Week Four: Fasting
What ideas or insights from Chapter 4 are especially challenging,
motivating, or helpful to you?
So
fasting has always been one of the disciplines that seems most intimidating to
me. I always feel like fasting is for
the “really spiritual” people that I know or have heard of. The challenge for me this week was changing my
mindset more than anything. I have
limited personal experience with fasting, and although the experiences have
been quite profound, it is by no means something that I incorporate into my
life on a regular basis. In fact, this is
probably the discipline that I have the least amount of experience and practice
in. Another challenge for me is so few people
that I know of fast on a regular basis.
I guess part of this might be that those that do fast do not broadcast
it, but I actually think that it is practiced quite rarely by people I
know. If it is practiced and I for some
reason know about it, it is rarely a fast from food. More often I hear people converse about
fasting from things like television, Facebook, media as a whole, or a certain
type of food. I was fascinated by the
discussion point of fasting being a commandment or not. I honestly have never looked at fasting as
such an integral part of my walk with Christ.
I think
the most helpful parts of chapter four are the practical tips Foster gives
about fasting for the first time. Things
like doing a lunch to lunch fast to start, and to start slowly then progress to
longer fasts. I appreciate that he gives
a starting point especially since this is something that feels and is so foreign
to me personally. The suggestions he
gives in the journal are equally as helpful.
I really like that he suggests to pay attention, and take note of the responses
to the fast. The excerpt he includes in
the book on page 58 where the responses to fasts are recorded over time was
quite enlightening. It definitely is
challenging me to find a way to make fasting a more routine part of my life.
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