Opinion Column

Spring cleaning our lives with God

Now that we are a week into Lent, and those pancakes are a distant memory, Andy Bryant urges us to explore the opportunities offered by this season.

As a child I have a very vivid memory of coming home from school to find all our living room furniture stacked on the front lawn.  We were not about to be evicted nor had the bailiffs called.  This was my mother in the middle of her annual Spring clean. Every room in the house would receive the same treatment with a thorough clean from top to bottom.  In the following weeks everything in the house seemed to have an added shine.
 
The word “Lent” is a shortening of an Old English word “lencten”, meaning Spring, as in a season in which the days lengthen.  With arrival of Spring the hours of day light lengthen, inviting nature to burst into new life.
 
Lent, beginning on Ash Wednesday, is the period of 40 days before Holy Week, when we will recall the last days of Jesus’ earthly ministry, leading to Good Friday and beyond to Easter Day.
 
Lent is often described as a season of penitence and fasting, but at its best it is should also be a springtime for our life with God.  In Lent we are encouraged to set aside time for self-examination to help us reflect on how we may have fallen short of all that God requires of us.  By prayer, reading and meditation, we seek to renew and refresh our relationship with God.  By practising self-denial, often commonly referred to as “giving some up for Lent”, we are helped to refocus our lives on God and away from ourselves.
 
Lent should not feel like a burden, but rather be embraced as an opportunity: an opportunity to spend more time with God, a time to refresh, and refocus our lives, a time to get our relationship with God back on track.  Lent is an opportunity for a spiritual spring clean.
 
May this Lent be a springtime for your life with God, and warmed by the sunshine of God’s presence, may you live a life more responsive to the divine will, and bear more abundant fruit in the service of God’s kingdom.
 
Image by Julio César Velásquez Mejía on Pixabay

The Revd Andrew Bryant is the Canon for Mission and Pastoral Care at Norwich Cathedral. He was previously Team Rector of Portishead, Bristol, in the Diocese of Bath and Wells, and has served in parishes in the Guildford and Lichfield Dioceses, as well as working for twelve years with Kaleidoscope Theatre, a charity promoting integration through theatre for young adults with Down’s Syndrome.
 
You can read Andrew's latest blog entry here and can follow him via his Twitter account @AndyBry3.

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