Give it up...................

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1

As I was growing up it was very much the thing in my circle of friends to give up chocolate for Lent. This year I've been amused to see how much technology has moved us on, as many people I know have given up Facebook for 40 days! But they are not alone ""The popular social networking site Facebook may see a drop in activity from some of its 175 million users over the next month. That's because more and more users are giving up their so-called addiction to the website for Lent."HUNTINGTON, W.Va.

If I'm honest I've always struggled with Lent and the 'giving up' thing because it can sometimes feel I'm being pressured into something that's either superstitious, or a mark of 'look how spiritual I am that I'm publicly sacrificing......'
Maybe I'm just cynical and slightly envious - as I do genuinely respect those who can give up something like Facebook or chocolate and deepen their fellowship with God as a result but the problem is I know myself too well........ I know myself well enough to predict that I will be drawn into false smugness if I succeed, or feeling a failure if I give in to a bar of Green & Blacks!

Having said all that I do totally subscribe to the notion of Lent being a time to look hard at the things that dilute my passion and drag me away from my Maker. It's an obvious period to find new ways of responding to the life changing love of God in humility and repentance. So over the years I've searched for other ways of making a conscious response to Lent and have found great freedom in 'taking up' or 're-finding' rather than 'giving up'. By which I mean making an intentional effort to adopt new habits, recommit to ones neglected, walk a new way or simply think differently for 40 days.

So if our genuine passion this Lent is to deepen our individual walk with our Maker, then it will look different for each one of us. Who are we (who am I) to judge who has got it 'right' - infact there isn't a 'right to be got' - if we are honestly seeking to be closer to God this month it doesn't really matter whether we give up, take up, fill up or shut up......................