What Are You Giving God?
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.
-- Isaiah 58:4b
I've never really understood the giving up of something for Lent. How does giving up Diet Coke or chocolate bring us closer to God?
People have tried to explain it to me. Every time you crave whatever you have given up, you think of God and it draws you closer to Him. Actually, I think it would just make me irritable. And I don't think it impresses God at all.
What is God looking for? The answers are found in Isaiah 58.
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter --
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
-- Isaiah 58:6-7
I guess that explains it all. We'd rather choose to give something up rather than do for the poor. We'd rather do something for our own benefit than to reach out and help someone who might never be able to do anything for us. We'd rather choose something that is convenient than get dirty or give up something we value, like our time.
God doesn't want empty gifts this Ash Wednesday. He has told us what matters to Him. If we are truly repentant, shouldn't this day be about God?
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