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Find books on Lent: What's 'Shrove Tuesday' and Pancake Suppers?
Tired of Winter??!! |
From Our Publisher: Let's get HOT! by Betty Van Volkenburg It's a typical winter day in Webster NY - cold, dreary, with the temperature finally, gradually, inching up from below zero to 30 degrees. It's almost a heat wave! It seemed for a while like winter would never let go of its cold grip but Easter new beginnings come every year, if we can just be patient. With so much snow this year I was forced to be outside daily to shovel and snow-blow the driveway and walk, or become totally snow-bound and isolated. That daily activity turned out to be the only physical activity I had as I succumbed to hybernation, so the cold and snow served a very useful purpose. Dealing with the coldness of this past winter season reminded me of something in a video I viewed recently where the message was - God wants us to be Hot or Cold, but not lukewarm. Well, after the winter we've been having, I'm certainly ready to get Hot! The narrator/teacher in the video used 3 cities in the ancient Holy Land as examples. One city had hot mineral baths for healing and cleansing, another had cold springs for drinking water or growing vegetables and grain, but a third one had a stream that had run-offs from the hot and cold springs causing it to be lukewarm - not hot enough to cleanse but with minerals that made it unpalatable to drink or use for growing. Our lives can be the same sometimes where we are indifferent, or lukewarm and polluted, towards God. During Lent we have a special time to warm up our indifference and get Hot for God. According to our church calendar, Lent, is a season for penitence, sacrifice and purification, in preparation for the glory of the Resurrection. Jesus spent 40 days and nights fighting spiritual, physical and emotional temptations in preparation for His inevitable future, but today there are few of us who could follow His example of sacrifice. Oh, sure we could give up chocolate, or Cable TV, or go on a diet, or some other nicety in our lives, but could it really be called a 'sacrifice', when it would really be good for us to give it up anyway. Jesus struggled against many temptations to atone for the sins of people who lived then, as well as now. Could we make serious sacrifices to atone for the sins of others who live now, and in the future? No one can come close to what he did for us. But, maybe we can honor his example by making a serious sacrifice in our own lives, for only 40 days, and we don't even have to die on the cross at the end. I was intrigued by an idea from Debra K. Farrington, author of 'One, Like Jesus'. She wrote an article for Lent - 'Give Up Neglecting God'. In it she suggested paying more attention to God and less to the rituals; take a break from work and spend time in personal reflection, prayer and spiritual reading, take a break from unnecessary spending and give the money you save to charity, study God's word and world - read a book during Lent, simplify your life and take care of God's temple - your body, by eating, sleeping and exercising better, be more tolerant - give up being annoyed by others who do things differently than you do. You could: -
When temptation is about to overcome you, think of resisting not just for yourself, but for others too and also remember that God never gives us more than we can handle. How about it? Are you ready to shake off your indifference and get rid of the pollutants in your life? |
