Category: Lent

The Purpose of Lent The season of Lent isn’t a “dog and pony show”. Many verses in Scripture speak of the hubris that often accompanied religious leaders when they showed up for their ceremonial practices. Interestingly, the three traditional pillars (emphases) of Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, were places where piety often went out the…

I have really been helped by reading large portions of the Old Testament in the Message Translation. The late Eugene Peterson spent a good portion of his life translating the Bible into The Message so that un-scholarly people like me, who did not want to learn Hebrew or Greek, could understand it. In the book…

“What rhymes with Lent?” This question popped into my head several weeks ago as I was pondering what to write about during this season. As silly as it might seem, forty rhyming words came to me pretty quickly and have a related connection to this season of self-reflection, penitence, and prayer. So as not to…

In January I listened to a series of short video devotionals from JohnOrtberg on the whole notion of habit formation. It seemed like a good way to anchor the year. I’m guessing that you, just like me, tend to think about building new habits at the beginning of a new year, ones that we hope…