Day 13
Read Psalms 42 and 43
Fasting has been a traditional practice during Lent for centuries. When you deny your body food just for a day you know it. Your stomach churns and then aches. After 2-3 days of no food, you feel physically weaker. By the fourth day the hunger pains often subside but there is an ongoing feeling of emptiness. It is no wonder that one of the most frequent Biblical images of longing for God is hunger and thirst. When the Psalmist says “as the deer pants for streams of water so my soul pants for you, O God,” we know what it is like to long for a drink of water. Thirst is such a great metaphor because it is a natural condition. When we don’t have food we naturally become hungry. When we don’t have water we naturally become thirsty. When we don’t have God we naturally long for Him (even if we don’t know that He is what we long for).
C.S. Lewis once wrote, "“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”
Psalm 42 and 43 go together. They are joined by three repetitions of the same phrase: “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my savior and my God” (42:4, 42:11 and 43:5). They are Psalms about longing; longing for a deeper relationship with “my Savior and my God.” And they are Psalms about hope; hope in God even when the hunger and thirst become unbearable. Every time I read these two Psalms I think of the passage in John’s gospel when several of Jesus’ followers decided not to follow him any longer. Jesus then asks the twelve disciples if they want to leave too. And Peter responds, “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Peter in essence says, “Jesus there is nowhere else to go, only you satisfy the longing of our hearts.” The writer of Psalm 42 and 43 is saying the same thing, only God satisfies.
The purpose of fasting is not simply to deny our body food. The purpose is not to glorify suffering for the sake of suffering. The purpose of fasting is to remember how deeply dependent we are as human beings. The hunger we feel by skipping a few meals reminds us of the deep hunger we have for God.
Prayer
Ask God to show you some of the things you long for. Have these things become substitutes for God in any way? Consider the possibility of a one day fast in the next couple of weeks – use the time you would normally be eating to pray.
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