Pastor's Perspectives~ by Pastor Ted FirchLent is upon us. One of the ways in which many people observe Lent is by giving something up. It might be tobacco, or chocolate, or sodas, or cussing or such. People give up these things for the purpose of focusing their minds and hearts upon spiritual disciplines, seeking God first, rather than their own pleasures. For many people, the process of giving up something goes like this. They begin on Ash Wednesday with a lot of resolve and hopefulness. For a few days, all goes well, and with will power and attention to their behavior, these intrepid giver-uppers succeed. Till one day, a stressful situation comes up, or they just get forgetful for a moment, and suddenly they take a bite of chocolate, or say that four-letter word. Then they are immediately sad for a sense of failure, because they could not do what they had resolved to do. In that moment of forgetfulness or weakness, many people either give up on the spiritual discipline effort all together, or else they begin to think of themselves as spiritual failures.If that sounds like you, I want to suggest another way to think about Lenten practices and spiritual disciplines. Lent is not about achievement. It is not about perfection, it is about the effort to draw closer to Jesus. One of the most common images that we use for talking about Lent, is traveling with Jesus toward Jerusalem, where he would eventually meet conflict, suffering and death. Those first disciples who went with Jesus were not perfect in their discipleship. In fact, when Jesus tells his disciples that he will suffer and die in Jerusalem, at first they are too afraid to say anything at all. When they get to Jerusalem, and Jesus is about to be betrayed, Jesus tells them that they will all run away when the soldiers come for him. Peter says, "I will never fall away, if I must die with you, I will not deny you." The gospel of Mark goes on to say that all the other disciples said, "Yeah, me too." But when the soldiers came, after a brief scuffle, all the disciples ran away, just as Jesus had foretold. Peter followed Jesus, but only at a distance, just close enough to get into more trouble. Can you understand where I am going with this? Even Jesus' closest friends were not able to live up to their highest resolve at first. The time would come when their faith was stronger, and they would follow Jesus even to death. Our Lenten journeys are part of the process of growth in faith. The point of all of our spiritual disciplines is to grow closer to Jesus. Every time we do something out of love for Jesus, whether we are perfectly successful or not, we grow spiritually. Just as a weight lifter needs many repetitions to grow stronger, we need to keep doing our spiritual repetitions so that our spiritual lives become stronger. So, keep working at those spiritual good habits, and don't let yourself be discouraged if you do not see results right away!
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