Lent: Ash Wednesday

Day one

For Lent I finalized everything last night:

#1 40 minutes for 40 days of alone time with Jesus, to include at least 20 minutes of Bible reading. I memorized, prayed, and read from 1:30-2:15 today while my room-mate was in class, I left off in Acts 26. I'm working on getting Matthew 5:13-16 concretely memorized for tonight to recite to Wes. Praying, like always is good- I hope to incorporate more praying. This is the most important part of my "sacrificing" for Lent- I pray that God will draw me a lot closer to Him through it and reveal more of Himself to me.

#2 I de-activated my facebook account (this actually feels great because then I have an excuse for not checking it!) It's already caused a few bumps in the road- people can't just leave me a link to their blog or a great song they heard- instead, email will have to become more popular. Or even better face-to-face! This has already happened- I wanted to get together with my friend Valerie Sartor and I saw her at Ada's after class today, along with another friend of mine. This was great because I sat down and ate with them, we got to talk, it was just good all-around. This will just help with wasting less time and, hopefully, more "real" interaction with people.

#3 I am not initiating things with guys. It's a little weird to say "I'm sacrificing boys for Lent," but it is SO much better than it sounds! In essence, I am not the one calling my guy friends or facebooking them or going over to their dorms, if I am invited- then great- if not, then I'm not, and that's fine. For instance, last night I was asking a ton of people if they wanted to go ice-skating, David Shinabarger says that he would like to go on Wednesday (today) after Deeper. If he forgets it, then I'll go spend time just God and me (rather than the 3 of us) out on the ice. I think this will help me get closer to my girl friends since I can initiate things with them. That's good, because I definitely need more girlfriends.

In my Bible reading in Acts today I read about Paul presenting his case before King Agrippa; God really blessed Paul with persuasive speaking abilities. These few phrases stuck out to me:

And now I stand here on trial [to be judged on the ground] of the hope of that promise made to our forefathers by God, the same hope [of the Messiah and the resurrection] our twelve tribes confidently expect to realize as they fervently worship [without ceasing] night and day. And for that hope, O king, I am accused by Jews and considered a criminal! Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? I myself indeed was [once] persuaded that it was my duty to do many things contrary to and in defiance of the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

Thinking about Paul's testimony, I am really encouraged- God took someone who thought it was his job to act out against Jesus and transformed him into a passionate and persuasive follower. I like how he points out that the 12 tribes were confidently hoping AS they fervently worship night and day without ceasing. Their isn't just hope without worship, and their isn't worship without hope in the Messiah and His resurrection. It was an interesting thought to me.