Monday, September 12, 2005

Fasting

So it's 10:25 right now, which means I've almost finished my first attempt at fasting for a day. I'm reading this book as part of my devotionals called Becoming the Woman I Want to Be by Donna Partow. It's kind of a make-over book, God-style, and it goes through transforming yourself spirit, soul, and body. A good read, if any of yall are interested in a jumping off point for your time with the Lord. The devos are fairly short, which I like because on days I wake up late, I can still make time for them, yet I am still able to do other studies at the same time. Sometimes it's hard for me to focus on the same study during my quiet times every day because they start to feel tedious. Anyways, point is, part of the study slowly takes you through diet suggestions, and today she introduced the concept of fasting. This has always been a bit of a touchy subject for me, because it can be hard for me to fast as a way to learn discipline and focus on the Lord. Usually I find myself encouraged by the fact that it should make me skinnier, which is not such a cool reason to fast. But I was really excited about doing this today. She brought up the topic earlier in the book and explained some health benefits and spiritual benefits to fasting, as well as some guidelines to follow, so I figured I'd try it out. My dad did a lesson on fasting a while ago for the singles class that got me interested in doing it, but it has been problematic for me in the past. Today, though, was really cool. Yeah, I feel pretty tired and didn't have my usual amount of energy, but I found myself joyfully reminded of God. Since I rarely forgot about being hungry, I thought often about the Lord. I feel like this is something really powerful that I am starting to tap into, and it will hopefully only get better as I learn more about it. Lately, I've really been thinking about the value of learning to discipline myself in different areas of life, so this was a cool addition to my desire for discipline.

The other thing about fasting is I know that it's not something you are supposed to boast about or make a big to-do about while you are doing it. I considered not making a post on the subject, except that I thought it might be interesting to see if anyone comments on it.

So that might have been pretty incoherent and jumbled, but I'm really excited about learning more about fasting and how that can be a useful discipline in building my relationship with the Lord. Just wanted to throw that out there. God totally rocks.

Oh--and I did want to include a bit of a disclaimer. If you're considering trying a fast, it would probably be wise to learn a little bit more about fasting before you attempt it, because I think it would be easy to go about it in an unhealthy way. I know I've done it.

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