have Easter without Lent; how could you know the joy of the mountaintop without the realities of the valley?
I tried to think of this in a few practical ways. I have a member at the church I serve who is a chiropractor. A few weekends ago, I spent eight hours in a car driving our youth on a trip. When I returned, I needed someone to look at my back and neck, which were incredibly sore. I had to have my back adjusted. Our lives are like that. We go throughout life thinking we’re invincible and full of everything we need until it comes time for us to need an adjustment—that’s what Lent is for.
Lent is a time when people give up bad habits, work on spiritual disciplines, and remind ourselves of the love of God present in our lives. We work hard to remind ourselves that Lent is as much a part of our lives as Easter is.
So this week as you ponder your own life and the Lenten journey you are on, what needs to be adjusted? What needs to be changed, deleted, or added to your life to make your walk with God a more fruitful one? As you think through this, hopefully you’ll find that adjusting your life can change its trajectory. You can change things about your life, and, through God’s help, all things can be made new.
Perhaps look at it this way: Occasionally I find myself adding coolant to my car because my car has some coolant issues. I have to add the coolant to keep the car running. We, too, must keep adding to our faith and adjusting our faith to keep faith fresh, new, and alive. What are you doing to add to your faith? How are you self-examining yourself this Lent? How are you finding yourself enveloped in the grace of your Creator in spite of the darkness of this world?
Keep the faith that God is at work this Lenten season. Remember that it’s important that your spiritual life is fresh and new. Ultimately, spirituality is fluid, and we must be observant of what we are doing in our lives. Be prepared, though, because God might show up and turn your faith upside down, and that’s a wonderful thing.
This post originally appeared in the Statesville Record, and was published in The Pulpit & the Paper: A Pastor’s Coming of Age in Newsprint by Robert W. Lee.
Great article 🙂