When we think of fasting, words like “deprivation”, “pain” and “masochism” come to mind. It’s something only for the “extreme” or “super-spiritual”. After all, in our fast-paced lives where there’s always something-something-something to do, why would anyone in the right mind want to isolate himself, skip a meal to pray and subject himself to an afternoon of lethargy and cravings?
But in its true-est sense, fasting really means killing one of your natural fleshly desires to seek a closer relationship with God. It doesn’t have to be food at all. For the compulsive email/iphone-checker who is constantly connected to everybody’s feeds and updates, that means not checking emails, Twitter or facebook posts for a protected period of time; for the addicted video-game player, it could mean going cold turkey; for the television-watcher who turns to it at the end of every day to numb one’s mind, it could mean simply choosing to connect with family members and God instead. This also means dieting isn’t fasting. When I was recovering from anorexia, fasting to me actually meant having proper meals instead, ha.
I am guessing, the reason why very often food is chosen as a means to fast in various faiths is because it most quickly helps us feel our dependence on something greater than a physical need, and helps us refocus our eyes on God, especially if the lunch hour is used to pray instead. But in essence, to me, fasting really means pruning away something seemingly but really is non-essential in our lives in order to re-focus our priorities. To me, it is about letting go, about smashing idols and about… as harsh as it sounds, crucifying one’s flesh for a more acute sense of vulnerability in exchange for a deeper relationship to God.
One day I came home to find out you had un-installed your only and favourite video-game from your computer. It was a radical move, given the fact that we don’t own a television, you don’t watch sports and really, compared to other male homosapien species, you don’t have much other forms of entertainment except the occasional 45-minute game of Starcraft… and er, me.
But I understood why you did it. Since we both started praying intentionally about serving the poor for a longer term together and having made some drastic decisions toward that recently, we both decided it was not only good, but necessary to prune the junk from our lives and sharpen our ears to the call that God had for our lives. It was triggered one day when we both confessed that we felt we hadn’t been seeking God as fervently as we thought we had committed to. I remember you sharing, that anything worth pursuing or achieving will always require a sacrifice.
So you did it. You pruned it away.
I knew how much it meant to you. I even knew when you craved it. But out of the window it went. And how I watched you grow.
Days became weeks, and the weeks have become about a month. Even in such a short time, you have become more focused on things that matter, you have shown yourself to be more productive, more dedicated in catching up and completing old projects which had been left hanging mid-way. You are fresher, less complaining, less tired, more decisive and even more deeply committed to prayer. It amazes me to see your transformation in such a short time, just by a simple act of sacrifice and obedience.
Unconsciously, your determination to crucify your flesh gave me strength to cut away the strongholds over my life as well. Once (or maybe I still am to some extent), I used to be difficult and rigid, finding it hard to be accommodating in terms of attending your social events or going to places you wanted to take me, either because of selfishness or some mental barrier I found difficult to overcome. As you crucified your natural desires to fast from Starcraft, it gave me strength to crucify my own, too. Somehow, your fast not only unlocked a blessing over your life, it destroyed a stronghold over my life and gave me a breakthrough, too.
As a result, we both noticed we quibbled a lot less. We have had far fewer conflicts about Starcraft, dates, going out, attending events… And have simply been able to enjoy our time together praying, reading, seeking God so much more. As we grew closer to God, He drew us closer to each other as well.
My favorite times spent in our living room have been sitting near the glass window that stretches from the floor to ceiling, listening to you share from your heart a chapter from Romans about Sin and Grace, or the story of king David who was pursued and nearly-killed countless times but always under the hand of a faithful God, or a parable of Jesus, about meekness, healing, and His divine love. You would share, and I would listen and ask questions, and we would begin and end holding hands and praying together. My favorite times of every day are waking up in your arms each morning, praying before we get up; praying another time together before we leave home, and praying together after reading the bible in bed, before we fall asleep.
One day, recently, it startled me when you casually leaned over and asked me in all seriousness, “Don’t you think all husbands who believe in God with all their hearts should pray for and with their wives every day? And do bible study with them too?”
It startled me, to hear you talk about this with such resolve and conviction.
As the husband leads, the wife will follow. And I believe, that is what you did. When you resolved to make a commitment, we both had a breakthrough. And as a result, our marriage was blessed. In addition, yet another huge channel of love was unclogged in our lives:
A few nights ago I could not sleep. I had awoken from a terrible nightmare, just one of a series of bewildering ones I’ve had lately, of us fleeing away from gunmen who were shooting and shooting and shooting. There was blood everywhere. You hushed me back to sleep, and just before I fell back into slumber, I noticed you were sitting up in bed at three in the morning praying for me, making sure I would be okay. (Sometimes I can lie awake thinking for hours.)
On another occasion, I awoke from another bad dream, almost in tears, then realized my phone had been knocked off the bed and had failed to charge. I had barely said a word and hadn’t requested anything when you realized what was wrong, got out of bed to get another cable, and fix my phone problem so I could have a fully functional one the next day. It was three-thirty in the morning when you did this sacrificially, ungrudgingly, joyfully.
Over the weekend, you noticed that I had been terribly discouraged and depressed by something that had been bothering me for ages. I returned home on Monday to a bounding knight who burst through the door with a fuchsia bouquet of 6 beautiful gerberas, exclaiming, “HAND-PICKED! Not off-the-shelf! Something to chase your Monday blues away! HAPPY ALMOST-ELEVEN-MONTH ANNIVERSARY!!”
Such is your dedication to love your wife, as Christ loved His church.
Through both our fasts from things which we thought were important to us, we have both grown- grown in character, grown closer to each other, grown closer to God.
And from that, comes not deprivation, not pain and not suffering- but joy, peace, love and liberation.
What is it that you need to fast from today,
In order to re-focus, re-order and re-establish for your breakthrough?
It could be a meal, cell-phone use, television, videogames, work, facebook.
It could be for a season, longer, or forever.
And thank you, Cliff, for being the most honorable spiritual leader I know over his wife, for dying to yourself daily to love me more and more each day. You have inspired me to kill my flesh to do the same for you, to delve deeper into the treasures of God and reach higher to attain His purposes.
“… let us draw near to God with a sincere heart
and with the full assurance that faith brings,
having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience
and having our bodies washed with pure water.”
– Hebrews 10:22