Holding out on God

In the coming days, we will begin the Lenten discipline. Most people are convinced that in order to get serious about their relationship with the Lord, they need to “give up something” for a painful period of 6+ weeks. However, without asking the Lord what he desires for their spiritual transformation, they take upon themselves certain acts of self-denial that are meant to show God they are serious about their Catholic Faith. But actually, that’s not the purpose of our Lenten penances.
The purpose of our Lenten discipline is to facilitate our transformation in Christ, to turn away from our sinful ways and become more like him in every way. So, what if the starting point for engaging in some Lenten discipline was to do a serious examination of conscience around a single question? Consider this: “How have I been withholding myself from God?” Now you might be saying to yourself, “What does that even mean?” And “How is that a sin?” Well, let’s unpack this a bit.
To begin with, God wants us to love him with all our mind, heart, soul and strength. To do anything less is to withhold from him some measure of our love and devotion. God wants all of our love. He wants us to be so enamored with him that he is the center of our lives. Imagine a marriage in which the husband would say to his wife: “I’m going to give you 80 percent of my love, but the other 20 percent is for other things.” Would she not be slighted by even the suggestion of him withholding some of his heart from her?
We withhold our love from God when we decide in what way and to what degree we will fit God into our lives, ask him to bless our plans and pass on the things that he deserves when it doesn’t match with our desires.
Withholding ourselves from God is something that I never thought about confessing until just a few years ago. When I began to prayerfully consider the possibility that I do this, it became clear to me that it is a conscious decision that I freely choose to make. 
Practically speaking, how is it that we might withhold ourselves from God? First of all, most of us do it by “saying prayers” to God, but not taking time to pause and open our hearts “to receive” God’s love for us during these times of prayer. Simply put, after we have taken some time for prayer yet have not allowed ourselves to be affected by God‘s love for us, we may have withheld ourselves from God, not knowing or believing God had something he wanted to offer us. 
We withhold ourselves from God in simple ways, like deciding to skip Mass on Sunday because there are other things we want to do. We withhold ourselves from God when we decide not to accept some sadness or disappointment in our lives. Furthermore, we withhold ourselves from God when we reject the graces God offers us and the blessings that would flow from accepting what the Lord offers us, including the cross.
Withholding ourselves from God happens when we allow fear of what God might ask of us to overwhelm our belief that God knows what’s best for us. To help us with this, the Lord gives us the examples of Mary at the Annunciation, and St. Joseph when the angel announced to him that Mary was with child. In both cases, the angel said, “Do not be afraid.”
Perhaps an outcome of examining how we withhold ourselves from the Lord might be a Lenten focus on how much fear operates in our lives, limits us, debilitates us and causes us to withhold ourselves from the more that Jesus desires for us. A Lenten practice of facing our fears might be more fruitful than giving up chocolate or coffee. Facing our fears would be a difficult undertaking, but it would help us give ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord, withholding nothing from him.
Most importantly, Lent is about removing the obstacles that would keep us from giving ourselves fully to the Lord and receiving his love for us. So we might pray for the grace this Lenten season to discover through some particular discipline that challenges us how we withhold ourselves from receiving the Lord’s love and what fears underlie this behavior.
Let us return to the Lord this Lenten season and withhold nothing from him. Let us repent of our self-reliance and all of the ways we attempt to control God’s initiative in our lives, because God wants us to receive his tender mercy and thrive in his abundant love. In these days of Lent, let us be resolved to stop holding out on God and allowing him to have his way with us, more than ever!