Lent

Our pastor gave us rather thorough treatment of fasting last month. It was the most complete teaching of the subject that I’ve ever received. Here are some of the reasons that we fast:

to strengthen prayer
to seek God’s guidance
to express grief
to seek deliverance or protection
to express repentance and to return to God
to humble oneself before God
to minister to others

Here’s what I think. Fasting is a real tangible way to acknowledge the subjugation of the physical, the natural to the spiritual. It is an expressed awareness of the true order of things. And I believe that one result of fasting with this awareness is the unleashing of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

I am fasting this Lenten season. I am going to begin on Ash Wednesday, not because I think that there is something magical about that day, but in an acknowledgment of the church that’s come before me and the centuries of rich spiritual heritage that it represents.

I am fasting in a rather radical way, because I am asking God for radical things, God-sized things. I am telling him through my fast that I can’t do it without Him, I can’t do it in my own strength. And if He’s not going, I’m not going.

And I’m thinking that the real question is

Why Don’t We Fast?