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The Project Lent trap
It’s that time of year - LENT – time to say that at the end of Lent they feel so
give up something. What is it that you’ll much closer to God.
be sacrificing this Lenten period? Could Now I know these experiences are from
it be a firm favourite - chocolate? wine? conversations I’ve had and overheard
TV? maybe social media? Or a favourite and I am not trying to generalise all
pastime? What if you decide not to give Christian experiences of Lent, but we
anything up: is that right or wrong? can all fall into the Project Lent trap. We
I must admit, as a newly-ordained curate, have beginning and end dates. Often,
that my previous experiences of Lent when Lent is over, we go back to those
sent shivers down my spine. Let me old ways or overindulge in those things
explain. we’ve sacrificed over Lent. We can go
back to that show on Netflix and binge-
watch till we've caught up.
We can then be guilty of project
language as we evaluate our Lenten
journey: I did okay, didn’t I? I managed
Matthew 4.2: ‘He (Jesus) fasted for forty two weeks before I broke, and the like.
days and forty nights, and afterward he Yet Lent can help us attune our hearts
was famished.’ Jesus is led into the to God as we lay something aside. Think
desert by the Spirit of God, where he of Lent as a sojourn, a temporary stay at
fasts. Now I don't know if you're like a place. A stay is more about presence
me. If I miss breakfast, then by 10 than productivity and it’s not about
o’clock I’m ready to chew my fingers off measuring the Lenten journey.
and enter the hangry stage. Get food As Lent finishes and you’ve spent time in
inside me and we're good to go. that sojourn with Jesus, I would
But from the Matthew passage, I cannot encourage you not to be in a rush to
imagine Jesus being angry or hangry. In move on too quickly. Let’s develop the
the midst of his fasting his focus is on habit of continually laying things aside,
being in the presence of His Father. just to be, present.
So, what is it that sends shivers down Revd Wayne Davies
my spine when Lent is mentioned?
Firstly, hear my heart and ramblings on
this. I have found that Lent can become
a ‘project’. I have been around people,
Christians and non-Christians alike, who
view it like this. Who can go without
something for the longest? Will I lose
weight by the end of it? Yet I haven't
heard many conversations where people
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