Soma Austin Community Church

“God can't give us happiness & peace apart from Himself because it is not there. There is no such thing.” - C.S.Lewis

I encourage you all to keep this in mind daily, and specifically as you prepare for the season of Lent.  All happiness we experience is from God, and as we grow closer to Him, we learn more about what happiness actually means.  As I have been hearing second-hand highlights from the Verge conference this past weekend, one struck me more than the others, “Do not give up what you want the most, for what you want this moment." - Scott P. Smith.  Before I became a Christian this would have made sense perhaps in a small term: do I need this gadget if I am saving for a new car, et cetera; as I have grown in my faith in Christ, this has taken on a completely new, and far truer, meaning. 

Fasting, as one of the oldest spiritual disciplines, is perhaps one of the least practiced in our culture.  As a culture we have grown in consumerism, we have lowered the value of fasting, forsaking it for a full belly, a night out with friends and ultimately staying further away from the Father.  Now, before I begin to sound as if I am putting too much emphasis on fasting, I would like to remind you that Jesus was led into the desert for a forty day fast during which time, he was led by the Spirit and ministered to by Angels, and then tempted by Satan.  All of this is to say that fasting is a number of things, many of which are summarized by Richard Wagner in Christianity for Dummies (which I confess, I have gone to more than once):

Fasting fosters concentration on God and his will.
Oswald Chambers once said that fasting means "concentration," because when you're fasting, you have a heightened sense of attentiveness. Food or any physical sensation can satisfy, fill you up, and dull your senses and spiritual ears. In contrast, a hungry stomach makes you more aware and alert to what God is trying to say to you.

Fasting provides a real-life illustration of dependency.
Although modern man thrives on the idea of being independent, beholden to no one, fasting helps you put the facts in the proper perspective. It's easy to believe in your independence with a full stomach, but when you start to feel hunger pains in your belly after missing a meal or two, you awaken to your body's dependency on food to survive. Fasting reveals a physical reliance on food that points to the ultimate dependency – the fact that you're dependent on God for things far more important than food.

The focus of fasting should not be on the lack of food.
Fasting from food can be done for a variety of purposes, either physical or spiritual. So abstaining from food alone doesn't constitute a Christian fast. Instead, a Christian fast is accompanied by a special focus on prayer during the fast, often substituting the time you'd spend eating with prayer.

When Jesus fasted for forty days, he left the distractions of life and went to be by himself.  Knowing that it is too easy to get caught up in the day, Jesus takes himself away from others so that he might walk with God through the path that the Spirit leads him down, all the while abstaining from food, so that again his focus would not be on the temporal, but rather The Father.  This is a hugely important lesson to keep in mind while following Christ and growing ever closer to the Father.  Fasting, when boiled down, is an exercise to bring us closer to The Father—it is not a solitaire journey, we are to focus on him instead of our hunger.  We demote ourselves in pursuit of Christ.

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