So, we're three days in to Lent. How is your fast going?

For many people, Lent is little more than a second chance to crack their New Year's Resolutions: give up chocolate, stop smoking, or abstain from Facebook.

Some, like Susan Boyle, make the period more meaningful by donating to charity the money or time they would otherwise have spent on their chosen 'vice'. On Wednesday the singing star launched the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund's Wee Box, Big Change project, vowing to give up chocolate and donate the money saved to projects working with the poor in developing countries.

Most such attempts, however, like those made in the first weeks of January, are doomed to fail. Abstinence is just too hard. Self-denial is both painful and inconvenient. More importantly, the goal is too intangible to be an effective motivator.

Success demands a different approach. Rather than focussing on the abstinence, fixing our gaze on the thing to be avoided, perhaps we need to look to the object of the fast. Instead of thinking of what we're missing, maybe we should concentrate on what we're gaining.

The Lenten fast, of course, commemorates the 40 days spent by Jesus in the wilderness in preparation for His public ministry.  "And when He had fasted 40 days and 40 nights," the New King James version tells us, "afterward He was hungry."

Could it be that Jesus was so absorbed by His worship of and communion with the Father during his 40-day sojourn, that He didn't become aware of the gnawing hunger in his belly until He left that intense interaction?

It is self-evidently true that what you look at is what you see, and it is no less true that what you focus your mind on is what you are aware of.  Perhaps when Jesus' mind was fully focussed on his Father, He simply had no capacity to be aware of His hunger.  Most of us have experienced being so absorbed in conversation that we lose track of the time, or so engrossed in a book that we miss our stop on the bus or tube. Could we not find ourselves so enthused by our worship of God that we never even notice the lack of sweets or social networking?

It is encouraging that our secular culture still retains a vague awareness of Lent and that some people still treat it as an opportunity to do good for themselves and others. As Christians, though, we need to recognise its deeper potential: the point is not the denial of self, but the preparation for ministry. This Lent, let us model this to our friends and neighbours. Let's focus less on what we're fasting from and more on what - and whom - we're fasting for.

This article first appeared in the Evangelical Alliance Friday Night Theology email. To read it in context, click here.