Not Eating is Such a Messy Business

So I went to Journeys on wednesday, and the bunch of us went through different chapters in Matthew together. Each of us was given a specific chapter and then a chunk of time to pray through it and write down the things we found in that section about what it means to be a follower/learner of Jesus. Amazingly in almost all of the sections we studied, the theme of fasting came up. It really stuck with me because it's been something that Jesus keeps mentioning to me but that I keep discarding. I think the reason I try to ignore his nudges in the direction of fasting is that I love food. It's probably one of my biggest crutches. I hate the feeling of being weak, in fact I have spent most of my life striving to be as tough and independent and solid as I can. Give me an empty stomach, however, and all my fine work in those directions will suddenly disappear, and I will become the most unstable, irritable, and pathetic person you've probably ever met. Plus being hungry just puts me in a terrible mood all the time.

But I remember back when I went to a Bible School in Edmonton (this was not the average "bubble" Christian school in my defense), and how the two strongest underlying lessons that they instilled upon us there, was to give your money away, and to fast. I remember making the commitement to fast one day a week, from the moment I woke up until the moment I went to bed. The idea was that I would wake up hungry, and go to sleep hungry. Make no mistake, I hated it. My fasting days were full of dread, and I tried every excuse that I could to avoid doing it. Sometimes I was even successsful. But when I look back on those days in Bible school when I was fasting, I remember a time in my life when I really felt alive. When Jesus was an intense presence in my life that I pursued more passionately then I ever had before. And I remember for the first time as well, producing fruit. Loving people was almost easy. It was as if all my perspectives and priorities had suddenly been properly alphabetized.

Fasting is still something that confuses me, and in my over-indulgent North American lifestyle it's easy to avoid doing it by telling myself that I'm too weak and I just can't, and that not eating is really unhealthy and probably dangerous. But I guess what it all boils down to, is that If Jesus wants me to do it it's for a reason, and despite my well phrased excuses, there are benefits to sacrifice. I should just be thankful he didn't ask me to stop eating for a week.