Why I NEED Lent.

The season of Lent is something that I do not remember participating in my Restoration Movement church background. In fact, I feel like the civil calendar directed our affairs more than the church calendar did, which is unfortunate. Instead of asking questions like, "what should we do during Lent or Advent this year?" it was more "what should we do during Mother's Day or the Fourth of July this year?" I hate that I missed out the guidance that the seasons of the Christian year offer us through the cycle of life, death, and resurrection that we experience with Advent, Lent, Easter, etc.

In fact, I remember perceiving the sentiment that Lent was primarily a Catholic practice by which people seek to earn the favor and forgiveness of God by voluntarily refraining from something (usually meat or chocolate) and that it was something that we Protestants should not be a part of. This is probably a good illustration of what it means to "throw the baby out with the bathwater."

Through the last 3 1/2 years with the Evergreen Community it has been helpful for my personal transformation to be introduced to this cycle and participate in it. As Lent approaches, I am ever more excited to spend an intentional time refocusing my heart and mind on Jesus. I'm excited to lay down those things that I have tended to rely on during the past year to soothe, comfort, and get me through life. If you're like me, you've found yourself relying on things other than God for your support and comfort.

This year I will be spending the 40 days of Lent fasting from beer. To many Midwestern friends, this probably sounds ludicrous. In fact, many would even question my faith for drinking beer (which comes from a cultural christianity that I have a hard time even understanding anymore). But living in the Pacific NW where there are more micro-breweries per-capita than anywhere else in the world it makes loads of sense. We hang out in pubs regularly, we brew our own beers, we follow beer blogs and tweets, we have theological conversations over pints. It's simply part of the way of life here.

But what I've noticed over the past year is that slowly, beer has gone from being a special drink reserved for special occasions and visits with friends, to simply something I drink whenever I feel like it, or whenever a new brew is released, or after I've had a particularly rough day, or when Seinfeld is on :) It's not that I drink a lot of beer at any one given sitting, or even tend to overindulge. It's simply that it's become standard fare with any given meal or tv show to have a pint. And in some way I have to ask the question, "is this something I've come to depend on?"

We discussed the purpose of fasting, whether during Lent or any other time a few weeks ago at Evergreen and basically it came down to a few things:

1. it helps us to say no to the small things, so that we will be able to say no to larger temptations when they arise.
   
2. it helps us to practice impulse control and rein in our desires.
   
3. it helps us to lay down our functional saviors and grasp on to the true one.

Even today there are people that hear that we encourage people to participate in Lent and it ruffles their feathers. They equate Lent with some kind of "works-salvation", or legalism. And truthfully it can become either of those things. It can even become a contest in spirituality in which we try to one-up each other: "I've lived off of nothing but peanut shells and watermelon juice for the last 40 days, what did you do?" But so can any other spiritual practice that we choose to participate in. Does this mean we do nothing to intentionally seek God? Should we give up praying, reading scripture, or times of silence just in case it becomes legalistic or a kind of "works-salvation"? Or course not!

And this is why I choose to participate in the 40 days of Lent. Not to mention that spending 40 days putting something to death that has become too powerful in our lives makes the season of Easter resurrection so much more powerful. I've found Lent to be difficult, challenging, and very important in my spiritual formation. I just wish I would have known about it sooner!