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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
