Hasn’t even been a full week of Lent, and I already strayed off the path I set out on!! One of my Lenten commitments this year was to cutback on social media. I planned to spend only 10 minutes during the week and abstain from any use on Saturdays and Sundays. I sat down on the first Saturday of Lent to work on a writing course to fine-tune my writing skills. The course started by discussing building your social media platform. No biggie, I thought. I’m just learning about it here, I’ll keep watching. Before I knew it, I was making a Canva cover for a new Facebook writing page to go with my existing Insta. It was when I swiped my phone in an all-too-familiar pattern that I realized I was heading straight to Instagram, and it sank in what was happening. My brain, or more likely God, said, “Hey, remember you weren’t going to do that today.” I quickly closed out the tab on my browser and turned to prayer with My Father. 

(I do feel called to post for God, but I want to make sure it is not taking place or distracting me from my relationship with Him.)

I started my conversation with God with a guilty conscience and feelings of failure, apologizing for having already broken my commitment. As the conversation, AKA prayer, continued, I started to remember that the whole point of Lent is to come to God when I am tempted and to build my relationship with Him. Lent is about progress, not perfection. There is no way I can be perfect; I am human. I need God’s love. I need God’s forgiveness. I need God’s grace. I need God. 

Remembering this, I finished the prayer by recommitting to my Lenten intention from that moment, knowing that God was right there, nodding in approval. I asked God for His strength and guidance during Lent to not focus on perfection or worldly things, but to put my focus where it belongs: on My Father, His Son who died for me, and the Holy Spirit who dwells in me today.

As I closed my prayer with God, I was reminded that Lamentations 3:22-23 tells us that “The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning.” There is no distance that God will not go to pursue us. God’s love for us is never-ending and always pursuing us. God loves us so much that, even though we deserve punishment for our sins, He forgives us and goes a step further, giving us mercies that never cease!

 The only thing we are to do when we realize our mistakes and sins is to turn from them and turn towards God. He is waiting for us with wide-open arms. 

Are you waiting for a good time to give up and surrender that sin? 

Are you thinking ‘Well, Lent has already started. I’ll do it next year?’ 

Have you ‘failed’ your Lenten commitment like me? 

Good news, friend, today is a good day to come back from it all and go to God. He is waiting for you.

With faith,
Melanie Drews
Paws on God’s Path