What Is Lent Really About? Why Giving Up Chocolate Misses the Point

I remember one Ash Wednesday driving home with dirt on my forehead and fries on my mind. The ashes were still smudged in the mirror, and I was already planning my first proper cheeseburger for Easter Sunday. Extra cheese. No guilt. Resurrection calories do not count, right? If I am honest, I was treating Lent like a prison sentence. Forty days. Keep your head down. Do the time. Break out on Easter morning with chocolate in both hands. That is the delusion.

What Is Lent Really For?

The biggest lie we tell ourselves during Lent is not that we might sneak a biscuit on day 17. It is that this whole thing is temporary. That Lent is just a 40-day hard mode in the video game of life. You grind it out. You suffer a bit. Then you switch back to easy settings and carry on as before.

But spiritual growth does not work like that. You do not install humility for six weeks and then uninstall it after the last hymn on Easter Sunday. Lent is not a seasonal hobby. It is meant to change the way you live.

And yet we turn it into a shopping list.

“I’m giving up sugar.”
“I’m giving up social media.”
“I’m giving up negativity.”

The last one we have all done it. “I’ve given up gossip,” we say, right before whispering, “Did you hear about…?”

The Problem with Giving Things Up

If you are just holding on until Easter, you have missed the point. If your plan is to survive, not to change, then Lent becomes a short visit to a better habit. Like a timeshare. You enjoy it for a month, then go back to your old ways.

Think about it. If you train for 40 days for a marathon, do you stop running the day after the race and sell your trainers? Of course not. The race shows you who you are becoming. It does not cancel it.

So why do we treat our souls this way?

Here is the picture that keeps coming back to me: an empty cup.

During Lent, we pour things out. Chocolate. Netflix. Late-night scrolling. Maybe alcohol. We tip the cup upside down and say, “Look at that. Empty. I’m serious this year.”

But what is the plan for the cup?

If we are honest, the plan is often to refill it as soon as the fast ends. Easter morning becomes a refill party. Sugar. Screens. Noise. The very things we were craving.

We think emptiness is something to escape. We sit with the hollow feeling and count the days until we can fill it again. But what if the emptiness is the point? What if the cup was never meant to be filled with junk in the first place?

The real discipline is learning to sit with the space. To let the hunger teach you something. To notice how quickly you reach for comfort. To realise that what you really need is not more sugar or more scrolling, but something deeper.

That is uncomfortable. It is meant to be.

Lent and Self-Improvement

Another trap is turning Lent into self-improvement with a church soundtrack. A spiritual fitness class. Sweat a bit. Push harder. Become a better, stronger, more disciplined you.

Give up sugar to lose weight.
Give up Netflix to be more productive.
Give up caffeine to prove you are tough.

None of those are bad. But let us not confuse them with holiness.

The danger is thinking God is keeping score. That every craving you resist is a coin in a heavenly bank account. Forty days without chocolate? Deposit. Daily prayers? Deposit. Did not snap at your colleague? Bonus points.

We may not say it out loud, but we can act like our sacrifice earns us something. A little more favour. A little more protection. A slightly better seat in heaven.

That is not faith. That is a transaction.

Lent is not about becoming an impressive version of yourself. It is about seeing how limited you really are. How restless. How quick to grab at small comforts. It is about realising you cannot fix yourself by trying harder.

It is not achievement. It is surrender.

Even the tools we use can show what we are after. If you’re using something like the Hallow app just to keep a prayer streak alive, you have turned prayer into a scoreboard. “Twenty days in a row. I’m doing great.” Miss a day and you feel like you failed.

But if you use it to sit quietly. To pray words that admit you do not have it all together. To face your need instead of hiding it. Then it becomes something different. Not a tool for winning, but for letting go.

Here is the real question: are you just borrowing a better version of yourself for 40 days, or are you letting that version become the real you?

Borrowing is safe. It has an end date. You can be patient, prayerful, generous for a season. Then you return to normal. Slightly distracted. Slightly sharp. Slightly numb.

The Empty Cup Metaphor

But what if normal is the problem?

What if Lent is not an interruption of your life but a spotlight on it? A chance to see how noisy you have become. How dependent on comfort. How uncomfortable you are with silence.

It is easier to give up chocolate than to give up control. Easier to delete an app than to admit your pride. Easier to fast from snacks than to fast from sarcasm.

Real change is slower than 40 days. It is quiet. It does not end with a triumphant bite of something you missed.

So maybe the point of Lent is not to survive it. Maybe it is to let it change you. To let the empty cup stay open long enough for something better to fill it.

And here is the challenge I am wrestling with:

What if, after Easter, you did not rush back to normal?

What if these 40 days are not a detour, but practice for the rest of your life?

And what if the real question is not, “What are you giving up?” but “Who are you becoming?”

 By Ronald Matandakufa