A funny thing happens during most Fridays of Lent. I get a craving for bacon. Don’t know why. I love bacon, but I hardly ever have it for
breakfast unless I eat out. Ever had the
“Baconator” burger at Wendy’s? It’s a
double decker cheeseburger with thick slices of bacon between each burger. Ridiculously delicious and totally bad for
you. I think my cardiologist has a
picture of the Baconator in his office with the caption: “Don’t eat this if you
want to live.” Then you have the thick
bacon they serve at Cracker Barrel that tastes like it was cut just for you. Thick slices of heaven!
So why did I just spend a paragraph waxing poetic about
bacon of all things? It’s to remind us
that during Lent we will be tempted by really trivial things that may derail us
on our journey towards Easter. Lenten
discipline, like abstinence on Fridays, is all about keeping us focused on the
cross and focused on detaching ourselves from the things of this world. Small temptations, though small, can
accumulate and lead us far from the path God has chosen for us. Temptation leads to sin, which may start off
small and harmless but can quickly become habitual and destructive. We may rationalize that eating a piece of
meat on a Friday of Lent may be harmless because it is an antiquated tradition,
but we run the risk of using the same train of thought when confronted with
larger temptations. Resist even the
smallest of temptations for they distract us from our Lord. We have the gift of these 40 days to purge the
unnecessary from our lives and cling to the One who is.
