The Challenge: Day 7

It's day 7 of the fast! We're about 1/3 of the way done and although it's only been 7 days, I've already wanted to quit the fast at least once every day since it began. However, I think if I didn't have those feelings of quitting then I obviously wouldn't be fasting something I cared about giving up. So although those feelings are difficult to overcome they're also encouraging that there is a denial of self with the hope of finding something more worthwhile. 

A few days ago during the fast I accidentally came across a passage in Isaiah that has ripped apart many ideas I may have had about false fasting. 

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice

and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free

and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry

and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter--when you see the naked, to clothe them,

and not turn away from your own flesh and blood? 

Then your light will break forth like the dawn,

and your healing will quickly appear; 

then your righteousness will go before you,

and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

Then you will call and the LORD will answer;

you will cry for help and he will say: Here I am."

Isaiah 58:6-9 (NIV)

Every time I read this passage I'm challenged by it in a new way. It’s a passage about fasting. But it’s not a passage about fasting from food, sleep, or even facebook. It’s a fast from our earthly desires. It’s literally a fast from the self, a denial of the self. When we fast from food, sleep, or facebook we're merely using these clutches as physical representations of the denial of self we're trying to achieve. However, although it is good that we don't have any earthly clutches in our lives, whether they're sweets when we're sad or cyber peer-acceptance when we're insecure, the fasting that we're striving for is an ongoing denial of the self. 

When we learn to love people the way we love ourselves, when we learn to lay down our lives for each other, when we learn to put the needs of others before the needs of ourselves; this is the kind of fasting that we must choose. This fasting is a denial of the self that will "loose the chains of injustice, untie the cords of the yoke, [and] set the oppressed free" (verse 6). This is a kind of fasting that can change our hearts, our lives, and our cities.

I have to remind myself of this reason for fasting on a daily basis during The Challenge. This fast is not about the denial of things to my body but learning about the denial of my body to my soul. C.S. Lewis said, “you don’t have a soul you are a soul, you have a body.” And at this time it may seem as though we're fasting in our bodies, but in reality we're feasting in our souls. As we seek God in this time, as we pray during this time, as we learn to turn to God and depend on Him in this time, we will begin to see him more clearly. We will see His light break forth like the dawn, we will experience His healing and righteousness, and we will hear Him with such a clarity that when we call on Him we will have no doubt that He answers us and says, "Here I am" (verse 8&9).