Embrace the Wilderness
When Amy asked me to write a reflection about Lent, I wasn't sure if I would do it. To be honest I wasn't sure if I was qualified to do this as my first “real” introduction to Lent was from people around the New Leaf table and my mother-in-law. Because in my tradition, we don't really observe Lent. Growing up in Texas, I thought it was only for Catholic people to do. I didn't understand it. All I knew Lent was before Easter, and after Mardi Gras, and everybody I knew loved a good party and celebrated the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus. So, being asked to do this, anyone worth their salt would at least read up on such a yearly historic event. To my surprise, I learned that Lent was created to remember Jesus's 40 days in the wilderness and being tempted during his fasting period prior to his public ministry. I was like, I get it.
Now, anyone who knows me knows I love fasting. I really do. For me, fasting is one of the most important spiritual disciplines we have because it incorporates prayer, it forces us to depend on God, it creates room for us to cut back and adjust our cravings, we are given the power to overcome our nature,
so, our spiritual ears can be fine-tuned to hear God better. We ourselves can be purified and made more into the image of God rather than the image of our societies and culture that can easily twist the reality of our existence. Especially today with pandemics and wars and internal and external conflicts. Fasting is so necessary. As I was reading one of my devotions by Jordan Raynor, the author of Redeeming Your Time. He mentions that we live in the "Kingdom of Noise" referenced from C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, and he says today, we are so inundated with internal and external noise and information that we're always on. It leaves little room to hear from God, and we tend to become less sensitive to the divine. Our senses become muffled, and we lose our way. So, we must always work towards keeping a direct connection to the Holy Spirit so we can be led by God.
As a matter of fact, as we read through the Gospels, the more Jesus's popularity grew, the more he sought to be alone with God, to be alone with the Father, to be alone in the presence where nobody needed anything. There was no information about the world, but instead, his calling was being clarified where he became the atonement for our sins, and to be an example to us on how to live in grace under fire and to be rejected and affirmed, to be busy but never hurried, to be strong, but yet gentle.
As I read and compared the scenes in Mark, Luke, and Matthew, after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, I began to see different verbs that were used when Jesus went into the wilderness. In Mark, Jesus was compelled or forced to go into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. In Matthew, he was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, and in Luke, It says Jesus, being full of the Holy Spirit. He was led into the wilderness.
And my question to you is, are you purposely choosing to push aside your plates and agendas to deliberately seek the will of our Father? Are you seeking where you can get clarity in your individual and corporate calling so you can be effective in the community you are sent to?
For me, Lent is a preparation for ministry. And I loved how the Dessert Fathers and Mothers would go into the wilderness for years before they started to lead others. But so many times, we have allowed our charisma and gifts to promote us beyond where our spiritual disciplines can sustain us. And I implore us in this season of Lent to allow God to take the armour off, to deal with the fears and the insecurities, and to heal the areas that have been left unhealed and unattended. For our pride to be deprived and our lust for validation and control to be starved out of our flesh.
Allow this season of fasting to welcome you with open arms. Allow God to dismantle the strongholds and the yokes on our lives, especially with the last two years that have brought upon us so much conflict, so much hurt, so much anguish. I wonder how we can keep on going the way we're going and not stop to hear the voice of Jesus? And I know in my prayer time and in my seasons of fasting, God gives me instructions, but mainly he's dealing with my character. He's dealing with my relationships with things and people. He's dealing with me; he is not telling me about everybody else.
Therefore, be careful when you go into prayer during this time. Don't worry about what your spouse is doing or what your congregants are doing or what the Liberals are doing or the Conservatives are doing. Be mindful of what you are doing? How are you leading? How are you using your body, your talents, your resources? Have you begun to stand for something that has hurt and demoralized people? Have you caused your fear to uproot the relationships that you've had for decades? Have you allowed your illusion of what freedom really iso stop you from being loving and having self-control? Or to prevent you from seeing what God is asking you to do when he requires you to press in a little longer and a little further?
As for me, a person who has never celebrated Lent but loves fasting. My hope in this season of Lent, celebrating with all of my brothers and sisters in different denominations, is to celebrate the glory of God. Seeking the joy that God has prepared for me by giving up the things that I love, the things that I've used to create idols in my pain, and to pray for others, and helping others to be free.
Then we will embody the principles of Jesus, who has set us free indeed. He has made us free, whether our hands are in shackles or a mask on our faces, or our freedom does not look like other countries or even our neighbours. We are free to know that we are only passing through this time through this land called Earth to go to our heavenly eternal glory. Along the way, let's lead others to Christ, let us be the ones who wave the palm leaves saying holy, holy, holy is our Lord. So, we won't be like our spiritual ancestors, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. Who coveted power more than the anointing, who craved control more than grace, and believed comfortable lies instead of the truth? Who wanted to have the look of holiness but not be holy? Therefore, let God this season transform you and prepare you for the things that He has for you to do and the people he asks for you to impact.
Will you walk with me? Will you pray with me? As we go higher in the things of God and let the Spirit of God lead us into our own wildernesses so we can change the world as our Saviour did.