Reflections on Celebration of Discipline, part two.

[Part One - Simplicity]

Ahh, fasting. It’s difficult to find the right level of… information to disclose when writing about fasting. Of all the things Jesus spoke of, there’s not alot room for interpretation as to what he meant. For example:

But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Matthew 6:17, 18

So what then shall I say? Well, I’m not exactly sure, but here we go:

Fasting exists to point out what controls us. That is to say, by abstaining from something near and dear to our hearts, whatever we fall back on to fill the void is what is in control of our life. Generally, people assume that fasting involves not eating food. Sure, that’s alot of it, because for a lot of people, food does control them. Hell, I’m not saying it doesn’t control me, its just not the single-most controlling aspect of my life.

But you see, there are many more things we can be addicted to these days. Spending money. The Intarnets. Work. You name it. There was a time in my life, you might even call it a season, where I fasted from food on a regular schedule. The single most important truth it revealed had little to do with God, and more of what I should have been fasting from.

Now, I am a fairly skinny man with a fairly wussy appetite. That is to say, I likes me some eattin’, but I can’t eat very much. Sure, if I haven’t eaten and my sugar levels drop, I get massively cranky, but day in and day out, its not generally a huge factor in my life (you’ll have to ask my wife for verification of this fact).

What I should have been fasting from was my computer. For those of you who have known me for any length of time, I’m sure this is a real shocker, the plot twist of the century. When I was fasting from food, and I needed something to fill my time/energies, more often than not it wasn’t God or his Word, it was this very device I’m typing to you right now on. The computer, and more specifically the Internet and various games, filled the gap.

This was even more fully confirmed when I decided to have a fast from my computer for only a short time, something like 24 or 48 hours. I gave my roomate at the time, D10, the power cable for my PC and told him to only let me have it back once the alotted time was over.

I don’t pretend it was some holy epiphany that forced me into dependence on God that occured at this point. But oh did it sure show what my life consisted of. It’s amazing God will let our blinded little eyes be open to something in such a… contrived environment. It’s not as if I couldn’t just go buy another power cable, but nevertheless I was able to have a glimpse of how screwed up my priorities were. To this day, its still an issue I deal with.

FL: Mosaic - collabrative mosaic, much in the same way a previous FL had a collabrative set of refridgerator magnets with letters on them. This one is leeter.