From the MSG, Eph. 2:8-9:

"Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving."

I read this verse today on a blog called A Holy Experience as the writer spoke about her reasons for doing Lent. Her post made me think about Lent more than usual. We attend a Presbyterian church and Presbyterians don't really do Lent. I decided, however, to do Lent this year. I'm not using it to give up something like sugar or caffeine, to struggle for 40 days and then take it back up at the end. I am using Lent this year to pray for believers around the world who are being persecuted for their faith. I doing Lent to think about being more intentional about how I spend our money, to be a better steward of what God has given our family. And I am working to weed out some junk from my life. I love to read blogs. I have many that I read every day, but so many of them are not filling me with things that are glorifying to God. So, I have been on a search for blogs about faith and about loving Jesus. I found a site this week called Faith Blogs, that features writers doing just that, writing about faith, family, about crafts, photography, and home too. Thing I love to read about and things that inspire me and a focus on their relationships with God and their struggles. I found A Holy Experience by way of Faith Blogs today.

So back to Lent. I want to really use this time to grow deeper in my relationship with Jesus. There are believers all over the world who are willing to die for their faith, who are willing to struggle and be persecuted because they believe their Jesus is worth it. Do I? Do I have what it takes to be in the world, but not to be overcome by it? That's what I'm thinking about this Lenten season.