This Lent, you and I have an exciting and exacting six weeks to prepare the way of the Lord. The prophet Isaiah, who originally issued this order (Isaiah 40:3), tells us exactly how to do this. We have to make that way straight.
In Isaiah’s time, people travelled either on foot or on animals. Bad roads were a reality and a menace. But a straight road was much safer. You could go faster, see for miles ahead, and were less likely to be attacked without warning.
Isaiah also tells us in the same verses that the entire landscape will change – valleys filled in and mountains levelled. But he doesn’t say that this is our job. Instead, the Lord himself will do that for us as he comes along that nice straight path that we prepared for him.
If we do the small stuff, he will do the big stuff. So Lent is a time for conversion –metanoia, a deep inner change that will straighten out that path. What’s the best way to begin? By letting go of some of our expectations.
I recently read a post on a Catholic Facebook page from someone looking to hire a young(ish) speaker who had undergone a dramatic conversion from a whole range of sinful lifestyles.
Personally, I don’t like testimonies at Catholic events. They always feel too gushy, too Protestant, and too premature. Talking about your overnight conversion can set your audience up for failure. They too start praying for and expecting a similar miracle.
When it doesn’t happen – which it usually doesn’t, because God works differently with most of us – they can give up altogether. Plus it can generate a self-referential warm fuzzy sludge exactly when we should be giving glory instead to God, the most important person in the room.
The best testimonial is a life well lived. But that’s a lot less glamorous, even with Instagram filters. My point is that conversion is never a finished process. It’s also rarely an overnight one.
We know from bitter experience that overnight conversions from all kinds of sinful lifestyles tend to be followed sooner or later by exciting relapses. Does this make those dramatic conversions less sincere? Of course not. The person genuinely felt converted at the time. But the roots hadn’t gone very deep. It was meant to be the beginning of a much longer process.
We underestimate the size of our personal wounds and the amount of healing needed to fix them. The valleys can be very deep, and the mountains very high. But filling those valleys and levelling those mountains is God’s business. And he will do it if you do the much smaller task of simply preparing a way for him.
So for this first full week of Lent, start by having a closer look at the way of the Lord that’s inside you. Take stock of what you’re up against (Luke 14:28-30). Be very honest about who you really are, what you’re worst at, and who you hate the most.
If you’re fresh out of ideas or think you’re quite a good person, don’t worry. Each week in this column I will set you straight about this, if I do my job right. Conversion can and should be a way of life for every Christian. The normal way forward is to make small incremental gains.
We are never standing still in the spiritual life – we are always either going forwards or backwards. If you are making small incremental gains, then you are moving forward, and that’s in the right direction.
We really do have to keep hacking away at the small stuff. This kind of conversion – slow, steady, lasting – is exactly what prepares the way of the Lord for most of us. I know you want a single big-ticket item for Lent that will solve everything. I know you want all your bad habits and constant temptations to just go away and leave you alone.
But God has something better in mind for you: a chance to cooperate with him to break down and straighten out some of the smaller bumps in your life. Small stuff matters. God has told us this himself – if you show you can be trusted in little things, you will be trusted with bigger ones (Luke 16:10).
We have some serious road-mending and way-straightening to do. Now is probably a good time to ask for the graces of patience, persistence, and perseverance. Lent is not a sprint. It’s not even a marathon. It’s one more stage of a very long journey that lasts your entire life.
Let’s get started.
