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The church is in the Lent season, a period of reflection, repentance, and preparation leading up to Resurrection Sunday. Though I did not grow up in church movements that celebrated Lent, nor was I shaped in a movement that had a regular practice of the liturgical church calendar, I have come to appreciate Lent. Even more, I have often thought of this as a season that invites us to do an inventory of our lives. Inventory is \u201can itemized list of current assets\u201d or deficiencies, but it is also the analyzing one\u2019s \u201ctraits, preferences, attitudes, interests, or abilities used to evaluate personal characteristics or skills\u201d or lack thereof (Merriam Webster<\/a>).<\/p>\n Early on in my vocational endeavors, I explored a few different retail positions, and inventory was a necessary part (or evil) of the role. At least once a year we analyzed what we had in stock, or did not have in stock. By the way, I think I still get triggered by the word from the inventories that I performed in grocery, toy, and candle stores (yes I worked in a candle store, it\u2019s a long story). In admitting what you have or don\u2019t have, you are practicing not only awareness but confession. Inventory is a confessional activity. Confession is merely \u201can acknowledgement of guilt,\u201d which may include a sin or shortcoming (Merriam Webster<\/a>).<\/p>\n It is in Lent that we wrestle with, remember, and reflect through Jesus\u2019 forty days of fasting from the busyness of life in the wilderness, to reflect on and mark the start of his earthly call and ministry.<\/p>\n During his time in the wilderness, Jesus faced the human traps of appetite, ambition, and affirmation. Those temptations, and our capacity for them, are what we are inventorying in our own life in Lent. Elsewhere in the scriptures, these temptations are referred to as the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. The Lent season is a time in which we also wrestle with, remember, and reflect on our journey through the difficult and desert moments of life. We utilize the disciplines of fasting, prayer, surrender, and lament in Lent to realign to the ways and heart of God, detaching from the unhealthy ways we have built our lives around our appetites, our unhealthy ambition, and the need for affirmation from others. Fasting, prayer, surrender, and lament are also confessional activities. Through inventory, and these other confessional acts, we purge ourselves of the weighty hindrances and worldly ways that we picked up in our carnal detours and we find ourselves back in alignment with God\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n This important and confessional work of inventorying our lives and looking at the unhealthy ways that we have built our lives around \u201cthe lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life\u201d is essential for those who desire to be Jesus\u2019 followers (1 John 2:16<\/a>). Life has a way of tempting us to yearn for realities, focusing on wants, and pursuing cheap identities in places that can be quite harmful to us and our spiritual journeys. We often settle for something less than God\u2019s best in our spiritual journey. (Let me just tangent here and share that Kevin Bradford<\/a> spoke at River Corner Church<\/a> and gave a great look at this fact of our journeys in last week\u2019s sermon on God\u2019s Guidance<\/a>.) Often these things we yearn for, focus on, and pursue are worldly at best but even more they are sinful and even evil at times.<\/p>\n Sometimes the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life that we find ourselves unhealthily and unhelpfully dependent on or pursuing are not outrageously bad or sinful things. These pursuits might even be good things but when they are out of balance in our lives they become detrimental to our journeys, they become sin, acts of desolation that take us further from God and God\u2019s plan for our lives. Undoubtedly, we as broken and mortal beings will unconsciously and consciously develop our lives around the things<\/em> that we think will make us feel better or more whole. For this reason, if we are not intentional with inventorying our lives, we will find our lives attached to our appetites, our need for affirmation, and sinful ambitions. John, an earlier follower of Jesus remarks, that these lusts and pride are \u201cnot of the Father but [are] of the world\u201d (1 John 2:16<\/a>). Inventorying our lives as broken creatures in a broken world, looking for what is not of the Father but is of the world, is hard work that can be tiring, revealing, and uncomfortable.<\/p>\n The temptation story in Matthew 4 also marks an important and pivotal transition in Jesus\u2019 life. The wilderness is a chasm between the season of Jesus\u2019 earthly life that is ending and on the other side of it is the prophetic ministry Jesus has to live out. If you think about it, it is at that moment that Jesus leaves behind the life that he had up to that moment, he follows the leading of the Holy Spirit and Jesus enters into a remarkable experience in the wilderness where he, from an earthly viewpoint, seemingly and recklessly abandons all of aspects of normal<\/em> life to connect with God the Father and the plan that God the Father has for his life. In the wilderness, Jesus lets go and models what it means to depend fully on God but also to fully realize the identity that God the Father spoke over him in the baptism story. We remember this as well in Lent. It is in the wilderness that Jesus models resilience with God\u2019s help, the leading of the Spirit of God and the sustainability of scriptures.<\/p>\n Jesus, in the wilderness, is modeling what it means to completely depend on God\u2019s provision \u2013 not the other stuff <\/em>in life. As Jesus emerges from the forty days in the wilderness, Jesus not only shows victory over where God\u2019s people have always struggled, but he also models stepping fully into a new way of living, into the fulfillment of his earthly ministry, and into a revolutionary way of living out dependence on God. From that time on Jesus began to preach, \u201cRepent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near\u201d (Matthew 4:23<\/a>). Jesus calls others to have these same confessional and pivotal shifts in which they change from the other stuff in life<\/em> to Kingdom stuff<\/em>. We cannot ignore the importance of regularly pulling away into rest and solitude to depend on God, to practice confession as we are led by the Spirit to inventory our lives and the places we are out of alignment so that we can live more faithfully and better embody, demonstrate and proclaim the way God\u2019s rule and reign is breaking into our reality.<\/p>\n This Lead A Quiet Life<\/a> blog on Patheos<\/a> reflects on what it means to live life at a slower pace, to discover a simple life and faith that embraces downward mobility in a chaotic world and church obsessed with excess. For me, this discovery of a simple life and faith is anchored in what means to lead a quiet life according to Paul\u2019s encouragement in 1 Thessalonians 4:11<\/a>. In 1 Thessalonians 4:11<\/a>, the verse encourages believers to aspire and model living a quiet life, to mind their own affairs, and to work with their hands. This more God honoring and fulfilling way of living is reached by recognizing and confessing where we have failed to live into such a way of life. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life long to complicate our lives with promises of success, fame, fulfillment, and more. What looks like a quick and easy road at first, often leads us into a great sense of unfulfillment, disillusionment, shame, and distraction. For me, this call to simple and quiet living, resonates deeply with the confessional activity of Lent, as we look at where we have accepted promises for a quality of life that are outside God\u2019s best, a quiet life.<\/span><\/p>\n In our Lenten practice, we are inventorying our lives, purging of the excess, and realigning our the desires of our hearts back to God\u2019s purposes. Lent invites us to silence the noise of worldly distractions, to turn inward, and to focus on our relationship with God and what is hindering it. <\/span><\/p>\n Perhaps Lent is not only a time to inventory and examine our actions, attitudes, and ambitions, but also a chance to look at the complexity of our lives. Author Michael James Breen<\/a> remarks that the Lent season is one that invites us see where in our lives (and our church communities) that we have accepted the lure of consumerism, celebrity, and competitiveness. <\/span>In his article, How Influencer Culture is Killing the Church<\/em><\/a> (for the Verge Network<\/a>), Michael Breen points out that \u201cthose original temptations of Appetite, Affirmation and Ambition are slowly insinuating themselves into everything\u2026We just often don\u2019t recognize it or see it.\u201d We lose sight of what God wants for us and our communities when we accept life in \u201ca culture of celebrity (affirmation), a culture of consumerism (appetite), and\/or a culture of competition (ambition)\u201d There is hope though, as part of our confessional activity, Michael Breen points out that \u201cif we think through celebrity, consumerism and competition, the anti-body against all of these is sacrifice. Learning to lay down what builds us up and giving to others instead.\u201d The way on is through greater simplicity and sacrifice to lead a quiet life. I think Breen\u2019s adaptations of the temptations are a prophetic way of looking at the temptations of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.<\/p>\nThe Significance of Inventory: Reflecting on Lent\u2019s Purpose<\/h2>\n
Jesus in the Wilderness: A Model for Lenten Inventory<\/h2>\n
The Temptations of Appetite, Ambition, and Affirmation: A Call to Inventory<\/h2>\n
Confession and Realignment: Practicing Lenten Disciplines<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Living a Quiet Life: Embracing Lent\u2019s Confessional Nature<\/h2>\n
Emerging Renewed from Lent\u2019s Confessional Journey<\/h2>\n