Thursday’s Thought—Subtraction by Addition

Yesterday, Ash Wednesday, marked the start of Lent on the church calendar. Growing up in a non-liturgical (although in many ways still very traditional) church, the church calendar was not highly emphasized during my youth. In fact, last year was the first time in my life that I actually celebrated Lent. As I celebrated it, I learned a lot about myself, about certain things that I crave (often with no good reason that I should be craving them), and about my relationship with God. As Lent approached this year, I wanted to celebrate again, so I tried to come up with something that I could give up for the 40-day period.

As I thought of possibilities, however, I had real trouble coming up with ideas. I can’t give up Facebook; it’s an important part of my job. Meat? On my missions trip to Manila in a week and a half, I will be doing hard labor all week and my diet will be at the mercy of the missions agency’s cook, who includes meat in pretty much every meal. TV? With the amount of TV I watch in a week, I wouldn’t be giving up too much. Fast food (last year’s choice)? One of my best chances to interact with my students during the entire course of the week is at Burger King on Friday nights; this, like Facebook, is an important part of my job. Call it a lack of creativity, lack of dedication, or whatever else you want, but I could think of nothing to give up that would be realistic (I could give it up), productive (it would help to give it up), and require a sacrifice (it’s something I would notice being gone).

Then the idea hit me: rather than taking something out of my life for 40 days, what if I add something new to my life for 40 days, something productive, something beneficial, and something which would require me to rearrange my schedule so that although I am not giving up any one thing per se for Lent, every day will involve small sacrifices in order to do this something new? For example, what if I set out to memorize the book of Philippians over the next 40 days? It may sound like a daunting task at first, but if taken by small steps, it is not as hard as it sounds. Giving myself 40 days to memorize the book puts me at a pace of memorizing about two and a half verses per day—a goal which is realistic, yet will require sacrifices each day to achieve the goal.

As I think about the idea, I think it is a good one. In the grand scheme of things, the goal of Lent is not simply to give something up for the sake of giving it up, but rather to give it up so during the time you have given it up, you can draw closer to God. By adding this Bible memorization, I will be growing closer to God, and although I will do it by adding something to my life rather than subtracting something from it, my addition will certainly involve some subtraction along the way.