Lent: Week 1

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.

The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written,‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written,‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ and‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.
(Luke 4:1-13 ESV)

Our church is doing 7 weeks of resisting temptation for Lent. This is Week 1, and it is fasting. Our home group leader and the booklet we have make it clear we should be smart when doing this, and maybe just give up one meal a day if that makes you more comfortable.

Normally, I eat 4 meals a day: breakfast at 4:45am, "first lunch" (as I call it, haha) at 8:45am, "second lunch" after I get off of work for the day around 2:00pm, and dinner around 6:30-7:00pm. For fasting week, I'm going to do only water at breakfast, skip second lunch, and eat minimally at first lunch and dinner, with no snacking (other than water) throughout the day. My medicine that I'm on won't really allow me to skip a whole day of food without getting really sick, so I figured this was the best I can do. This week will be a piece of cake compared to the weeks I have coming up, haha. I was already tempted to eat at breakfast, too. A coworker brought in homemade chocolate chip cookies, and I was about to go, "Okay, ONE cookie" and then she sent an email around and said they were chocolate chip cookies with NUTS, and I laughed and thought, "Well played, Jesus...I can resist cookies with nuts!"

So it's going to be a struggle. Not eating makes me nauseous/sick, but hopefully the two light meals out of four will be good enough to make me "suffer" but also keep me functioning, haha.

I don't usually like "giving up" things for Lent, because I feel like you're supposed to stop doing a bad habit for good, not just for 40 days. But the point of the first week is to live as Jesus did for just a brief span of time, and the rest of the weeks force me to give up things and instead pray more and read my Bible and just draw closer to the Lord. So I think this is a good thing. =)

For those of you giving up something for the next 40-something days, good luck! I know it's tough if you pick a big thing in your life, like coffee or soda. It'll be over before you know it.