What Fasting Can Reveal About Ourselves

Lent Devotional // Week 4

by Nathanael Chong

Mark 7:14-15, 20-23 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them." He went on: "What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person's heart, that evil thoughts come––sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person."

I have a friend who used to get "hangry" all the time. If you're not familiar with that term, hangry is a portmanteau of "hungry" and "angry"––and I'm sure we are all familiar with that irritability that often comes at lunch time.

One day he said to me, "I was doing my devotions this morning...and I think I figured out why I get hangry alll the time."

"Do tell," I said, offering him a biscuit. He accepted.

"The Lord showed me that I actually struggle with a spirit of anger, and I've just been using food to cover it up."

I paused, pondering on his profound insight...before finally responding, "I'm glad you're eating that biscuit."

We rarely consider the various things we use as sedatives, painkillers, and stimulants just to avoid confronting uncomfortable emotions, impulses, and truths. The food we eat to soothe the pang of hunger is just one example of things we binge on to smother the pang of conscience. Other common numbing agents include social media, TV, video games, even shopping.

There are sneaky ones too. Busyness can be a trap where we pile on work or errands so there's no space for reflection. Even exercise can double as an escape, pushing the body to outrun the voice of the Spirit. None of these activities are inherently bad. We engage in many of them to achieve a goal, fulfill a desire, meet a need, or just help ourselves feel better. But they can easily be used as distractions from a deeper problem.

When we fast, we intentionally remove one or more objects or activities of indulgence that we feel may be controlling us. And when we do that, what usually happens is things start bubbling to the surface. Deep frustrations, cravings, lusts, anxieties, and everything you haven't surrendered to Jesus come rearing their ugly heads.

As the slogan goes: "You're not you when you're hungry." But maybe our hunger reveals what kind of people we really are without the transformative grace of Jesus. Sometimes hunger strips away our carefully constructed facades, revealing the parts of ourselves we often try to ignore––the selfishness, the impatience, the lack of self-control––reflecting the ways we aren't embodying the character of God.

Perhaps you're feeling the effects of this quite viscerally in this season of Lent: those moments throughout the day when you feel the urge to reach for whatever you're fasting from––they feel incredibly raw and uncomfortable. You crave something, anything, to soothe them. And you grow irritable, restless, maybe even depressed. And you wonder what the whole point of this is anyway...

And that's the point. When we fast from something during Lent, we naturally think the reason we do so is because it threatens to pull us away from God. And in a sense, it can. But Jesus tells us in Mark 7 that there's a problem in that thinking: it isn't the external things we engage in that are the primary problem, but the deep-seated bent toward sin in our hearts. Fasting, therefore, isn't primarily about abstaining from something that is potentially bad, but about revealing a problem already there.

This is why fasting is so difficult (beyond the physical demands of hunger)––but also why it is so transformative. The discomfort allows, or even forces, the corruption of our hearts to come to the surface, and there is no better time than in the throes of agitation to ask Jesus to help us deal with the mess within that has been revealed.

This task takes resilience, and it requires God's grace. But isn't that the very essence of what we're looking forward to celebrating this Easter season? Just as Christ faced the darkness to bring us new life, our willingness to confront our own darkness holds the promise of being transformed into the likeness of God, the fullness of life. Perhaps this is part of what it means to carry our cross, in imitation of Christ.

Just as we die with him, we will be raised with him.

So as you draw close to God in this season of Lent, consider:

• How has the discomfort of fasting affected you so far?

• If there is agitation, what could it be revealing within you that the Holy Spirit wants to transform into Christ's likeness?

• How is the practice of embracing discomfort a part of Christ's character (the character of holiness), and how might it be a key to a vibrant Church?