Special to United Methodist Insight | Ash Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026
Photo Courtesy of Bishop Ken Carter
Today we begin a season of forty days, Lent, which derives from the observation that the days are lengthening. The season prepares us for Easter and the resurrection, which itself flows into Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Lent can be understood in many ways. I want to invite you to a way of life, a spiritual practice. Lent invites us to change our behaviors, our movements. Lent is an invitation to…
Return to God with all your heart…God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. (Joel 2)
Lent is an invitation to draw closer to God, to invest in our spiritual lives. On balance we are often more engaged in the active life–we serve others, we want to improve our communities, we protest injustice, we develop programs, we accomplish goals. All of this is essential. As I have often noted, United Methodists across Western North Carolina are often the people who hold communities and families together, who do the heavy social lifting that is sustaining.
This is the call to discipleship. And, this can come at a cost. We can lose touch with our motivations (why are we doing these good works?), we can become obsessed with recognition (why am I not being noticed?) and we can become discouraged (why are things not getting better by now?).
Lent is an interruption in all of this, an intervention.
Take care not to perform righteous deeds so that others will see them.When you give, when you pray, when you fast, don’t blow the trumpet,but do it in secret, and then only God will know. (Matthew 6)
The fasting in Lent may be about food, but with eating disorders and diabetes this can be complicated for many. The fasting may be about setting something aside. In the spiritual life these are called attachments. We become attached to experiences, to goals, even to people in ways large and small. All of this can become destructive for us.
Lent is a season of detachment. Detachment is a path to freedom. We let go of something in order to create space for something better. Perhaps we let go of some activity in order to spend seven minutes a day with God, in silence. We do this for the sole purpose of spending time with Someone who loves us.
In the busyness, in the noise, we can lose touch with this. Lent invites us to a deeper awareness of God, a closer attention to God, a greater consciousness of God. This will not happen because of something we begin to think about or believe. It will come through practice, every day, for forty days. Waking up a little earlier, slowing down at night. With intentionality we come into the presence of God; we may feel that presence, we may not. That is not the point.
The practice is to return.
Be still and know that I am God. (Psalm 46)
And in the returning, in the stillness, we are being changed.
I am often in conversations about change. A local church recognizes that it needs to change or it will face a crisis in a few years. Citizens understand the need for social change, not being silent in the face of injustice. A visit to a physician confirms the indicators that something needs to change in order to be healthy.
Or perhaps we feel stuck in some ways, or overwhelmed, or discouraged, or anxious.
Lent is a way into and through all of this. In the spiritual life we do not avoid the hard things, we lean into them. And in the spiritual life we often recognize our need for grace, a higher power, Jesus.
Forty days of listening for this can create new habits, can remove detachments, can connect us to God and to each other. And it can give us a new strength and a renewed energy to be there for others.
The Sixth chapter of Matthew begins with the traditional gospel reading for Ash Wednesday (verses 1-6, 16-21) and then flows into the Lord’s Prayer (verses 9-13), and then concludes with the teaching of Jesus that is known to many of us (verses 25ff.):
Do not be anxious about your life
Look at the birds of the air, consider the lilies of the field
Do not worry about what you will eat or drink or wear
Your Heavenly Father knows that you need these things.
Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness
And all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6)
I love the translation of this passage by Eugene Peterson (The Message)
What I am trying to get you to do here is relax,
to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving.
Give your attention to what God is doing right now,
and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.
In The United Methodist Church we can become overly focused on legislation and structure, initiatives and programs. I have been a part of this. It can be worthy work. I also recognize the shadow side of all of this. Good people, sometimes fewer good people, are trying to do more and more, when the human needs are increasing. This can lead to frustration, demoralization, anxiety and even burnout.
Lent is an interruption, an intervention, an invitation to live in the kingdom of heaven, here on earth. Many of us pray for this each Sunday. And it could be that to live in this different way requires an intention, a method.
What might that look like for you in the next forty days? (Note: Choosing one or at the most two of these would represent a significant change.)
- You might spend seven minutes of silence at the beginning of each day. And in the silence you might focus on one word or phrase from scripture.
- You might fast from technology one day each week, perhaps from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon.
- You might journal about who God is to you, at this stage in your life.
- You might meet once a month with a friend, someone with whom you are accountable and supportive.
- You might read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) slowly.
- You might eat more vegetarian meals.
- You might explore an area in your life that calls for repentance, begin to name that, and make a financial contribution to a ministry or cause that works in that same area.
- You might go to bed one hour earlier each night.
There are echoes in Matthew 6 of another of my favorite chapters in the Bible, Exodus 16. God’s people have been liberated from slavery, they are on the way to the promised land, but they find themselves in the wilderness. There they learn to place their trust only in God. There they learn the lesson that God provides. There they are taught to observe the sabbath. And there they learn to live one day at a time.
- So what is Lent meaning to you? What spiritual experiment are you undertaking? What is your community offering? What podcasts or substack articles are sustaining you? What small step are you taking? Small steps can be powerful. Wishing you a blessed Lent, and may our intentions, prayers and actions lead to change that is greater than our own powers.
- As always, thanks for reading, subscribing, recommending and sharing. Mostly, thanks for your friendship and the connection.
Bishop Carter
Bishop Ken Carter (Florida Conference Photo)
Bishop Ken Carter is the resident bishop of the Western North Carolina Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. This article is republished from his Substack blog, "Grinding the Beans."