Money is tight. Sometimes there is just not enough there. I pray when I can, but I’m still stressed out and hope is not something I seem to have a lot of. Christians need to admit that these are tough times and we need something extra to get us through! But what is it?
How about fasting?
That’s it. I’m not reading any farther. This is an Old Testament lesson that doesn’t have application in today’s screwball world.
But it does, and it’s not just Old Testament thinking. Jesus fasted. Actually, Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights before he faced temptation. Jesus taught about how to fast—with a smile on your face. Paul fasted and endorsed fasting. So what happened?
Perhaps the better question is what happened in America. Self-denial, even for the purpose of growing closer to our Creator, just doesn’t get out of the starting blocks in this country. We are so addicted to self-gratification, that even when we diet, we still want to eat just as much as when we didn’t. Let me just eat something with fewer calories, but please God let me keep that emotionally and physically satisfied feeling like I just ate a juicy, just-off-the-grill rib eye steak.
There is something to a little self-denial so that we can remember we have a spirit within us that yearns to commune with the Sprit of God. How do we give our spirit the time and space to make this connection? Fasting! Better yet, prayer and fasting is something that we should introduce into our lives once again. Let’s not swing the pendulum fully to the opposite extreme of where we are now and go from zero to forty days of fasting, but a full day and night fast once a month might not be a bad place to start.
Will this fix the economy, stop global warming, or make sure that my children get a good education? Probably not, but it will be a deliberate effort to make the time and place to converse with the one that designed our bodies to remind us when we are hungry and gave us minds that can say, “I am going to feed my spirit today instead.”
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