On this 1st Sunday of Lent, the ashes that we received on Wednesday have worn off & been wiped away, & the work of conversion has begun in full force.

Conversion is a reality, I think, that while we know we need to undergo, many of us would rather do it on our terms. It’s much easier to change how we want to change, when we want to change, and to change what we want to change. As I preached about in my homily on Ash Wednesday, I’m reflecting this Lent on reality TV shows like Kitchen Nightmares & Bar Rescue where experts come in to struggling and failing businesses & work with the owners & employees to figure out why they are failing & to set them up with practices for success.

How many of those businesses end up closing years & some even months down the line? While not all, there are certainly many that do & when I look back at some of the comments about what happened that led to the closure, quite often the observation is that once the expert left the business reverted back to the practices that led it to be struggling in the first place, they weren’t quite ready or able to make the lasting changes necessary to survive.

This Lent, our expert, our Savior, comes to work with us to remake & repair the struggling & “failing” parts of our lives. Our Savior comes to work with us, to point out to us where we need conversion. Are we willing to embrace God’s call to conversion, even if it means conversion that’s going to involve some hard work on our end? Are we willing to spend time in prayer asking God the question, WHAT IN ME, OR ABOUT ME, REALLY NEEDS TO BE DIFFERENT? WHERE DO I REALLY NEED TO OPEN MYSELF TO YOUR TRANSFORMING LOVE & GRACE? They’re hard questions to ask, but they’re the questions that, if we’re willing to ask them, will set us up on the path to conversion success.