On Ash Wednesday, my wife and I found out that a good friend of ours was arrested on charges of sexual battery. He allegedly had an inappropriate relationship with a 15 year-old girl. To make matters worse, he was her youth pastor.

This happens far too often… a teenage girl approaches her youth director asking for advice in her current relationship, the youth leader doesn’t take precautions and delves into territory he shouldn’t be in to begin with, the girl confides in her youth pastor and becomes emotionally invested, and because the youth pastor let his guard down, bad things happen that could have been avoided.

This is a very heart-breaking scenario. This is exactly what happened in my friends case. This particular girl came to him seeking advice for her current relationship. He then began helping her with her homework, and that led to private dinners, and that led to gift giving and watching movies at his house. This inevitably (allegedly) ended in an inappropriate relationship. My wife and I are so sad right now, both for the girl and for our friend.

One thing we know is that our friend is not a monster. He is not a predator. What he did (allegedly) is not in his character. Sometimes, even the best of Christians make mistakes that affect the rest of our lives… and sometimes, we even drag others down with us. Tesia was reading many stories in the news regarding our friend. Many of the comments that were being made on these websites were being made in ignorance. It was very sad for her to see these comments, especially because these people do not know him at all. They don’t know his heart. They don’t realize that they are just as capable of sinning and falling a long distance as anyone else. I refuse to read these comments because I’m afraid of what I’ll find… and I pray to God that our friend will never see these comments being made about him.

We really hope he doesn’t lose his faith over this. He was in his last semester of seminary. He was a Conference Resident (which in the UMC, is kind of a big deal). He was very successful in helping to grow his church. He was energetic, passionate, and was very genuine in his faith. He had a very bright future ahead of himself and he let it all go. I don’t know what to expect with him now. Even worse, I’m sure he doesn’t know what to expect from himself now. His career is essentially over, and if found guilty, he would have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life… all because of a brief moment of stupidity that could have been avoided.

It all hit me during our Ash Wednesday service… My wife and I were both pretty emotional over this. It’s really interesting though… When we become broken, we are humbled and we are able to come to God. Our professing, our singing, our prayers all became much more real to us in our moment of brokenness. We became aware of what it was that we were saying and singing, and we meant it with our entire being. We knew that God was with us in that time.

But this isn’t about us. This is about our friend. My prayer is that that he becomes broken from this experience, but I hope he seeks out God. God will mend him and make him strong again. He is way too gifted to throw his entire life and ministry away like this. Perhaps, when this is all said and done and he is ready, he could possibly make a good prison minister. We’ll see. Who knows what God holds for the future.

Please pray for our friend and his family. Also, pray for the girl and her family as well. Many are affected by this, and we need to see that God’s goodness and grace is still here for all to take part in.

For the past few years, I’ve been trying to be very intentional on giving something up for lent. When I was younger, I never gave anything up because I felt that the practice was somehow legalistic, and that God really doesn’t care whether or not we give something up. After thinking about it, year after year after year, it became clear to me why such a practice is important to our faith. I think the truth is, all those years that I was making excuses, I was actually just really lazy.

For 40 days, we are asked to give something up that we’ve placed as an idol in our lives. It isn’t supposed to be easy. I know many who’ve given up peas because they aren’t going to eat them anyway… Whether or not these people are serious is another story, but the point I’m making still stands- If you give up something that’s easy to give up, why bother? Like last year, I plan on giving up sweets. This is a big deal for me, especially because I can barley go a day without a giant bowl of ice cream. Last year, I lost six pounds by giving up sweets (along with semi-regular exercising), and I felt like a healthier, more physically and spiritually fit person because of it. Now, what constitutes as a sweet? Well, I’m not going to have any dessert. I won’t drink any pop. I won’t snack. I won’t eat candy. I won’t even grab a doughnut from the hospitality table in church. I just plan on abstaining from sweets for the entire 40 day period. However, I am allowing myself 1 grace day a week where I can have something sweet, within reason. This will keep me focused on my goal, while still feeling blessed with God’s goodness and grace.

There are many benefits to fasting. Giving up something for lent is like replacing one idol for a little more of God. Now, while that alone is worth the bore and the irritation of fasting, I also believe it helps to put me in tune with Christ’s suffering. Our idols become a part of us. We allow them to own us, and being ripped away from them causes us to suffer. We feel as if we can’t go on, as if we can’t make it another day without that part of us that we crave. For me, it’s as if I’m right there with Jesus as he’s hanging on the cross. I can easily see his suffering, his weakening, his breaking… because to a much lesser extent, I’m suffering too. And isn’t that the nature of creation? We suffer because things aren’t as they were intended. Our suffering is a cry out to God. Jesus is our answer, letting us know that God hears.

None of this is to downplay Jesus’ suffering. Not eating sweets is nothing like bleeding and suffocating while hanging on a cross. Though the symbolism behind it has a vast spiritual impact.

What are you giving up for lent?