{"id":2519,"date":"2024-02-14T03:50:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T03:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=2519"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:32:27","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:32:27","slug":"giving-up-something","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=2519","title":{"rendered":"GIVING UP SOMETHING"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday (as well as Valentines Day).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For decades now I have practiced &#8220;giving up something for Lent&#8221; and I always find it a valuable exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In studying up on fasting over the last few weeks, I came across a handful of Bible &#8220;experts&#8221; who looked down their noses at this practice as being &#8220;not a real fast&#8221;. A true fast, they said, means eating no food and drinking nothing but water for 3, 7, 21 or 40 days. Not giving up soda for a few weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Certainly, giving up chocolate for 40 days is not as hardcore as going without food altogether for 40 days. Still, I think you can get a lot of the benefits of fasting and experience a miniature version of a fast by giving up something for Lent.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The similarities include:<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>The abstaining from a God-given good (like food in general or chocolate in particular) in pursuit of God&#8217;s &#8220;even better&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n<li>The enduring of temptations brought by bodily appetites<\/li>\n\n\n<li>The exercising of your self-control\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n<li>The focusing on the spiritual over the physical<\/li>\n\n\n<li>The emphasizing of prayer<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And those are not things to pooh-pooh!<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Church should be encouraging <b><i>experiences <\/i><\/b>of God, not belittling or dismissing them.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><b><i>Anytime <\/i><\/b>we give up something to get more of God, it&#8217;s a win.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday (as well as Valentines Day).\u00a0 For decades now I have practiced &#8220;giving up something for Lent&#8221; and I always find it a valuable exercise. In studying up on fasting over the last few weeks, I came across a handful of Bible &#8220;experts&#8221; who looked down their noses at this practice as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2520,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2519\/revisions\/2520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}