We read in 2 Peter 3:18 “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Lent can be a time of real spiritual growth. Sometimes we need a season like Lent to look carefully at our own our inner self and think about who we are and who God is calling us to be. But it’s not always easy to look within ourselves for any length of time. It can be a painful experience because we might not like what we see. We need to ask, where am I on my spiritual walk or journey? If we look at our inner self, we may realize that we have forgotten about our lack of forgiveness toward that person who harmed us, or the gossip that we recently shared about someone we know, or how we didn’t keep a promise that we made, or when we could have been more kind or understanding to others. We need the season of Lent to look within ourselves and make somethings right with God. Isn’t it amazing that we can buy a number of things that help us to look outside of ourselves, but there really is nothing that we can buy that can help us look inside our own souls? The season of Lent reminds us that there is something that can help us on our spiritual walk. It’s called prayer and confession.
John Wesley who was the founder of Methodism was known for asking those early Methodists this very important question, “How is it with your soul?” We probably don’t hear that question enough. “How is it with you soul?” Not, “how is your day going?” or “how’s life?” but “how is it with your soul? This question encourages us to go deeper in thinking about who we are, who God is, and where we are in our spiritual journey. I know it’s a deep question, but it really is a game changer when we ask that particular question of ourselves. Lent helps us to search the depths of our inner most being. Lent is what helps us to exercise our soul. And like any exercise or activity that involves a muscle of our body that we typically don’t use, we shouldn’t be surprised if we find ourselves a little sore after giving our souls a little workout. We may find ourselves spiritually out of shape. During the season of Lent, we need to focus our practices on repairing our own alienation from God.
Our Lenten journey should begin with the words, “how is it with your soul,” but remember, this six week journey will conclude with words of good news making it all worth it.
And those words are “He is risen!”