Christ Jesus, help me to choose not death but life...

 
Deuteronomy 30:15-20 
 
As followers of Jesus one great grace of Lent is that we have opportunity to lean into the wonderfully-correcting discipline of Lent.  If my fast is from snacks, each time I reach for food between meals, I have opportunity to exercise my right to choose life over death, to choose abstinence over the ‘just one bite’ that would lead me to be dominated by my appetite.  If on the other hand my fast is from ‘complaints and voicing negativity’, each time I find my lips moving to speak juicy invectives or sour adjectives, I can exercise my choice of life over death, by  remaining silent or speaking gratitude and mercy instead. And if my fast is from purchasing ‘eye candy’ or more possessions each time I walk into a store, I am able to exercise self control and choose life over death by ‘looking at all the things I don’t have to buy’ and leaving empty handed. Such sure and steady spiritual discipline through the six weeks of Lent exercises my freedom to deliberately choose the path of life and benefit from the clarity and strength of purpose its gives me.  How will I exercise my right to life by fasting this Lent? Christ Jesus, help me choose not death but life.
 
I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Choose life ...  (Deuteronomy 30:19)
 
Perseverance sometimes consists of remaining without doing anything, or else, on the contrary, doing everything that one did not think one had come to do.
Fr. Jean-Charles Nault, The Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnanmed Evil of Our Times        
 
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Soli ad gloriam Dei