I was athletic as a kid: soccer was my obsession from age five well into high school, and I took up running in eighth grade and never looked back. I wasn't the best at either one, but these two sports worked for me because I had a dogged ability to keep going and going: I made up for some of the gap by powering my way through games, workouts, and runs. That persistence taught me a lot about how to keep going when things become difficult.

My senior year of college, I signed up for beginner's modern dance class on a whim. I figured it would be a fun challenge, and I knew my persistence would get me through even if I was clueless as a dancer. As it turned out, the class was taught by a professional and almost all of the students had spent years perfecting their pirouettes. I quickly realized I was way out of my element. As French terms wafted in the air, everyone else moved in synchronization while I stood clueless both as to what was being said and what my body was supposed to do with it. 

But I wasn't about to have a dance class ruin my grade point average. I committed myself to learning. I tried powering through by concentrating harder, watching more closely for how the moves looked, and listening more intently for the differences of the French words. 

It didn't seem to help. I was trying hard. And I was doing it...wrong. I had improved to the point where I was doing the actions more or less correctly, but I still wasn't transitioning or landing well. I wasn't even getting decent grades. I appealed to the professor, "I'm trying really hard!" To which she replied, "Yes, but your heart's not in it." 

Ouch. She was right. What I was doing was robotic and lifeless and I didn't know how to make the movements come alive in my body. I knew how to power through; I didn't know how to open up. If I wanted to gain access to the dance, I needed to let the dance inside my heart. Trying to control it from the outside wasn't working. I needed a different way. 

Similarly, when we try to control some aspect of our lives to please God, or even just to get God's attention, we can get too focused on control or persistence itself rather than on letting God in our hearts. Fasting or giving things up for Lent often winds up in this category: all too often we get fixated on the thing we are "giving up" and whining about how hard it is rather than using it as a way to open our hearts to God's world in front of us. 

Isaiah 58 tells us that when we fast to gain access to God, and in doing so are arguing with those around us...it feels...like we're doing it wrong. We're acting like my kids when they argue about who's more mature and capable of having control of the TV remote, and the end result is no one's maturity is showcased and no one gets to watch anything (except kids arguing, of course). We need a different way. Our heart's got to be in it. We've got to let God inside enough that we can see past the arguments and the whining and get to God's wildest plans for our flourishing as individuals and as a people. 

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That dance class was arguably my most challenging college course, though I did make it through after I quit trying so hard to master it. I will admit that it wasn't glorious or spectacular from the outside; but on the inside, I was transformed. All I had to do was open my heart to the possibility of the dance. 

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If we've given something up for Lent or in the name of self-improvement, are we using it to push through for the sake of accomplishment or are we allowing it to open up our hearts for living out God's desires for us?