Food lovers pick this day to enjoy these round, sugar-coated, fruit-filled Polish pre-Lenten pastries, pronounced “poonch-kee,” available in bakeries nationwide. Paczki Day coincides with Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. It is the last day before the penitential season of Lent, during which many Christians “give up” something for the 40 observable days of Lent.
I pose a challenge for us here in DeWitt. What
if we focus on gaining something rather than giving up something? Earlier this
week, I ran across a free downloadable Kindle book “The Prayer Dare” by Ron
Kincaid. In the forward, the author
talks about his personal prayer life and he refers to a prayer journal he has
kept for over 30 years. In the Prayer Dare, Kinkaid leads us through 40 short
prayer exercises, some from his personal journal, that are sure to enhance our
prayer life and that in turn can only strengthen our personal relationship with
God.
In another book I have also just begun, “The
Jesus Model” by Joy Dawson, Joy says: “Multitudes
of Christians have a huge boulder of unbelief in their hearts that needs to be
removed through repentance. It is the
boulder of unbelief that we can live like Jesus.” Jesus came to
earth for several reasons and one reason was to live as a real-world model for
us to follow, but we believe we can never be like Jesus…our unbelief boulder.
Conversely, God would never ask us to do something He wasn’t willing to equip
us for through the Holy Spirit. Jesus lived His earthly life in constant
prayer, and that is the same kind of life God wants for us. God never wants to
set us up for failure; all we have to do is ask Him to equip us to live in
constant communication with Him, fully engaged and relying on Him for all of
life.
How wonderful if Redeemer UMC became a more
engaged community of pray-ers living more engaged and in tune to God. I invite
you to join me in this 40 day “Prayer Dare” this Lenten season.
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