What Are We Really Giving Up?

Every year, Lent brings with it a familiar question.

What are you giving up?

For many of us, the answers come quickly. Sweets. Soda. Social media. Fast food. Something concrete. Something we can track. Something we can succeed or fail at in a visible way.

And those things matter. The discipline matters. The pause matters. The reminder that we are not meant to live ruled by our comforts is an old and meaningful practice.

But Lent was never meant to stop at our habits.

It was always meant to reach deeper.

Because sometimes the things that weigh on our lives are not the things we consume.

They are the things we carry.

So this season, maybe the invitation is not just to give up something we enjoy.

Maybe it is to give up something that has quietly taken root in our hearts.

Give up hypocrisy.

Not the loud, obvious kind. The subtle kind.

The kind that creeps in when our faith becomes something we talk about more than something we live.

When we speak about grace but hold onto judgment.

When we talk about forgiveness but keep score.

When we expect understanding from others but struggle to extend it ourselves.

It’s easy to wear belief like an identity.

It’s harder to live it in the small, unseen moments.

Lent invites us to close the gap between what we say and who we are becoming.

And maybe even more importantly, Lent invites us to give up hate.

Not just the explosive kind.

But the quiet kind.

The resentment that lingers.

The bitterness that feels justified.

The slow hardening of the heart toward people we’ve decided we no longer need to understand.

Hate does not always look dramatic.

Sometimes it looks like indifference.

Sometimes it looks like sarcasm.

Sometimes it looks like writing people off.

And often, it disguises itself as righteousness.

As certainty.

As being on the “right side.”

But holding onto hate does not strengthen us.

It narrows us.

It reshapes how we see others. It shrinks our compassion. It turns disagreements into divisions and differences into distance.

And the longer we hold it, the more it shapes who we are.

Giving up hate does not mean abandoning truth.

It does not mean ignoring harm.

It does not mean pretending everything is fine.

It means refusing to let anger define us.

Refusing to let bitterness settle in as a permanent resident.

Refusing to let resentment become part of our identity.

It means choosing mercy when pride would feel easier.

Choosing humility when defensiveness feels safer.

Choosing to see people not as opponents, but as fellow travelers.

Lent reminds us that surrender is not weakness.

It is freedom.

Freedom from carrying things that were never meant to shape our hearts.

Freedom from becoming hardened in ways we never intended.

Freedom to live with a softness that allows grace to grow.

Because the goal of this season was never self-denial for its own sake.

It was always renewal.

So as we move through these weeks, maybe the question shifts.

Not just, “What am I giving up?”

But, “What is shaping me that needs to be released?”

Hypocrisy.

Hate.

Pride.

Resentment.

Anything that keeps us from loving with honesty, humility, and grace.

Because sometimes the most meaningful thing we can give up…

…is the very thing that has been weighing our spirit down all along.