Easter is early this year, which means that Lent of course starts early too! Ash Wednesday is on 18 February, just over a week away.
How might you spend this time leading up to Easter? Feel daunted by the traditional approach of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving? Lent can be a time for those practices, of course, but God is pleased with any and all of the ways we seek to draw close to him.
I have some resources for you to help.
• Tomorrow (11 February) I’ll be on Premier Christian Radio at 11am (UK time) for an hour discussing with Mal Pope some strategies for staying close to God during Lent.
• On Saturday 21 February, I’ll be leading an online retreat sponsored by Coracle on Friendship with God, looking at the story of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus with Jesus. So much of the key events of their story in the gospels comes during Lent, and I trust you’ll be encouraged. You can find my full exploration in my book Transforming Love.
• My book The Living Cross is a through-the-Bible look at forgiveness, half in the Old Testament and half in the new. I’ll be giving away a copy of this book with my next newsletter.
• The Prayers of Jesus is a small-group course that explores 6 of the 7 prayers of Jesus recorded in the gospels. So many of these occur during Lent. There’s a prayer exercise included for each week.
• The online course for the above is a great resource as I so enjoyed my conversations with the amazing Micah Jazz, who has now gone to glory. Wow – I think this is now free!
I pray you have a wonderful Lent!
Leave a Reply