Lenten Inspiration

Life is full of interesting twists and turns. A couple of years ago I made the decision to turn off all my social media accounts. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter; all cancelled. It was a choice that came with some consternation and more than a little bit of questioning from some friends and family. But, as I am sure some people can relate to, it had all just become too much. Not only was the content that I was viewing on an all-too-regular basis sending my mental health in the wrong direction, but I was having a harder and harder time resisting the lure of that content, or pulling myself away from it while I was using. I’m no expert, but it felt to me as if I was on the road to addiction. And that is not a place I wanted to end up. So, I shut it down. And until about two months ago, I was doing great.

It was two months ago, however, that I relapsed. At the time, Lamar Jackson, my favorite player on my favorite team, was in the middle of a very public contract negotiation with the Ravens. He posted a tweet that was the talk of the football world, and I just had to see it for myself. So I waded back in, certain that it would be “just this one time.” And how do you think that went? A few weeks later, I was hooked again. And then one night I came across something that changed my trajectory.

Justin Forsett (@JForsett) is a former running back for the Baltimore Ravens. He is now an entrepreneur and, if his Twitter posts are any indication, focused on living a life devoted to Christ. At the end of each evening, he was posting what he called “the verse for tonight”. He would post the Book, Chapter, and Verse Number. The first one I saw (James 5:16) sent me to my Bible app where I noticed immediately that, in 2017, I had highlighted that same passage. The next night, another tweet, another passage I had highlighted years before. And on and on it went, with every fourth or fifth verse being one that was close to my heart.

I had come back to Twitter to feed an urge and was leaving each night with inspiration.

Over the next 40 days, I hope to share with you the fruits of that inspiration. Every day during Lent I’ll be posting an essay, sometimes short and sometimes a little longer, that was inspired by one of Justin’s recently posted verses. It’s my sincere hope that you have as much fun with this as I have.