Lent:

What is Lent? Well, for me who thinks lint and Lent sound the same… Lent is not what is in your pocket.  Lent is one of the seasons in the church.

If you are in the church, you will typically see purple material on the altar and on crosses, but why?  Simply put, Lent is the time to prepare our hearts, to focus on and draw closer to God. The color purple represents suffering, repentance, mourning, and humility, and what better color to remind us that Lent is a time for us to do things to prepare and focus on God’s suffering for our sins, helping us draw closer to God.

So many choose to “give up” one thing or another for Lent but don’t ever focus on why they are giving up something. I will never forget the first pastor I heard say to add something in your life instead of taking away food or something else. He said, “Add reading scripture or dedicate time with family.” Then I had a huge “aha” moment when I went back to school to finish my undergraduate degree at Pfeiffer University.  We had a church on the campus, and the leadership each challenged each other to either give up or to add something, but in either case we had to observe what was happening in our lives. Several people gave up social media, and at first I didn’t think much of this approach, but it taught me so much.

College students are on social media (multiple platforms) all the time. When they stopped using it, they found so much free time, they had to see people face to face, and people had to find one another and have conversations.  This was before the pandemic!

More time - means you can give God more of your time.
See people - you have to build strong relationships in the way we’re designed to do
Talk to people - your words are less likely to be taken the wrong way and you take ownership of your relationships.

Lent is a time to draw closer. How can you draw closer?

Our world is experiencing pain in many ways. Let’s use Lent to draw closer and lay down our pain to God so God can help us.