April 2007

A friend sent this to me last week after reading my post about my Lenten failures.  Please pay particular attention to the bolded portion:

Hey, Matthew

Thanks for posting about not meeting your goals for Lent. It was encouraging to me because I, too, failed in meeting my goals. They were:

* No Internet
* No snacks in between meals
* No Coke
* Not missing my Bible readings
* Read through The Apostolic Fathers

I did well with the Coke and with the Fathers. I did well with the snacks until the last week. I lost it with the Internet around week 2. There were gaps in my Bible reading.

Yet, Lent was good for me. It was “successful” even if I was not. It caused me to ask some questions about myself: Why did I start snacking when I was so close to the goal? Why do I make it so easy to miss my regular Bible times? Why am I so addicted to Google? The answers reveal sordid things about myself, of course. I started snacking because I don’t finish well. I miss days with the Bible because I don’t value it as highly as I should. I’m browser dependent because I avoid silence and quiet time by myself (a bunch of issues there!). I’m a failure for sure - and that’s what Lent taught me this year. It prepared me for Holy Week and Easter. Come Good Friday I was eager to hear again that the Father had sent a Saviour for failures such as myself.

I’ll do it again next year [DV] and hope to do better. But if I don’t that’s OK. Jesus came for failures!

Blessings,

Puddleglum

What is the gospel if it isn’t that Christ came for failures?  This brings a whole new dimension to my struggle with “permission to fail”.  Even if I fail, Christ is there to pick up the pieces.  What comfort!

Now, I’m not a Crackberry user, but, I get really edgy if I can’t check my E-mail for more than a day at a time.

Check out this article from the NYT.

I know it’s a week after Lent officially ended, but Easter Sunday was a 14 hour day for me and we left for a much needed vacation early the next day. That’s why I haven’t blogged since Lent ended. Well, that’s part of the reason. The other is sheer embarrassment.

I didn’t meet my goal for Lent. Not even close. I had the plan scientifically plotted out at 60 pages a day out of the Bible I was using for this. The first week went incredibly well. Then my grandmother died and I spent five days at home with my family as I prepared for the funeral (I officiated). A better man would have looked at that 300 page deficit and laughed. I crumbled.

I’m still going to try and finish up as quickly as I can but I figured I owed everyone who was interested an admission of failure.

I’m back and looking forward to blogging much more soon.

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