This year for Lent, I limited using my car. I rode my bicycle to and from work roughly four days a week and for a few errands. I road approximately 150 miles over the season. I did not have a strong agenda for why I was doing it. I wasn’t necessarily pursuing losing weight, gaining energy and focus, or becoming more disciplined in general, but I did receive all of those benefits. I just felt like it was what God wanted me to do. I trusted that sense and then watched for what God wanted me to learn. Here is what I observed.
1. Cars give you independence but they also isolate you. Riding my bike through neighborhoods, people smiled at me and said, “Good morning” or “Hello.” I responded in kind. I saw so much of what went on. Children playing. Birds and critters doing their morning bustle. I catch glimpses of these activities from a car but very limitedly.
2. Most people walking, riding the bus or a bike in our community are poor. I am not sure I encountered any other bike commuters. I gained a sense of what a privilege and luxury a car really is. This came home to me painfully one day when I missed my bus by a matter of yards. I watched in defeat as I sprinted breathlessly after a bus unaware as it sped past my stop. A friend of mine remarked on how that’s what some people have to deal with every day. So I walked home to understand that. It took about an hour. And it was worth each minute.
3. Body holiness should mean as much to us as scripture study, prayer, worship, service and evangelism. Body holiness is just my way of saying being a good steward of our physical health. We did not create our bodies, but we are expected to care for our bodies. As my energy, tone and cardio-fitness have begun to improve and my weight drops, I am realizing clearly how unfit I am. More importantly, I am recognizing it is an injustice to God, because it limits my ability to give Him the best of my mind and body.
4. Purposefully reducing physical effort to the point of having to pay for a gym membership and schedule exercise is insane. I can ride my bicycle to work four days a week at a net cost of about 20 minutes time round trip each time and some limited inconvenience. Or I can drive and fork over more money for gas, maintenance and try to find time to schedule visits to the gym and pay for it. Huh??? I wonder what I should do?
5. We need to break up our routines to have awareness of our assumptions. Needing to drive a car everywhere was an assumption stuck in my head, but the idea that it is “need” is faulty. Driving everywhere is a choice, a privilege and a luxury that many can’t afford. How many other places in my life am I expending my life in less than healthy ways around false assumptions?
6. Gel seats come from heaven. I am not sure I need to elaborate on this, but after an initial few days of riding without one, I can definitively say where standard issue seats come from.
If you committed to a Lenten discipline I would challenge you to list at least five to seven lessons learned. A vast gain from any discipline is often missed because of a failure to reflect. I didn’t fully realize my lessons learned until I wrote the title “6 lessons learned from my lenten discipline” and then stared at six blank bullet points. I would encourage you to do the same and I would love to hear your lessons.
Blessings from the Rolling Reverend at the Practical Disciple
p.s. I am sticking with my discipline beyond Lent
I’ve never given up anything for Lent. How did that tradition get started anyway? Is it based in scripture? What is the purpose of doing it? If it is to clear your mind to prepare mentally for Easter, then do you believe that it does do that or is it more likely that people clutter their minds obsessing over what they have given up to focus on Easter?
Just a few thoughts and questions. :o)
Very cool. Loved reading your observations through this discipline.
Thanks. I am learning that half the learning of a spiritual discipline is periodically reflecting on the experience and taking stock of the lessons learned.