For everything there is a season, a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time for hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

~ Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Room to Grow

For years, I gave up coffee or chocolate or soft drinks for Lent. This was my sacrifice. I did this to mark the Lenten season as distinct from other seasons. Lent is a simple and austere time; I wanted to remove something decadent from those six weeks to mark simplicity in my own life.

My good friend Jennifer introduced me to the practice of adding something important each day of Lent. One year, she wrote a card to one friend for each of the 40 days. That practice helped her slow down and made Lenten days brighter and fuller. Many of you add a devotional or prayer practice to your Lenten observance. For many years my Lent has been accompanied by a daily devotional book or email.

This year at Saint John’s we are recognizing both giving up and adding in through our series “Cultivating and Letting Go.” We are inviting you to think of what you might cultivate in your spiritual life, and also what you want to let go. For some of us, it will be giving up coffee or chocolate, for others it will be letting go from within — letting go of resentment, anger, or control. Often these unmet internal expectations get in the way of  our observing Lent. Often Lent is a time where we can slow down enough to recognize sin in our own life which has distracted us from God and neighbor.

Maybe you are cultivating a spiritual practice. Perhaps you are nurturing your faith through daily scripture readings or devotionals. You may be working to let go of a pattern by saying no to things which are not life-giving. Each season in our lives asks for different things from us, and the author of Ecclesiastes knew this. Sometimes we need to make room for God and other times we need to repent and let go of sin.

Maybe you are in a season of doing both. By both letting go and cultivating, we can make space for God’s presence in our lives to grow. If you are on campus this week, be sure to look in our planter in the gallery. Some of the intentions we planted on the first Sunday of Lent are seeing sprouts.

Tags: lent