SHOWING THE WAY TO GOD
By Belinda Chapman
Giver of the Full Spiritual Exercises, Ignatian Spiritual Director and Tasmania-based retreat facilitator
For years, Lent for me was focused on the testing/tempting by the Devil, a season to try hard to succeed at passing the test by doing the right things. That was until I entered the wilderness with Jesus, straight after his baptism, and Lent became an invitation to focus on the beloved son of God.
No longer did I see the enemy of human nature setting a pass-or-fail situation or a trap to prove unworthiness. With Jesus, I was invited to enter a season of clarity and confirmation of my relationship with God, much in the way a caring teacher sets a test to ensure that students are actually comprehending the concepts taught and are ready to expand in knowledge and experience.
Jesus spent 40 days comprehending and thoroughly embracing the inner knowledge of himself as God’s son, beloved, delightful in the father’s eyes. He fasted. Digesting anything else would be distracting. Beloved is who he is – this is the core of his identity, this is the unchanging status of his relationship with God. His life, ministry, death and resurrection became a full, embodied expression of his belovedness.
The Devil’s temptations tried to tell a different story about God, suggesting that pride (reliance on self), honour (need for status or acceptance) and riches (material possession and power) were needed to complete Jesus’ identity or prove him worthy. Jesus remained grounded in his identity as beloved.
The same temptations remain for us. Perhaps it feels too good to be true that we, too, are children of God, beloved and delightful in the Father’s eyes. May this Lent be a season of comprehending and thoroughly embracing the inner knowledge of ourselves as beloved, fasting from anything that distracts us from this truth while trying to tell us a different story about God.
Banner image: Mohammed Nasim, Canva.