Keeping Lent

A couple of weeks ago I was reading a blog entry of a good man. During Lent, he is posting a lot and I just don't have time to read all his entries. However, a couple of weeks ago the title of his entry caught my eye, it was, 'How's Lent going?' I laughed when I saw the title as I was only talking about Lent the day before. I continued to smile as I read that his thinking was pretty much the same as my own. I started Lent really well. But then we had that bad snow and sure we were stuck inside...... It is hard to stay off stuff when you cannot go out and you are staring at the same walls. As staying off dairy continued to be difficult I got thinking about Lent and the real meaning of it. For Christians, Lent is about deepening our relationship with God and growing closer to Him much more than giving stuff up. Sometimes material things in life can distract us from God such as social media. If by giving up something it means we can pay more attention to God it is good. However, I do not believe that God would want us to torture ourselves in our effort to 'keep Lent'. When people are feeling low they have a food that they turn to for comfort or a particular drink, for example, chocolate. But if they have given up on their comfort food or drink what do they do when they feel low? Some people are so adamant to 'keep Lent' that regardless of what is happening they won't break it. And if they do break it they feel bad. I don't think that is right, we shouldn't put so much pressure on ourselves and I am fairly confident that God wouldn't want us to either.

So if you are finding it hard to 'keep Lent' don't worry about it, don't feel bad For the next 10 days change your thinking and put aside a bit of extra time in your day for God.

Prayers for all this Lenten season.