I was planning on posting the anticlimactic end of the fast yesterday. The fast broke on Wednesday morning, with the aptly named meal, breakfast. Let me back up a little. I wasn't quite sure of the exact issues I would need to deal with, spiritually, when I started the fast. I also really didn't want to publish what I have been learning in detail, at least not yet. I really don't want to, but I feel I have to to defend myself for comments made publicly by my friend, Brian, and I don't think I should wait any longer, lest I appear guilty (for lack of a better word). He did not actually use my name in his posts, but it's clear that if you know both him and me, that it is me. Public enough. You can read his comments for his side of the story, here, although it's not my intention to pit myself against him. We're friends, and we'll get through this, like he says in his blog. I did hang up on him after our very brief interaction. The first thing he said was "Give me one good reason I shouldn't think you're a loser," and after I angrily replied "I don't care what the hell you think, I wasn't fasting for you." We didn't start out on the right foot. He was upset, I think mostly about feeling alone now in his fast, and probably a bit irritable after not eating for 20 days or so. I was angry that he was angry and I didn't quite understand why, and I was expecting an angry phone call after I heard from someone close to him that he was "hacked off" that I "quit" the fast. He was on the offensive, and angry, and I was on the defensive, and angry. Nothing good would have come from that conversation. Hanging up on him, I now realize, only exacerbated an already tense situation. Brian, I'm sorry for my harsh response and for hanging up on you. You deserved a more thoughtful, respectful answer. I hope what you (hopefully) read here will satisfy you.
Anyway, back to the beginning of the fast. I wasn't sure what to read in the Word, or what to read outside the Word for encouragement. My dad gave me a book by Og Mandino for Christmas, which I've mentioned here before. It's called The Greatest Miracle in the World. The night of December 31 (really the wee hours of January 1), I started reading it before bed. I also started reading the sermon on the mount, Matthew 5-7. I memorized that passage in high school, but only because it was required. I never put much thought into it. But that's all I've read during my fast, 3 chapters in Matthew and a 100 page paperback, other than my daily Oswald Chambers devotional. That's all I wanted to read because I wanted to dwell on them. Zig Ziglar says that a person will learn something new every time he or she reads a passage or hears a talk until after the sixteenth time reading or listening. This is obviously not a hard and fast rule, but it is amazing how something new popped out at me every time I read the same passage for 16 nights in a row. God had one main topic on his lesson plan for this fast--to make me learn the depth of his love for me and that I should live up to be the man he created me to be. I've been wallowing in self-pity for the past 18 months. You'd think that brimming with self-confidence and thinking you're so unique and special is selfish. It's not. Being absorbed in self-pity is selfish. When you're sitting in the pit of self-pity you can't climb out and help anyone else in need. You can't do anything but sit there in the dirt and feel sorry for yourself. You are in so deep that you can barely see the light of day. Being self-confident and proclaiming your rarity put you in the position you need to be in to live up to your potential. I've needed to re-recognize my potential and change my mindset to believe that I can get there.
That's where the sermon on the mount and the last chapter of Greatest Miracle come in. This is part of what I read in the chapter titled "The God Memorandum" very early in the morning on January 1:
I am with you, and this moment is the dividing line of your life. All that has gone before is like unto no more that the time you slept within your mother's womb. What is past is dead. Let the dead bury the dead . . . Attend to my wisdom. Let me share with you, again, the secret you heard at your birth and forgot. You are my greatest miracle. You are the greatest miracle in the world. Those were the first words you ever heard. Then you cried. They all cry.
Then I cried after reading that! Those were the exact words I needed to read. Jesus words in Matthew 6:25-33 were also what I needed:
25Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
I've been meditating on these words and praying about them. I believe that I've learned what I've needed to learn on a spiritual level; I feel fresh, reborn, and sated. I woke up on the morning of the 16th feeling spiritually satiated, and physically hungry. I knew it was time to end the fast, and it seemed like a natural thing to do. It wasn't a moment of weakness, it didn't feel like giving into an urge like how I felt the night I ordered the pizza and canceled it minutes later. Sure, my upcoming birthday was in the back of my mind, but ending the fast had nothing to do with that. I have learned a measure of self-control, too. I know 16 days isn't the same as 40, but I never committed to 40 days either. Being in the "40 Day Club" isn't on my priority list.
Like I told Brian in my IM, and you, reader, in an earlier post, fasting is a deeply personal experience, and one should question only his or her own motives for fasting or reasons for breaking a fast. It's between God and his child alone. The second part of 1 Samuel 16:7 says "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." I don't fault Brian for examining and speculating on my motives. It's a very human thing to do. I've speculated on his. But that doesn't matter one bit. Let me be perfectly clear: This fast was a success. Not a partial success, and certainly not a failure. A complete success.
Brian, please understand that this fast had very little to do with changing my eating habits or losing weight. If that's a significant part of what it's about for you, that's great. More power to you, you've done very well! I know that you are genuinely concerned about my weight and want me to be a healthier person. I do, too. That's the next project. The first project was this, and it turned out to be God's, not mine, and that's to be confident in the skin I'm in. And I am, now more than ever. And you're not an asshole. You just act like one sometimes. ;-)
And I still won't be Too Easily Pleased.
0 comments:
Post a Comment