Fasting...

"I don't want to be living tomorrows and missing todays. Ain't going to be making treasures out of things that fade away. No I'd rather be living every second, living every minute, of every single day. Just soak it up, every little bit I can. Enjoy all my days before all my days end. And whatever I get, I'll always let that be enough. And never forget to soak it up." -Soak It Up, Warren Barfield

"If blood's flowing through my veins, and there's air to breathe, and life to live, then I've got a song to sing on this normal day, September 22." -September 22, Nathan Angelo

"Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.'" -John 6:35

By the time Lent rolls around every year, I've usually got a pretty good idea of what I'd like to give up. One year it was my cell phone. One year it was social media (that's actually been a couple years.) One year it was profanity. One year I tried to say only nice things about others (hey, at least I tried.)

There's always been some kind of circumstance that has inspired me to give something up. Some aspect of my life that I needed to let go of for a while. But this year was different. I had no idea what to give up, no idea what to fast from.

So Ash Wednesday arrived and I still had nothing. I wanted to find something that would be significant to me. And then it hit me. Maybe I didn't need to find something to fast from. Maybe I just needed to fast.

I had never really practiced fasting before Lent. I didn't completely get the point if I can be honest. I knew it was a neat thing to do, and that it seemed important. But it had never been something that I needed to do.

So that's what I decided to do. For the weeks of Lent, I didn't eat anything from sunrise to sunset. (Disclaimer: not eating during the day while marathon training is NOT a wise strategy.) I didn't completely know what I was getting into, but it just felt right.

There were lots of days when my stomach ached and turned. Sometimes it made funny sounds. And about 3:00 every afternoon I started to get really hungry.

It was also the most special Lent practice I've ever participated in. Every time my stomach nudged for a quick bite or cried out in hunger, I'd stop for a second and say a quick prayer. Every time I felt my taste buds salivate just a little bit, I'd ask God to satisfy my hunger.

Here's what I learned: when we spend time disrupting our days to stop and pray, to acknowledge God's presence in the mundane and ordinary and tedious, we begin to recognize the ways that God is active and moving in those places. When we stop for just a second to look for God's fingerprints, we'll find them everywhere. We're usually just too busy to stop.

But I learned something else during those six and a half weeks. I learned that I would survive if my hunger wasn't satisfied immediately. I began to see the depth of the promise Jesus made to the woman at the well that whoever drinks of the water he offers would not be thirsty again. I learned the difference between want and need.

I focus so often on what I don't have. How often do we do that? We look in the mirror and see the muscles we don't have or our face that isn't perfect. We see our job and think about the job we don't have. We look at others and critique what they aren't instead of celebrating and encouraging all of the things they are.

We are a people of scarcity. We focus on the limitations we face and the resources we wish we had.

But God is not a god of scarcity. God is a god of abundance!

God showers us with grace upon grace and mercy upon mercy. God's love is breaking the levees and flowing into every crevice of creation. We are filled with gifts and skills and personalities to enrich the lives of others and make the world a better place. We are rich simply by the fact of our existence.

How would our marriages and relationships shine if we learned to love the depths of our partners instead of focusing on what they lack and on what that other guy/girl has? How would our communities and businesses grow if we focused on the gifts and assets of our coworkers/neighbors/friends instead of getting stuck on the resources we lack? How would our dreams for our own lives expand and take flight if we recognized God's handiwork in our beings instead of remaining trapped by the things we're not? How would our families grow in love if we saw the blessings of our homes and our beds and our full pantries and loved ones instead of driving through the next neighborhood over imagining what life must be for the better half?

We have more than we could ever need. We have blood flowing through our veins and air to breathe. We have friends and family and neighbors. We have jobs and cars and food. We have God's love filling our ever pore.

Fasting during Lent helped remind me of this. I don't remember every day. That's why I still fast. To disrupt my monotony. To disrupt my complacency and discontent. To remind me of the depths of God's blessing. God is not a god of scarcity. God is a god of overflowing abundance. Now it's our turn to start to recognize that abundance and celebrate it!

I've fasted since Easter, and I plan to continue going forward, because in giving up food I've found God satisfying my soul in bigger ways than I could ever fathom. May you know the bread of life in new ways every day.

forever unfinished...