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“Lacking deep hunger for a fundamental change of life…a surface repentance only becomes a new temptation to hypocrisy. Repentance is incomplete or insincere that does not resolve to lead a new life.”
__Thomas Oden, Life in the Spirit
Our appetites tell us a lot about ourselves. Fasting is a great diagnostic tool to help us interpret the data.
Take hamburgers for example. (Who doesn’t appreciate an occasional burger?)
Allow yourself the indulgence of only eating a burger once a month and you will get pretty persnickety about which burger you’ll eat. After all, who wants to blow a once-a-month opportunity to eat a burger on some ordinary run-of-the-mill burger?
However, allow yourself the indulgence of a burger once a week and you start getting a little less selective, after all, if this week’s burger is not that good there is always next week.
But suppose you decide to eat a burger everyday (I know a man who does this) and you will find yourself pretty much eating any ole burger, for after a while they all just sorta blend in together.
Deprivation can be a good thing. It reminds you of what really matters.
For example, it has been said that absence makes the heart grow fonder. But absence can also make you forget. It all depends on the value of what/who is absent.
This is what fasting does, the deprivation of absenting yourself from food for a season can remind you of the food that really matters.
(Back to the burger example) If you know you’re only going to get your favorite burger just once a month you really want to make it count.
Turns out life is that way too.
It’s easy to live under the illusion that you’ve got plenty of time. You’re living fast, there’s a lot coming at you, and your phone has two dozen notifications vying for your attention. But thankfully there’s always tomorrow or next week, maybe next month…someday.
Right?
Wrong.
Actually there is no certainty that tomorrow is in the cards for you (Proverbs 27:1, 2 Corinthians 6:2, James 4:13-15).
There’s no promise that spending that much-needed quality time with the person you love far more than all those people who are monopolizing your time can wait until next summer’s vacation.
And most importantly, that still small voice of your Creator God that you’ve been ignoring may not be heard tomorrow— “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.” (Isaiah 55:6)
Bottom line, this season of fasting is not just about giving up things; it must be about picking up things—feeding your hunger for God until you become so satiated with Him that only the best will satisfy you.
Prayer: Oh God, cleanse my palate. I have been consuming so much of the ordinary that I have lost my taste for the eternal.
Your word no longer excites me like it once did. Church attendance has become optional, worship routine. Even You have become more absent than present in my thoughts.
I’ve lost focus. I’m too busy. I must deprive myself of these lessor things in order to reignite my love for the best. Please meet me in my hunger and fill me with what really matters.
Amen.
“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore”.
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