Checking in on how Lent is going for us <3

Hello and happy Friday!

I haven’t talked with you very much about Lent so far this season. March has been a little topsy-turvy with a vacation thrown in and the new quarter starting for this permanent sub job. Add in the time change, us switching time zones in the middle of it all, and the washing machine adventure and I am just struggling to keep myself upright and moving this past week. 

So before we go any farther into our Journey through Lent 2025, I want to touch base with a few things. 

First, I fully intended to dig deeply into 1 Timothy to start with but have gotten no further than the first chapter and taking the preliminary notes on background for the author and book. All of my excuses are buried up there in paragraph #1. 

Second, I did prayerfully decide on a “fast” for this year’s journey. It became evident to me several weeks before Ash Wednesday that the Lord was speaking to me about something I need to remove from my daily life. It is not as easy as a single beverage or tasty treat that I felt called to remove.

After several sermons (so embarrassing when your pastor calls you out in front of everyone….repeatedly) and devotionals (how do these authors know so much about my sin problems…) I felt like God was encouraging me to use this season of deep cleaning to work on a nasty habit I have always had but seems to have gotten worse with age. 

It is not a simple one word application but more an overall attitude that involves complaining, criticizing and general negative thoughts directed towards people and circumstances that don’t measure up to my way of thinking.

A friend once joked, after spending some time with my mother, that she had the gift of discouragement. An amusing and accurate observation, but it defiantly hit home with me. 

Sadly we catch more than we are taught, and I have to admit I caught this attitude and it has stuck. Again, it has enhanced itself over the years as I age and the world around me changes more quickly than I have time to absorb. 

There is ample fodder for me to sit back and analyze everyone and everything. My mind seeks perfection and so it is easy to see where my fellow humans and the situations created here on the daily leave me with the opportunity to gripe and offer my view of how things could be improved. Then there are my own shortcomings and a tendency to replay every conversation back after I walk away.

So in an ambitious effort to be obedient, when Russ shared with me his item for the annual fast and asked me mine, I replied, “I am giving up complaining and criticizing and general negative thinking.”

The look on his face was priceless. And I am not having to employ my fast to describe that. It seriously was worth the humiliation of having to say what I was fasting from. 

Last night he asked me how I was doing with my fast. I will not assume he has not noticed and will choose to think he just wanted to know how I was dealing with it all. 

My response was that I fail frequently, but have noticed the Lord helping me when habitual thoughts arise. As with all fasts, there have been an increase in opportunities to practice the fast. 

Disruptions, disagreements, dismantling of my plans…and other things but I am out of “dis” prefixes, have arisen with a vigor that can only be met and matched by my own surrendering my thoughts and attitude to God. 

It is not a matter of simplistic avoidance of doing what comes naturally, believe me. It is a conscious effort to catch my words and thoughts, and weigh them in light of the fast. It is a place where I ask myself honestly if I am sharing information for a purpose beyond expressing my dissatisfaction with a person, place or thing. It is a place of holding my thoughts open to the Lord as I think them and turning them into an open-ended conversation where He can interact with me and straighten my thinking out of crooked places

Each encounter has brought me to a place of prayer. I talk to God about my current mindset and feelings about things. I ask Him to help me see them from His viewpoint. I evaluate myself in light of the sentence I am ready to pass…would I want to be given the same assessment? If the criticism is falling hard on my own self, I switch and ask if I would be so harsh were someone else to be doing what I am so upset with myself for. 

In situations where I am prone to complain, again I surrender the current parameters of what is my reality and pray for patience, kindness, flexibility or whatever is needed at the moment. I work hard (really hard sometimes) to find things to be grateful for and I thank God for every little thing I can think of. 

So how is it going for me?

I have noticed less of the negative things being at the top of the highlight real of the end of the day. Gratitude comes more quickly and there is a sense of peace and joy that follows. It is a process and I need God’s help every single day. 

How is it going for you? 

How is this season of Lent going? 

Are you intentionally setting something aside that causes you to remember God when you miss it? 

Have you asked His help to remove some more of that dross so He can see His reflection better in you? 

When the desire arises and you deny yourself that thing, how is it turning your heart toward Him? How are you using the struggle to let Him be more known in your life?

I hope you are experiencing the fullness of the gift of this season when we do an inner house cleaning with God’s help <3