COVENANT PRAYER CIRCLE GUIDEWeek of March 11, 2018

Prayer focus: Help me to get the most out of Lent

Scripture: Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” Matthew 16:24

I have a friend, who every year for Lent, gave up smoking. And, every Easter, she’d light up a cigarette on the porch steps of the church as she walked out of the Easter service. I myself would give up chocolate every Lent--and indulge in all the chocolate I could lay my hands on Easter Sunday--going so far as to stock up on extra chocolate eggs so I could be sure of having enough. I don’t think my friend or I were truly celebrating Lent because, while we were sacrificially “giving up”, we weren’t learning anything. That dawned on me one year--long after I’d stopped stocking up on extra chocolate--and I decided to do something different for Lent, something that could help me change for the better.

Look at the verse--Jesus is definitely telling His disciples to deny themselves but look at the second part of that verse--take up his cross. What could I take up that would cause me to deny myself at the same time? That year for Lent--and that was over 20 years ago--I decided to try that. So, I found a challenging Lenten devotion and read that. I would have to deny myself some pleasure reading time in order to give myself totally over to the devotional. I was denying myself and taking up my cross.

Since then for Lent each year I add something to my life that will deny me something else at the same time. I have added extra prayer time--that means I can’t watch that TV show. I have given more money to a good cause--that means I can’t go out to lunch or to Starbucks as often as I’d like. I’ve volunteered to cook dinners for shut-ins--that means I can’t go to the movies tonight. What I found was that, after Lent, I continued in some of these practices. I was changed and that’s what I think is supposed to happen to us during Lent.

Now, not everything I tried worked. One year, I tried to add more spiritual reading which meant less time for pleasure reading (my definition of pleasure reading is reading what I want to read not what’s “assigned”--which the spiritual reading was). What I found myself doing was reading less totally and that was not the intent at all. That attempt lasted about 10 days and then I just gave up the whole thing.

So, I have a challenge for you--even though Lent has already started and you’ve probably already given up something, see if you can add something now that denies you at the same time. There are some good online devotionals out there, like d365.org or encouragement for today. Add one and deny yourself the 5 - 10 minutes it takes to read one of those. Pick up the newest Adam Hamilton or Max Lucado book. Put the $5 for Starbucks in the offering plate. The idea is to take up your cross--add something that causes you to grow and change--while denying yourself something that you enjoyed doing.

Questions/Discussion

How can you challenge yourself to really grow during Lent?

Where have you seen God in your life recently?

Let us Pray: Dearest Father--help me to grow and change so I can become the person You want me to be. In Jesus’s name. Amen.