Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Lent 2011

Some simple ideas we'll be trying to live these next 40 days by God's grace:
  • Reading Amon's Adventure by Arnold Ytreeide.
This is the same author of Jotham's Journey and of Bartholomew's Passage which were our family Advent read-alouds the for the past two years. We enjoyed and benefited from both of these Advent stories so much that we thought we'd try something similar during Lent.

  • De-clutter and simplify by giving away 40 bags in 40 days.
I'm not sure this has a whole lot to do with Lent, exactly. . . maybe it is just "spring cleaning?" but I'm hoping that the act of ridding ourselves of some of our stuff might help us to rend our hearts towards Him.

Well, that's all I've got. I thought we'd have much more elaborate plans for Lent this year, but I have been struck by Ytreeide's words in the introduction of Amon's Adventure:

"Rend your heart. If a better definition of Lent exists, I don't know what it could be. . . the point of Lent, or any other time of spiritual focus, shouldn't be to follow a set of prescriptions and rules, it should be to seek a deeper understanding of and commitment to God. It's not a time to check off days on a calendar; it's a time to rend your heart, to do some spiritual housecleaning, to take a long hard look at what's inside you. A time to allow God to show you the work he's ready to do in your life."
I think I'm ready, but with slight trepidation, I humbly ask Him to help me rend my heart unto Him more fully; knowing that he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love (Joel 2:13).

1 comment:

Cyndy said...

Well...actually the 40 bags thing is very lenten in my opinion...the whole idea of spring cleaning (from what I understand) comes from the Jewish peoples preparing for passover at which time they clean their homes from stem to stern in order to eliminate any leaven in the house.
As I'm sure you know leaven is often a picture of sin in our lives...now I'm not saying your 40 bags are sin (lol) but I think you get the idea...they are leaven!

(BTW-if any of it is yard sale-able send it my way...we're doing it again on April 2nd. :)