Feasting

“He has taken me to the banquet hall, and His banner over me is love.” (Song of Solomon 2:4)

“His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor His delight in the legs of a man; the Lord delights in those who fear Him, who put their hope in His unfailing love.” (Psalm 147:10-11)

I think this is the first time I’ve ever blogged about this topic: fasting. It’s basically when you abstain from something (usually food) so that you can seek God and He can meet you in a deeper way. I won’t go into all the biblical reasons for/benefits of fasting here, but I’d like to share with you a little bit about it from my perspective.

A leader at a former church of mine used to fast a lot, and I remember him saying once that fasting was like a self-imposed trial. I like this definition. Trials are basically things that God allows in our life where He tests our character, squeezes us, and makes us go, “God, I need You! Help!” The same thing basically happens when you fast. You’re hungry, and whether you or not you say it with your mouth, you’re saying with your actions, “God, I need You more than I need food!” Sometimes I can hear Him speaking more clearly when I’m fasting, and sometimes I don’t hear Him speak very clearly until after I’m done fasting. I think the key is to just obey God, seek His face and His heart, and let Him do whatever He wants with you.

Another topic that I don’t think I’ve officially blogged about yet is spiritual abuse. It’s basically when somebody gives themselves too much spiritual authority over you, almost as if they’re God for you, and they make you think that you’re sinning when you’re not, and it makes you feel ashamed, and it makes you feel like God isn’t happy with you unless you do all sorts of “works” for God. Fasting can be one of these “works.” Phew! Spiritual abuse is terrible. It’s something that I learned about for the first time last year. I won’t go into detail about this yet, but to make a very long story very short, I’ve found out that the abovementioned church family was in a spiritually abusive environment. One of the leaders there said once, regarding fasting, “Water will get to the issue a lot quicker.” I think he meant that if you completely abstain from everything except water, God will speak to you a lot quicker. OK, yes, if God tells you you need to fast from everything except water, then that’s what you need to do. Or if you’re so desperate for God to move in your situation that as an expression of your desperation, you fast from everything except water, I’m sure God will see your heart and meet you in an awesome way. But for somebody to make you feel inferior because you can’t do a three-day water fast the way they can is just terrible. Besides -- not everyone is even medically able to abstain from food. People who have certain medical conditions need to eat and stick to their special diets. There are other things to fast from besides food.

Fast-forwarding years later, I was at another spiritually abusive church (aaagh! God is healing me from this junk, and the church I’m at now is non-abusive, honest!) where I believed that God wanted me to fast from non-work-related TV for a few days. At the time, I was working at a media-related job and had to watch TV and movies for my job. But after work, I was used to turning on the TV and watching it for fun. But not during the fast. I figured it would be much easier than fasting from food. Boy, was I wrong! I didn’t know what to do with myself during the evenings, and I would have rather given up food! Anyway, I basically told this to my lifegroup leader at the time, and she looked at me like I was crazy.

No, sorry, but I’m not crazy. If God says to do something, I need to do it. And if I’m abstaining from something, it’s probably something that my flesh is going to want all the more. It’s usually hard to do. Right now, for example, I’m fasting meats and sweets. I thought this was going to be an easy fast. WRONG! I didn’t totally realize how accustomed I’d gotten to grabbing those beautiful little bags of candy from the breakroom at work and munching on it in my cubicle. I WANT CANDY! And a couple of nights this week, I had to grab some quick deli food for dinner. I thought it would be easy to find a non-meat sandwich like pimento cheese. WRONG! I had to get a regular sandwich and eat everything but the cold cuts, which I brought home and fed later to my curiously carnivorous cats. I WANT CHEWY, BEAUTIFUL MEAT WITH SAVORY, BEAUTIFUL GREASE DRIBBLING DOWN MY CHIN! So, anyway, yeah, a meat-and-sweet fast ain’t necessarily all that easy.

But I need God more than candy and greasy meat. I need to be close to Him. I need Him so much, it ain’t even funny. I’m choking up just typing this. This morning, while I was crying on His shoulder, He showed me some important stuff related to my healing. Later that morning, He showed me even more stuff. By the time I got to my work cubicle, I was so satisfied with His food that I don’t even think I craved candy. God has been feeding me what I need, and I need to trust that He’s been squeezing out the bad junk and replacing it with His good things. I like to eat from His banqueting table.

So, if you’d like to learn how to lean on God at a deeper level, try fasting. If you want to cultivate a desperation for God at a deeper level, try fasting. If you want to practice crying out to God and expressing your need for Him at a deeper level, try fasting. Well, definitely pray about it first and make sure that it’s something He wants you to do. (Doing a meat-and-sweet fast in the middle of the summer wasn’t my idea, honest!) The most important thing is that you obey Him and seek Him and love Him.

Tomorrow morning (Thursday) when my fast is over, I think I’ll eat yogurt with chocolate syrup on toast and maybe a side of scrambled eggs. Hmm. On second thought, my tummy doesn’t like the sound of that idea. Maybe I’ll just pour some sugar in my coffee. Sorry, kitties, no cold cuts for you tomorrow!