It feels like I should have written more by now. But the simple fact is I haven’t.
It’s like when you’ve got something to do and instead of really getting on with it, you go off and make a cup of tea in a vain bid to distract yourself from what you really should be doing. And if you’re looking to make the distraction last longer, yet at the same time justified, you end up asking people around you, “I’m making a cuppa, do you want one?” providing you an entirely legitimate time extension as you ‘selflessly’ make the entire office a cup of tea. All the while your work isn’t being done, and you’re looking at the clock as the kettle boils wondering if an hour really has to last an hour.
I think it’s entirely possible to get to this point in Lent and start loosing steam.
It’s possible to get to this point having given something up and long for it all to be over. Our attention can start to run off course and we’re left wondering why we started this in the first place.
I found myself at times wondering why am I doing this? Why make things harder? Why would you do that to yourself?
But then I remember, It’s not about me. Not everything is about me. Even trying to celebrate whether I’m doing well with the Lent project isn’t the issue. Focusing any energy on the fact that we’re living on less is not the point, humbling myself and realizing that what I have is to used well, not wasting or simply indulging myself with things is becoming more apparent. Writing about how God can change our lives through spiritual disciplines, Dallas Willard (a great Christian philosopher and theologian) puts it this way:
The idealization of poverty is one of the most dangerous illusions of Christians in the contemporary world. Stewardship – which requires possessions and includes giving – is the true spiritual discipline in relation to wealth.
So he’s not saying wealth is bad (not that I thought it was) but he makes the obvious point, which is that how we use and share goods (money, property, possessions, skills..) is central to developing as an apprentice of Jesus.
I think I’m at a stage where my vision of what it means to manage what I have is becoming clearer.
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