Lent is a great time to resolve the pressure of exams

It is exam time and starting from small classes to bigger classes with board exams to exams for professional courses and even assessments in the office, it is an exam season. You are either writing, or teaching to write or praying that the teacher and the student are on the same page while writing.  The most important prayer for any Christian in the form of the Lord’s prayer which mentions “Lead us not into temptation” can also be seen as lead us not into examinations! All said and done many families can’t handle the pressure of a lent and an exam together.

The Lenten season is a great time to write exams, finish a paper and be assessed by someone. It is because one should seize the opportunity of making it a time when one is relaxed, focused and praying more that God takes control of our lives. But unfortunately that is not the case in many homes. Some diet control apart, parents and children are tensed about writing exams and about doing better than the boy or girl next door. This should never be the case during lent as lent is a time to relax and just be what God wants us to be, and that is, very relaxed people.

Suicide rates in the age group of 15-29 are one of the highest in India. Each year, between 30 and 40 people per 100,000 Indians aged between 15 and 29 kill themselves. This accounts for about a third of all suicides in the country. “A common cause for concern is the pressure from parents to do well in the national board examinations, especially for Class XII, before finishing school. As scores in these exams often determine college admissions and subsequent employment opportunities, students aged 16-18 are often subjected to undue pressure at home to succeed. When they don't, suicide becomes a way out. In 2013 alone, 2,471 suicides were attributed to "failure in examination".”

One understands the pressure parents go through. The pressure to copulate and create off springs, the pressure to give them everything under the sun to make up for the lost time at home, the pressure to not just make them like us but to make them do everything we could not do which includes scoring more marks than us, the pressure to use them as one more trophy for social status, the pressure to say that they have a particular degree and that they studied in a particular school or college. The pressure is endless. Lent is a time to rethink about all these pressures. Don’t have children for someone else but if that is what you want. Don’t give children everything under the sun, rather give them all the love you have. Don’t make them do everything you could not do rather let them do what they want to do. You can always have a say in this process by asking the right questions and giving a fair chance for your child/children to make the correct decision. Your child is not a trophy to show off but your flesh and blood which God has given you. Don’ show them off rather keep them close to your heart till they are ready to fly off. Don’t look for the best schools and colleges, rather look for the best education of which you are an integral part. Your child cannot be someone you do not know or can no more relate with. The best education is received at home. Don’t give up the teacher in you and trade that for the teacher in school or college. They are there to bring out the best in your child, not to replace you.

As a parent, whatever happens in school, you (we) should be there for your child and help them to do their best and not to perform or show someone else. Our children are our reflection. They need not out perform us every time. They need not be as smart as us. They will flourish in their own time. For every suicide that has happened in another house, we are responsible as well, because we have contributed to the pressure felt by children. Lent should be a time we use to understand and encourage our children and sacrifice our time and resources for them just like Christ Jesus did for us. James 1:3-8 says “because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance;  and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.  If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.  But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind;  for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.” Don’t doubt in the grace of God which is available to all of us. Teach this to our children and they will be on their way to becoming good human beings never wanting in and for anything.

An examination should be seen as an experience and not a rat race. The life of our child/children is not worth any exam. Their life and living should be more valuable to us instead of exam results. During lent let us take time to be with them and give them all that they need to prepare for and write their exams. At no point of time should there be a talk of marks and comparisons with others because God has given you more things sometimes than others. If you or I accepted that without seeing or questioning why our neighbor did not get it, why are we now looking at comparisons? James 1:12-13 says that we are beyond trials and temptations. “Blessed is anyone who endures temptation. Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.  No one, when tempted, should say, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one.” Let this lent be a time to let our children flourish and become who God wants them to be and not who we want them to be. Let us love them this lent and love them so much that we allow them to relax and do as well as they can. Let the comparison be with themselves and no one else. Amen.

Make up your mind during lent

Every time we are confused with certain things in our life we take a break, go for a retreat, meditate and think about where we are. Lent is a time to get our act straight and decide what our priorities are. It is to come to an understanding that we are observing lent to reiterate that we are with God and we are working for God’s kingdom.

St. Matthew 6:24 tells us that we cannot have two masters. “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” We can either serve God or serve mammon (wealth, money). It is clearly one and not two simultaneously. Many sermons are tweaked to explain that although we have loads of money we can still serve God. This is not possible and lent is a painful reminder of that. We can serve only one master. What then is the essence of all that we are doing? We are working and insist on being paid and feel that money is important for every small thing in life. There is also the parable of the worker in St. Matthew 25:14-30 who buried his talent and was admonished by his master because he buried the talent given to him. So it is not to say that we must leave everything but to say that God should be primary. Everything else comes later. God and not money should determine the decisions we make.

Putting it this way, lent is a reminder that we can do with much lesser and we don’t need to hoard and keep away so that we can be assured of a better life. Rather, lent reminds us that we can cut down on several things and still be happy. It is an opportunity to remind our children that everything can’t be bought with money and important things can never be purchased. During lent we have to remember that our partner is a gift of God and is with us because of our love and not because of the money we have. If it was money, we would not be able to keep our partner. It is only love which is a gift from God which can do that. Lent is a beautiful reminder of this by making us feel that our love for Christ is so much that we can make do with very little because love satisfies all hunger.

During lent, as a family we can come together and understand that we have had difficult times out of which God helped us. There could also be bad times in the future and this experience of lenting will prepare us for such a time. During lent, as a family we are reminded that the love for God over shadows the love for everything else. God and not money matters! Together with this we also understand that all that God has given us matters more than wealth. And this includes our parents, siblings, partner, children and friends. We cannot put a price on them. Lent makes us understand this better.

I remember an incident when a man came forward to help his uncle who was in the hospital. The doctors gave up and the extended and immediate family followed suit. This man though said he would spend the money for the operation even though there was a minimal chance of success. The patient died but the man still had a point. He said that one cannot put a price for family. To save a life we have to give everything we have because everything we have won’t measure up to our family! I found much faith in the man and his convictions that all the money he had made meant nothing to him as long as they could not be of help to someone.

Ecclesiastes 5 is a passage for us to learn from. Verse 10 says that the lover of money will not be satisfied with money. This is because money can’t offer everything. It only suggests it can but at the end we realize that by itself it is of no use to us. In verse 12 it is mentioned that the labourers will have sweet sleep whereas the extra burden of the rich will not allow them good sleep. During lent we try to lose all the excess baggage so that we can sleep heartily. So lent is a time for the rich to trim their wealth and in the process get much needed peace of mind. Verse 15 says that we will go back naked just like we came from our mother’s womb. It suggests that how much ever you make, you simply can’t take it with you. Lent is a good reminder of this. By deciding to follow God we will get peace of mind which we won’t get by hugging our wealth.

Lent is difficult sometimes because we haven’t made up our minds. It is not to make up our mind on whether we should observe lent or not but to make up our mind as to who we should follow. Observing lent is an opportunity we get to reiterate our commitment to God. The richer we are the more we have to let go. Contrary to what we think, most of the self made billionaires in the world don’t live lavish lifestyles. They give away a lot of what they make. We must also understand that God is working through us so that we help the less fortunate and those pushed away from main stream society. Our boss in this sense is God and we are working every minute for God and not for ourselves. The more we let go and give away the more we will have because we will learn to live with minimalist things.

There are two symbolisms I would like to leave you with. They are both impulsive behavior and yet yield different results. One is online shopping and the other is giving to the poor and needy. Both are done impulsively sometimes and both give satisfaction. It is estimated that in the U.S. impulsive behaviour leads to sales worth 4 billion dollars with 62% of store purchases considered impulsive. In India this figure is much lesser but Geetha M. and Bharadwaj in their article "Impulse Buying Behaviour in India: An overview" say that even though research suggests there is close to 16% impulsive buying, this figure could be much higher because people living in collectivistic societies like India would not divulge actual information even though they may be buying impulsively. This said, the satisfaction that we get when we help someone is more than any other satisfaction. While shopping online we may feel happy but later on the product we bought will stare back at us with no emotion because it is a product of wealth. On the other hand a human being who is helped will smile back at us because the human is a creation of God. When we are tempted into impulsive buying we buy things which we don't actually need but anyway buy them because we worship them. On the other hand helping people is considered not so important because we are not worshiping God enough. Let this lent be a time for meditation, retreat, prayer and more than anything else, for making up our mind that we serve God. Let it also be a time when other human beings look and smile at us instead of looking like the cold lifeless products we buy.