Thanks for the comment Sidney.

As far as it "counting" the things that we give up don't have a mandate upon them. Our Lent commitments are completely a Christian Tradition and not a biblical mandate.

For example, if I give up chocolate I won't lose a prize for breaking that commitment and having a Hershey bar. In these fasts we are giving something up purely for the purpose of associating ourselves with the suffering and temptation of Jesus. What we lose out on by not keeping with our commitments is the total lesson in endurance of a fast. We aren't condemned for falling short and in fact in falling short we can come to understand the difficulty Jesus faced in his temptation. If I failed to follow through on my commitment it wouldn't be the end of the world. My goal in all of this is to come to know the God I serve better and in turn be able to appreciate Easter in a new way. There is no magic in the number 40 or the length of time that we commit. It is purely an exercise to sharpen ourselves.

Hope this helps! Thanks again for the comment!

Try it out. In the end we are going to fail in some things, I really don't think that I'm going to be able to not drive the entire time (heck I've already made concessions). I'm trying to figure out how I can get my taxes done in Santa Clara on March 2nd at 8:00am. I'm not sure that public trans can get me from Fremont to Santa Clara but I'm gonna try.

Start off simple, don't watch a TV show and pray or meditate on God. 30 minutes a week of a Lent commitment is easier concept to wrap our minds around than 40 days! Give it a whirl.

Thanks Patty. We really try to emphasize this with people here at our church. Some people will do food related commitments and that's fine. The key is what you do to replace it.

Obviously there is a void even with something simple as chocolate. The question is do we fill that void with? Do we ache and complain about the lack of _______ (of course we do on some level) or do we take time to remember why we are fasting in the first place. That's the direction we are moving in right now.

Are you doing anything for Lent this year?

Let's hope that you can give up unemployment for Lent and for a long time beyond this Easter. Your church family in Fremont is still praying over you, and after all we've seen we can rest assured that there is power in prayer!

Thanks for reading and commenting.