season of Lent: substituting gummy bears

I wonder how much substituting goes on during Lent?  I mean if someone gives up chocolate do they substitute that fix with gummy bears?  What if I want to sacrifice driving everywhere?  I decide I will ride a bike places, walk, or take the bus.  But what if sacrificing taking my car places is substituted into bumming rides off my friends. By the end of Lent my friends aren’t celebrating Jesus’ resurrection anymore, they are celebrating not having to give me a ride everywhere.

When does sacrificing become sacrificing?  When do we truly give up what we intended to give up?  How do we know?  When does the sacrifice lead us to think about God? 

Is it a sacrifice if we aren’t?  I’ve given up my fair share of things over the years.  Things I really enjoy like chocolate, ice cream, and soda.  For forty days though it didn’t seem like a problem, just some temporary time away from some of my favorite foods. 

Maybe food isn’t the best thing for me to give-up then.  I can’t be alone in this.  People must be able to just breeze through Lent without giving it another thought.  For others though food is the right thing to give-up.  So much so that I hear stories every year of people failing after a week into Lent of eating McDonald’s fries or having to eat a cupcake on Friday after a long week at work. 

Is there a way to make sacrificing harder or easier?  And that leads me back to this: what is sacrificing?  Can we really fail at Lent?  I know there are more questions here than answers.  This is only the beginning of my Lenten journey.  I hope you are thinking of some questions, and if you weren’t, I hope you are now.