Lenten Reflection - Day 5, March 6

Physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is much more important, for it promises a reward in both this life and the next.
1 Timothy 4:8

Additional Reading: Ephesians 4:17-34

Author and community visionary, Henri Nouwen wrote a Lent devotional guide entitled, Show Me The Way. In it he writes:

The Lenten season begins. It is a time to be with you Jesus in a special way, a time to pray, to fast, and thus to follow you on your way to Jerusalem, to Golgotha, and to the final victory over death.
I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, human respect, pleasure, power, influence. Help me to become deaf to these voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life.

I think Lent is, in many ways, a microcosm of life as a Christ-follower. It reminds us that it’s hard to choose God’s way, the way of the Kingdom. It’s a choice that has to be made every moment of my life. The discipline of choosing not to indulge a certain impulse for a forty-day period, when you think of it in the bigger picture, really isn’t that much of a thing to do! But, there’s no denying it – it is hard.

But what if we, together as a community, approach it like this: as kids learning from their dad, or maybe better yet, younger brothers and sisters learning from our older brother. There’s something that our older brother is really good at, he’s really mastered it. And we sit down with him to find out what it would take for us to be like that. “No easy way, really,” is his response, “you’ll have to train – practice and discipline are the keys.” It’s not that our place in the family is at stake, dad adopted us and has proven his love for us over and over. It’s just that, well, we really want to be more like our older brother.

Jesus is like that older brother who says, follow me, learn from me. You don’t have it mastered quite yet, but I can show you … it’s your choice. And the Lenten season is, for us followers of Jesus, a time of concentrated choosing! Nouwen offers these concluding words:

I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There are not times or places without choices. And I know how deeply I resist choosing you. Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every place. Give me the strength and the courage to live this season faithfully, so that, when Easter comes, I will be able to taste with joy the new life which you have prepared for me. Amen.