Baptist Lent?

I was in high school before I was ever aware of the idea or the practice of Lent.  Going to high school in a town with a large Catholic population, I was really puzzled by those black marks on people's fore heads on the Ash Wednesday of my freshman year, but I did not ask what that meant until I got home and asked my parents.  Some how in my mind what stuck with me about Lent was that it was just about suffering.  'Jesus suffered so we are to suffer and we make ourselves miserable during Lent.'  That is not a correct view but that was my freshman in high school understanding.  It made be glad I was a Baptist, I was miserable enough in high school without taking on any additional home work. 

That view stayed with me until I got to seminary.  There I learned more about Lent but not too much, it was a Baptist seminary.  Now I understand a little more about Lent, about many people's desire and practice of trying to connect with Christ in the 40 days leading up to Easter.  It sounds like it is not about being miserable but understanding Christ and His sacrifice.  I am not ready to be a full fledged Lent practitioner but I can appreciate a desire to connect with Christ.  Why can't this time of year be a time for us non-Catholics to connect with Christ too?

Let me give you a challenge in this special early (Ash Wednesday) post to my weekly blog.  Take some time over the next few days to read Northside's own devotional, "Alive."  I think you will be blessed, as I already have been, in seeing how other members of my church connect with Christ.  You will find something as you do this - you do have to give up something for this "Baptist Lent" - time.  All our days are full.  No day presents itself with a carved out time to connect with Jesus.  We have to give it up.  But when we give him our time, we find more and more of what he has to give for us.

You can read the devotional by going to www.nbcvictoria.org/alive

For the journey....

Tim