Back to Normal

 

For the Season of Lent, most Christians would have observed 40 days of deep spiritual introspection and reflection. Perhaps you would have travelled this 40-day journey and now that Lent is over, you find that things have gone back to normal.

Life has returned to embracing all the habits, foods, or vices you may have forgone during those 40 long days. Life is back to normal.

But why go back to normal? Why go back to what you’ve always done? Why break the spiritual connection you would have made during your 40 days of surrender?

Beloved, believe it or not, you were in a season of transformation, transitioning from normal to supranormal but 40 days is not enough, the discipline must persist, the journey must continue for a lifetime.

During those 40 days of surrender, you would have seen God’s grace weaving through the mess of your life as you experienced a burgeoning faith and trust in Him.

During those 40 days of sacrifice, you would have shifted your focus from material pursuits by immersing yourself into a greater sense of being and purpose.

During those 40 days of release, you would have started crossing the atomically thin line between the physical and the spiritual.

Now Lent is over and you are determined to go back to normal. You are not alone, sadly, for most of us, as soon as that period is over, we go back to normal – all the things we were accustomed doing before Lent are resumed, bringing the spiritual transformation to a screeching halt as we no longer set our minds on things above but on things on earth (see Colossians 3:2).

So don’t remember what happened in earlier times. Don’t think about what happened a long time ago, because I am doing something new! Now you will grow like a new plant. Surely you know this is true. I will even make a road in the desert, and rivers will flow through that dry land. – Isaiah 43:18-19 (ERV)

During those 40 days of spiritual connection, God began doing something new in you and your new normal was about to be birthed but going back to normal is to miscarry everything with which you had been impregnated on this 40-day journey.

Back to normal will only result in a shift of your new-found spiritual perception.

Back to normal is detrimental to your spiritual upliftment; it’s going back to belief patterns that prevented you from truly connecting in the first place.

During those 40 days of higher spiritual realization, you would have begun connecting with the spiritual and not merely the world that exists around you.

That spiritual connection would have afforded you the ability to hear that guiding voice within saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left (Isaiah 30:21 ESV). Going back to normal will cause a spiritual disconnection, resulting in a distortion of Truth.

Back to normal is to once again settle into a pattern of detachment from Spirit, depending almost entirely on the outside rather than continuing to look within.

Back to normal is allowing the world to dictate your life.

Back to normal is looking to outside influences in order to thrive.

Back to normal is ignoring the inner voice of God and listening to the loud voices coming from all directions.

Back to normal is stepping back into the crucible of your own way of living rather than drawing on God’s provision, leading and guidance.

Back to normal is missing out on your opportunity to transition, to start over or afresh or anew.

Beloved, the Season of Lent was never meant to be a temporary stopgap measure and going back to normal after spending 40 days in the wilderness with Jesus is to fall into a degenerative backslide of a life. That is not progression but regression.

Will you let it all go to waste? 

There can be no such thing as going back to normal.

Amen †

Shelley Johnson “Back to Normal” ©2026 April 6, 2026