Lent: Count your Blessings

LENT

It's funny how that one word can cause more greif than a string of other "four-letter words."

I think we look at Lent wrong.  Absolutely wrong.

As the video says, Lent is a time in which we dwell on the stories of Jesus spending 40 days fasting the dessert and the Israelites spending 40 years in the wilderness.  But what we DON'T tend to focus on is G-d's constant provision throughout those stories.  (Check out Matthew 4:11 and Exodus 16.)  Instead, we've perverted it and turned it into a way to focus on self... again.

Oh my gosh, I just want chocolate so much right now... is it cheating if I take Sundays off?

We've missed the point.

Lent is about focusing on G-d and allowing Him to refine us for 40 days, leading up to the celebration of the single greatest act of Love this earth has ever known: The day G-d laid down His Life so that we would never have to.

This year for Lent, I'm going to do something somewhat uncharacteristic of the season.  Whereas most people are thinking of Lent as a somber time, it is my intention to spend these 40 days counting my blessings - or at least 40 of them.  Hopefully, I'll be able to bring the focus on to Him a little more through this exercise.

Will you join me?