Lent-More than the stuff in your pockets!

Hello again my friend, a new month is upon us indeed! I hope that the marry month of March starts out grand for you, and that February was full of blessings YO! As many of you know this past week Lent started with Ash Wednesday and I went to services at an Anglican Church. It was very humbling as the Priest put the Ashes on my forehead and said, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." How powerful is that when you hear it? I hope it is as much as it was to me, God formed you and I out of dust and indeed our bodies shall return to dust once this life has ended. Sounds very morbid and I know many people will read that, then simply be like that is based on tired old tradition and does not apply to any of us now-a-days in our era of reason, post-modernism or whatever you want to call it but think about it for a second with me; put aside all else and if you want you can go back to it later but for now let us together look deep into what this Lenten Season is all about on this 1st Sunday within it?!

If you have kept reading I am glad and hope many do so. Some of us look at Lent and say Why do people give something up or fast from stuff during it? Well the origins of Lent go back to a time when it was a season (40 days based of the numbers significance throughout the Bible:Jesus' 40 days in the desert, Moses' 40 days on the mtn, etc.) for new believers or converts to learn much about Christianity and thus prepare for Easter Sunday, on which they would be Baptized. It was/is also a time when all those already followers of Jesus to remember to the chosen sacrifice, arrest, beatings, humility, death, and resurrection. If you and I look at our lives closely we can see the ways we have drifted away, and put this or that in front/in the way of our journey of faith. I am not trying to call you out, for I can see myself doing this drifting daily, and not saying your a bad person for this happening to you because the guilt is never what I am about in my writing; but I am saying that this season is about recognizing areas that need growth and bringing it into the light so that something can happen. When this occurs, this letting God be God business, truly amazing things come about in our lives. A professor of mine said it this way, "Growth and maturity in the emotional, physical, and all other parts of ourselves do not happen naturally. It is the same way in the Spiritual part of our life as well. We will never just wake up tomorrow and overnight become a Saint, it is a process by which when we will grow along the way." Regardless about what you think/feel about organized or any kind of religion, you can not hide the fact that you have a Spiritual accept of inside of you and I want to say that if you ignore it, all you are doing is hurting yourself and those you love the most in the long and short run. I love you to much to not tell you the truth, and would love to chat more about this or whatever else and promise to listen more than I speak: email wadepfloyd@gmail.com, facebook as Wade P Floyd, or leave a comment here if you would like for I always enjoy hearing about the impact this has positively or negitively.

Read this verse a few weeks ago when I was indeed struggling myself with not giving areas of my life over, holding onto situations, relationships and such in a manner that I would not let go/turn them over to God who wants to redeem and heal these and many other areas. May it be one that strikes you as well:
"O LORD, be gracious to us; we long for you. Be our strength every morning, our salvation in time of distress."(Isaiah 33:2)
-WP