Lent

While I do not attend a church that practices Lent, some of my family members do, and a lot of the kids in my Torrey group do. This makes it hard to go through the season of Lent without thinking about. Why is it such a big deal? does it really matter if you give something up for 40 days before Easter? While the technical answer is no(i.e. you won't go to hell just because you didn't observe Lent) the spiritual answer, I think, is yes. The reason for Lent is explained much better by one of my friends here (that may have gotten it from one of his, I'm not sure :P) anyway, what I got from reading this was that the practice of Lent is good for your soul. Or at least, it's supposed to be. It often comes across to those, like me, from a more evangelical background as just one more rule to follow, it seems a little legalistic. However, when you take the time to stop and think about what it can really do for you, the practice of not just giving something up because you have to, but because you want to, because Christ did and that's the least you can do, it makes more sense.

Thinking about it on these lines then raises the question, at least for me, why don't we do that more often? Aren't we called as Christians to give of ourselves, give up ourselves, in order to follow Christ? I think that far too often it seems too easy to give up and take the easy road. So, with this in mind, I think I might just give Lent a shot. I'm not giving something up just to say that I did it, but because it seems like it could have some real worth. So, while I am struggling to make everything in my life work together well, it seems that giving up a little bit more of that sleep I love so dearly would be beneficial. Not just to say that I slept less though. I also want to start regularly going to chapel in the mornings too. I know technically Lent started on Wednesday, but it doesn't hurt to start now :P God help me to drag my lazy butt out of bed in the mornings :P