What kind of things:

• Increased prayer time. I intentionally set aside time each morning for prayer, but during Lent I try to concentrate on asking God what I should be thinking and doing with my life, rather than my more normal (and less healthy) habit of telling God how to run the universe!
• Increased Bible reading time. For me that means reading it without trying to develop a sermon from it! I am going to be re-reading Job through Lent this year, as I try to gain the long-term understanding of living faithfully in dark and difficult times.
• Increased exercise time. This is an annual and Sisyphean (note to Confirmation Class, look up Sisyphean and be ready to tell me what it means) task, as I try to fight back the encroaching gains in weight and waistline. I comfort myself with the thought that if I didn’t try, my failure would be even greater. However, more importantly, each Spring I rediscover that by combining the increase in exercise with the increase in prayer, my mind and my heart are clearer for the start of each day.
• Increased giving. Many of us have found great joy in giving a Double Share, that is twice our normal weekly giving, throughout the six Sundays of Lent. It is more affordable than you might think, it is highly significant to the Church’s cash flow each Spring and, this year in particular, it will allow those of us who have jobs to step in for those whose jobs have been eliminated or reduced, that’s what Churches do.
• Increased . . . whatever it is that God is calling you to increase! It may be in your personal life, it may be vocational, it may be something here at Church that you have always wanted to be involved with. Whatever it is for you, take it on and do it with faithful enthusiasm and I promise that you will understand the joy and abundance of life on Easter morning, more deeply and more sacredly than you ever have before.

Shalom,

Jack