Returning, Not Performing: Lent, and the Slow Work of God
This post is about Lent, which begins this week. I’ll get there. But first I need to tell you how I got here, because if you grew up in the same kind of religious air I breathed as a kid, Lent might feel like a foreign country…or worse, a threat.
The religious worlds I was steeped in during my early formation did not allow for any “traditions” beyond those they deemed correct. If it looked even vaguely Catholic or “high church,” it was dismissed as unbiblical at best and unchristian at worst. And as a child, I didn’t know enough to challenge any of it. Everyone around me believed the same, so it must be right.
Then I got my first job outside of family businesses or family connections. It was shortly after we got married, and I applied for (and somehow landed) a job at a Lutheran church. I walked into that job with all the confidence, arrogance, and unmitigated non-wisdom that a 25-year-old can carry: formed by a legalistic, fundamentalist, IBLP, Southern Baptist theological omelet…and within a week, my spiritual world was rocked.
That pastor had his own personal issues, but he was gracious. He showed love and mercy to this young adult who honestly thought she knew all the right answers, and that the church was lucky to have her there to bring the “real gospel” into the building. Ugh. I cringe when I think about my hubris. But he was the first person who ever explained the church calendar to me: liturgy, seasons, worship shaped by the story of Jesus rather than the mood of the week. The music director showed the same steady kindness (as did her sweet parents, who were my favorite seniors there).
It was then that I started to see the beautiful ways God reveals Himself through rhythm, through remembrance, through returning.
Fast-forward to about eight years ago, when our church began Leadership Development Groups, and we read Ruth Haley Barton’s Sacred Rhythms. My heart opened even wider to the idea that spiritual disciplines are not spiritual punishment. They are spiritual pathways; practices Jesus Himself walked out as we watch His life and His rhythms in the gospels.
And then came seminary, and Theology and Church History classes, and my mind was blown again (there is a lesson that stuck from night 1 of Theology I, “Theology leads to Doxology.” - shout out Dr. John Lake!). The history behind the liturgical calendar is stunningly beautiful. And at the same time, we can see abuses; people taking these seasons to extremes, measuring holiness by performance, using tradition like a weapon.
Hear me when I say this: that kind of damage is not unique to “high church” spaces or ancient church traditions. It is no different than the legalism I grew up in. Both can leave devastation in their wake. Both can blur the face of Jesus.
But as I’ve worked out (and am working out) my understanding of church history and liturgical seasons, I’ve come to see something I couldn’t see before: there are spaces where I can meet and experience the presence of God in ways I never could when I lived in constant suspicion of anything unfamiliar.
That’s where we get to Lent.
If you grew up around Catholic friends, you probably remember the basics: fish on Fridays (Long John Silver’s was packed), and ashes on foreheads on Ash Wednesday. That was all I knew of Lent: from a distance, and through the judgment I’d been taught.
I’m truly saddened when I think back on that learned posture. I can’t go back and change it. But I can do better.
A few years ago, after prayer, counsel, and careful consideration, I began incorporating Lent into my spiritual walk. Not lightly. Because I know my bent: I am wired to DO more instead of simply BE present. And let’s be honest, I’m not the only one.
In a world obsessed with optimization, instant gratification, and measurable results, Lent can get hijacked into another self-improvement project: a spiritual detox, a moral reset, a productivity hack. But Lent isn’t about becoming impressive. It’s about returning, making room for God to do the deep, slow work we cannot hustle into existence.
That’s why the invitation in Joel (2:12-13) hits me so hard:
“Yet even now, says the Lord,
return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love,
and relenting from punishment.”
“Return to Me with all your heart.” Not, “show Me your spiritual résumé.” Not “prove you’re serious.” Return. And then it says something even more telling: God isn’t mainly after the external display. He says, “Rend your heart and not your garments.” In other words: don’t just look repentant. Let the work actually reach you, change you.
And this is where Lent starts to make sense in an evangelical (or evangelical-adjacent) life.
Lent is not a requirement for salvation. It is not a spiritual ranking system. It is not a way to earn God’s love, prove your maturity, or set yourself apart as “more serious.” Lent is a gift: forty-ish days set apart (mirroring Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness) to practice making space for God, to confront what distracts and numbs us, and to remember that we are not sustained by bread alone, but by the very words of God (Matthew 4:1–4).
In the wilderness, Jesus doesn’t flex. He doesn’t optimize. He doesn’t hack spiritual growth. He refuses shortcuts. He resists the temptation to use power for comfort. He chooses dependence. And He does it with Scripture on His lips, yes, but more than that, with surrender in His bones.
So, when we talk about “fasting” during Lent, I want to graciously expand the definition.
Yes, fasting can be food. Throughout Scripture, it often is. Food is tangible. It reminds us that we are not the center of the universe, and it has a way of revealing what we run to for comfort. But fasting is not limited to the plate. Because sometimes food is not the thing that has our heart in a chokehold.
Sometimes the easier fast is the one we can manage without touching the deeper thing.
And Isaiah 58 is the corrective I always need. God is speaking to a people who were doing the outward religious practices, including fasting, but using it like a badge. They were performing spirituality while ignoring injustice, exploiting others, and staying self-focused. So, God says (in essence), “That’s not the fast I’m after.” The fast God chooses loosens bonds, unties burdens, sets the oppressed free, shares bread with the hungry, welcomes the vulnerable, and refuses to hide from suffering (Isaiah 58:657). It’s not performative deprivation; it’s embodied love.
“Is such the fast that I choose,
a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?”
Which means Lent invites a different question than “What should I give up?”
A better question might be: What has my hand, head, and heart tied in knots?
What consumes me? What numbs me? What keeps me reactive, hurried, self-protective, or quietly controlled? What keeps me from prayer is that silence feels too loud.
For some of us, Lent might look like fasting from scrolling, not because phones are evil, but because our attention has been discipled by anxiety. It might look like fasting from online outrage, from constant commentary, from needing to have a take on everything. It might look like fasting from shopping as a soothing measure. Or fasting from busyness as identity. Or fasting from the need to fix, manage, and prove.
And here’s the point: the fast is not the goal. The fast is simply space-making. It’s a way of loosening our grip so God can have more room. And if the practice makes you meaner, prouder, sharper, or more self-righteous…that is not the Spirit of Jesus. A Lent that doesn’t move us toward love is not the Lent God is inviting us into.
Because the promise in Isaiah is not “you will become impressive.” Its presence:
“Then your light will break forth like the dawn… then you will call, and the Lord will answer… you will cry for help, and He will say, ‘Here I am’” (Isaiah 58:8–9).
Here I am.
That is what I want. Not a spiritual project. Not a gold star. Not an identity built on disciplined behavior. I want the nearness of God.
So Lent, for me, is not about trying harder. It’s about returning, again and again, until my soul remembers what my life is actually for.
Photo by Jamie Ginsberg on Unsplash
