Thoughts on Lent...

In many cultures there is an ancient custom of giving a tenth of each year's income to some holy use. For Christians, to observe the forty days of Lent is to do the same thing with roughly a tenth of each year's days. After being baptized by John in the river Jordan, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where he spent forty days asking himself the question what it meant to be "Jesus".

During Lent (it started on Feb. 6th and ends on March 22nd), I think it is an opportunity for us as Christians to do the same. What does it mean to be who we are?

AND I MEAN TRULY ASK IT. Can you give the next 10 mins or so and ask some questions?

If you had bet everything you have on whether there is a God or whether there isn't, which side would get your money and why?

When you look at your face in the mirror, what do you see in it that you most like and what do you see in it that you most deplore...and maybe try to hide from?

If you had only one last message to leave to the handful of people that are most important to you, what would it be in twenty-five words or less?

Of all the things you have done in your life, which is the one that you would most like to undo? Which is the one that makes you happiest to remember?

Is there any person in the world, or any cause, that, if circumstances called for it, you would be willing to die for?

If this were the last day of your life, what would you do with it? Think about it.

To hear yourself try to answer questions like these is to begin to hear something not only of who you are but of both what you are becoming and what you are failing to become.

What do you use as a means of escape? You know...avoiding these feelings...and running from questions like these?

Religion?

Ministry?

Pornography?

Busy-ness?

Entertainment?

Sports?

Drugs?

Isolation?

Friends?

...stay busy...stay distracted...stay moving...dodging, moving, avoiding, running...we all do it...can we slow down and look?

I know that it can be disturbing and depressing all in all, but...and its a BIG BUT...if sackcloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end.

Can I challenge you to take some time and look in the mirror? Cuz honestly...if we are not honest with who we are and where we are at...we cannot ask Jesus to take us any farther.

thoughts?

j