I really should have posted this yesterday. But I was struggling with something.

I always thought that Lent was something that the Catholics partook (partaked…? I think partook is right… hmm…) in, and I learned of its existence through learning about history. For me, since it was yet another deed that one had to do, I thought it wasn’t a good thing at all. Oh, how foolish and extreme I am.

But I realized later in life that deeds and faith go hand in hand.

14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

18But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

19You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

20You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless[d]? 21Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”[e] and he was called God’s friend. 24You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.

– James 2:14-24

And I see how awesome Lent can be, if used effectively. Now, being the all-or-nothing type of person I am, if I decide to give up something or replace it with something, I want it to be that way for LIFE. And if that’s not the case, I don’t even want to start.

This mindset needs to change. I need to know that even the slightest motion forward is still motion forward. Even the intention of moving forward is better than sitting and wallowing.

As long as I follow through, like a good golf swing, no matter how poor my first, second… billionth shot may be, it’s going towards the hole.

And with that, I’ve used up my horrible metaphor quota for the day.

No More Video Sharing Sites, Movies, TV…

Yes. I don’t know if I can make exceptions to videos that will improve my understanding of subjects I need to understand (entrepreneurship, web 2.0 applications, screencast demos of mac applications…), but I know exactly the types of crap I need to stop poking around for.

This includes Xman. Oh sad… I’ll be missing 6 weeks worth of quality Korean variety show entertainment. It also includes Battlestar Galactica, ATHF, The Office, and any other random shows I started to watch due to the innovation and time sink online video sites are. And to think I was going to start off Heroes…

Wrong Motive: Waste of time, anyway. Might as well kill two birds with one stone by saying it’s for lent.

Correct Motive: Truly, these things are time sinks. Big chunks of time that could be used towards something more useful, be it reading the Word or working. Gotta redeem the newfound chunks of time…

Memorize Philippians

Tonight, I’m taking some time to do some research as to why the heck I’ve been wanting to memorize this book for YEARS. The first time the thought of memorizing a full book crossed my mind was during a retreat in LA. I’m not sure what the circumstance was, but the pastor was talking about memorizing Philippians for some reason. From that point on, I’ve been wanting to do this on and off.

My junior year in college, I had the urge again to want to actually go through with it. A small group co-leader (Karen Seo) and I was going to keep each other accountable. I still remember to this day, meeting up at the Union for like 5 minutes, testing each other if we knew it. At that point, I was able to recite chapter 1 and parts of chapter 2. Then… the dry times known as my senior year hit.

Fast forward to now.

Of all the churches, their contributions (which Paul gratefully acknowledges) are among the only he accepts.

I knew that there was a letter that Paul had written, and only one church that this statement applied to. I just didn’t know which one. I’m not sure why this would make Philippians THE book to memorize for this Lenten season (and it’s not even the shortest book…), but I want to do it.

Motive: To be able to spit out verses more and more. The few that I painfully memorized for Helper’s Training helps immensely. I even remember back to the AWANA days in middle school… wow… I’m so old. Do they still have AWANA?

Read through Matthew, Mark, Luke, John

John Kim and I are going to start reading through Mark every Friday. This is going to be awesome. But not only that, I want to see all sides of the story this Lent season.

This is in addition to my Old Testament readings I’m doing. Sweetness.

Bonus

I stopped posting my quiet times up here. I think I’m going to start doing that more and more. At least, the ones that I can keep public and those that can maybe possibly help others to grow also.

Morning Prayer. My negative legalistic views kill me on this subject. At least, tomorrow, I’ll be going. I guess more prayer is needed on this topic of… Morning Prayer.

Warnings

Please don’t look at this list and point to my pride. I really want you guys to keep me accountable on these issues.

And with that, here we go for the next 40 days.

(Yeah, I know… I messed up already with my Justin Timberlake post… but we won’t talk about that. Looking to the future!)