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The Sermon on the Mount, Day 26
Read Matthew 6:16-18 and do the exercises below:
- What is your experience with fasting? Have you had positive or negative experiences with this spiritual practice?
- What things in your life tend to distract you most from giving time and attention to your relationship with God? Food, entertainment, shopping, alcohol, gossip? What things do you tend to reach for first when you’re looking for comfort?
- Take some time to prayerfully consider fasting from something other than food. Pick something that tends to be an idol, an obsession, or an unhealthy escape from reality. Then, pick a length of time to abstain from that thing (1 day, 5 days, 10 days, etc.) and replace it with prayer time, either alone or with someone else.
By Henry Darger
ryanclark said...
1I would fast from food from time to time in college, with mixed experiences. The positive was that it built faith as I had to rely on the Lord to sustain me physically. The negative was that it often became more about me than God. I would set a goal for myself, that at midnight I could order a Papa John's pepperoni pizza and eat the whole thing. Aside from how horrendous that was for my health, it often became more of a personal challenge than a faith-building exercise. I haven't fasted much since then, and I think it would be valuable to fast from other distractions–not just food. I'll think about what those are today. I think if we (I) would fill our small daily voids (like a drive to work) with prayer and scripture instead of other harmless but useless things, we would hear God's voice a lot more throughout the day.
10/30/09 5:50 AM | Comment Link
Ben Sternke said...
2The two best resources I've read on fasting are Richard Foster's chapter about it in Celebration of Discipline, as well as Scot McKnight's book appropriately title “Fasting”
10/30/09 10:51 PM | Comment Link