“Lent lasts forty days, a long time, because we need a good stretch of time to step back and be neither here nor there. We need plenty of time to drop our old ways of doing things and live in-between, not yet knowing what the new ways of doing things will be. Living in-between can be scary. But taking the full forty days is important; not to do so would be like denying ourselves a spiritual adventure, the gift of in-between time.”
Sarah Parsons in A Clearing Season: Reflections for Lent (Nashville: Upper Room, 2005) 20.
The forty days of Lent are patterned after the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness. If you read Luke 4:1-13 (or Matthew 4:1-11) you notice right away that Jesus “was led by the Spirit” into this season of testing. This happened prior to His ministry and must happen prior to embarking from where we are to where God would have us minister. This is why we focus on fasting, giving and prayer in this “in-between” time.
As we fast, remember that we do not to live on bread alone. Instead let us feast on every word that comes from the mouth of God. As we consider giving to the poor, we must realize that Jesus overcame the desire to possess everything that He could see from the high place as a model for our victory. And as we focus on prayer, may our posture not be questioning God or putting Him to the test as the Israelites did but settling into a place of quiet trust.