By Anthony Selvanathan
Special to the Herald
We tend to approach Lent the way we approach a new year: with plans, goals and quiet strategies for improvement. We decide what to give up, consider what we might add, and resolve to pray more faithfully or to fast more seriously.
There is nothing wrong with these intentions. But if we are not attentive, we can begin Lent as if it were a spiritual self-improvement project rather than a season of surrender.
The Gospel offers a different image. Jesus does not set out for the desert on his own initiative; he is led there. The Spirit drives him into the wilderness, not to accomplish something measurable, but to be tested, stripped and refined.
The desert is not a place of achievement. It is a place of exposure. In its silence, distractions fall away. In its hunger, attachments surface. In its solitude, we discover what we truly rely upon.
Before the ashes are traced across our foreheads on Ash Wednesday, the church gives us these quiet days as a grace-filled pause. They allow us to slow down long enough to ask a deeper question: Not simply what will I give up, but what is God trying to loosen in me?
You may already sense a Lenten plan forming in your mind. But what if the most important surrender is not the obvious one?
What if it is not sweets or social media, but the need to remain in control? What if it is the resentment that we have grown comfortable carrying, the pride we instinctively defend or the distraction we hesitate to name?
We often choose what is easy to give up, while leaving untouched what is harder to name.
Fasting without humility can become little more than a diet. Prayer without honesty can become merely routine words spoken into the air. Almsgiving without real encounter can become a transaction rather than a relationship.
Lent itself can quietly become performative if it is not rooted in surrender.
The desert has a way of revealing these things gently but clearly. It reminds us that we are not self-sufficient and never have been. It reminds us that we are dust, and that our lives are sustained by mercy.
Far from discouraging us, this realization can become the beginning of freedom. When we stop trying to perfect ourselves, we become available to grace.
In recent weeks, we have reflected as a church on drawing near to those on the margins and crossing the distance that fear creates. Lent turns that same light inward. Where have we kept distance from God? Where have comfort, habit or quiet self-reliance shaped the limits of our discipleship?
The truth is, many of us do not fear fasting itself. What we fear is what God might ask of us if we truly listen.
As Ash Wednesday approaches, we need not rush into the desert with anxiety or ambition. We can enter it prayerfully, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal what truly needs healing. Not only, “What will I give up?” but also, “What am I still holding onto?” Not only “How can I improve?” but “Where is God asking me to trust?”
The ashes we will soon receive are not a performance. They are a sign of surrender. They remind us that we are fragile and loved, limited and redeemed.
Lent is not about spiritual heroics. It is about returning.
Do not rush to the desert as if it were something to conquer. Enter it ready to be led. Enter it willing to be changed. Enter it open to being undone — and to discovering there the grace that has been waiting for you all along.