Pope Benedict XVI is known for his quote, “The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.”

I have heard this quote for several years but it has hit home this Lent in a special way. A couple years ago a friend shared that for Lent, they had given up hitting the snooze button on their alarm. I found this to be an interesting choice. While giving up chocolate or candy or coffee was on my radar, I had never considered my waking up routine as a potential choice. And as a person who shamelessly uses this option, multiple times a morning, I decided to try this challenge last year.

I achieved my goal and after 40 days, I woke up on Easter and did what? You guessed it–promptly hit the snooze button the first chance I got. And then continued in this manner for the next 320-something days. As Lent approached again this year, I prayerfully considered what would be a good choice for this Lent. The Church teaches us to practice the acts of Prayer, Fasting and Giving during Lent. These three areas should help us grow in our faith and love and serve others during this important season of preparation before Easter.

While some use the time as a diet or for other material purposes, Lent is a time that is based on Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness as he prepared himself to be tempted by the Devil. Just as Jesus was willing to sacrifice, we too are called to sacrifice during this time. But not only are we called to abstain from things, we are also called to add good habits into our lives. And these habits should help us to change and grow and be a better person at the end of it. So while giving up snoozing for 40 days was a good start, the true measure is whether there is change in our life afterwards. So for example, several years ago I gave up working on Sunday (as much as I can, seeing that I teach on Sunday mornings). Before this time, as soon as I got home on Sunday afternoon, my computer was out, and it was a day to work like any other. After that particular Lent, I continued that practice and thanks to God’s grace, I have been able to keep Sunday holy and set apart for God since then.

If every year we just do the same thing for Lent, or do different things that last only 40 days, we have not allowed Lent to change us. For this year, I realized that my time of prayer in the morning was pretty shameful. I would wake up and snooze my alarm, and then lay back down in my comfortable bed and “pray” from there. And pretty much every morning, this practice ended with my alarm waking me up again after sleeping for 8.5 minutes of the 9 minute snooze. And then maybe even one more time. A total of less than one minute of half-awake prayer that started with “I thank you God for this day…” and never went much further than that.

So this year for Lent, I again gave up the dreaded snooze button but I have also added getting on my knees on my hardwood floor to pray. And let me tell you what a hard time I have had! Some days I get up, start to pray, and we are good. But more days, after waking up, I convince myself that “this” time, I can stay in my bed and pray, that “this” time, it is going to be different. And this is where Pope Benedict’s quote has echoed in my mind.

While I still struggle, and I have to fight against my temptation to settle for the comfortable instead of the great, I thank God that we have Him on our side. Thank God that we can achieve these Lenten challenges by His grace alone and that with His help we can overcome the temptation to settle to be less than we should be and to reach for greatness–to be a saint. What a wonderful reminder of our need to be humble as we depend on Him one day, one morning, one alarm, and one prayer at a time.

Kasey Jordan is a former missionary and lives in Monticello.