What Are You Doing for Lent?

Lent is the forty day long season of the church that began on Ash Wednesday and will continue until our Easter celebration on April 12. It can be a valuable resource to deepen their relationship with God. So what are you doing for Lent this year?

Traditionally, Lent is a time of year for people to increase their devotion to God for a relatively short period of time. It’s an opportunity to take up an extra faith challenge that you may not be able to maintain for an extended period of time. But maybe for a month and a half you can handle it. And who knows? Perhaps when Easter rolls around you find out that your Lenten discipline wasn’t so bad after all and that you can make it a part of your ongoing walk with God. And if you can’t, at the very least you will have benefitted from forty days of a deeper immersion into your faith.

Most people typically consider these Lenten disciplines to be something negative. In other words, you “give something up” for Lent. It may be a vice or a bad habit, or something that you wish wasn’t part of your life. When viewed this way, Lenten disciplines are reduced to something like a churchy version of new year’s resolutions. And they’re not much more spiritually uplifting. The only real reason to “give something up” for Lent is to open up space in your life for God to be more present. For example, if you decide to give up television for Lent but end up surfing the internet instead, you haven’t really gotten much closer to God in the process.

Here are some suggestions for how you can have a “positive” Lenten discipline. That is, instead of getting rid of something, try do something new and different to spice up your faith and challenge you to lead a more Christ-like life. It may mean that you have to quit doing something else, but the emphasis is on what you’re doing for God, not on what you’re giving up. Here are a few ideas to get your imagination stirring:
• Spend ten minutes a day reading the Bible, and five minutes talking with God about what you’ve read.
• Select five issues or people (one for each finger on your hand, to make it easier to remember) to pray about every day during Lent.
• Give a portion of your spending money to a worthwhile charity, like the One Great Hour of Sharing.
• Make a point of befriending someone at school or work who is ignored or ridiculed by others.
• Turn off the radio when you’re driving, or take off your IPod, so that you can be more aware of God’s presence with you.
• Demonstrate your love for someone in your family by taking over one of their household chores for them.

Who knows? Maybe by the time Easter arrives, your Lenten discipline will be a part of your everyday life. Happy Lent!