Lent...

Today starts the season of Lent.  I never really understood Lent. Then, all of a sudden a few years ago people close to me, friends, family, etc. started giving up things until Easter.  I wasn't really into this but didn't want to feel like I was just ignoring God if He really wanted me to give something up so last year I did a little research and this year I read a little more. 

This is what I've decided - Lent is a time of remembrance. A time of reflection of the path our Savior took to the cross. People often give things up as a concrete reminder of the sacrifice He paid for us.  A time to reconnect with God. To remember His pain.

So for me, I'm going to do what I did last year.  I'm going to spend Lent reflecting on and reminding myself of the Easter story - the story of Jesus' choice and His crucifixion, the story of my redemption and the world's salvation.

I'm going to read again John Piper's Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die. One reason per day (with a few days of two so I can make 50 reasons equal 40 days).

And then Easter weekend, I will watch The Passion of the Christ.

 Not because I enjoy watching a dramatization of the Father's wrath raging against His Son, the only One who never did anything to deserve it, but so I am reminded of the whole story - not simply the joy of Easter morning, but the devastation of Calvary and the heartache of waiting in between.

Because this is who I am, this is where I come from, this is my story.  To lose the knowledge and reality of these days and these moments is to lose myself.



Great blog post about Lent: http://www.lifeingraceblog.com/2011/03/lent-for-the-newcomer-learning-from-my-father.html