I’m Giving Up Broccoli for Lent

Is this Easter preparation season really about giving up the things we hate anyway? Or is there some other meaning?

“I’m fasting from Facebook for Lent.”

So read my friend’s Facebook status last spring...for about two weeks...until she started using Facebook again.

Ah, the perils of announcing one’s Lenten fast!

I’ve only been giving up things for Lent for the past few years. As a dyed-in-the-wool evangelical, I never heard about Lent growing up—I didn’t even really know what it was until high school when I spent the night at the home of a Catholic friend. During dinner, her dad enthusiastically passed the broccoli. He then conspiratorially whispered to me: “I gave up broccoli for Lent!”

“Broccoli?” I asked.

“Yes, I hate it.”

He went on to explain that every year he fasted from broccoli; dietarily speaking, Lent was his favorite time of year. He gave himself “40 days off” from eating the despised green veggie his wife so often prepared.

My friend’s dad shared the view that many in our culture have of Lent: a time to give up something you don’t like very much anyway. Others view it as a time to try really, really hard to break a bad habit or, better yet, to give up sweets in order to lose weight. It’s a Survivor-like self-control contest: can you make it 40 whole days without drinking Diet Coke, eating chocolate, or, ah-hem, checking Facebook?

But Lent is meant to be much more than a muscle contest for the will. Rather, through fasting and focus, Lent helps us to enter into close communion with Jesus as we ponder our sinfulness and the grace coming at Calvary. Many evangelicals are rediscovering the spiritual richness of this ancient tradition.

Whether Lent’s relatively new to you (as it is to me), or it’s been part of your life’s rhythm for many years, let me offer a word of advice: pick something better than broccoli for your fast . . . and whatever you pick, don’t post it on Facebook!

What does Lent mean to you? How have you observed Lent in your life? Or if you don’t observe Lent, how do you like to prepare your heart to celebrate Easter?

The Spiritual Discipline of Not Staying Put

Instead of planting roots, what if God wants us to have wings?

According to the 2011 Census, the average American will move approximately 11 times in their life, more if they’re in the military. One year, my family and I moved more than 100 times. We’d sold everything and moved onto a boat, which would become our floating abode for the next year. Boys (and men) love adventure—that’s what John Eldredge says in Wild at Heart. So surely my four sons and husband would thrive at sea, traveling from port to port, never knowing what new challenges we’d face each day.

It turns out boys (and maybe this is true for men too) do love adventure. But they like it best when there’s a safe harbor to return to. Like the kind a home provides. And by that I mean a home built on a foundation, not the floating kind.

I discovered this truth in the course of house hunting after our live-aboard year had ended. When we asked our sons which house they liked best of the ones we were considering, Jackson, then 12, sighed and said, “I just want a place that stays a place.”

Even though our boat had served us well, providing shelter night after night no matter where we tied up, it didn’t satisfy his intrinsic need for roots. Being transient takes its toll. To wake up every day, never knowing what the next dock will look like or who your neighbors will be, creates a type of “adventure fatigue.” Even the hardiest voyagers crave the familiar.

Our son’s deep need for a sense of place took me by surprise. I’ve spent much of my adult life enduring the pain of God prying my fingers loose from the places I called home. The first one was the worst. We’d bought a house soon after getting married and quickly grew our family, and in the eight years that followed, we became immersed in our community, our church, and the local schools, all within an hour of our extended families. Our roots sank deep.

But then a much-needed job surfaced, and it was time to leave. The day I drove out of town, the life I’d known receded in the rearview mirror. If my heart was a flower, it had been yanked violently from the ground. Would I survive the transplant, much less ever flourish again?

Just as we were settling into our new city, a house fire displaced us once again. Only this time, we underwent the especially difficult experience of not only losing our “place” but all of our stuff with it. After this, I vowed never to let myself become emotionally attached to a home or my possessions again. It was the fire that made 100 ports possible.

Letting go of place had been a theme between God and me for years. The fire put an end to it. While I enjoy and am deeply grateful for the home we now live in, I don’t feel attached to it. If God called us to leave, I’m confident I could go without undue emotional angst. Yes, I’d miss our neighbors and the blessing of the sweet space where our boundary lines now fall. But for me, not staying put has been a spiritual discipline. The practice of not holding tightly to the places God has given me has been an exercise in trust and contentment.

In his article, “The Spiritual Discipline of Staying Put,” Jonathon Wilson-Hartgrove contends that Americans move around because of their drive to move up. We forsake place for personal ambition. In the process, we deny the communities where we live the power of our presence, the power of staying put.

Moving for me isn’t—and never has been—about moving up. I went kicking and screaming the first time. Now, though, I stay open to moving out of a desire to go where God wants me to go when he asks me to go. Without looking back. Without longing for what I once had.

Craig Bartholomew, author of Where Mortals Dwell: A Christian View of Place for Today is concerned about the current “crisis of place” modern society is facing. Displacement is wreaking havoc on our communities, not to mention our souls. After a year at sea, our son, Jackson, intuitively knew this to be true.

And yet throughout history God has called people to leave. Abraham left Ur; the Israelites left Egypt. Along the way, they all longed for a place to call home—a place that stays a place. But being transient helped them see that they were aliens in a strange land—this world was not their home. Ultimately they had to learn to see God as place. Whether a cloud by day or a pillar of fire by night; a tent or a temple, a boat or a house—God always has and always will define and determine our place.

How is he defining yours?

Reclaiming the Idea of Vocation

I’m learning what my primary calling is—and isn’t.

“How does God speak to you most frequently?”

I stared at the question in my devotional journal, a grin creeping across my face. Some days I have trouble answering the stretching questions posed in this devotional, but this one drew an immediate answer: patterns and repetition. I’m not sure if I need to hear the same message over and over in different ways and places because I’m stubborn or because I need to think about things for a while, but this is the way God speaks to me. Over and over again he’s made his will clear to me through patterns and repetition.

There was the time I was being called to career ministry. I had many people from all walks of life suddenly suggest this career to me, even though I hold an education degree. Then a spiritual gifts inventory pointed me that way. Then a pastor. And then a position in my hometown opened. I took it without hesitating. The experience taught me so much.

Or there was also the time God was teaching me about truly putting my trust in him—to claim that he is good regardless of my circumstances. First came many pertinent Bible readings, then a suspiciously similarly themed book for class, then a lost relationship, and finally a lost job. Then nearly a year of waiting for a new job. I was broken down by the repetition, but the message came through loud and clear, and I am better for it.

Currently, God is speaking to me about vocation and reclaiming this important biblical concept. I’d heard of vocation before, even thought I had a pretty good idea of what it meant. But as I’ve started working in a new career and attending a new church, it’s been helpful to reconsider. And let’s face it; I haven’t had much of a choice.

God’s been using repetition again to speak to me. I’m reading The Call by Os Guinness for a class, working through a church-wide campaign on finding personal mission, and doing a writing project for emerging adult Christians (18-30)—a group that is searching for identity and purpose. In another, unrelated class I’m working on a counseling case study about a man who doesn’t know who he is and what his life should be about. And I recently heard a talk from a yoga instructor on the importance of finding that one thing you must do in life—that thing that brings you amazing joy because it’s what you’re meant to do.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of confusion about the word vocation, even though it’s been around for centuries. In The Call Os Guinness breaks down the misconceptions into two types: the Catholic distortion and the Protestant distortion. He defines the Catholic distortion as believing vocation is only for those called to career ministry—pastors, priests, nuns. This makes vocation only about spiritual things, and neglects the fact that everyone who follows Jesus has been called.

The Protestant distortion, on the other hand, is believing that any job we do—mothering, writing, teaching, building, fixing—is something we are called to. This makes vocation sound purely secular and can make us believe that vocation and career are synonymous, when in fact our vocations may have nothing to do with our careers.

So what’s the appropriate understanding of vocation? This is how Os Guinness explains it:

Our primary calling as followers of Christ is by him, to him, and for him. First and foremost we are called to Someone (God), not to something (such as motherhood, politics, or teaching) or to somewhere (such as the inner city or Outer Magnolia). Our secondary calling, considering who God is as sovereign, is that everyone, everywhere, and in everything should think, speak, live, and act entirely for him. We can therefore properly say as a matter of secondary calling that we are called to homemaking or to the practice of law or to art history. But these and other things are always secondary, never the primary calling. They are “callings” rather than the “calling.” They are our personal answer to God’s address, our response to God’s summons. Secondary callings matter, but only because the primary calling matters most.

So our primary calling is to God himself. And our secondary calling is our response to God’s love. Our secondary calling allows us to use what God has uniquely given us to glorify him.

God has certainly had my attention. But why? I’ve realized that God is redefining my secondary calling—to help others live out their callings. As I prepare resources for SmallGroups.com, I’m providing small-group leaders with the materials to live out their callings well—whether they’re training resources, articles on personal spiritual formation, or blogs where leaders can comment and interact. I find joy each day as I work.

Although I’m blessed to be able to live out my vocation at work, I realize there are many ways to live out that calling. As my small group meets, I can encourage other group members to live out their callings more fully. When I speak to young Christians unsure of their futures, I can give them a hug and reassure them that God will reveal their unique callings to them. When I spend time with my four-year-old niece, I can reflect back to her those things she is good at, the gifts and talents God has given her, so she can discover her calling.

As I look around the church, I hear a repetitive call to reclaim the concept of vocation. From students struggling with identity, to emerging adults searching for meaning in life, to single men and women wondering if singleness can be a blessing, to empty-nester parents nervous about what the second half of life holds, to 80-year-old brothers and sisters in Christ doubting that God can still use them. We all need to know that the Caller is calling us—both to himself and to respond to his love by using our unique gifts, talents, and personalities, no matter what stage of life we’re in.

Perhaps God is speaking to all of us through repetition.

God has been painting a new picture of the church for me. Can you imagine what reclaiming the idea of vocation could do for the church? Imagine if we were all living out our unique callings, using our gifts, talents, and days to do that thing that brings us joy and brings God glory. Imagine the adventure, the fun, the chaos, the beauty. Imagine the new reputation the church might have. Perhaps it would be known as the place you go to live life fully, even dangerously. To have a real impact. To bless and be blessed.

What is your vocation? What unique thing(s) has God called you to do for his glory? And how are you living out that vocation

Can Protestants and Catholics Find Truly Common Ground?

What stereotypes or misinformed views about Catholicism might we need to let go of?

I made the mistake of visiting a new church on Sunday, April 3, 2005. The day before, Pope John Paul II had died. And the young pastor of the small church we visited decided to include John Paul’s death in his sermon, which went something like this...

“Today, all those people in that big, fancy church over there [pointing west toward the local Catholic parish] are all mourning the death of a man they worshiped. They’re sure he’s in heaven ...[imagine, now, a very smug tone of voice] but is he really? I don’t presume to know God’s judgment—I don’t presume to say if he is in heaven or in hell—but those people over there have their focus on the wrong thing. On a man, not on God...”

Let’s just say that was our only visit to that little congregation. (The sermon got it wrong on so many levels!) Yet his beliefs about Catholicism, though perhaps not so insensitively expressed, are quite common among evangelicals. His disdain for a fancy or ostentatious church building, the misinformed idea that Catholics worship the pope, the strongly implied suggestion that John Paul was not actually a Christian (and was likely in hell), and further the insinuation that Catholics in general are not Christians.

I’ve heard similar sentiments among evangelical friends. Some evangelical ideas about Catholicism come directly from former Catholics who are speaking honestly about their own experience of Catholicism and what they understood it to be about. But often times, sadly, Protestants perpetuate ideas about Catholicism that are simply ill-founded and misinformed.

Now before you stop reading, hear me say this: there are key, essential, and significant differences between Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism. I definitely recognize these crucial differences, and I believe that these differences ought not be ignored or overlooked—as a matter of fact, recently Kyria.com put together a download resource discussing the Catholic-Protestant Divide. And of equal importance, I believe these differences ought to be fairly and accurately understood.

I’ve come to this belief through a habit I’ve formed over the past few years of periodically listening to Catholic radio. The shows I like are call-in shows in which Catholics, Protestants, agnostics, and atheists call in with questions and chat on-air with a priest, theologian, or lay leader. The value I’ve found in these shows is that I’ve gotten to hear informed, committed Catholics explain what they believe and why—rather than getting the evangelical version of what Catholics believe.

I’ve discovered that some of our differences are more a matter of semantics than true disagreement. For example, though Catholics may not gravitate toward phrases like “born again” or having a “personal relationship with Jesus,” that does not mean that they are not born again or that they don’t have a devoted relationship with Jesus infused with prayer, worship, Scripture reading, and more.

I’ve also discovered that some of my ideas about what Catholics believe were simply wrong. These ideas about Catholicism often come from nominal Catholics—people who are Catholic in name but who do not follow (or may not even know) the actual, official doctrines of the Catholic church. Just like I wouldn’t want a lapsed evangelical with no active faith and no commitment to Jesus claiming to represent what I believe, I think we ought to be careful not to base our understanding of Catholicism on the actions or words of people who are Catholic in name only.

And I’ve discovered that in the remaining key areas of disagreement, there is a great value in aiming to understand why Catholics believe as they do. I’ve had conversations with devout Catholic friends asking questions like, “Why do you pray to Mary?” and “Do you really believe that the bread and wine transform into actual flesh and blood?” In a dialogue of mutual respect, empathy, and a sincere desire to understand, I’ve learned a great deal from these Catholic friends.

While I still hold firmly to my own conclusions on these matters as an evangelical Protestant, I’ve found a deep and meaningful sense of spiritual sisterhood with these friends whose profound love of Jesus inspires my own walk with him.

I’ve personally been blessed by my fellowship with Catholics and by engaging in thought-provoking discussion with them over theological matters. How about you? What stereotypes or misinformed views about Catholicism might you need to let go of? How might intentional and honest dialogue with a Catholic strengthen your own convictions and nurture your faith in Christ?

I’m Giving Up Broccoli for Lent

The Spiritual Discipline of Not Staying Put

Reclaiming the Idea of Vocation

Can Protestants and Catholics Find Truly Common Ground?