Lent: Ash Wednesday as a Call to Return to the Lord with All our Heart

Return to me with your whole heart,with fasting and weeping and mourning. –Joel 2:12

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. -Jeremiah 29:13

Traveling through the daily challenges of life, we readily become preoccupied and distracted. Our spiritual focus is easy to lose, especially because we cannot see it with our physical eyes, while everything around us, calling for our attention, is so tangible. Taking our eyes off the goal, we often drift—sometimes just a little, other times quite far—from the path of pursuing the Lord.

God’s words through the Prophet Joel come crashing into our lives as we begin Lent: “Return to me with your whole heart!” Ash Wednesday is a call to conversion. All we like sheep have gone astray, as Isaiah 53:6 reminds us. So, as we begin Lent, we must ask ourselves: Where have I wandered from the Lord? Have I dwindled in prayer? How have I ceased loving others as I should? Has my focus shifted from Jesus to myself?

Wherever we have gone astray, we need to return to God with all our heart. Sorrowful for our erring ways, we are called to return with fasting and weeping and mourning. These three activities go together throughout the Old Testament. When the nation of Israel mourned for their sin, it virtually always included fasting to demonstrate their sorrow. These activities flesh out what it means to repent—to turn around and return to the Lord.

However, fasting, weeping and mourning are very counter-cultural. Contemporary society says: “Eat, drink and be merry! If it feels good, do it!” Lent, to the contrary, says: “Fast, if you are serious about seeking God. Give up what feels good and tastes good.” Today’s world promotes a “Life’s good!” approach to everything: “Let’s be entertained; let’s be happy all the time.” Lent, however, reminds us that there is a time to mourn—to actively be sorry for our sin. As Jesus said: Blessed are those who mourn, for they are the ones who will be comforted (Matthew 5:4).

As we enter Lent this year, let us embrace the three spiritual rhythms that Christians have practiced since the early centuries of the Church.

First, let us fast because fasting allows us to focus and sets us free from the physical desires and temporal things that tend to control us. Second, let us pray with a renewed intensity and commitment. In particular, let us seek God afresh in prayer and wait expectantly on God to move in our lives. Third, let us give to others. Giving alms, as it has traditionally been titled, gets the focus off of self and gives us opportunity to become “cheerful givers.”

Returning to God with our whole heart is what Lent is all about. Too often we simply make superficial change and so-called conversion that is only skin deep. When, however, we are serious enough to fast and weep and mourn, we have begun truly to seek God. When we do that, God promises in Jeremiah 29 that we will indeed find him: “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”  

© 2018 Glenn E. Myers