Why the journey?

Am I too young to say, ‘I’m not as young as I used to be’? Or maybe, ‘I’m not the person I used to be’.
On Wednesday I became reacquainted with my mountain bike. It’s been living in the shed, neatly stored away for some time now. For the last couple of months I’ve managed to neglect it with excuses like, ‘I’m too busy’, or ‘it’s too hot’. For lent this year I decided to re-connect with a discipline which has been valuable for me. I will pull out my bike, dust it off, abandon my car and ride daily to and from the places I need to be everyday.
Sounds like a great idea doesn’t it? I soon encountered a hitch in the journey that I wasn’t quiet prepared for. I live in a valley and my office is about 4 or 5km away at the top of the hill. I was about half way up this hill when I realized just how unfit I had become. I must admit I did glance down the hill a couple of times and wonder at the ease of turning around to go back and get the car. But I pushed on because I knew this journey was an intentional discipline that will not only get me back into shape and help the environment by taking one more car off the road, but it was a discipline about recreating space. This recreating space was about taking time for the journey and understanding a bit more about this journey that I take from the bottom of the valley to the top of the hill. This journey involves hard work, discipline and pain. However I know with the practice of the discipline the journey will get easier.
Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, was the first day of lent. Lent is about revisiting the disciplines that define us as the people of God. It may be about reconnecting with or revisiting the journey less traveled. We do this by taking on disciplines that help focus us on the journey towards the cross and the commitment to the kingdom of God. But is the fasting or the abstinence from certain things a bid to impress God or others? It seems that over the centuries of this practice it has become so. Even Isaiah recognizes such a thing in Isaiah 58. He says that if your disciplines don’t change you or redirect your journey then they are discovered for what they really are, a poor attempt to win favor with God.
However Isaiah responds on God’s behalf,
‘This is the kind of fasting I choose: cut the bonds of oppression, undo the yoke of injustice, set the oppressed free. Share your bread with the hungry, open your doors to the homeless. Give your coat to those who shiver, and don’t hide yourself from your own family.
Do this and light shall begin to dawn, and very quickly healing will be yours, my righteousness shall go ahead of you, and my glory shall follow your every step. Then you will call out for help, and I will answer. I will say to you, “Here I am, my child.”’
Lent isn’t just about a pious abstinence from the things of this world, it is a solid commitment to participate in changing it. May you commit to the journey of such things that melt the heart of God, and may your heart also be transformed as you participate in the journey God longs for us.

Shalom, Mark