Saturday, February 20, 2021

Reboot Your Life (Lent I)

You know that experience when your computer just won’t do anything?  The screen is frozen, and you are in danger of losing all of your work. You shout ‘Ugh!’, or more colorful words What is the one remedy to resort to when the computer is just resisting all other efforts?

The one thing that your frozen, uncooperative computer will respond to is this: reboot. When you restart a computer it wipes out all the garbage that is standing in the way of that machine doing what it's supposed to do. Sometimes the only way to remove the trash inside, to free up the memory, is to reboot the thing.

Psalm 51 is the plea to God we use when life brings us to the point of realizing we cannot fix this computer on our own.  It is just stuck, so we need to start over. If you are feeling stuck in your life a good place to begin the process of becoming unstuck is to review whether there is anything it would be healthy for you to confess before God; not for God's sake, but for your own. 

This year you have enough stuff to make you feel down about life.  I declare that this Lent you don't need to feel guilty about eating a piece of chocolate or having a second cup of coffee. Because God does not delight in sacrifice. What God desires from each of us is a broken spirit and a contrite heart as signs that we recognize that there are things in our lives that are blocking us from peak performance.

The Church imposes ashes each year as a symbol that we are dust, not just to remind us of our own mortality, but also as a reminder that we need a new start by allowing God reboot our lives.  The ashes remind us not that we are dead, but that we are dead to sin and that you are alive in Christ. 

Lent is the annual journey from Ash Wednesday to Easter. It is a time of preparation, of cleansing, of starting over. Use this season to reboot your life, to restart your interior life, replacing the dirge of dying with songs of joy and gladness.

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