I’m sent into a near panic when I think I’ve lost my keys.
Don’t even get me started about what happens when I think I’ve lost my phone.
I’m ridiculous.
And therein is another reason why Lent is important for me. This season has the ability to teach me what I have become dependent upon. Because, in truth, I am totally dependent on God, when it comes down to it. But boy, do I feel dependent on a whole lot of other things. Things like keys and phones, for example.
Lent is a season in which the “extras” in life are meant to be stripped away. The excess that so many of us live with is meant to be peeled back, left aside, and shut down for awhile. The purpose is so that we might become a people who realize that we aren’t dependent on these things but that we are truly, actually dependent on God.
Peeling back excess is difficult. Stepping away from the things that cloud my real need for God is hard. It means I can’t be entertained as easily or numb my feelings as quickly.
But this call to step away from my dependence on other things reminds me of when God nudged me, several years back, to lend my car to a stranger and just hand him my keys. It felt risky. It felt crazy. By God’s grace, I did it anyway. And that one experience of stepping away from my dependence on my car created within me a fuller realization of my true dependence on God. It is something I am still learning.
You can read the story here. I hope that as we continue together in this season of Lent, it encourages you.
What are you dependent on in this season of life that God might be asking you to let go of?
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