This year Lent begins on 18 February. It is one of those observances in the Christian calendar that people know is about giving something up. But Lent is also the season that asks you to stop pretending that faith is effortless. It sits in the church calendar as a long stretch of days that resist shortcuts. It is 40 days when you are invited to pay attention to what you usually rush past, avoid, or smooth over.
At its core, Lent is about time. Forty days is long enough for habits to surface and for discomfort to stop being novel. The length matters because faith is not proven in brief bursts of resolve. It is tested in repetition, in boredom, and in the slow work of returning to God when nothing dramatic is happening.
Lent begins with an acknowledgement that you are not self-sufficient. Ash Wednesday names this plainly. You are dust, and you will return to dust. Those words are not there to humiliate you or to flatten your sense of worth. They are there to cut through the illusion that you are in control of your life, your body, or your future. Lent starts by telling the truth about limits, because without that truth repentance becomes a performance rather than a practice.
Repentance in Lent is not about cultivating guilt. It is about reorientation. You are asked to notice where your attention goes, what shapes your choices, and what quietly claims your loyalty. It takes patience and clarity. Lent gives you space to examine your life without rushing to defend it. You are allowed to sit with what you see, even when it is uncomfortable.
Fasting has become one of the most misunderstood parts of Lent. It is often reduced to giving something up as a test of willpower. That misses the point. Fasting is meant to expose your dependence, not your discipline. When you remove something familiar, you notice how quickly you reach for it and how uneasy you feel without it. That unease is not a failure. It is information. Lent asks you to pay attention to what you rely on to steady yourself, distract yourself, or avoid silence.
Prayer in Lent is not about increasing volume or intensity. It is about attention. You are invited to pray in ways that make room for listening, not just speaking. This can feel unproductive because it does not always produce clear answers or emotional reassurance. Lent resists the idea that prayer is useful only when it delivers results you can name. Sometimes prayer simply keeps you present to God when you would rather disengage.
Scripture also takes on a different weight in Lent. The readings are often spare and confronting. They speak about testing, repentance, hunger, and failure. You are not asked to admire these texts from a distance. You are asked to locate yourself within them. Lent presses you to read without softening the edges, without skipping past what unsettles you. This kind of reading does not offer quick comfort, but it does offer depth.
Leaning into Lent means accepting that it will not feel neat. You may find that the practices you choose do not resolve anything. You may become more aware of impatience, distraction, or resistance. This is not a sign that Lent is not working. It is often the opposite. Growth in faith rarely begins with clarity. It often begins with exposure.
Lent is also communal, even when your practices are private. You are not the first person to walk this path, and you are not doing it alone. The church marks Lent together because repentance is not only personal. It is shaped by shared habits, shared silences, and shared failures. Lent gives you language to name this without turning faith into a private project of self-improvement.
What makes Lent distinctly Christian is where it leads. It does not end in self-examination. It moves toward the cross. The practices of Lent train your attention so that you can face the reality of Jesus’ suffering without looking away. You are prepared to see the cost of love without romanticising it. Lent clears space so that the events of Holy Week are not reduced to symbols or slogans.
By the time you reach Easter, Lent has done its quiet work. You are more aware of your need for grace and more realistic about what faith costs. Resurrection is not presented as an escape from the human condition but as God’s refusal to abandon it. Lent helps you receive that truth without rushing past the darkness that precedes it.
Leaning into Lent is an act of trust. You trust that God meets you in restraint, in waiting, and in honesty. You trust that faith can withstand scrutiny and silence. Lent does not promise transformation on your terms. It offers something harder and more faithful. It offers you a way to stay present to God when certainty feels thin and comfort is not guaranteed.
