What I'm Giving Up For Lent

I've never given up anything for Lent before. If you don't know, Lent is the time of year leading up to Easter. Many Christians will give up something for Lent. Christian or not, we should all be glad for Lent because without Lent there would be no Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras is the 'last hurrah' before Lent, the last celebration before the fasting of Lent. Lent itself is supposed to be spent fasting just as Jesus spent forty days fasting in the bible. Now, the purpose of fasting is to help us focus on God. Whenever you think of whatever you are fasting from, you are to instead think about God. So, really, the purpose of Lenten fasting is to make us think about God more. Frankly, that's not something I ever thought I needed help with. I figured I thought about God plenty, so why bother? Well, this year I decided to give it a shot. Here's my Lenten discipline.

Our current sermon series is called The Wall. Each week I'm preaching on a different wall that we put up to hide the things we've done wrong. We think that if people see our sins, the things we've done wrong, then they won't love us. The problem is that if parts of us are hidden behind walls, then people never see the real us. They may like or even love who they think we are, but that's not who we really are. We put that wall up so people will love us, but it actually prevents them from loving us because they don't know us. And it prevents God from reaching us. Then we think God's gone missing, but really we're the ones who've gone missing, hiding behind a wall of shame and guilt. Each week I'm talking about a different wall God has broken through in the bible, and what God may be doing in each of our lives to break through the walls we put up.

My discipline is that the only music I'm listening to during Lent is The Wall by Pink Floyd. That's it. No radio. No other CD's. I'm still doing AM talk radio, but no other music. I am giving up all other music for Lent.

Funny thing is, it's working. Every time I listen to The Wall, I think about these sermons, and about my relationship with God and the walls I'm putting up. It's an odd thing to give up, I know, but it's really cool. So far, anyway. I have a feeling that by early April I'm going to want to stuff a sock down Roger Waters throat. But for right now, it's working, and I'm glad I'm doing it.