Jesus or Chocolate?
Lent, that time of year when we all decide what we are going to give up for 40 days. Coffee, chocolate, social media? But as I sit here and think about the way we have always done lent I’m wondering – have we tried to life hack lent?
I love a good life hack just as much as the next mom but I’ve noticed this growing life hack trend spilling over into our homes and the church – are we trying to make lent and following Jesus easier for ourselves?
During lent, Christian’s are called to replicate Jesus’ sacrifice and withdraw into the desert for 40 days. Before Jesus started His ministry on Earth the Spirit led Jesus into the desert to pray, to rest, to seek God’s will and, to be tempted. During that time Satan decided to make life real hard for Him by tempting Him over and over again. He tempted him physically, mentally, spiritually and tried his very best to push Him over the edge but Jesus resisted the temptation because He had been fasting for 40 days and replaced that physical food with spiritual reliance on the Father.
Enter lent today.
Whenever a big Christian holiday comes up I always try and think – what can we, as a family, learn from this time and how can we take that learning into our everyday lives? With Lent, the lessons vary but all fall under the same theme – to remind us what Jesus did and to reflect on what it means to be a Christ-follower. Insert our life hacking skills.
During lent, instead of taking a deep dive into our souls and allow God to search our hearts for the sin that we refuse to acknowledge in our lives we make things a little more comfortable and decide to journey towards the cross without our Starbucks, our sweet tooth or our daily Facebook fix. We smile and feel accomplished that we “gave something up” but I wonder if by giving that thing up we are actually learning to be more like Jesus.
I may be wrong, but I think the answer is no.
Jesus made a huge sacrifice for us. As Jesus followers we are called to model that sacrifice and as parents we have the responsibility to teach that sacrifice. Not the life hacked version but the true, meaningful, gospel centered and really hard version.
Jesus went through the “hard” in the desert in order to continue His holy purpose. He calls us to that same hard cause let’s be honest, giving up coffee sucks but it’s not hard.
These are some big lessons for us. These are some big lessons for our kids. A lesson that will serve our kids much more than just learning to give up something. So how do explain this deep, meaningful and fundamental piece of our belief system?
- Live those lessons ourselves. Nothing will teach your kids more than actually modelling the lessons of lent which means more than just giving up chocolate or coffee.
- Read the Gospels from the actual Bible. I know this may sound silly and there is nothing wrong with children’s Bible storybooks. But if Lent is about Jesus and God’s big plan for our littles we need to actually open that Word and help our kids develop the skill of reading the Bible.
- Tell them what Jesus did and why. I am a big proponent of not over-sharing the hard-worldly issues with our littles but in this case, there is no such thing as over-sharing. Let your kids know how badly they treated Jesus and how He went through all those horrible things because He loves them SO much.
- Finally, use lent to help your kids develop healthy spiritual rhythms. No matter what age your littles are, it’s time to teach them the importance of sacrificing some stuff that we may want to do and fill ourselves with Jesus, with prayer and His word instead.
Lent is easily overlooked as something that we just always do. But, when we look at lent through the lens of teaching our children to be strong, knowledgeable and passionate Jesus' followers lent turns into another beautiful way to teach our littles. I want to teach my kids that Jesus gave up so much more than His daily caffeine fix, He died for them. He calls us to quit life hacking and to build our lives upon that beautiful sacrifice.
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Now, put it into practice!
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