A New Challenge :

I will be focusing on the Books of the Old Testament during Lent.  Not reading the whole Old Testament, because that would be insane challenging, but rather meditating on each book for a day.

If you are interested, you can join me here.

However I came across another Lent Challenge where the participants are reading the entire New Testament during lent. 
Not just thinking about it, but READING it. 

Wow.

I chose the Old Testament for a number of good biblical reasons, but the best was probably because… there are 39 book in the OT, and 40 days in Lent, so the maths is easier than 27 books. 

Plus some other really valid theological reasons.

I like what they are doing though, and I might try it in the future. Maybe next year.

But one of the things I really liked about it was this from their instructions.

4. If you miss a day, pick up where you left off. No guilt. No shame. Just more Jesus every day!

I think that is good advice for our Christian walk in general, and all Bible study in specific. 

If you miss a day, pick up where you left off.

No guilt.

No shame.

Just more Jesus.

Every day.

Hoo Ha Ha!

FISH for Lent

If you have been following my blog for a few years, you will know that I have a mixed approach to Lent. 

I don’t do lent in the sense of fasting or giving up something.  (Usually)

What I normally do is decide what I need to do or change about my life for the next 40 days that will help me to be more focussed on God, and feel closer to Him on Resurrection Sunday.

Sometimes that involves giving up something, like sleep or reading, so that I can use that time for prayer.  Sometimes it involves just being intentional about focusing on something relevant to my walk with God each day.

This year, I will be revisiting an old project of mine.  About four years ago, I wrote a Haiku for each book of the Bible.  I called this project Biblios Hokku, because it sounded snobbish and pretentious.  (Actually there were/are good reasons, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t also being pretentious.)

So this year, I will be looking back at each book of the Old Testament, one day at a time.  I will spend some time meditating on each book, and on what it means to me as a part of the whole Bible.  I will take the day to think about the message of that book.

In this way, I hope to get through the whole Old Testament by Easter.
(Not reading all of it, but looking at how it fits together.)

One of the interesting things that I noticed when I was reading the Bible to do the Biblios Hokku was how we often miss the recurring themes and messages of the whole Bible when we jump around and read some books and leave others.  Being “forced” to consider them all, in order, makes new truths jump out, and reinforces old ones.

As usual, I will not be posting the Lent Posts here. Rather I will do them on a separate, dedicated, blog called FISH for Lent. If you are interested in sharing this journey with me, then I invite you to swim over there and have a look around.     

Just a little something to whet your appetite…

Biblios Hokku
By faith, for service
our worth only in His eyes
we are saved for Him.

If you want to find out what this poem means for me, visit http://lentfish.blogspot.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Join my little Lent Group…

 

FISH for Lent – Year 3

Today is Ash Wednesday, which makes it the official start of Lent. 

As has been my custom in the past, I will not be posting about Lent on this blog.  Instead I will be running a second blog, FISH for Lent, where I will post daily ponderings on my Lenten Journey. 

Come on over and join me there if you are into such things.  Even if you do not do/follow/believe-in Lent, it will be quite interesting.  I will be looking at the Fruit of the Spirit, and would value your comments and opinions. 

On this blog, we will be starting the series “I have a wife, and…” from tomorrow.  So stick around and comment on that as well.

Spiritual Armour

Despite allegations that I have been very quiet this year, I would remind you that I did in fact have a lot to say during Lent.  Just not here. That’s because it was on my other blog.  FISH for Lent is where I try to post a daily thought for the whole period from Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday. 

This year I chose the theme of The Armour of GOD.

Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place,  and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.  In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Ephesians 6)

I found the experience of preparing each day’s ruminations so valuable in terms of my own learning and growth, that I decided to do the series in my Cell-Group.  So for the last two months we worked our way through each item of the armour. 

We asked ourselves (and GOD):
1.Why was that characteristic or item important?
2.Why was it compared to that item of armour?
3.How do we put on that item and use it to defend ourselves?

It was actually quite a valuable series, and there was a lot of discussion around each week’s lesson.  I think sometimes we gloss over this passage in Ephesians, and don’t focus on what it really meant to Christians of the day, and still to us today.

It went so well, that I am actually considering turning the lessons and daily devotionals from the blog into a booklet, and seeing who else is interested in doing the course.

What about you?  Do you ever think about the Armour of God?
Do you find it useful?  Or is it just a pretty metaphor?

Ash what?

Lent?  Ash Wednesday?  Fasting?

Do you do any of it?

As a member of a fairly traditional mainstream church, I grew up assuming that everyone followed the same traditions as I/we did.  It was only as I got older that I realised that many (most?) believers and churches don’t bother with things like Lent.

The word Lent comes from the Anglo-Saxon word lencten, meaning ‘Spring’, and also was the word for ‘March’ when lent was usually held to begin.  In the early church, new believers were baptised on Easter Sunday, and so they observed a time of fasting for 40 days prior.  It became traditional for the whole church to fast with them, recognising that they were being baptised into the Church as a body.  From this we have the modern tradition of 40 days of lent.  The 40 days were supposed to represent the 40 days that Christ fasted in the desert before beginning his public ministry.

It was also common for believers who were returning to the church to be re-admitted on the Easter Sunday.  They would traditionally make a full confession of their sins before beginning lent, and would make a mark of an Ash Cross on their forehead to symbolise their repentance.  Again, members of the early church chose to do the same thing, and began signing themselves with a Cross of Ash to symbolise that they also needed to repent and return to the Lord.

This is the origin of Ash Wednesday, where believers may choose to have a cross of Ash imposed on their forehead as a reminder of their decision to turn from sin, and follow Christ.  Tonight I will be attending an Ash Wednesday service at my church, and will be beginning a time of Lenten discipline. 

I will not be talking about Lent, or my journey, on this blog, because for those who do not follow it, it might be pretty boring.  Instead, I will be doing a daily post on my other site, FISH for Lent.

It would be great if you came over and visited me there.

Faith and Writing : Where the heart is

For lent in the past, I have given up reading, television, internet and other things.  I have done this in addition to any other fasting or self-denial, in order to give myself time to pray and study the word.  It’s hard to say “I don’t have time to pray” when you pull two hours of TV out of your day.

And I struggle with it.  After a few days, I lie down, and reach for a good book, only to remember I am only supposed to be reading The Good Book.  I say “40 days is a long time, I am not sure I can do this.”  I start feeling tired from getting up early to pray.

But that’s normal, right?

I don’t know.  If you recall I am also an amateur writer; and every November I take part in something called NaNoWriMo.  This means that during the 30 days of November I try to write a 50,000 word novel. 

Last year I cruised through it.  I wrote late at night, early in the morning.  I don’t think I read a single book the whole month, and maybe watched 5 hours of TV. (usually with my note book next to me to make notes)  I spent a couple of hours a day writing, and if I woke up in the middle of the night unable to sleep, I would do a few pages before going back to sleep.

And I did this for 30 straight days without batting an eyelid.  I mean it wasn’t easy, but I was determined!!!

So today is day 30 of lent, and I don’t think I can say I have given the same level of dedication to these past 30 days as I did to NaNoWriMo.

But it just goes to show how easy it can be, if you really want it.

So why do I find it easier to be a writer than a Christian? 

Why can’t I apply that same level of dedication and sacrifice to my Lenten discipline?

RDM #14 – Some thoughts about lent

Here we have another instalment in the exciting Rainy Day Mondays series.   This is an opportunity for me to pull something out of the archives, either an old post from my blog or another blog, and to re-post it for fresh consideration.

This week we will be doing something slightly different:  This is not strictly from a blog, nor is it strictly an old post.  Some friends of mine started a facebook group called The Lent Challenge, which is going very well.  It is an opportunity to get ideas for performing “totally senseless acts of niceness in the name of the Lord” during Lent.  However even if you are not observing lent this year, it doesn’t mean you can’t join and be nice anyway. :-)

Well one of those good friends, Cherolyn Amery, posted a wonderful comment on the first day.  It was kind of an introduction to lent, and possibly a new way of looking at it for some people. 

Some thoughts about lent…

Most of us know about all about lent: a 40-day period in the church calendar leading up to the big Easter Sunday celebrations. I immediately connect it with giving something up, denying myself some pleasure in a way to grow spiritually. I have tried to "do lent" many times, and honestly, have only succeeded (made it all the way through lent without giving in to my cravings!) a few times. And every time I messed it up, I felt guilty and berated myself for being a spiritual wimp.

I was thinking about lent this weekend and trying to figure out for myself what the whole point of it actually is. If lent is about self-denial, it's not exactly joyous and pleasant. So what's the benefits? My immediate thoughts ran to the idea that somehow it earned us "God brownie points"... that God is impressed when we are especially disciplined and self-denying for Him.

And then I picked up a book (The Ragamuffin Gospel) and idly stumbled across something on a page that hit me smack between the eyes as I was thinking about lent. It said that there is nothing that we can ever do to make God love us more.

I know it's a simple truth. But suddenly I realised that "doing lent" is never going to make God think more of us. It's not going to get us any closer to Heaven. It's not going to make God love us more. All of that is already sorted for all of us, without question or exception. Whether or not we "do lent", God loves us exactly the same.

And yet lent can be a time of change. It won't change how God feels about us, but it has the potential to change us, and grow our relationship with God as we choose to set aside something of the world for 40 days and pursue Him a bit more, or to focus on Him as our deepest need.

The 40 day period is intended to reflect the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness, where He faced and overcame Satan's tempting. But I also like two other 40s in connection to lent: the 40 years of the Israelites travelling to the Promised Land, and the 40 days that Moses spent up on Mount Sinai in the presence of God. My hope for myself and all of you this lent is that we would be incredibly blessed as we journey with God and pursue more of His presence...

Don’t forget to leave a comment in the comment section below, and if you are also taking part in Rainy Day Monday then put a link to your RDM post either in the comment section, or in the Mister Linky Widget (if it is working). 

Lent

Whatever we give up for Lent, we never give up our sense of humour.

Today is Ash Wednesday, as you may have noticed; and as such Lent is begun. I am going to be trying out a few new things for Lent this year.

One of which is that instead of jsut giving stuff up, I will be taking on a few new "disciplines." Some good friends of mine have started a facebook group called "The Lent Challenge" where they will be answering the question, What would happen if we all committed totally senseless acts of niceness in the name of the Lord? Everyday the members get a suggestion (two actually) for nice ways to bless others, and we try and choose one to do. Sounds cool. Come along and try it out.

Also, I will be running a seperate blog during Lent with the name FISH for Lent. I will be posting one thought a day, every day, about an area where we (I) need to work on getting closer to GOD. Then I will be taking that thought as my challenge for the day. I don't know how that will work out, but come on over and see there as well.

Study Prep

The Church where I worship is going to be running a course during Lent this year. As a small group leader I got my handbook a while ago, and it looks like some good stuff.

It also looks like some pretty heavy stuff.

So right now I'm doing one of my favourite things. Spending a quite weekend with the Bible and some study material, preparing notes for us to use. Have I mentioned before how much I love making study notes. (For the new readers, that is not sarcasm. I actually do. I'm such a nerd like that.)

Of course copious amounts of coffee might also be involved.

How does it get any better than this?

Day of Ash

I am sure I am not telling you anything you don't know by saying that today is Ash Wednesday. If I am, then... now you know. Technically known as the day of ash, this is an opportunity for Christians to attend a special church service, which includes the imposition of ashes on their forehead as a sign of penitence, and preparation for lent.

The ashes are made by burning the palm crosses and fronds left over from Palm Sunday last year. That's right; we burn last year's crosses, and keep the ashes to put on our heads this year.

Why?

Well there are many theological explanations for this, but I am just a simple FISH, and so this is how I like to see it.

Palm Sunday was the day the crowds welcomed Jesus in to the city by waving palm branches. Then five days later they cried out for his crucifixion. Five days! The same people; some of them probably still had splinters of palm branches in the hands that they made into fists to shake at Pilate. So wearing the palm cross on my forehead, reminds me of the times that I have acclaimed Jesus as lord of my life, and then turned around and betrayed him with my next breathe. The 40 days when I am figuratively wearing the ash, is 40 days where I need to focus myself on preparing myself for Easter, and my own response. 40 days where I need to try and draw closer to him, and remind myself what he did for me, and my own guilt in making it necessary. 40 days where I need to keep that 'splinter' in my proverbial hand, as a reminder not to be part of the crowd calling for his crucifixion.

Of course, that's just what it means to me.

Day of sack, day of ash.

As we burn last year’s sins,

And wear them on our brow.

So we carry other’s burdens,

and hope to lighten our own.

Day of Ash by DavidSeven