Pre-Lenten Aerobic Exercise!
Blog Post #24
Have you started your aerobic Pre-Lenten exercises yet? You know what I’m talking about ~ those thoughts about how you’re going to deepen your spiritual life and grow closer to your Creator this Lent. You know you want to. Okay, maybe you don’t exactly know you want to, but I guarantee you, your soul does. Remember St. Augustine’s advice, “You have made us for Yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
Aware or not, God plants in us a desire to come closer and closer and closer. That’s an exciting prospect and one that makes me want to get more creative with my prayer life and my relationship with Jesus. I’m so excited, in fact, that I’m adding an extra ten days onto my Lenten experience.
I’m calling it my pre-Lenten warm-ups. Trust me, I need the exercise.
I have three ideas to get the blood pumping and the relationship growing. One is very personal and private, so I won’t be sharing about it on this blog. The second is doing the 24/7 daily. This is a simple exercise I created for myself several years ago where I daily name seven things that I know God did specifically for me in the past 24 hours. It’s even better when I write them down so I can remember them on my bad hair days.
The third is something Kristen and I have been working on for several years. Some of you know that we wrote a Lenten trilogy that brings to life the stories of three Biblical women’s perspective of the Passion of Christ.
We chose Claudia Procula (wife of Pontius Pilate), Mary Magdalene (friend and follower of Jesus), and Mary (Mother of Jesus). We titled the trilogy Growing Pains: The Demands of Our Lenten Journey. Each drama explores a different theme and we chose truth, courage, and love for the important role these virtues play in every life. We perform these musical dramas live, but we also made a CD.
Recently, we wrote a Lenten devotional to go along with our CD with the idea of offering a creative way to stimulate our senses and enhance our 40-day walk with Jesus. The way it works is that you listen to one track of the CD and then you read that day’s devotion (which is just a paragraph), which then concludes with three questions. This experience can be done privately, with your family, or any small group. I’m doing it with my weekly faith sharing group and we’ve already gotten started, so that when we get our ashes next Wednesday our souls are good and ready to begin this journey with Jesus.
If you, too, would like to try something creative this Lent, simply go to www.luminousministries.com/store where you can get your own copy of the combo CD and devotional.
You might think of Lent as a difficult and challenging season, and it is in many ways. But it’s also an exciting and inspiring season of spiritual growth. So if you’d like to grow closer to Jesus in a creative fashion, check out our new offering and let us know your thoughts.
And 1...2...3...let’s go! (Don’t mind me, I’m just gearing up for the day’s aerobic pre-Lenten exercises! It’s a great workout!!)