Fasting – wrestling with your mind and body

So we’re on the fourth day of this fast, asking God to wake
up a generation (or at least a remnant).
Most people, I believe, are starting two days from now – on Sunday.

It’s amazing how the body fights you every step of the
way. It’s a wrestling match. Yet we follow a Lord who made fasting and
self-denial a lifestyle. In a land that
caters to those who consume (as opposed to what we’re doing here – refraining
from consuming), that is counter-culture.

I find myself fighting two things in particular: my mind and my body. The body is the more obvious opponent, rising
up like a petulant child and crying out.
Hunger pains come and go – they are more an issue of discomfort than
sheer, piercing pain. My tendency in life is to give in to my
body far too frequently. I need to, with
Paul, learn “the secret of being content in any and every situation whether
well-fed or hungry” (Phil. 4:12).

My mind is a trickier opponent. The habit of eating is not easily
broken. Extend it out much beyond 50
days, and you will die. Food is a happy,
pleasurable thing. We are by nature
pleasure-seekers and pain-avoiders.

My wistful glances a the refrigerator have a certain
restrained madness behind them that, if ever unleashed, would make me sound as
crazy as Bruce the shark in “Finding Nemo.”
You’ll recall, Bruce is the Great White who, abandoning the thin veneer
of restraint, wildly declares, “I’m having fish tonight!”

There’s a Bruce the shark raging down inside me. No wonder Paul’s advice to the church at
Colosse sounds so ruthless: “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your
earthly nature” (Col. 3:5).