Lent 2015 - By Our Love

For this year's Lent observance, I tried to increase my love by doing one of the following each day:

• Getting to know one person better that day
• Really listening to someone who wanted to talk
• Starting a conversation with someone who seemed isolated
• Considering things I admire in another person that day
• Reading a Bible passage focused on praising God for being worthy of love
• Reading a book that helps teach love and relationship skills (e.g. The Five Love Languages)

I found that, when it was my goal and observance and spiritual discipline to find a way to be loving, kind, encouraging, and supportive, that I found myself more alert for opportunities. I also became thoroughly embarrassed that it wasn't already my automatic way of interacting with people. How in the world, I wondered, could I have sought to be Jesus' disciple for so long, without having made a more serious effort to "Love each other" as he commanded? How many things have I sought to learn or master or accomplish in these years, without love being among them? I am hoping that all my life and relationships can be filled with love. I think, as Jesus' disciples, that is our spiritual discipline, and that is our call. "They will know we are Christians by our love."

As I've come to expect from my yearly Lenten observances, over the course of Lent there was some immediate good from having the practice at all. There was some growth for having kept at it for those weeks. And I hope there were also the beginnings of changed habits. Without doubt, there was also much cause for humility about where I am and whether I am really as devoted to that goal as is right.

I'm intending to schedule a post for mid-week this week about what I found on my "Lent Anti-Virus" watch this year, as I used a different tactic and it did pay off.