Month: February 2020

I Think I Will Give Up Worry for Lent

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worry

This year I think I’ll give up worry for Lent. Earlier this week I watched news footage from the Fat Tuesday celebration in New Orleans, a day where many indulge in gluttonous feasting or revelry. Yesterday we observed Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the season of Lent, a time of intentional preparation for Easter. During this season, believers focus on self-examination, reflection, and repentance.

Traditionally, Christians give up something of importance to them during Lent. I have friends who give up one or more of their favorite things such as chocolate, coffee, sugar, or soft drinks. But since I have a genetic predisposition to worry, I think I’ll try to give it up for at least 40 days.

I don’t really like to worry. In fact, it’s not constructive. Worry is like spam or junk mail. It just takes up valuable space in my mind, space needed for creative thinking, planning, visioning, and problem solving. And I know I function better when I am not weighted down with excessive worry. But each time I kick worry out the front door of my mind, it seems to sneak around and re-enter through the back door.

Years ago a friend of mind had a huge poster mounted on the wall over his desk that said, “Don’t tell me worry doesn’t help. Half of the things I worry about never happen.”

Erma Bombeck quipped that, “Worry is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere.”

I think worry can be inherited. I witnessed the wear and tear of worry in my parents and grandparents. I have noted that many of their offspring struggle with this mental distraction.

And I am in good company. I frequently have coffee with CEO’s, ministers, business owners, attorneys, physicians, and educators and they all tend to suffer from a similar dilemma. That is not surprising because there are so many things about which a person can worry… your business, your family, your investments, terrorism, the economy, the future. The list seems endless.

Perhaps my friends should give up worry for Lent also. Since Lent is a time of intentional preparation for Easter, maybe we should listen again to the words of Jesus who urged his followers to give up worry:

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Matthew 6:25-27

As we begin our Lenten journey, I am going to try to give up worry for at least 40 days…and maybe, hopefully, longer.

(Barry Howard currently serves as the pastor of Wieuca Road Baptist Church in Atlanta.)

Preparing for Our Lenten Journey

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lenten journey

In the bapti-costal church of my youth, we didn’t observe Lent. Our only preparation for Resurrection Sunday was dying Easter eggs and “laying out” our clothes for the five o’clock Sunrise service on Easter Sunday morning.

A few years later as a young pastor, through my affiliation with an ecumenical fellowship of ministers I grew to appreciate the season of Lent and the various services of Holy Week.

Across the years, I have come to value Lent as a season of preparation and consecration, and I look forward to Holy Week as a time to re-trace the steps of Jesus from Palm Sunday to Easter.

Early on I understood Lent to be a time to “give up” something significant to me, something like sweets, chocolates, or other cherished foods. While the temporary avoidance of specific items may be associated with this season, I now approach Lent more as a time of focus than of fasting.

Acclaimed theologian, N.T. Wright, proposes that “Lent is a time for discipline, for confession, for honesty, not because God is mean or fault- finding or finger-pointing but because he wants us to know the joy of being cleaned out, ready for all the good things he now has in store.”

This week we will begin our Lenten journey with the observance of Ash Wednesday. At my church we will sing and pray as we focus on Psalm 51 and I John 1:9-10. Then we receive the disposition of ashes as we depart. And our Lenten journey will begin.

Lent as a season for reflection. It is a time to focus on God’s purpose for our lives, which is the key to understanding our purpose on this planet. And many aspects about God’s will for our lives can be brought into clearer perspective as we contemplate the teachings of Jesus, including his sermons, his suffering, and his resurrection.

Lent is a season for repentance. When we repent, we confess our sins and forsake our sins. The Bible makes two things extremely clear: 1. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:10 NIV); 2. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (I John 1:9 NIV)

Lent is season for realignment. Lent is a time to refocus on what it means to be a follower of Jesus and to realign with God’s mission in the world today. In the course of daily living, our lives easily get out of tune. Lent is a time to tune the piano of our lives to correspond to the middle C of God’s initiatives. Or, it’s like realigning the tires on our car so that they are going precisely the same direction. Lent summons us to submit the divergent components within our self to the tailwinds of the Spirit.

By embarking on a slow and reflective Lenten journey, we are better prepared for a meaningful celebration of the resurrection on Easter Sunday morning.

(Barry Howard serves as the pastor of the Wieuca Road Baptist Church in Atlanta. You can follow his blog at http://www.barrysnotes.wordpress.com or on Twitter @barrysnotes.)