Fulness and abundance of relationship with Christ
Gemma Culverwell
Third week of Lent 2023
Long before I became a Christian, I remember attending a ‘Lent Lunch’ at a village church with my grandmother. I have visceral childhood memories of the grainy texture of the salty powder-based soup served in a polystyrene cup (it was the nineties), and the dry sponginess of the accompanying bread roll. No cake, either, which was usually a key feature of any childhood visits to see Gran.
It was this experience, and soaking in unhelpful primary school teaching, that cemented notions of Lent as a tough thing to endure. I understood Lent to be a grey time of boring self-denial, and ‘giving up’ of much-loved treats, in anticipation of the bountiful joy and colour of Eastertide.
As a Christian in my twenties, I continued to carry these distorted ideas for some years on my walk with Jesus, which had repercussions for my prayer life. Ash Wednesday became the spiritual fitness equivalent to a New Year’s crash diet, with a dangerously sanctimonious angle. Repeatedly, I’d try to embark on an arduous regime of spiritual discipline (not evident at all throughout the rest of the year), all the while lacking sustained relational intimacy with the Lord. My prayer time would inevitably focus on the meagreness of Lent, and my paltry ‘sacrificial’ acts of denial, and enduring emptiness. As a result, I completely missed out on the abundance and simple beauty of Lent.
Fixing our gaze on the shape and limits of our time, capacity and preferences for prayer, rather than centring on the fullness of God, derails our efforts to seek the Lord, and to engage meaningfully with Him. Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians (Ephesians 3:14-21) is particularly helpful in guiding our own prayer from introspection to Christ-centredness. It immediately follows Paul’s rich description of our glorious inheritance and treasures in Christ. Ephesians 3:14-21 is one of my favourite prayers in Scripture, and a passage I frequently pray over myself and others. Now, my incredibly gifted and learned colleagues may gently chide me for dumping a load of Scripture in the middle of a blog post without unpacking it properly, but it is so rich and delicious a morsel that I can’t help but remind you of it here, with the hope that you will be encouraged to pray this for yourself:
“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”
Ephesians 3:14-21, NIV
In 2019, the Lord spoke to me when camping with my church at a Christian festival. It was August, a typical British Summer, and from time-to-time the rain abated, enabling the children in our group to play out with their friends. Every evening, between 5 and 6pm, you would hear parents persistently summoning their children in for tea. However, the kids were so utterly absorbed in their play and other matters, that they didn’t hear the repeated calls to come and sit up at the table and receive their evening meal. Invariably, the children would approach their parents later to inform them of their insistent hunger, long after the appointed mealtime.
As the Father’s children, it is in our interest to be urgently attentive to the invitation to His table, and to seek Him for nourishment in prayer before we reach the point where we can no longer ignore our gnawing hunger. Our Father’s table overflows in abundance and splendour, and is available at any time. However, Lent can often provide space and simplicity to respond fully to the call to ‘sit up’. And, unlike the Lent Lunch of my childhood, there is cake: our souls are ‘…as satisfied as with the richest of foods’ (Psalm 63:2).
Published 15 March 2023
