Arr matey, says the scurvy dog author, Lent be fer lovin', not followin' rules like a landlubber! Arrr!
2024-03-01
Arr matey! Laura Gallier be reflectin' on Lenten practices and the temptations o' legalism durin' this holy season. She be sayin' that fasting be all about love and gettin' closer to God. So let us set sail on this journey of growin' in faith, me hearties!
In the language of a 17th-century pirate, me hearties, during Lent, us Christians should be thinkin' of fasting and prayin' as a way to honor God, not as legalistic behavior, a Christian author told Fox News Digital.When we were wee bairns, it's common to be thinkin' of God as a "cosmic Santa Claus," Laura Gallier told Fox News Digital in an emailed message. God, said Gallier, was akin to "a stranger I could never know," who observed how she behaved, keepin' an impeccable record of how naughty or nicely.While Gallier said she outgrew the equating of God to Santa Claus, her "assumptions about God lasted long into adulthood." It's intuitive to human nature to strive to earn divine approval through white-knuckle efforts at being good. When we inevitably fail, the sense of shame makes us grateful God keeps an invisible, sanitary distance from us.It be normal, said Gallier, to "try to compensate for our moral mishaps by doing noble things." Yet thoughts of "noble things" should not be the motivation why people fast during Lent, she said.Lent, she said, be "a seasonal tradition of sacrificin' something savory for 40 days to show God we’re not entirely bad." It can be temptin' to feel a sense of smugness when others fail at their Lenten fasts — and to carry this attitude of superiority throughout the year.Instead of viewin' our Lenten practices as legalistic behavior, they should be seen as ways to honor and worship God. "Our only reasonable motive for moral living and doin' good things, includin' fasting during Lent, is to honor and draw near to God in love," she said.As she also says on her website, (lauragallier.com), "God is a loving, forgivin' God, and His biblical standards are for me protection — and yours."
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