He explained to me that recently in his spiritual journey he had discovered fasting to be an enormous aid to hearing God's voice more clearly. He said that after he fasted he had a much clearer sense of being able to discern God's will. I groaned inwardly.
At 5' 11" and 138 pounds, my metabolism runs at about 8,000 rpm's. People told me at 30 I would hit the wall and the party would be over. All 138 pounds of me ran right through that wall at 30, still going strong at 36. Take that, wall.
But what that means is that I'm a miserable faster. Sure, it's been found to be beneficial by millions of Christians before me. But my attempts at fasting have generally resulted in nothing but headaches and a case of the grumpies.
Richard Foster's charge that fasting basically kicks out the things that prop us up and reveals who we truly are underneath is none to comforting. I'm sticking with my hyper-metabolism excuse, with Foster's words duly noted.
But the words of my fasting-through-our-breakfast-appointment friend kept resonating with me. So yesterday I braced myself for another shot at fasting.
I armed myself with words to meditate on from Scripture and the truth of the gospel. I focused on the Scripture from yesterday's post: all God's promises are "yes" to me in Jesus Christ.
I rehearsed the truth: in Christ Jesus, the last word is never "no" but "yes." Therefore, fasting serves feasting. I say no to food so that I might say yes more recklessly and gladly to Christ. I fast so that I might feast on Christ--know him, his goodness and love and his will. Fasting serves feasting.
I recited the prayer that I've been reciting a good bit over the past couple of weeks: asking God that no appetite my rule over me except my appetite for him.
And I cheated. I drank apple juice most of the day.
I did okay through the morning, dipped mightily around lunch time, came back up a bit in the afternoon, dipped again in the late-afternoon, and broke my fast at dinner. And I was fairly cranky after dinner.
But a couple of things happened that I was encouraged by:
1. I had to remind myself of the gospel a lot. All day long as I was hungry I touched one or all of the above Scriptures, prayers, or truths of the gospel. I was certainly much more actively engaged in fighting the battle of faith.
2. I spent some time last night after breaking the fast in Scripture and journaling. And one significant issue that I've been looking for clarity about for the past four or so weeks seemed to become a bit clearer. I had a sense of what I needed to do and the blessing to take a step towards doing it.
3. I slept much better than I had in a while. I had released many of my cares along with the carbs from the day. I went to bed with less clutter in my internal world. Fasting had cleared out some of the nagging anxieties that had been at work in my soul and had disturbed by sleep.
And today was a good day in the Lord--some sense of favor, especially as I took that one step towards resolving my month-long question.
All in all, it wasn't a dramatically different experience in fasting. But it was beneficial, and I think that I have renewed hope that I might some day move past "remedial fasting" into actually making it a regular part of my spiritual disciplines.
But I won't do it on days when I have breakfast appointments--I like me my Belgian waffles too much to give those up.
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