May you live all the days of your life.

I am giving up TV for lent. For Many reasons.
I have become incredibly complacent. In life. In work. In friends. I hope to God, this nips it in the butt. I plan on being more proactive. I don't watch a terrible amount of tv, but I have found that I am highly unproductive and not very proactive. This season, I hope to be more so. After reading Tao of Pooh and the section on Bisy Backson, I realized this: I am not one to run around trying to save time. I keep myself busy so that I cannot reflect. This means I don't take much time to keep to myself. I don't take much time to give God. I fill my days with nonsense. The quiet and solitude is alarming and frightening. I cannot stand it.
With Lent, I want to be productive. The season is about giving up or starting up the things that may separate you from God. This is it. I need time and loneliness to just talk with God. I need time to myself to talk to, well, myself.
I have big plans for lent: recycling, a garden, composting, cleaning, reorganizing and alone time.

I challenge all of you to take a look at your life. What keeps you from growing closer to God? What keeps you from growing as an individual?

The answer to these two questions usually go together. And for me, I plan on fixing it for Lent.
God gives us the strength to do so. Give up what is hard. Start what is harder.

Motivational time:
"When we take the time to enjoy our surroundings and appreciate being alive, we find that we have no time to be Bisy Backson's anymore."

Basically, Christ went in to the wilderness after his Baptism. This is when he states that man cannot live in bread alone. Here is why he went in to the Wilderness. This is WHY we give things up for lent...

To be tempted - it seems strange. We pray, "lead us not into temptation" but Jesus knew that that his experience in the wilderness would result in a powerful encounter with the accuser. This is an important point that cannot be ignored. We need to prepare to face and be victorious over whatever would beset us at the end of our own time in the wilderness. Our weapons should be the same as those of our Lord: the Word of God, handled correctly.

To meet with the Father - there were far fewer distractions in the wilderness. It may be worth thinking about this the next time you find yourself metaphorically in the wilerness, stripped of distracting opportunities to minister, you can focus on what really matters.

To prepare for power - without the first two, there would be no point to this final entry. It is after Jesus' baptism and wilderness experience that we see Him exercising real power to turn the world around Him upside-down.