Lent is for Life, not just for chocolate
Lent begins and thousands of devout chocoholics begin 40 days of fasting, only to be found on Easter Sunday sat in a corner somewhere with the most enormous pile of fairtrade chocolate. But the benefits of a spiritual spring clean has the potential to reach much deeper and last longer than this rather superficial approach to lent.
In Lent we are reminded of Christ’s humanity. Taking on our human form he shows us that these human bodies can handle the presence of God. His temptations were as real as ours and when we join ourselves to him, we too can be freed from the control of our sinful nature. The spiritual disciplines Christians practice in lent (and at other times) are aimed at voluntarily increasing our capacity for interaction with the kingdom of God. Or that is at least how Dallas Willard puts it. His, The Spirit of the Disciplines, is well worth a read if you are interested in exploring how and why spiritual disciplines are our necessary part in letting God in to transform our lives.
“God in regeneration renews our original capacity for divine interaction. But our body’s substance is only to be transformed totally by actions and events in which we choose to participate from day to day”
(p92)
So give up chocolate by all means, but it is what you do while you are not eating chocolate that will probably make a bigger impact on your life.
[...] example, I posted my Lent is for Life graphicand within hours, the comments came back making me realise the first effort was really quite poor. [...]
Hi, can I reprint this in my church newsletter if I credit your website? I cringe every time someone tells me they are giving up chocolate or soda for Lent and that is the extent of their Lenten experience.
See Creative Commons link at bottom of this blog. Unless otherwise stated, you are free to use my stuff as long as the work is attributed to me. A link back to this blog is all you need.
[...] post by Tim and syndicated here by [...]