Fasting
I hate fasting.
I love fasting.
Having just concluded a week of not eating food, I can look back in retrospect and say that this has been one of the best weeks I've had in a long time. It was also not very much fun. Yet joyful. I suppose that fasting itself and the paradoxical nature of it is a nice portrait of the Christians' life. Sacrifice, self-denial and hard choices of the will and attitude, all for a reward that isn't tangible but SO rewarding. From the outside, fasting looks extremely stupid. The world would ask, Why aren't you eating food? Why are you starving yourself? Does your God want you to suffer? Is that what He enjoys?
There were moments, and even hours, during the fast where I was so extremely calm, centered, and fundamentally alive--moments where you feel like nothing at all could ever rock you or touch your faith. Moments where you almost feel as if you could physically reach out and touch the hand of God. Moments where the verse that speaks of being "seated with Christ in the heavenlies" is not a theological viewpoint but an experienced actuality.
And then, of course, the next moment, I'm thinking of a cheeseburger.
posted by Timothy @ 4:28 PM
1 Comments:
What I love about the week of prayer and fasting is not just the grace and being able to almost touch the hand of God but what an amazing thing is it for the community of God to come together in one accord and fight together. Sometimes it can feel as though you're in this fight alone, especially during 24/7 prayer when you're often by yourself praying for an hour. But during the WPF (week of prayer and fasting) its as if you all could accomplish something nearly impossible -- as one.
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