After pancakes enjoyed last night (with Grand Marnier and ice cream), today Ash Wednesday marks the start of Lent. It is a particularly poignant anniversary for our family.
Many people think that Lent is a time for giving up things, and traditionally it is a time of fasting as a way to draw closer to God. In society at large it seems to me that if people think about wrong-doing they usually think of things that they should stop doing. So it makes sense in Lent to give up the things we think are wrong!
On the other hand, wrong-doing is just as much about things that we have failed to do. To quote an inscription at the Holocaust Museum in Israel: For evil to triumph all that is needed is for good men to do nothing. So how about doing something for Lent as well as giving something up?
My extra bit of doing has come about almost accidentally as I ordered a copy of a book about the Prayer of Jabez, with Bible Study, by Bruce Wilkinson and David Kopp (ISBN 1-57673-979-1), to avoid paying for postage on an Amazon order. I shall read it over the next few weeks. It's all about God's blessing based on a little known man called Jabez who crops up just once in the Bible in 1 Chronicles chapter 4 verses 9 to 10.
The Dawn Treader - Richard's Cabin 