As we continue our journey through this Lent and our Forty for Forty donation campaign, Nick Harris from Safe Families, one of our ‘sign-posting’ agencies that we work with to support families in crisis, reflects on What Lent means to him..….
I’ve had an interesting relationship with Lent. I grew up in a Christian home where things like Lent or Advent weren’t a huge thing. I suppose I viewed it as a bit of a pointless, enforced period of misery where I was meant to give up something I enjoyed for no tangible benefit (seriously, I continue to view chocolate as great, and believe it to be a blessing from God. Why shouldn’t I enjoy it?)
However, at university I became friends with some Christians who had grown up in a different church tradition to me and who gently challenged some of that thinking. They taught me about the choices I have, the power of remembrance, and also about the importance of connection. I started to see how choosing to give up something which is good, could help me remember something even better and more important, and as a result help me feel more connected to God.
Since then, I’ve made a habit of following Lent, and actively encouraged friends to do so. I’ve found this period of time where I consciously have to think about something that I eat or change a habit so helpful in remembering how much freedom and blessing I have. Personally, this has meant that I’ve tried to choose things which have resulted in a daily and regular choices.
These Lent ‘fasts’ have ranged from caffeine-detoxing headaches in only drinking water for 40 days, to ploughing through goodness knows how many books after giving up screentime, to an infamous year whilst I was dating my now wife when I became anaemic after (badly) turning vegan (who knew that you’re meant to think about nutrition properly?)
I don’t list the above to show some sort of superhuman ability to deny myself but more about how personally, choosing to do something which has forced me to think on a daily, or multiple times a day, about what I’m doing has resulted in me also thinking regularly about why I’m doing it.
In these moments of choosing to deny myself, I’m forced to remember and am challenged by the immense blessing and privileges I have compared to so many across our society and across the globe. Even this year, in choosing to avoid added sugar, I’ve recognised how incredibly privileged to be able to afford to do this and been challenged on my assumptions and heart to sharing what I have with others more. A wider journey in this has led my wife and I to want to regularly be donating to the foodbank and play what part we can in trying to end food poverty.
On top of this, I’m also forced to remember someone who gave up everything he had for me. Jesus Christ is the one who ‘though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich’ (2 Corinthians 8:9). For all eternity, Jesus had been reigning alongside the Father, yet for love for you and for me, he gave it all up for, in order to hang and die on a cross so that we might know life. As a friend once put it to his kids, ‘Jesus takes all of our bad stuff, and gives us all of his good stuff’.
It’s that choice that ultimately has to motivate me in everything I do. Whether for these forty days, or for the rest of the year, I know that Jesus has given it all for me and invites me into relationship with him. Through choosing to give up and remember, I ultimately receive the blessing of connection with God in a way that I often am too busy to notice.
I’d encourage you, if you are fasting, or if you’re considering a Lent fast in the future, to think about why you’re doing it and what you have. Are there ways you can share out of the blessings you have to come alongside and support someone else? It might be a practical share, but also something more intangible. I believe that humans are made for connection – connection with God, but also with each other. It is something I’ve seen time and time again in my work as a social worker and now working for Safe Families. So many people in our society can feel lonely and isolated, and something as simple as a phone call or a message can make the biggest difference. As we look towards Easter, I’d just ask the question – if Jesus shared all he had with us, can we also share what we have with others too?