I always thought fasting meant going without food so as to remind us that we should depend on God in our daily lives, and not all the things we cram our days with. Being raised Catholic, it was traditionally during the lenten season we were taught from a very young age to give up something we depend on for 40 days.
Today, when a reading about fasting came my way, I almost pushed it aside because I knew all about fasting. I wanted to read about how to get rid of the “bad parts” of me that have weighed on my mind this year. Not eating wasn’t going to solve that, so I wasn’t going to bother with this particular piece. But, the title of the first section was “A Fast Fix” and naturally, my nature of wanting to fix things in a hurry took over and I began reading.
Surprise! It said there are four categories from which to choose to “fast”:
1. Fast from striving – “be still and know that I am God” This is the part where I always jump in and try to fix things myself. Who knew it was “fasting” to refrain from this?
2. Fast from habits – turning to things that comfort me, but don’t bring me closer to God, such as emailing and texting people. Again, who knew?
3. Fast from substances – this would be the food part – this is what I thought it was all about.
4. Fast from impulsive emotions – this part actually made me sweat. There are three emotions that we give into when things get tough: worry, anger, and self-pity. Anger is not my first choice, but worry occupies a lot of my time and self-pity is without a doubt where I go when my feelings get hurt. This, too, is fasting? (Sweating more)
These habits and emotions we turn to when things get rough are reflexes and we can’t stop them from searing through us when things in our lives flip the trigger switch. My problem is I always “accepted” them as part of life and never tried to arrest the reflex by recognizing it for what it is and change my habit of letting it “have it’s way with me”, and in most cases, get me into a lot of trouble with others.
This year has been spent in retraining myself. I now arrest the emotion, bad habit, or striving by recognizing it and giving whatever is causing it immediately over to God through prayer. One result has been turning those emotions into immediate relief that I don’t have to deal with the person or situation. As soon as the worry starts nagging, or the anger sears, or the tears of self-pity start to fall, I immediately ask God to handle it, but I also ask “Is this action I want to take really for another, or is it just to make me feel better?” Guess what? Most times it was just to make me feel better and would do nothing good for the other person or the situation. Tends to stop me in my tracks when jumping into the cesspool of self-centeredness.
And so, as another day goes by, today I have learned that “fasting” is more than going without food – it’s being still and knowing He is God, it’s not turning to habits that comfort me in times of difficulty, or giving into anger, worry, and self-pity, and….I have written.
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