Lent Isn’t About Giving Things Up
Every year around this time, the same question floats around like a stray balloon:
“What are you giving up for Lent?”
Chocolate. Sugar. Instagram. Bread. Coffee (brave souls).
The conversation usually centers on subtraction, what we’ll deny ourselves, what we’ll remove, what we’ll grit our teeth through for forty days.
But Lent isn’t really about giving things up.
It’s about making room.
Room for quiet.
Room for attention.
Room for God to speak without having to compete with everything else clamoring for us.
Lent is less a spiritual diet and more a gentle clearing of the table.
Clearing the Table
When we’re about to sit down to share a meal, there’s always moments of preparation. We move mail off the table. Stack the books. Put away whatever has collected there throughout the day.
Not because those things are bad, but because they’re in the way.
Lent works the same way.
It asks us to notice what has accumulated in our lives: the noise, the habits, the constant reaching for distraction. Not to shame ourselves for them, but to ask a quieter question:
What’s taking up space that something better could fill?
Sometimes what we “give up” isn’t the point at all. Sometimes it’s what that absence makes possible.
Making Space Instead of Rules
I’ve learned that Lent goes sideways for me when I turn it into a checklist or a competition with myself. When I focus too much on rules, I miss the invitation. Remember the Lord knocks at the door. He does not come busting in. We have to choose Him as our guest.
So instead of asking What should I stop?
I try to ask the Lord What do I want to make room for?
More Scripture, read slowly instead of rushed.
More silence, even if it feels uncomfortable at first.
More prayer that sounds less like a list and more like listening.
More awareness of my own limits and knowing God is beside me when I have to push further.
Sometimes that means setting something down.
Sometimes it means picking something up.
Often, it’s both.
The Gentle Work of Attention
Lent is a season of attention.
Attention to what feeds us. Are we only eating junk?
Attention to what numbs us. Are we shoving things under the carpet, instead of dealing with it?
Attention to the quiet ways God is already knocking, waiting for us to open the door.
It’s a time to notice how often we fill every empty space, every pause, every uncomfortable feeling, with noise or consumption. And then, gently, to let some of that space remain open.
Empty, but not hollow.
Open, but not neglected.
A Different Kind of Offering
What if this year, instead of announcing what we’re giving up, we quietly tend to what we’re making room for?
Room for repentance that leads to freedom, not shame.
Room for gratitude that softens us.
Room for longing, instead of immediately numbing it.
Room for Christ to meet us right where we actually are.
Lent isn’t about proving our discipline.
It’s about preparing our hearts.
Clearing the table.
Pulling out the chairs.
And trusting that what God brings to fill the space will be enough.
Written by guest author, Jodie Elrod
Original article: Pen & Plate
