In one sense, it feels strange to be starting to think about Easter when the first school term has only just begun. And yet, at the same time, it’s always good to be thinking about Easter.

The season of preparation for Easter, known as Lent, begins this week. As I did last year, I’ll be blogging my way through the season and I reflected on why I would do this last weekend.

Thanks to Scripture Union, I’d been reading the first ten chapters of Jeremiah to start the month. Consequently I’d been reflecting on the ways in which God’s people had so comprehensively turned their backs on their maker. In response to this, there are a few places in the opening of Jeremiah where God doesn’t pull any punches. It’s worth a read.

I found Jeremiah chapter 10 to be quite contemporary. In this chapter the Israelites are requesting trees to be chopped down so they can turn them into idols. It reminded me of the animism which seems to be considered so very sophisticated of late.

As God says in Jeremiah: These idol can’t talk. They can’t walk. And yet the people would prefer to worship them as opposed to the God who rescued them from slavery.

In Jeremiah 10, God is described as “The Portion of Jacob”. Jacob being one of the founding fathers of Israel.

The word portion has the idea of provision. When you consider that Jacob is a founding father of the nation, then the symbolic suggestion is that the portion is significant: abundant and plentiful. The God of the Bible is a God who provided everything Israel needed.

And yet they turned away.

They rejected his provision and instead consulted stone and wood.

This is why I think Lent is a good idea.

Lent is a sustained period of time – 40 days, plus Sundays – in which Christians can focus their mind on their God. Some people fast in various ways as well, whether literally or through the removal of something from their life that is not helping their spiritual life.

When done from a genuine heart – as opposed to a religious, box-ticking one – then such sustained reflection can only do us good.

We all, myself included, are liable to be distracted from focusing on God and to be influenced by the spiritual atmosphere we are surrounded by, which doesn’t have biblical priorities at all.

For this reason, I’m looking forward to Lent and focusing my mind on who God is and what He did for me – a sinner – at the cross.

40 Days of purposeful reflection sounds like a good thing to me.

Yours about to kick off,

Alison