Lost in the Clicking

For several years now, I've taking a break from the Internet during Lent.  By that, I mean I do not get online to read blogs, check message boards, and read the latest news.  The Internet is strictly used for checking emails, weather reports and any other site necessary to make our household run smoothly.

 

I've found this Lenten fast to be a wonderful thing for me in so many ways. 

• It has helped me to cut off my "addictions" to message boards.  The first year I did this, I returned to the message boards after Lent and I realized what a drain the boards were to me. Many were not life giving at all.  I had gotten lost in all of the politics before the fast.  I could hardly believe it. 

 

• The internet fast has helped me to take inventory on my life. I have more time to read spititual books and to seek answers to questions I pose to myself.  What am I doing in my life that is right?  What needs to be corrected?  Where does this time all fit into God's plan for me? 

 

• It helps me to prioritize again what is wasting my time. I've found that one link leads to another and so on.  I often get lost in the clicking. Before I know it, I've spent one hour online and never got anything accomplished online that I had planned to do.

 

• It helps me reconnect to nature.  During the winter months, it is so cold and icy that one can only be outside for a short time.  It's easier to spend time online instead of outside.  With Lent comes the hope for spring and all joy that it brings.  Yard work gets done. Soil gets turned.

 

As I write this, it sounds like giving up the Internet is really not a sacrifice but a normal course of change from one liturgical season to the next.  Perhaps it is.  I wasn't going to give up the Internet this year.  I really feel like I have a better grip on my Internet usage.  Yet, I keep sensing this is where I'm being called to sacrifice my time.  Maybe my usage isn't as low as I thought? Maybe I could do better?  God has something He wants me to learn. I need to sit and listen.

First

With Lent quickly approaching, my mind has been on what to do for Lent. What will be my Lenten sacrifice?  Do I give up my time to do something worthwhile?  Give up food? Give up money for a worthy cause?  "Lord, what do you want me to do?"

In the gospel reading from Monday, a rich man asks Jesus what he should do to be a better person.  Jesus tells him to give up all of his things and follow him.  It's made me think.  What things hold me back from following Jesus? What baggage won't allow me to get through the narrow gates? 

Those are tough questions to answer. I find a million excuses for how those "things" are important or why I need that "baggage."  Do I really want to offer those things up so that I can follow Jesus?  Do I really want to leave those bags at the gate to follow Jesus? My lips say "Yes."  My heart says, "Well, maybe, but first..."

Then I hear Jesus, again, from Sunday's gospel.  "Seek ye, first, the Kingdom of God and his rightousness."

Yet again, in today's gospel, I see the word - first.  "But many who are first will be last and the last will be first."

My heart is stirring. I need to make a holy offering this Lent.  I need to seek those things that will put me in touch with God first and not with being first in the world's eyes.  I need to discern what is holding me back from seeking God first.