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No disrespect if indeed you are giving up chocolate for Lent, or coffee, or wine (hand up) or Facebook (I’m not that spiritually mature yet) but….Lent is about so much more than turning away from a simple daily pleasure.
It is about, for the 40 days between Good Friday and Easter, being alert to what gets in the way between us and living fully in Christ's way.  It is about removing, giving up, letting go of those blocks.
It is about pausing for a moment when we reach out to consume the chocolate or coffee, or wine, pausing and noticing for that moment where Christ is in our lives.  It is about noticing when we reach out and then deny ourselves that item, the teeny tiny amount of discomfort that is just a sliver of a moment of a revelation of the discomfort of living a faithful life, a life that confronts the injustices and pain of the world. A life that Jesus offered.
 
It is about if we are attempting to give up other behaviours; despair, envy, grudges, insecurity, noticing when we are tempted to that behaviour how much it distances us from being aware that we are God’s beloved child and precious in God’s eyes.
And then it’s about asking that all those things that dilute and impede our living fully into Christian discipleship be lifted from us and,
It’s about offering gratitude for the assurance that we are forgiven, emptied, and made wide open to the love and grace and power of God, in and for the world. 
A blessed Lent be upon you all. 
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