wherever you are on this journey of life, whether a believer in Christ or not, taking time to better oneself is always necessary...
walking through these next forty days (more on that in a minute) as being a caretaker of the earth, the land beneath us, we will be able to rest within and let the power of God work within us
There is no more time to decide on what to give up, now is the time... (back to the walking...)
our human nature always let's us know there is more time, but when you have to plant a garden, you have to do it at just the right time, just after the frost or a bit before, depending on what you are growing, but you certainly can't plant pepper seeds in the cold hard ground in zone 4 in April, the ground is too cold and they will not even germinate. If you have forgotten to plant that pepper plant by seed, at the right time, then there is always the local nursery, where you can pick up usually a plant with a pepper already growing on it. There are plenty of times where this has happened to me, for whatever reason, but I ran instead of walked in the garden. To run into lent is like picking up that pepper plant in the store with it's fruit ready to pick. It is a lazy way to garden (unless physical ailments prevent you from starting it from seed). The cost if more, the work was not done by you, but here you are enjoying the fruit. Quite frankly, it is cheating your way through gardening. At the end of the forty days, each and every one of us, should arrive with a stronger sense of our weaknesses and strengths because we spent so much time in prayer and fasting.
That ground we are planting in, if all we plant are peppers in there, year after year, will become unsuitable for planting. It needs crop rotation. It might even need time to lie fallow (left alone).
Rotating crops helps not only prevent insect infestations, but also enriches the soil. So one year we'll plant peppers, the other year maybe some carrots or potatoes (something growing deep within the ground). Just as we are as humans. Sometimes we are left barren and it needs to be that way. Other time though, we need to remove what is there for a time to focus on introducing a new virtue or habit within us. Fasting helps us with this.
We are such pleasure seeking people with our comfort of food and drink (myself included). After all, we need food and drink to sustain us, but why not live without that comfort.
That seed we put into the ground is restraining the life within it. It is dry and brittle, and so small. When that outer skin on the seed falls off and dies within the ground, then life pushes forth.
After this time of soil preparation, and barren land, let us all let life push us forth.
