lent

Houston. Texas.
One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been and lived. Despite the pro's, there are a few cons though. (and for all you non-Texans, only a few cons) Like bugs.

I hate bugs.

Roaches pretty much own Houston. So do mosquitoes. But the one bug that comes and goes with no seemingly apparent care is the June bug.

Last night as I enjoyed a beverage with my friend and wife, I realized how many June bugs were starting to appear. In droves. Now, if you aren’t really up to date on what this bug is, no worries. I’m not entirely sure either.

But as I sat there, I noticed one thing. They don’t seem to be smart. See, this particular bug was on it’s back. So being the good St. Francis wanna be I am, instead of crushing him and ending his seemingly futile life, I flipped him over. Then he would walk, not outside where he would be safe from my insatiable desire to play with bugs, but closer towards me.

Then he flipped himself over again, except this time he tried to fly. Once he got close to me again, (because, let’s be honest, I wasn’t going to get out of my chair for a bug) we repeated the whole silly process. This continued four more times.

How dumb is this bug??? Why won’t he just fly the right way? Why does he keep playing with death from the white, hairy giant???

Then, in one of those “learn something about your self” moments God gives us, or we make up, I realized that this was a great representation of what I would be entering into the next day.

How many times in my own life do I just keep flipping myself on my back? How many times do I keep walking that fine line between those things that will kill me in the most ultimate way, and the freedom that is just mere steps away?

Lent provides me an opportunity to not just walk towards that open door, but run to it. The Church, in all her wisdom, gives me a deeply intentional, soul searching time. A time to examine what God offer’s me, and what the world offers me.

It’s during this time that everything is put in perspective. The things that bring death scream louder and harder than ever before. They are literally clinging to their life. Our fasting has a purpose. We aren’t giving up things to simply feel better about life, or look better, or develop healthier habits. We are killing those gods which steal our affection.

It’s very similar to what happened in Moses, except we experience it every year.

A lot of the time, we look at Moses in the perspective of the 1998 smash hit “The Prince of Egypt”, or Heston’s Rendition with a gnarly beard (which was real according to my research). However we think of those movies, or hear the story, there is an important aspect that we completely miss!

You see, it’s easy for us to look at the Ten Plagues as bad things from a good God, or as God showing His power, but there is a deeper meaning. Each one of the plagues was a direct attack and death-dealing blow to the god’s of the Egyptian people.

The god of the river?
The god of the harvest?
The god of the sun?
The supreme living god, pharaoh?

All struck down by the One true God. Not just to say he can, but so that His people would be free to worship him and no longer worship false gods. These other gods stood in the way between God and His people, and when you mess with the bull, you get the horns! (heyo!)

God’s people had forgotten him, because they began to be blinded by these other gods of the Egyptians. It’s not like it happened all of a sudden, but over their time there. First, things we actually ok. Then they progressively got worse. Then they claimed that God had forgotten them, when it was actually they who forgot Him.

Not only did he display His power and remind them who He was, but he also used a mumbling, murdering coward to do it. Eventually, they remembered, and many Egyptians fled with them, now free to worship him. He actually rescued his people from the slavery of Egypt, as well as the slavery of idol worship and false god’s.

All that mattered to God was his people, and that they would be free to worship him.

It’s during this time of lent that we kill all our gods and see which God can truly rise from the grave. It’s during this time that we see what we worship most in our lives, and what needs to die in order that we might rise.