Protestants Can Give Up Stuff for Lent Too
On fasting and giving up good things to taste something better. We know it won't save us, but it might help us see.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
I don’t often give up things for Lent. In fact, I can’t remember a time I intentionally gave something up for the full forty days. Even this past Lent season I gave up social media for a period of time, but not the duration of it. But in the days before Lent began, I saw someone online urging Protestants to remember what they’ve committed to—no amount of giving things up increases our standing in God’s eyes. It’s grace alone that saves. Then a few days later, I saw another Christian (a Protestant) talking about Lent in a different way. He explained that in fasting from something for those forty days he is saving his appetite for something better. In other words, during Lent (or any time we fast) we’re making room in our life for something better than the thing we’re giving up.
I think I take the position of the latter. I don’t know a single Protestant adhering to Lent as a means of salvation. But I do know that we’re all easily distracted from the better portion—even if we think Lent is an off limits practice.
I’ve had a love/hate relationship with social media for the last few years. I know I’m not the only one because it’s a near constant conversation topic among my mom friends, but also online (on social media often, ironically). I got in on Facebook when it was still reserved for college students. You could only join with your school email address, and I’ll never forget what those first few weeks of discovering old high school friends was like. There were only a few of us on the platform, and we had time to spare in between studying for exams and trying to figure out what to do next with our lives. And we could only check Facebook when we were sitting at our computers because none of us had laptops—and even some of us only had the computer lab or library computer. We couldn’t even text each other, and oddly I have no recollection of how we communicated. I’m assuming we called each other—which is anathema now (even to me, an older Millennial).
We don’t live in that world any longer, and our access to social media and constant communication is in our pockets. I imagine there are some who are internally wired to self-limit with their device. I’m not one of them, so I need regular social media and phone breaks. It’s the only way I don’t succumb to the near constant pressure to be online in some capacity—and as a result I don’t get things done in my real life. (Like writing a book that is due by the end of the summer.)
Fasting from social media during Lent, or any time, doesn’t up your spiritual maturity or holiness in God’s eyes. But it might be a means God uses to grow you spiritually because it frees your mind for something better—Someone better.
Our natural inclination is to gravitate towards the easy fix. It’s why we choose caffeine over going to bed earlier. Or we choose sugar over fruit. (I’ll never understand the people who want to eat fruit instead of ice cream). I once heard a doctor talk about diabetes medication, and she said in passing “Americans would rather be on medicine than change their habits.” We would rather settle for the thing that makes us feel better in the short term than the thing that will heal us in the long term.
The same is true for things like social media (at least for me). It’s so much easier to scroll mindlessly when I’m bored. It’s so much easier to pick up the phone when I’m standing in line somewhere or at the park with my kids. But if I look up, perhaps I might taste or see something better than the thing starting back at me from the glowing screen.
I don’t think social media is all bad. I’m on a break from it right now, but I can honestly say I feel the pull to see all the spring festivities that are happening both in my community and across the country. For me, the break is a reminder that I’m a finite being. Only God can be everywhere, and when I give in to the FOMO that comes from this social media break, I’m actually saying “I’d like to be omnipresent, please,” when only God can and should bear the joys and sorrows of people everywhere.
I don’t think this break earns me anymore points in heaven, but I do think it will help me taste the better thing that my heart longs for but gets numbed to when I’m endlessly scrolling.
And who knows, maybe the detox will help me write with greater clarity. In which case, you all will hopefully benefit too!
P.S. I’m currently listening to The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (can you tell?!?), so this probably has a lot to do with my angst over social media. Hopefully I’ll have more to share after I finish it, but so far, it’s been fascinating and sobering.
