Lent 2025: Seven not-so-holy reflections and some trumpets
Final Lenten thoughts from a reluctant and sometimes unwilling vessel
This Lent, I didn’t set out to write a series.
I just wanted to see what its like to be a “good Christian” for 40 days, just to follow the traditions, do a fast of sorts, and maybe read the bible more. So I decided to abstain from alcohol and looked up one of those Lent related Bible study syllabus you can find anywhere online, and committed to keeping the pace for the entire season.
As the days went on, I began to feel like I needed to pen down the thoughts that came after reading these verses. Those reflections started to come in like a divine transmission of sorts, I started with just one, but that eventually became series of inspired itches to pour out my thoughts. I was now able to write something almost every day, but after a few separate jottings I would put these pieces together and combine them into a thematic set of sorts. Those separate pieces formed what I decided to post and publish here as my 2025 Lenten Reflections series.
By the time I started working on the fifth piece, I realised these weren’t just random thoughts. There was a clear pattern emerging in the theme I expounded for each reflection. Each write-up appeared to echo the days of Creation in Genesis. And something about the way the fifth piece was shaping up made me feel like Revelation was also in the mix. A whisper of the seven trumpets.
That’s when I knew I wasn’t just writing pieces, but I was being pulled into something bigger.
Here’s how my seven reflections now stand, each one marking a new “day” in this unintentional but divinely orchestrated Creation of a deeper walk with Christ:
Day 1 – Walking between altars
I didn’t come to Christ through some dramatic altar call. My walk was slow and wobbly, crawling, walking and running in directions. I wandering between altars, attended church and sometimes still visiting temples at the start, saying half-yeses and hoping that was enough. I didn’t become Christian out of certainty. I was just drawn to something that felt real, even if I didn’t have the words for it.
Genesis 1:3 – Let there be light
Revelation 8:7 – The first trumpet sounds. Fire falls. The earth begins to wake
The beginning always carries some shaking. Even light can feel disruptive at first.
Day 2 – A baptism that never changed me
I eventually got baptised, it was quite anticlimactic, nothing changed much except the feeling of more “belonging” in a church. Out of church, I still continued with weird choices, still wrestled with doubt. Still felt like I didn’t quite belong anywhere except during the two hours of weekly worship. And a lot of times, it felt like people outside the church were more kind and gracious than the ones inside.
Genesis 1:6 – Let there be a vault between the waters
Revelation 8:8 – The second trumpet. A burning mountain crashes into the sea
Sometimes things have to crash before they can clear. Even when it stings.
Day 3 – Trapped in dogma
At some point into my walk with Christ, all the Christian rules and frameworks around me started feeling more like walls than windows. It got harder to experience Jesus in the middle of it all. Everything felt like pressure to perform instead of space to breathe.
Genesis 1:9 – Let the dry ground appear
Revelation 8:10 – The third trumpet. A star falls and turns the waters bitter
Some things that were meant to give life start tasting off. That’s when you begin looking for real ground.
Day 4 – But why can’t I stay lost a little longer?
A sweet Christian friend invited me to a seekers conference. I should’ve felt grateful. Instead, I got annoyed and decided to decline. While the invitation was sincere, it still felt like another push to join a group or pick a side. And I just wasn’t ready. I wanted to keep wandering with God without being handed a team jersey.
Genesis 1:14 – Let there be lights to mark the seasons
Revelation 8:12 – The fourth trumpet. A third of the sun, moon, and stars go dark
Not all invitations are timed right. Sometimes even the lights need dimming.
Day 5 – What if we’re more like Judas than Jesus?
This one hit harder than I expected. I started writing it as a follow-up to my 4th reflection piece and that was when I began to feel that realised we’re all more Judas than Jesus. We betray, avoid, we protect ourselves. And then I felt a bit more liberated to accept that maybe this honesty felt much better than pretending to be like Christ.
Genesis 1:20 – Let the waters teem with living creatures
Revelation 9:1 – The fifth trumpet. The abyss is opened. Smoke rises. Locusts emerge
The deep things start surfacing. Not to shame us, but so they can finally be seen.
Day 6 – Since when did speaking the Truth feel like betrayal?
By the time I wrote this, it was because I started seeing how, throughout my life, I kept bumping into moments where telling the truth, gently and clearly, felt like I was doing something wrong. And I thought, aren’t we all a little too hard on ourselves when we keep withholding the space for us to be honest with ourselves, maybe because we’re scared that being too honest would make us “unchristian.” In this piece I question the need to filter ourselves so much that it’s hard to say what we really mean anymore.
Genesis 1:26 – Let us make mankind in our image
Revelation 9:13 – The sixth trumpet. Voices cry out and a third of mankind is killed
Truth can be heavy. Sometimes it clears the room. But maybe that is mercy too.
Day 7 – Keep calm, it’s just the End Times (Kind of)
Palm Sunday rolled around and I couldn’t shake away this weird contrast. We remember Jesus rides in calm as ever, knowing fully well what would happen, and everyone else loses their minds. We’re in somewhat of a same situation, we live in chaos, collapsing borders, inside the thread of a new kind of war, and the fundamentalists among us go around preaching a quiet kind of spiritual panic. But if Jesus isn’t panicking, maybe I don’t need to either. Maybe this whole thing is less about reacting and more about recognising Him when He shows up quietly.
Genesis 2:2 – By the seventh day, God had finished His work and rested
Revelation 11:15 – The seventh trumpet. “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord”
Completion doesn’t come with panic. It comes with stillness. The work is done.
So, that’s it. Seven reflections later, and I feel... calm. I mean, I know I don’t have to figure everything out right now. I’m happy, knowing that it’s okay that I don’t really believe that I’ll see lightning bolts or the sky splitting open with a man in white robes riding the clouds to announcing judgement on the fallen.
And whether it’s the second coming, or even if there’s going to a third, fourth, or fifth, I know God’s still in charge.
That’s good enough for me.
I left the hallowed halls with their living sarcophagi and sonorous tones behind me one day.
I don't remember what day it was.
I probably didn't know it had happened.
I must have wept a little inside as I perceived that I had left my Lord behind me ensconced in the four walls of those halls.
Those voices behind me made themselves out to be having deep conversations with my Lord so I must have done.
There was no flipping of tables or shouted ultimatums or bowed disappointed heads.
I just slipped out through the small door at the side and walked out into the night.
Days, months and years have passed since.
And I walk on in the wilderness.
The other day I paused by a stream and sat there to catch my breath.
Lost in the unfamiliar setting.
And I perceived that my Lord was there with me, catching his breath as well as he sought to put as much distance as he could between him and those hallowed halls.