my lenten fast
After days of praying and soul-searching, I have decided to fast from doom-scrolling on my phone. I love to see what my daughter and daughter-in-law have posted on their Instagram accounts, but I can follow checking them out with scrolling down through endless offerings. It is a total time-suck, and I want to be released from the addiction to my device.
Even more than freedom, I want to replace what I am giving up with a greater awareness of my need for Jesus and increased love for my neighbor. Therefore, I’ve adapted a prayer and placed in my favorite photos, a version of what I sent you last week from Lection 365: “Show me how to surrender anything worthless that holds power in my heart. Increase my love for you, Jesus.” When tempted to scroll past my family Instagram pages, I can switch to this prayer instead.
I’ve also included a few verses of the song, “More Love to Thee, O Lord”: “Once earthly joy I craved, sought peace and rest; now thee alone I seek, give what is best; this all my prayer shall be: more love, O Lord, to Thee, more love to Thee, more love to Thee!”.
In Volume One of “Every Moment Holy” there is a liturgy for those flooded by “Too Much Information”. I share it in its entirety in case you, like me, need help with all the “crazy” coming at you:
“In a world so wired and interconnected, our anxious hearts
are pummeled by an endless barrage of troubling news.
We are daily aware of more grief, O Lord,
than we can rightly consider, of more suffering and scandal
than we can respond to, or more hostility, hatred, horror,
and injustice than we can engage with compassion.
But you, O Jesus, are not disquieted by such news of cruelty
and terror and war. You are neither anxious nor overwhelmed.
You carried the full weight of the suffering of a broken world
when you hung upon the cross, and you carry it still.
When the cacophony of universal distress unsettles us, remind
us that we are but small and finite creatures, never designed
to carry the vast abstractions of great burdens, for
our arms are too short and our strength is too small.
Justice and mercy, healing and redemption
are your great labors.
And yes, it is your good pleasure to accomplish such works
through your people, but you have never asked any one of us
to undertake more than your grace will enable us to fulfill.
Guard us then from shutting down our empathy or
walling off our hearts because of the glut of unactionable
misery that floods our awareness. You have many children
in many places around this globe. Move each of our hearts
to compassionately respond to those needs that intersect
our actual lives, that in all places your body might be actively
addressing the pain and brokenness of this world, each of us
liberated and empowered by your Spirit to fulfill the
small part of your redemptive work assigned to us.
Give us discernment
In the face of troubling news reports.
Give us discernment
to know when to pray, when to speak out,
when to act, and when to simply shut off
our screens and our devices,
and to sit quietly
in your presence,
casting the burdens of this world
upon the strong shoulders
of the one who
alone
is able to bear them up.”
Amen! For me this is the season to “simply shut off my screens and devices.”
What kind of fast will you undertake this Lent?
Love, Liz
