The best place to be

"We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon You."
-Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah, in 2 Chronicles 20:12

The people of Judah face a great army coming to invade and take possession of their land. They do not have the forces to defend themselves or time to come up with a solution, and so they stand unified before the Lord, fasting and pleading with Him as they wait on His guidance.

Do they know that they are in the best possible place? That their weakness is their strength, for God's power is made manifest in their weakness?

When we come to times of crossroads and crisis, I pray that our response will be the same. We do not know what to do, Lord, but our eyes are upon You.

What fasting is and is not

Fasting is something more than and different from the Old Testament picture of sorrow and sackcloth and ashes and weeping. It is not a hunger strike, manipulating God to answer your requests.

Fasting is being reminded of your mortality and your dependence on the hand of God.

Fasting is identifying with the poor and hungry.

Fasting is adjusting your priorities, being a thankful recipient of God's gifts instead of a slave to them.

Fasting is a bodily reminder to go to your knees, using the twinges of hunger to prompt you to bring your requests before the throne of God again and again, as the persistent widow.

Fasting is joyously proclaiming that there is something more precious, more essential to you than food. It is declaring that your lifesource is other than that on which the world depends.

Ash Wednesday

I wrote before about the discipline of fasting bringing a person to a point of recognizing his or her own weakness and thereby knowing more of his or her need for God. Another aspect of fasting is the righting of a person's relationship to material goods. By choosing to fast from certain foods or activities, or from food altogether for a time, two things are accomplished: misplaced worship is abolished and godly appreciation is established. (I am talking, of course, about fasting from things that are not evil in and of themselves-- fasting from sin is actually just called repentance. It's worth your time as well.) When we fast from the God-given things we love and sometimes worship as idols, we return them to their rightful place below God. And, conversely, we also cease to take them for granted. God is Lord of our lives again, and we are duly grateful for His gifts.

Fasting

"[...]Fasting, which so many dislike, which requires faith in God, since it makes one feel weak and poorly, is really a Divinely appointed means of grace. Perhaps the greatest hindrance to our work is our own imagined strength; and in fasting we learn what poor, weak creatures we are - dependent on a meal of meat for the little strength which we are so apt to lean upon."
- Hudson Taylor

For a long time, fasting was one of those facets of Christian tradition and discipline that I never quite understood. I also never gave much thought to it. To me, fasting was what you did if you were especially holy, especially sinful, or especially in need of something. It represented a mastering of the body. It was a physical manifestation of self-denial or self-control. And... maybe it made your prayers more potent? I never really understood that part.

This year, as part of a commitment I made around the new year, fasting has become part of my life. I've been fasting in combination with praying for a specific situation, but I have been amazed to find how much there is to be learned simply from the experience of cutting off the ties to food for a day. Hudson Taylor's quote above rings so true to me now-- it's not often in our privileged American lives that we are brought to a point of awareness of our dependence on God. We build up a buffer, a nest egg that will keep us safe from having to depend on the hand of God. In exchange, we lose the joy of knowing that we are nothing without Him, that we cannot go on feeling invincible for even a day without the gifts of His hands. This is a great pity, because along with knowing our weakness comes the incredible comfort of comprehending something more of His strength and faithfulness.