A Concord Pastor Comments: What's God doing for Lent this year

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Have you been wondering what you might "do for Lent" this year? That's a good question to ask but it's just as important to wonder, to pray about, what the Lord might want to do for you this Lent.

God is about to do something in your life!

It doesn’t matter if you are 7 years old or 77 years old or more - God is about to do something in your life.

Whether you come to church only occasionally or every week - God is about to do something in your life. Perhaps you're a mom or a dad, busy with a thousand things to do and 10,000 things to worry about; perhaps you're a youngster in the third grade; you might be a middle school or high school student; maybe you’re retired; perhaps you live alone; you might be a young single adult; you might be gay or straight; you might be happy or sad, tired or rested; you might be a pillar of the Church or perhaps you question many things the Church teaches; perhaps you are engaged to be married or you may have been recently widowed; you might be someone who struggles with addictive behavior; perhaps you're separated or divorced; you might be a single parent; maybe you've forgotten about God, or you might think that God has forgotten about you: whoever you are, God is about to do something in your life.

Do you have an idea, a thought, a notion, an inkling of how God might want to touch your life this Ash Wednesday and in the forty days of Lent that follow?

How might God want to heal me this Lent? How might God want to touch my life this Lent? What in my life needs God's mercy and forgiveness this Lent? What might God want to say to me this Lent? How might God want to help me, strengthen me, challenge me?

Don’t doubt for a moment that God waits to touch your heart in the holy season ahead of us. As a matter of fact, no day goes by without the Lord reaching out to touch each one of us, to speak to us, to forgive us, to heal us, to comfort and challenge us.

Lent is a time when we make an extra effort, for 40 days, to listen for God’s word, to ask for his mercy, to open ourselves to his healing touch, and to invite the Lord to enter more deeply into our hearts and lives.

At least for a season, we make a special effort to be open to God - and we can be sure that God is ready to take advantage of our seasonal readiness!

God is about to do something in your life!

Just what IS Lent, anyway?

LENT is a season to do some spring-cleaning in the many rooms of our hearts and to ready them for celebrating God’s gift of new life at Easter.

LENT is a season to prepare for Easter by: prayer (with the church and alone); fasting (discovering and feeding our hunger for God); and alms giving (caring for the poor)

LENT is a time for getting back to basics: to learn again and to practice for forty days how we should live as Christians every day of the year.

LENT is a time for coming home: coming home to the Church community; coming home to be reconciled; coming home to prayer; coming home to God.

LENT is spring training for Christians: a time to get in shape, spiritually; a time to strengthen what is weak within us and tone up the strengths we have.

LENT is a time to make the time to begin to actually do the things we say we want and hope to do - but just never seem to have the time to get around to...

LENT is a time for getting ready to celebrate EASTER!

Easter is at the heart of our life as Christians and LENT is the way to prepare for Easter joy!

God is about to do something in your life!

Are you ready?

Here's a hymn for beginning Lent:

Lead me, guide me, along the way

For if you lead me I cannot stray.

Lord, let me walk each day with thee,

Lead me, O Lord, lead me!