Every January for the past six years I’ve taken part in a 21 day fast. The idea is to set the spiritual tone for the rest of the year.
I’ve heard it said before, this can be your best year ever if it’s your best year spiritually.
But I hate it. I hate fasting.
I don’t deny it’s a great way to start off the year. Praying, fasting and seeking after God. What I hate about it is what it reveals about myself.
It always show show incredibly undisciplined I am (maybe that’s why “discipline” is one of my words for the year). How I’m consumed with hunger for food. How I’ll cave to temptation and cheat on my fast. How I’ll compromise and change the fast to make it “easier.” How it becomes less spiritual and more diet.
What I hate about it is how a season/time of denying the flesh and focusing on God becomes just the opposite.
A time of focusing on the weakness of the flesh.
So this year I’ve made a conscious effort to use that to my advantage. Whenever I feel the weakness creeping up, I use it as a reminder that weakness is where Christ wants me (2 Corinthians 12:9). That as my body hungers for Pittsburgh steaks, it should really hunger for a deeper, more intimate relationship with Christ.
And that is where I find myself. Craving all sorts of food, but being reminded that my hunger should truly be for Christ.
For all you fellow fasting peeps out there, what are some ways you keep disciplined and focused on the right things when you fast?
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Fasting is also hard for me but know the power in doing it. Great points and passages.
Yeah, after this past fasting season, I think I really want to try something different next year. It’s gotten a little too routine for me. Gotta bust out of this fasting lull! ;)
Switching int up might be the best thing to do.
All I can say is……good luck! :)
It honestly didn’t go over as well as I would have hoped, but that was more due to my lack of discipline than anything else. That’s why I mentioned to Dan how I’m going to have to brainstorm something different for next year. It’s no fun just going through the motions…
That’s ok. Well, it’s not ok but thanks to the generosity and mercifulness of God, it’s ok :)
I’m definitively not an expert on things like fasting but when you truly master something like fasting (i.e. you choose when to eat and when to be hungry), chances are you mastered quite a lot of other things along the way. In a way, you could say the true ability to fast is more the product or result of a journey.
Kinda like how a prophets ability to produce lightning has nothing to do with a prophet’s ability to produce lighting but more towards their relationship with God Himself. I don’t know, maybe that’s a bit over the top way of saying it but it’s hard to think of a modern example because the way our world works.
The fast is the fast. It’s only an indication of the true self. It’s like Luke 14:26 “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” Once mastered, you can’t really believe you thought otherwise. In a way, you’ll start hating the things that prevented you to fast more so then the fast itself. My theory is that if you start hating that which prevents that which is good, you’ll find the way eventually….I hope. Hating things is risky and should only be used under the careful supervision of The Lord Himself.
As for how, you know what… Luke 14:28-35. Replace all the stuff there with the word “fast”.
P.S. Be gracious because once the fast is mastered (according to some stories I’ve read), it only get’s more challenging from here! (Unless of course there’s fear of growing to that next level of challenge….. then that’s a different problem than fasting itself!).
Here’s to the journey then! ;)