The Allure of Lent

Therefore, behold, I will allure her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. Hosea 2:14

It’s the scripture that calls me into Lent. Always.  I’m hearing it again. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve been so quiet here.

The Middle Eastern desert is a wide open place, a quiet place. It is the visual description of what fasting does for the soul.  Fast and you create a wide open space that used to be taken up by something else.  In Hosea 2, the prostitute Gomer is being allured away from her crowd of lovers…to her true Husband.

We move fast, subconsciously even, from emotion to self-medication.

Loneliness? Reach for the phone. Anxiety? Swing open the refrigerator. Tired? Find the bottle opener. Feeling unloveable? Turn on the tv. Drown the voices. We search wildly for bread where Bread is not.

These are the coping mechanisms that once made sense as children but now loudly crowd the soul.

Lent is about pushing out and making space between emotion and self-made satisfaction. It is about God alluring us into quiet emotional discomfort, sitting down in the sand and hands empty, asking our soul’s One True Lover for Bread.

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He loves you, my friend.  Deeply. He longs to lure you away from subconscious reactions you use to meet your own needs. This Lent, what are you pushing away in order to hear the call to the desert?