#34: Lent – Our Path Back To Jesus

Lent rarely arrives with spectacle; it slips into our calendars with a smudge of ash and a deeper invitation. We open this conversation with 1 Timothy 2:5 and center the simple truth that Lent is all about Jesus — the bridge between our restless hearts and the Father. From there, we walk through Joel 2’s call to return “with all your heart” and unpack three movements that shape a meaningful season: fasting, weeping, and mourning.

Fasting gets reframed from performance to freedom. Instead of flexing willpower or chasing perfection, we identify the comforts and distractions—sugar, scrolling, shopping carts, gossip, anxiety-fueled productivity—that keep us from God, and we clear them to make space for the Holy Spirit. Anchored in Matthew 4:4, we remember we don’t live on bread alone, or on the habits that numb us, but on every word from God.

We then explore weeping as a courageous softening. Scripture is fluent in tears—David, Peter, and even Jesus—and we contrast worldly sorrow that crushes with godly sorrow that heals (2 Corinthians 7:10). Honest tears become the path back home when we admit where we’ve drifted. Finally, we move into mourning: naming what sin has broken in our habits, our relationships, and our hearts. With Matthew 5:4 as our guide, we face the grief we’ve delayed so that comfort and real restoration can find us. Joel’s charge to “rend your heart, not your garments” brings it all together—a private surrender before a God who is gracious and abounding in love.

By the end, you’ll have a grounded, hopeful way to enter Lent: empty what numbs, feel what’s true, grieve what’s lost, and let Jesus lead you into the freedom and lightness on the far side of surrender.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Intent For Joy
• 0:36 Introducing Lent’s Real Focus
• 1:52 From Ashes To Honest Self‑Assessment
• 3:04 Fasting As Freedom, Not Performance
• 6:27 Softening Through Weeping
• 9:07 Mourning What Sin Has Broken
• 12:15 Rend Your Heart, Not Your Clothes
• 15:30 Encouragement, Next Steps, And CTA

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:06

Ciao and welcome to Life Out Loud. I am your host, Desiree Melfi Bozo. We are going to use this space to share experiences and help you find lasting, unshakeable, unwavering, unmessable with joy and gratitude. We're going to be throwing around encouragement a little bit like confetti and giving you support to live your very best life. Ciao friends, welcome back to the Life Out Loud podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 0:33

I am your host, Desiree Melfi Botso. Today we're going to spend some time diving into Lent. So it kicks off tomorrow, and we are going to spend a little bit of time diving into what this season means, why it's important, and all the things. So to start us off, we're going to pick up in First Timothy chapter two, verse five. It says, For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Jesus Christ. First Timothy is telling us, pointing us to it being all about Jesus. Everything, all of it. It is about the King of King and the Lord of Lords. And I want to talk about how this applies to Lent and what this means for us on this side of heaven. So Lent is not about the rituals. Right. Lent is about this returning. It's returning to the one who's the bridge between us and God. And that bridge is Jesus. So every year, I feel like Lent shows up. It just kind of creeps in quietly. There's no fireworks like the Fourth of July. There's no ball drop like we saw on New Year's Eve. There's no presence under the tree, right? There's none of that. It just kind of creeps in the middle of February when it's cold and the air still hurts our face. And today the sun's shining, but sometimes it's not. It's this day that shows up. We see it in Genesis 3:19. Remember, we are dust, and to dust we return. It's this smudge on our forehead in the form of Ash Wednesday, right? Lent doesn't begin with a celebration, but begins with this brutal honesty of where we are in life, who we are in life, and assessing all of those things. That honesty is what is and becomes the gift of Lent. So I know when I was little, I don't know about you, I used to think of Lent as like this punishment. We're horrible people, and now we have to give up these things to try and get closer to God. And it was this whole thing that I made up in my head, and it's not a punishment, okay? And it's not about being strict. That giving up is actually about making space. And so it's making space in our schedules, it's making space in our hearts, it's making space in our habits, it's making space for the bridge, Jesus, to lead us back to the Father. I want to turn to Joel 2, verse 12. Even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart. How much of your heart? All of it. He wants all of it. Not some of it, not a little bit of it, all of it. Even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart. With fasting and weeping and mourning. Now you might read that and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that escalated kind of quickly. I don't know about all that. The fasting, okay, I'll give up the thing. I won't eat meat on Fridays, but I don't know about the rest of that because that's so sounds a little emotional. So I want to spend some time unpacking the fasting and the weeping and the mourning. Okay. So these are actually three movements of the heart. There are three things that show up as we return to Jesus. And they're important things. So let's dive into them. The first one I want to talk about is fasting. So fasting is about this letting go of the things that fill our bodies, but don't actually fill our hearts and our minds and our souls. Okay. Perhaps this is the most visible part of Lent because we often hear the question, what are you giving up for Lent? I'm giving up sugar. I'm giving up sweets. I'm giving up coffee. I'm giving up alcohol. I'm giving up gossiping. I'm getting like whatever, right? What are the things the thing you're giving up? It's an active thing, it's kind of tangible. Sometimes the question and the thing that we give up can be problematic because it turns into a performative thing, turns into a perfectionism thing, right? And so the giving up and the fasting isn't about pride or willpower or accomplishment. It's actually about freedom. So when we make space and we clear out the thing that's preventing us from being close to Jesus and close to God, it reveals to Ayan instead of God. Not that any of us do that, right? So a couple things that perhaps maybe for you it could get in the way of. So oftentimes we turn to comfort or we turn to control or we turn to distraction or noise or the habits that tend to numb us instead of turning to God. And the fasting plucks those out. Okay. Fasting is freedom to say, Lord, I want you more than I want this, whatever this is. I'm going to turn to Matthew 4-4. Jesus answered, He's talking here to Satan. It is written, referring to the scriptures, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. And so here I want us to replace all the things that we put in between us and God for bread, right? So man does not live on your Amazon shopping carts alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Man does not live on real shopping carts. Man does not live on sugary goodness. Man does not live on alcohol or gossip or judgment, or man does not live on being obsessed with our appearances or our anxiety-driven productivity or perfectionism, right? Man does not live on that. It's unsustainable. We can't. But on every word that comes from the mouth of God. So if I kept going, I would have hit yours. We all have these things. We all have these things that get in the way of our relationship with God. They're the things we look to and look at and look for instead of Him. Fasting empties us. And it's not so we can be deprived or punished or God is strict. It's not for any of those reasons, but it's so we can be filled with something better. And fasting fills the space because it creates this opening for the Holy Spirit to rush in, for Jesus to reach out his hand. And if you're watching me right now, like literally reaching out his hand to us and says, come this way, do this thing, right? Embark on this with me. The next thing I want to move to is the weeping. And if you're one of the I'm fine people, you hear the word weeping and you're like, no, no, no, let's be joyful. Well, let's dive into this. Weeping is letting our hearts soften before God. It's a it's a heart posture, a softening heart posture when sometimes the world can make our hearts hard. We don't talk a lot about this because strength is more comfortable and control is more comfortable and composure is more comfortable, and I'm fine is always more comfortable, but we're not in it for comfort, right? So we know if we look at scripture, it's full of tears. David wept over his sin. Peter wept after he denied Jesus. Jesus wept. He wept at the tomb of Lazarus in John 11, 35. Jesus wept. Weeping isn't weakness, right? Emotions aren't weakness. Sometimes it's our greatest superpower. Lent invites us through fasting to stop numbing ourselves and to let us feel what is happening inside us. Things like the sins that we just excuse because everybody does that, right? Wounds that we carry that are so deep that are so hard to look at sometimes, so hard to deal with because it gets messy, right? Relationships we've neglected, ways we've drifted from God. Verse 10. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret. But worldly sorrow brings death. Worldly sorrow destroys us. Even on our best day. Worldly sorrow is heavy and it's hard and it's difficult. Godly sorrow is what heals us, and Paul knew this. Paul understood this. It's as simple as getting into a really quiet place and saying, Lord, my heart's wandered and I'm ready to come home. God, I don't know how, I don't know why, but I've drifted and I'm ready to come back. Right? It's that simple, honest prayer that we can only feel it if we, or if we can only, it's a simple, honest prayer, and we can only feel it and truly pray that if we remove the things that are filling us, right? We have to be emptied in order to get real honest. Okay. It's a raw honesty between you and the one who created you. When we make time for the weeping, joy comes in the morning. The rejoicing comes after. The next thing I want to talk about is the mourning. M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G, right? The mourning is about grieving the things that sin has broken. Mourning is something that goes deeper than the weeping. Weeping's the emotional response. Mourning is the recognition of that loss. We feel it in the gut of our souls. And on the very first episode of this podcast, I talked about the gut of our soul. We feel the mourning there. And no, it's not comfortable. Okay. Nonetheless, it's it's required, right? Lent invites us to mourn. We mourn the way sin has shaped our habits. That's a real thing. I teach on habits. It's a real thing that we get into these habits because of our little cues and our cravings in this world. And before we know it, oh man, we've drifted so far from center that we're not sure how to get back sometimes. Don't ask me how I know. We mourn distance and relationships that were self-created or duly created, right? We're not called to be distant from one another. We're called to be connected. Life happens in fellowship with other people. And we mourn parts of our hearts that have grown cold and hard. That happens over time. Matthew 5, verse 4. Let me get back here. The beatitudes, the the second beatitude that we're given are blessed to those blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. In our mourning, God is there. He's right there with us, comforting us. God, I grieve this. I I grieve that this happened. And he's there. His word is there. The Holy Spirit is there. Sometimes other humans are there. In Matthew 5, 4. I think, I don't know, I think, my opinion, Jesus needed to address this because he knew that we can't heal the things we refuse to grieve. If we're so busy being fine, we can't actually acknowledge the things that aren't fine and let him rush in to heal them. We can't pretend it's all fine and still get the healing. It doesn't work that way. The moment you can admit to God, something in me isn't what you created it to be. I know I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, but there's some things in me that need some work. God can rush in and begin that good work. My loves, there's a reason that Good Friday had to come before Easter Sunday. There's a reason that that cross had to come first before the resurrection. We mourn. We must mourn before we can truly rejoice. And if you're out there, like that's gonna be real hard. And that's not gonna be fun. And there's some wounds that I'm gonna have to dive into that I am just, if I can be honest with you, I am just not interested. Well, do you want the healing or not? Find the people, find the things that can support you as you go through and peel those layers off of that onion. Sometimes you're gonna weep and sometimes you're gonna mourn, but it has to be done. It's work that has to be done in order to heal the places in us that have drifted from God. Joel never said, fast or weep or mourn. Do the thing that's comfortable for you. Do you do you boo? Right. Like Joel didn't say that. He said, fast and weep and mourn and do all of it and do the hard things and use your whole heart to do it. And God will show up. I want to point us to Joel 2, 13. Rend your heart right after he says, even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Verse 12, verse 13 then says, Rend your heart. Rend means to tear, to rip apart, and to break open. He's saying, Hey, break open your heart, rip it apart for me, not your clothes, because back in the Old Testament, that's what they did. They tore their clothes and the grief and the anger and the all the things they tore their clothes. Don't do that. Do that to your heart, right? Rend your heart, not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in love. And he relents from sending calamity. Friends, friend, friend, hello, friend, friends, this Lent, this Lent, he's telling us break open your heart so that I can rush in and I can heal you. Through the fasting, make the space. Through the weeping, feel the emotion. Through the mourning, repent, feel the heaviness, make space so I can rush in. He loves you. He has you. And my dear ones, he wants nothing more than to have a relationship with you. So, as we head into Lent, I hope that you hold these things close to your heart. I hope that you meditate on them. I hope you make space for them. I hope you make time for them. Because when we throw ourselves into these things, what happens on the other side, though it may be scary, what happens on the other side is such a freedom and a lightness that only comes from Jesus. So come back next time. We're gonna throw more encouragement and more scripture around like confetti. Be careful if you get too close. You're definitely gonna get some on you. I crush that because in the last podcast, I completely butchered that and it did not come out well. So I have been practicing. I will have you know that being on camera is still awkward, but here we are, still doing it. We will see you next time, friends. Cheers.

SPEAKER_00: 17:54

Thank you for joining me, Desiree Melfi Bozzo, for this episode of Life Out Loud. I would love to hear from you. Leave me a comment, tell me what topics you want to talk about, and how you take your coffee. If you enjoyed what you heard, text a friend the link, share it on social media, or if you're interested in becoming a supporter, beep up over to my webpage, lifeoutloud.me, and sponsor a cup of coffee that keeps this podcast fueled. Until next time, sweet listeners.