LENT AND LOVE
It's hard to believe that the Lenten season is here. We might begin to wonder "What shall I give up for Lent?" and that is certainly a valid question. Some sort of fasting is a very good practice for Lent. But 'giving up' and even 'helping out’ others during this season can be a mere "form of religion" unless we allow the Lord to enter our hearts in a deeper way and bring us to a greater practice of LOVE.
Recently, I was preparing a teaching about Lent for some folks who have some special challenges (and special gifts). It occurred to me that this year Lent begins three days after Valentine’s Day. The connection became very clear to me:
LENT AND LOVE ... they go together.
I found a little booklet about LOVE for these folks. When I opened it, there was a simplified story of Jesus’ teaching about the 'greatest commandments':
"You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it : You shall love your neighbor as yourself. " (Matthew 22:37-39)
If we think about what Jesus said, we might believe these are very nice words. They would look great written on a plaque or greeting card.
However, if we read these words and engrave them on our hearts, they could change our lives.
Our Lenten Journey can be a time to contemplate these words and apply them to our own lives.
St. Paul wrote the following prayer and it is an open invitation to us during this holy season:
"I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love; and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God's children should, how long, how wide, how deep and how high his love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves, although it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know and understand it. And so at last you will be filled up with God himself." (Ephesians 3:17-19)
LORD, AS WE WALK THROUGH LENT, HELP US TO DEVELOP A DEEPER EXPERIENCE OF YOUR LOVE. CHALLENGE US TO GROW IN LOVING YOU, LOVING OTHERS, AND YES, EVEN LOVING OURSELVES. AMEN.
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