Lessons About Giving Up Negativity: My Lenten Update

 

photo by garibaldi

It's a lot easier to resist to chocolate or give up soda. We're nearing the end of Lent, and my goal to give up negativity has proved much more difficult than I'd anticipated.

It's hard! It's hard to be hyper-aware of what you're saying. It's hard to apologize and repent when you let negativity slip. It's hard to keep reminding yourself, "Don't be negative, don't be negative," when you're chatting up a storm. It's hard to keep praying for strength to be positive when you're not seeing much result.

And so, little by little, I have drawn away from those principles and gone lax on my Lenten promise. I'm sorry to say I wasn't just a couple weeks into it when I let it start to fall by the wayside and retreated back to "normal." It just got too hard to keep up with it every day, every sentence, every time I opened my mouth.

I realized this the other day with disappointment. Of course it was never meant to be something I'd "go back to" when Lenten was up. It was a challenge intended to be a seed for the rest of my life, something I would continually grow and prune and eventually see a harvest for.

Even as Lent draws to an end and Easter looms (celebration! hope! redemption!), I come back again, tail between legs, to this heart challenge. To go back, and try, try again. To keep learning, to keep striving, until the ultimate Easter occurs.

God is strong and can help you not to fall. 

He can bring you before his glory without any wrong in you 

and can give you great joy. He is the only God, the One who saves us. 

To him be glory, greatness, power, and authority through
Jesus Christ our Lord for all time past, now, and forever. Amen.

Jude 13:24-25