Fasting

I don't read about fasting because I like it. Like prayer, fasting is ridiculously hard for me. Modern life is so completely distracting that I find myself rushing around trying to get it all done and never really stopping to think. Then I crash in to bed at night too tired and apologizing to God for spending so little time with Him. It sounds like a parent who never has time for their child calling out "You know I love you, right?" as he heads out the door. And the child thinking, "You don't even know me." Sometimes I think I can hear God responding to me like the child.

But I do love Him and I do want to recognize His voice and I have noted that I trust Him more when I've spent some time pushing out distractions. So fasting and prayer are subjects I try to read about often to keep me trying. Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline is on my nightstand, and I've blogged about Jan Winebrenner's Intimate Faith.

Richard Foster is a classic writer, deep thinker, insightful Christian. But whenever I read his book, I can visualize him spending hours in prayer in a quiet study and going for long walks in the woods while his family eats on his fasting days and I want to remind him that I have to cook the dinner and I would love to have a little quiet for even a few minutes.

Fasting was a breath of fresh air. Lynne Baab writes about nursing and pregnant mothers and she simply takes fasting out of the box I've had it in. She grounds fasting in historical Christianity and then applies it to modern culture, where we may need to fast the internet to make time to pray more than we need to give up food. She writes about right reasons to fast, and wrong reasons, who shouldn't fast, and different kinds of fast. And the book is in a good font and has little boxes with great quotes on fasting from writers and people who fast, or don't fast.

And at the end, I knew it was ok that I can't do strict water-only fasts at this period of my life for any significant length of time. And that sometimes my motivations are so very wrong I should stop fasting and have a slice of pizza and work on getting my heart right. But I also know that fasting is something I want to do, can do, and will be doing more often.