Lent… 40 Days later, what have I learnt?

Lent: “A time of prayer and fasting that observes Jesus’ sacrifice whilst in the wilderness for 40 days, in preparation for His ministry.”

Scripture: Matthew 4:1–11 NIV — Jesus in the wildness for forty days.

1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” 4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” 10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” 11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

This is the first time I have ever been able to observe lent in its fullness and ‘give up’ something that I enjoy a lot and at times is my go to in all seasons of emotion. Chocolate and Coca Cola are consumed on a regular basis and keeps me content in my time of tiredness, stress, joy and peace. I don’t tend to think about it much as it’s something I regularly consume and has become habitual to my lifestyle over the last few years.

For me, giving up these two items that give me energy during my tiredness and that added joy during my happiness was going to be difficult, very difficult. However, if I wanted to see my relationship with The Father grow this was one way of doing it, and I’m going to share with you some of the revelation I have received over these last forty days.

When you ‘give up’ something for lent, you start to understand the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23) in much greater depth, through self-control and faithfulness. Here’s the thing, I didn’t realise the full meaning of lent until half way through when a friend from church said ‘You do realise that when you give something up, and you hunger or thirst for it, its then, at that very moment you pray.’

This really compelled me and gave me a fresh revelation of what fasting is, lent is fasting. When we hunger for an earthly desire, most of the time, if not majority of the time it satisfies for a moment. But when we allow God, the giver of life to fulfil our needs our desires are met for eternity.

During this period it is a time to remember all that God has done for us, that our relationship with Him is freely given no matter what background we come from.

One motive that in some ways helped me through this challenge was that I will save money, yes this is correct that is a benefit. However, God loves to challenge and prune us, making us more like Him (John 15). This is when God ministered to me, whilst watching the TV drama, The Bible. As I’m a visual learner, seeing Jesus walk through the wilderness with no food or water really shocked me. Jesus went into the wildness for forty days and forty nights and consumed nothing, so that He could be ONE with The Father. He had no intentions on saving money or losing weight, he wanted to show us that he can resist evil. Jesus is the perfect example of what it means to be perfect and resist temptation.

We only give up small things like chocolate, sugar, driving to work, etc compared to Jesus, He gave up His life, that we may meet eternity. When we lay our needs at His feet, our connection with God is strengthened and we can know God’s needs first. God will start to replace earthly hungers, with hungers and firsts for Him. All you have to do is Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find. As you begin to position your heart correctly, God will continue to fill you and fill those hungers that we yearn for.

During lent I also learned the hard way about pride, because I was giving up two things that I regularly eat/drink people were in lets say, shocked. Because of this, my focus of lent changed from God to me. Lent was all about me. This is completely wrong.

I was immediately challenged by another friend who said “Lent, like any type of fast shouldn’t be prideful, it’s focus should and always be on God, honouring and glorifying Him.”

Our focus should always be to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ and all the goodness that flows from being obedient to His will. We need to remove the focus from us and place our focus on Him, he can always do immeasurably more.

Sometimes we find substitutes because we can never fully reach God’s perfection, however it is something we can continually strive for and constantly be compelled to live like, pursuing for His perfection.

It’s time to change our focus and our needs and make God our go to, in every season whether that’s sadness, frustration, happiness or contentment.

Questions to ask ourselves:

• What is your focus?
• Are you giving up something for the sake of lent?
• Or are you choosing to give something up, to give more to your relationship with the Father?
• Finally, are you praying every time you feel the need for that something?