Lent...

Today is the start of Lent. The start of a season in the Christian calendar that I do not fully understand. I can appreciate the idea of giving something up in order to focus on growing in wisdom. My struggle is simply giving up something along the lines of pop/soda, which I have done before...multiple times.

I never really understood why I was giving up pop/soda in order to deepen my relationship with God. In actuality though...I was doing it because it was a healthy choice. At those times I found myself drinking a lot of pop/soda and it was not a healthy thing for me...but was it a hinderance to my relationship with God in any way?

Giving up pop/soda was a healthy choice, and in that way it was honoring to God. I believe that how we care for our bodies is important as it is a creation of God.

A friend of mine recently shared an idea that he has been thinking about recently. The idea, roughly speaking, was that we as believers so often deny our appetites because they are not honoring to God. My friend's point about this is that this is simply a newer form of Gnosticism...the idea that anything material or physical is not of God and that our lives are meant to be lived simply as spiritual beings.

If we were meant to live simply as spiritual beings...then why is there a physical. In reality, according to my friend, most of our human appetites are healthy and good. Rather then denying those appetites entirely, we are intended to work to manage those appetites in a way that focused on aligning our lives with the Truth from the Bible. For example, we are created as sexual beings and have sexual appetites. A traditional view of sexuality from a Christian perspective is that it is to be denied and, in a lot of ways, is a very unhealthy thing. Sexuality though is a healthy appetite when managed in a positive/biblical way...sex within marriage.

This is not a blog post about sexuality though...despite what it may seem like. These are just a bunch of random thoughts that I have been thinking about recently. Which brings me back to Lent...

Just because something is enjoyable does not make it wrong/evil. Just because I enjoy watching TV does not make that wrong. Just because I enjoy a beautiful hamburger from George's Burgers (Winnipeg, MB. Near St. Vital Mall) does not make that inherently bad.

But....if all I were to do were to eat burgers from Geoerge's and watch TV...that would not be healthy. For me, I am looking at Lent this year as an opportunity to look at the priorities in my life and refocus those towards God.

Which I think is the actual goal of Lent...rather then to give up pop/soda because I feel like I have to give up something.

My favorite hobby is sports (primarily basketball), which includes watching sports and constantly reading about sports. My mind is almost always thinking about stats, standings, schedules, prospects, and teams. And in actuality, reading sports articles has become too much of a priority in my life.

So that is what I am giving up for Lent...I will not be using the internet in my apartment (other then to blog, or check my work e-mail) in order to examine the priorities of my life.

I want God to be a much bigger priority then sports. I am not saying that sports has been a higher priority...but I do believe that my constantly sports filled brain may be too busy with sports to hear some things.

I want to hear...