Lent 2018
Name: Youhyun Kim
Lenten Commitment: Spending 30 minutes each day reading God’s Word and spending time with Him in prayer.
For Lent, I decided to try to spend more time with God in prayer – more specifically, set aside time in the day to pray. Prayer has always been something that I felt like I did not do often enough. Also, not just prayer, but being able to listen to what God has to say to me.
Before this commitment, I felt like I was praying and talking to God on my schedule. I would only sit down and pray whenever I had free time or had the energy to pray. Without a commitment, it was very easy for me to go for many days without really praying. I am hoping to create a habit of praying without making excuses.
During Lent, I wanted to dedicate at least 30 minutes every day just for reading the word and praying. The 30 minutes that I wanted to dedicate did not seem that long and I felt good about it. I was expecting to use this as a starting point and increase the amount I spend over time.
For the first couple weeks, I found myself praying a lot more than I used to. In the 30 minutes I dedicated, I would read the Bible and reflect on what I read. And I would spend time praying either about specific topics that I had come up with or just on the passages that I had read. This was already a great accomplishment for me.
There were many times before when I would read the Bible and not really spend time praying about it. It was just reading the Bible for the sake of reading it. But by setting aside time, I was able to expand on it. Another aspect that really improved was my organization of prayer topics. Since I knew I was going to spend time praying, I tried to gather some topics to pray about and focus on those instead of blabbing on.
As more days went by, I found myself struggling to keep that 30-minute dedication every day. There were some days when I came home from work and found myself focusing for only 10 to 15 minutes. And during the Lenten season, I went on a trip with my friends where it was even harder to focus. I would try to start reading the Word and praying, but I was often distracted or lacked the energy. Once I returned from my trip, I was able to refocus and picked up where I had left off.
It was surprising to me how easy it was for me to go back to my old routine of shaving off time with God based on my conditions. Even during the Lenten season, I found myself slipping and falling back to my old habits. With only a couple of days left in Lent, I hope to continue my dedication to pray every day. Even afterward, I am going to try my best to keep this dedication as it will help me build a habit of talking and, more importantly, listening to God.
This post is a part of DSYG’s Lent Reflections series meant to educate and inspire readers on the season of Lent and its value in any Christian’s relationship with Christ. For more information on this series, click here.
To read more posts in this year’s series, click here.
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