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Fasting without Excuses

Procrastination has been defined as disobedience in slow motion. I laughed when I first heard a pastor friend illuminate our disobedience to God in a sermon. Since hearing this poignant description of putting off what we know to be the right path, I approach the seasons of Lent and Advent differently.
 
What have I neglected in my own walk toward a more holy life? What convenient excuses have allowed me to reconcile a malnourished spirit with a meaningful ministry? How might this new season of Lent serve as an invitation for me to make space and time for the one who transcends space and time? As I remember my baptism, can I sing an old spiritual in a new way?
 
“Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart. Lord I want to be like Jesus in my heart.” Is it possible to be like Jesus, more loving, more holy, and more forgiving in this day and age? I believe we can grow closer to God and our best selves as we practice the spiritual disciplines that John Wesley emphasized as core commitments to a life of faithfulness to God in Christ. Spiritual disciplines of prayer, worship, searching the scriptures, the Lord’s Supper are frequently embraced anew as we journey from Ash Wednesday to Holy Week. Fasting, as an essential discipline to be practiced with regularity, is often prefaced with options and permissible excuses.
 
Because of health concerns some people cannot go without food for periods of time. Others are on strict or restrictive diets that call for particular intakes of nourishment at regular intervals. I take one medication that indicates “best taken with food.”
 
Notwithstanding the many people who cannot abstain from eating food for long periods of time, I wonder if too many believers are missing out on the benefits of fasting.
 
Fasting is the abstinence from food for the purpose of enhancing one’s sense of the presence of God. Fasting is often practices as a spiritual discipline in concert with meditative prayer and journal writing. I find it more than appealing. (Yes, we can choose to give up other things, practices, weaknesses, sweets, caffeine, even sarcasm).
 
As for me, it is time to put away excuses and take time for fasting.
 
“Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild. For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and when the time was up he was hungry.” Luke 4:1-2, The Message
 
Be Encouraged...

Topics: Fasting