One thing that has become abundantly clear to me during this Lenten Challenge is just how difficult it is to stay persistent with any task for forty plus days. I have never been one for New Year’s Resolutions and I have never successfully given anything up for Lent. I must admit that I am both envious and impressed by those who can—I am just not one of them. Hence, I have given up the counting of days.
The forty days of isolation in the desert struck me profoundly this week. Jesus was removed from the only earthly people he ever knew and this isolation came at a time of great despair and agony. Jesus was both human and divine—he would have deeply missed his support system and felt forsaken by them the same way he felt forsaken by God at the time of his death. His mental and emotional agony in the desert would foreshadow the physical agony he would feel during his crucifixion. His physical pain at the time of death was real and human—his emotional pain in the desert would also have been real and human.
Perhaps the profundity of the forty days comes from realizing that every one of us has our own desert isolation—some of us experience that isolation more often than others. That isolation is driven by many things, some of which Jesus shared. Physical and mental anguish can cause us to pull away. I believe that the forty days in the desert can represent that self-isolation we impose. Overwhelming sadness due to a sense of all-consuming darkness can create isolation. I am confident that those forty days were dark days for Jesus. Lastly, isolation comes from a sense that things are only going to get worse (at least in the near term)—a sentiment that Jesus must have shared as he grappled with what had been and what was yet to come.
Perhaps the one difference between Jesus’ time in the desert and the times I in my own figurative desert is that my desert often comes with feelings of anxiety. Anxiety is a familiar emotion—I can almost predict what will set it off and how the journey will take shape. My anxiety is always based in worry about what the future will hold. I worry about my career or money or relationships. I project forward. And I often find myself embroiled in catastrophic thinking that pictures only the most abject failure. This is where my desert and Jesus’ differ. Jesus urged his followers to not worry about what the future holds—they would only end up getting anxious over what may or may not be. And Jesus knew that anxiety would get in the way of trust and faith and, most important, love.
Anxiety for me comes when I feel that I have lost control and can no longer shape what is to come. But this is a false emotion because I never truly had control over what was to come. Anxiety causes me to question everything around me. I lose faith in those things to which I once held fast. Lastly anxiety causes me to shut down from love—both the giving and receiving. Anxiety, at its root, is profound doubt and profound doubt is crippling.
Jesus had no doubts during his forty days as the path before him was abundantly clear. But he agonized over the suffering that he was to endure. Perhaps I need to follow that same model, treat myself with kindness when I am in the desert and let the suffering have its time and place. But I should never doubt that there is a path forward that will result in my being made stronger. I will not be the giver of redemptive love like Jesus was, but I can be a giver of love that strengthens those around me—and be strengthened in return.