Giving Up Myself

I didn’t grow up in a church tradition that followed the liturgical church calendar. While we lit candles in an Advent wreath, we rarely mentioned other liturgical seasons throughout the year. Because of this, I first learned about Lent when my Catholic and Lutheran friends in middle and high school asked what I was giving up for the duration. Not many of them could speak to the spiritual meaning behind the ritual, though, and for a long time I thought giving up sweets was the only way to celebrate Lent.

I became more educated in the tradition when I attended a liturgical Presbyterian church during college. I learned the forty days the church calls Lent come from the number of days Jesus fasted in the desert before he was tempted. Lent reminds us of Jesus’s self-denial during that experience while preparing us to celebrate his ultimate sacrifice on the cross. I also learned Sundays are “feast days,” and therefore not always included in the fast. In other words, if I gave up chocolate for Lent, I could still eat it on Sundays. I attempted to participate in Lent during those four years, using it to try to break habits I knew were unhealthy. I don’t think I ever succeeded in maintaining my fast for the full forty days or in breaking any habits.

During the ten years since I graduated from college, I’ve participated in Lent in various ways, although not consistently. Each experience has given me a different context for practicing the tradition. One year I came across an “alternative Lenten practice” focused on doing good every day (think Random Acts of Kindness) rather than giving up something. One year I read through John Piper’s book Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die to prepare my heart for Good Friday and Easter.

This year God presented me with a new spiritual context and challenge for Lent.

At the beginning of the year, I decided I would choose twelve different spiritual disciplines and focus on practicing one each month. Without consulting a calendar, I “happened” to choose the spiritual discipline of detachment for the month of March.  Ironically, Lent begins March 1.

In her book Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us, Adele Ahlberg Calhoun describes the purpose of detachment as the desire “to nurture the spirit of trust that is attached to God alone.” She goes on to talk about Jesus’s detachment from everything but God, using his desert temptation experience as an example: “Certainly Jesus was tempted by the ascent to power, the need to appear successful and shortcuts to achieving his kingdom. But Jesus refused to let the world’s values shape his life.”

How could my life be different if I could say the same of myself?

How might my world be different if I detached from serving myself? If I were instead available to serve others?

I don’t think I chose to focus on this spiritual discipline during Lent by accident. I believe God is using it to call me deeper into relationship with him. While my past Lenten practices have included giving up the tangible, perhaps it is time to learn how to give up the intangible: success, power, ego, image. I want to learn to say with Paul,

“Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not ‘mine,’ but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20 MSG).

Katie Mumper is a daughter, sister, friend, writer, and singer. She loves Jesus, music, books, and great TV shows. Because she’s far from perfect, she is grateful for God’s grace in her life. She writes with the hope that others might be encouraged to let God make them new as well. You can read more of her work at beautyrestored.me.

Photograph © Aidan Meyer, used with permission