Lent in the Christian tradition represents a period of 40 days of preparation before Easter.  The word “lent” comes from English and it simply means spring. Christians around the world prepare themselves for Easter through prayer, fasting, desire of renouncing certain things in order to stay closer to God. Moses spent 40 days and 4o nights up on the mount Sinai where he stood in the presence of God and become changed. Jesus Christ was in the wilderness for 40 days where he was tempted by Satan. These are the most relevant stories that show towards Lent.

For me Lent is a celebration of rebirth of the soul. A birth that could be possible by dying towards yourself and being born again to the new life in Jesus Christ. I see it as renunciation to the old self and turning 180 degrees to a new nature. As most of the people I decided to give things up for Lent. Some of us give up coffee, sugar, Facebook, maybe they decide to have a diet, but I thought that will be much more useful to give up some parts of myself. I’m telling you this is not an easy thing.

Talking about sacrifice,  renouncing caffeine was a bit hard in the beginning, because I love coffee and I live in France the country of good coffee and nice coffee shops but one day I forgot that I need caffeine to stay awake, and I tried different things to get away. But caffeine is not the only thing that I decided to give up, that is just a small part. I’m not saying I don’t drink coffee anymore, cause I do on Sundays at church with my friends. I tried to resist to the temptation of drinking it so often. Sometimes I’m very well without it.

Speaking about coffee and giving up, I guess the hardest thing is to forgo your old nature. Being unselfish is not easy, trying to be quiet when everybody else is talking and you feel you have the right answer to everything, loving your neighbour, watching over your friends when they fell, resist to lust and temptation, that I think, is the most difficult.

I went last month at Taize, a quiet place in the South of France. Taize is a ecumenical Christian Community where young people around the world gather there for prayer and mediation. It is such a nice place to be. There you can easily pray and be a good christian because you don’t have the distractions of the world. Someone was saying that it feels like home, even though they don’t have the best conditions in the world. There you feel carefree, secure and satisfied. I heard the bells 3 times a day and it was clear that the time of prayer begins and we were invited in the church to quiet our soul and stay connected with God. I wish my busy life to be the same. To find that place in my soul that is cozy and pleasant, that accepts people the way the are, not judging or grumbling to every small detail.  One place like Taize, where everything is cheap and the people love you the way you are and where brands are not recognized and where people are the same.

A desire to hear the bells in my heart at least 2 times and day and to feel that now is time for communion with God, this is the moment for an unhurried meeting where I can stay and relax for a while in the presence of God. I wish Lent will not become a hard time, where i strife so much to obey God and to abandon my feelings and to drop by the wayside all my luggage of food and bad behaviour.  I want 40 days or at least what is left of it till Easter, of serenity, love and true obedience.  Something that I know is not easy  but I’m not going to harden myself by saying ‘Oh again, I have to do that, give up this and listen to God’ and I fail and I never try again.

I will rise  above my circumstances, my unfulfilled desires and unreached goals and I will continue to pray, to seek God’s presence until I will see a small plant growing in the earthly soil of my heart. And I will advice you to do the same. Pick up your dusty Bible and a crayon, open your heart and listen. You might hear the voice of the living God and this season of Lent will be the most fruitful time of your life.

Last week I was in England for the Windows on Wycliffe conference which was at the Wycliffe bible centre in High Wycombe. It has been an interesting journey into the world of translation, phonetics, linguistics , scripture use and literacy. I was amazed to see how God is working through this organisation. I spend one week trying to learn a few words in Chatino language which is a dialect from Mexic , then we analysed the language and in the end I found out they had a New Testament translated , it was so cool. I will attach some pictures, you will see what I’ve done around the Wycliffe centre.

Cameron Townsend was the one that inspired people to start the Wycliffe bible translation and from that moment on things are starting to develop. I will give you some statistics :

Wycliffe are involved in 1415 (72%) of these in 97 countries, serving over 550M people.

Work on 2251 languages remains to start. This represents 193M people.

2426 languages have some or all of the Bible. Of these, 429 have an adequate Bible; 1,144 have an adequate New Testament; 853 have at least one book of the Bible.

Today about 200 million people do not have the Bible in their own language. The Bible is in hundreds of languages but not mine .

It is so sad to see that many people don’t have the bible in their language . Here are some sites with the vision that Wycliffe Bible translations has:

http://www.vision2025.org

Oh my goodness, Becky, look at her Bible
It is so big
She looks like one of those preacher guys girlfriends
But…you know…Who understands those preacher boys
They only talk to her because she looks like Mother Teresa, ok?
I mean her Bible…it’s just so big
I can’t believe it’s so huge
Uggh! It gross!
Look, she’s just so…righteous

Verse 1
I like big Bibles and I can not lie
You Christian brothers can’t deny
That when a girl walks in with a KJV
And a book mark in Proverbs
You get stoked
Got her name engraved
So you know that girl is saved
It looks like one of those large ones
With plenty o’ space in the margins
Oh baby, I wanna read witcha
Cause your Bible’s got pictures
My minister tried to console me
But that Book you got makes (“M-m-me so holy”)
Ooh, momma-mia
You say you want koinonia
Well, bless me, bless me
And teach me about John Wesley

I saw her prayingWhile I was DJing
She got grace…pretty face
She ain’t goin’ down to the bad place

I’m tired of heathen guys
Sayin’ they like pocket-size
Ask the average Christian to take a look
She’s gotta pack much Book

So…Fellas (Yeah), fellas (Yeah)
Has your girlfriend got the Book (Oh yeah!)
Well, read it (Read it!), read it (Read it!), read that Holy Book
Baby got Book

Chorus
(NIV with a ribbon bookmark)
Baby got Book
(NIV with a ribbon bookmark)

Verse 2
I like ‘em leather and bound
It’s 50 pounds
I just can’t understand
How it is, some weenie
Wants the Bible on CD
She wanna get you saved
Amen! Double up! A-men!

I ain’t talkin’ about a paraphrase
Cuz Paul wouldn’t use those anyways
like ‘em real thick and red-letteredYou can’t find nothin’ betterSouthpaw’s in love
Bibles that big are unheard of

So I’m sittin’ here thinkin’ “What if…
I find me a girl that shows midriff?”
You can have those bimbos
I’ll keep those chick that do devos
A word to the Christian sistas
I can’t resist yaI’ll do God’s time witcha
But I gotta be straight when I say I wanna pray
Til the break of day
Baby, got it goin’ on
Like the wife in Pro-verbs 31

We just might get engaged
When we finish reading this page
Cuz it’s worn and it’s torn
And I know this girl’s reborn

So ladies (yeah), ladies (yeah)
Do you wanna save people from Hades (yeah) Then read it…’til the pages fall out
Even white preachers got to shout
Baby got Book

(Thompson Chain with big red letters)
Baby got Book

Yeah baby
When it comes to a good book
Stephen King’s resume just can’t compare
39 + 27 = 66 books
And if you’re Catholic…there’s even more

So your girlfriend quotes Bill Hybels
But does she got a big Bible?
Cuz that little things she’s got won’t start a revival
My Bible study don’t want none,Unless you got Book, Hon

…You can read Clancy or Grisham
But please don’t loose this Book

Some brothers wanna play that hard hard role
And tell you that Book’s too old
So they toss it and burn it
And I pull up quick to just learn it
So your girl likes paperback? Well I ain’t down with that
Cuz my girlfriend’s hot her Bible’s rockin’
And she’s got good doctrine
To the atheist chicks who try to dis
You ain’t it Miss Priss
Give me a Christian, I’m insistin’
And I’ll greet her with some holy kissin’
Some pervert tried to chase But he didn’t make it past first base
She’s quick to resist temptation
And she loves a new translation
So ladies who were lost and found
If you want the triple-six thrown down
Dial 1-800-reads-a-lot
And teach me about those Psalms
Baby got Book

(NIV with a ribbon bookmark)
Baby got Book
(Thompson Chain with big red letters)

Bible college knowledge but she still got Book (4 Xs)

   Now you opened my page…you saw the link at my status, and if you use to read my blog everyday, or at least once in a while this message is for you!

   What do you expect for me to write here? Something interesting? About me? Funny things that happened in my life here in Paris??

  While you are reading , you are asking yourself, what i am trying to say with all this? Do i have any reason for saying that? Or maybe you don’t ask yourself nothing because all you want to do is read, finish and close the page and move on to the next thing you were doing.

   You open the Bible..see that is long, weird , you don’t understand much, but you want to see..”What is with this book anyway??” Starting to read , you realize that this is too much for you and you stop, others continue and stick to it until the end. But most of the people, read, they close the book, and they move on to the next thing they were doing. What they don’t know is that the Word has power, more than my blog here has power. You can read and close the page, but with the Bible you close it but you will remeber it forever.

   Don’t try to take things easy, oh i read my Bible, i am a good christian! Or, i hate the Bible, what is this stupid book anyway?? See what other people have thought about it and then think again!!

Napoleon: “The Bible is no mere book, but a Living Creature, with a power that conquers all that oppose it.” Queen Victoria: “That book accounts for the supremacy of England.” 

Charles Dickens: “The New Testament is the very best book that ever was or ever will be known in the world.”

“I used to act dumb. That act is no longer cute. Now, I would like to make a difference … God has given me this new chance.” — Paris Hilton speaking to Barbara Walters via phone from L.A. County Jail, where she is serving a 45-day prison sentence for traffic violations. People as Paris Hilton, they want to change their lives…if she will read the Bible, she will make a difference, but this is just the beginning, to admit that God has given you a chance and to use it in making a difference in the world!

You finished reading, asking yourself about Paris Hillton, weird thing for her to say that…you close the page and you remeber that you need to read the Bible…or i hope you will …

  If you want to comment, you are free to do it…God love you my friend!!