I shuffled into a conference room last Wednesday night with 100 members of my very extended Knoxville family.
We sang a few songs together, all verbally recognized our inferiority and our need for redemption, and received a cross of ashes on our heads. "I am but dust, and to dust I will return."
There is something really powerful about corporate confession.
I had been praying about what Lent should look like for me this year and had this whole great idea of what I could deprive myself of and what I could instead focus on.
Thursday night I realized two things.
1. I had already broken my fast. totally on accident
2. I had done a great job of picking a fast that meant nothing to me and would require self discipline in a way that would test my will power-it wouldn't give me any reason to rely on the Lord.
So, sitting in Nora's living room squeezed between two friends on the couch I said "Ummm what I just told all of you that I am doing for lent.... well, all of that is totally wrong. I need to go home and ask the Lord what he really wants me to do."
Nora had asked Aunt Linda how you know what to do for lent. Linda said, "When you get still, when all is quiet, what does your mind wander towards first?"
For me it's work. What am I going to do with this client? How can I solve their problem? How do I get them to open up about the root issues? What do they need? I am constantly anxious and thinking about the homeless and how I can help them. It's a problem.
So, I'm fasting from work outside of my 8-5 hours.
This should be interesting.
It's incredibly hard to take captive thoughts when they seem productive. I'm learning that productive thinking does not always equal godly thinking.
I'm trying to think more of the Lord and less of myself. Being an introspective person, it gets really hard to not be self absorbed all of the time. And kind of like my initial lent project...it is false humility you are reading about by my admittance of struggle. One day I hope I can learn what true humility looks like. Until then, I will just continue to point out where I'm prideful. Lord help me.
