By Anthony J. Chvala-Smith 
Theology consultant, Formation Ministries 

Life is full of wilderness times. They often come unbidden; we seldom have to seek them. But in Lent we actually can choose the desert, hoping it has beneficial lessons. A famous desert monk, Antony of Egypt, said, “Without temptation no one can be saved.” Some may react to the word saved, but in his context Antony meant that temptation reminds us that we all need grace. I might put it this way: “Without deserts, no one can be saved.” 

That’s because the privation of the desert opens us to the needy places in our souls, which we commonly ignore. Desert rations can show us what we’re truly made of, which turns out to be: hunger. “Everybody’s got a hungry heart”— Bruce Springsteen sees this, too. 

Life is full of wilderness times. They often come unbidden; we seldom have to seek them. But in Lent we actually can choose the desert, hoping it has beneficial lessons.

Many people in Jesus’s time hungered for a new day. They wanted Roman occupiers gone and a messiah who would violently expel them. This hoped-for Son of David, like his ancient namesake, would be freedom-fighter and monarch rolled into one. He would smash Israel’s enemies and judge those within Israel who weren’t righteous enough. Everything would be made right; the glory days of Israel’s long-dead monarchy would return, bigger and better. 

Hearts and minds are connected in our inner landscapes. A hungry heart sets the mind to conjuring endless fantasies that appear totally plausible. What the people in Jesus’s oppressed homeland yearned for is understandable. It’s no surprise, then, that Jesus’s temptations played off his people’s desires. Would he be what they imagined? Would he be the sort of king they were starved for? Would he bring a kingdom like the one they wanted? 

Jesus needed those forty days in the desert. It wasn’t a publicity stunt or stage play but a time of deep self-examination. Would he be what God wanted, or give in to the kind of reign some people fancied a real messiah should bring? 

It’s a story not unlike our own. Who hasn’t been tempted by images borne of a gnawing hunger within? What is it we want? What really dominates us? What are they, these little kingdoms in our heads? 

Jesus needed those forty days in the desert. It wasn’t a publicity stunt or stage play but a time of deep self-examination.

The spiritual masters called these kingdoms in our heads the “appetites.” It’s a good word. Hunger takes different forms, many of which rule more than the stomach. Fasting at its best is not just about food, but a practice to help us name what’s rumbling within. A little deprivation causes the appetite(s) to squawk, which the masters discovered was a good way to begin dethroning our inner kingdoms. Lent is a forty-day opportunity to see what we’re ruled by. 

Our personal Lenten seasons, though, don’t always follow the church calendar. Life’s twists and turns can push us into bleak spiritual deserts where we find ourselves famished. When I finished doctoral study, I was ready to start my academic career. The long academic journey, begun years earlier in a sense of divine call, was completed. With degree in hand, I was ready to make a name for myself in the scholarly world. 

“Make a name for myself.” Was that what I wanted? Sadly, yes. It was only much later that I could see how that hunger had subtly affected in me a spiritual coup. During years of graduate study, I had turned the divine call into a plan for me. My hunger for success and scholarly recognition became how I formed a kingdom in my head. It all seemed so reasonable, so fitting: Scholars make names for themselves, right? It’s how you gain credibility. 

Try as I may, however, academic positions eluded me. My wife, Charmaine, and I found ourselves stuck in a seemingly endless Lent: a 3½-year desert time with no way forward. My inner rants consisted of protests that deserts were for other people, and I deserved better. 

Thank God for deserts, even if the things they unearth take a lifetime to overcome. 

Mysteriously, though, this situation became a gift: It was the fast I needed but never would have sought. Without it, my false hunger for scholarly prestige was dangerously invisible. I couldn’t see that my desires were impeding God’s call to us as a couple. If our future were to be about serving God together, it could not be about me “making a name for myself.” What was needed was a chance to name and oust a false kingdom of my own making. That desert time helped me start some hard inner work. 

Thank God for deserts, even if the things they unearth take a lifetime to overcome. 

What should we do about Lent? For starters, we can remember that Jesus didn’t get to skip the desert. Matthew says the Holy Spirit led Jesus there. He didn’t resist this path but accepted it as the way to expel false images of his ministry. Gratefully, the liturgical calendar gives us space to imitate him with our own forty-day trip into the spiritual hinterlands. Here we can examine our hungry places and expose the latest kingdoms in our heads. 

But the goal is much bigger: to let the kingdom Jesus embodied—the real kingdom—take new and deeper shape in our lives. And to that promise we can only say, “Blessed are those who find themselves in a desert.”