But it wasn't just a small group thing where a couple of monks decided that this would be a good direction for their lives. I don't know which people specifically instituted this, but in those days, people didn't really develop personal religious habits. The church set the rules, and you followed them.
So the church instituted Lent as a religious practice, and it's been going on ever since. Of course, in those days they typically fasted from food. These days people fast from all sorts of things.
I have never participated in Lent before, because a) it isn't required, b) because I'm not particularly religious, and c) I've never felt that I should. In fact, until Wednesday, I wasn't even aware of Lent. But now I know that it is practiced for 40 days before Easter (as in, ending on Easter).
Wednesday was the first day of Lent: Ash Wednesday. I found out that it is called so because it represents a day of mourning. Mourning for those areas where you haven't been obedient. Admitting that you have fallen away from God in some way, owning up to your sin, and then letting it go. It's a sort of death. A death to sin, but a death nonetheless. And when you've been holding onto that sin for so long, it hurts to put it to death, even though you know it's a good thing.
So way back in the days of the Bible (and probably in parts of the world today) people would put ashes on themselves as a sign of mourning. So that's why we have Ash Wednesday: the first day of letting go of whatever is holding you back from drawing closer to God.
At youth group on Wednesday, one of the mentors (Joy) taught on this, and then challenged every person to take this seriously. She asked all of us to think of some things in our own lives that we know are keeping us from being closer to God, and the kids didn't even have to think about it: they knew!
So they named a whole bunch of things, and then Joy made a list of everyone's names, and asked them what they felt God was telling them to give up. It was pretty incredible. A few girls said that they are going to give up TV entirely! I mean, I would say that even cutting back is sufficient, but they went big and said all TV.
We'll see if they make it, but I'm proud of them for taking that step, and at least saying that they will try, and that they are aware of how unnecessary TV is. Plus, making a list helps us to keep them accountable, so they are more likely to stick with it when they know they have our support.
Another girl said she was going to give up swearing. Some of them decided to give up such addictive websites as Myspace or Facebook. Which is where my choice comes in. As Joy was teaching, I felt convicted right away that there was something that wasn't pleasing God, and that I should cut it out. So I decided right then and there that I'm going to do Lent!
I am also going to fast from a couple of websites. Not blogger or Facebook. Other stupid websites that I waste a lot of time on, and they are really quite....well, stupid. I don't even want to name them because I'm so embarrassed that I got addicted to these websites in the first place. They're incredibly pathetic. So I'm giving them up.
And probably not just for Lent either. I have a feeling that once Lent is over, God is still going to want me to stay away from those websites. Now, since I'm getting rid of those, what am I going to replace them with? Well, reading the Bible online instead. If I'm going to be on the internet, I might as well get some Word in me. And it's easily done, thanks to this website.
Since I only decided this Wednesday night, then yesterday ended up being the day of implementation. So how did it go? Pretty good. I didn't realize how often I was on those websites until I started counting all the times that I wondered if there were any updates and that I should go and check. And then, of course, as soon as I thought that, I remembered that I was giving that up. It's quite an eye opener.
I have a feeling that I will quickly get used to it, and then I won't even miss them. I miss them right now though. What can I say: they were fun and I was addicted! But such a waste of time (and brain cells).
Well, this blog ended up being a lot longer than I thought. Congrats to anyone who actually made it to the end of all this babble. So now I'm going to get off the computer so that I don't keep tempting myself.
