The Goal of Lent

Hebrews 12:1-3

The goal of Lent/40 Days is to grow closer to the Lord. I spend more time than I normally do admitting my sins, fasting, and making other sacrifices, but my focus needs to always be on God. For every sacrifice that I decide to commit to I need to first pray and ask God to let me know what He wants me to do. I may not hear a direct response but I can consider Him to be answering my prayer when I realize that certain sacrifices would be a particularly hard struggle for me at this time, making it even more difficult to love Him and love the people I see regularly, or that other sacrifices would help me practice a specific virtue that I know I need to grow in. So for example I will not be fasting from all meat this Lent since that would cause me a great deal of frustration and cause me to spend more time in the kitchen planning new meals and trying new recipes: time which should be spent with my children instead. We will be giving up sweets as a family though since sugar does negatively affect our ability to be patient and loving with each other and we could all benefit from growing in self-discipline. Saying "no" to small indulgences is practice which helps us say "no" to actual sin.