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Ash Wednesday

Hi folks

I hope you've eaten all your pancakes, decided what you're doing for Lent - we have officially started! Kim suggested that I should stop driving cars for Lent, but I started that last week anyway!! You'll be seeing lots of my motorbike in the wake of the accident with the car last Monday!

As part of my Lenten observance, I'll be making a concerted effort to make more time for prayer and meditation, and part of that will be in sharing more thoughts both on this blog, and through short services online. I hope you might find them beneficial to your own observance of Lent.

Today, as we start, let's consider why we "give something up".

Most of us will consider giving up chocolate, sugar, coffee, or something that's bad for us. We might use it as the core of a diet, perhaps in preparation for all the chocolate we'll eat on Easter Day. We will see this as a period of being healthy, of perhaps treating our bodies better than we normally would. We look for ways to make our bodies healthier, perhaps hoping to lost weight, get fitter, improve our mental health! Great things to do for ourselves, and always to be encouraged!

This is always a great idea, but not necessarily how we should be interpreting Lent! The forty day period is meant to be a "fast", not a diet! Fasting is a common principle in the Bible, involving denying ourselves something in order to spend the equilivant period of time in prayer - there's a good reason we hear the phrase "prayer and fasting" in the Scriptures! However you decide to remember Lent, please make prayer and Bible reading a part of it!

Our service this evening is at 8pm in church, and the service sheet is attached - I look forward to seeing you there.

Blessings
Johnny














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