Delighting In Disapointment

I ate, and I still feel awful.

That’s the thing about fasting.

I went into this almost 6 years ago thinking it was like holding your breath. That when you fasted, it was like you were just abstaining from taking in air, and then once you reached your goal, or you couldn’t last any longer, you come up for air and go back to breathing normally just like you did before.

This isn’t what it’s like at all.

I fast and I’m hungry, the Lord stretches me, teaches me, breaks me down so I can see clearly. All of me; soul, spirit, body and mind, hurts. He draws me to Him. There is a real sweetness in this desert place of fasting. He speaks to me more clearly, it’s like the veil through which we now see on this side of eternity is thinned, and through a little suffering you are allowed to see the universe as it really is.

Then I break my fast.

I always have such high hopes. Whether it’s been half a day or a week, that first meal, oh how I fantasize about it.

But I’m always, without fail, disappointed.

Not only is the food bland (no matter how spicy I make it) but it doesn’t satisfy me. Even when my stomach is full. I’m left discontented. It’s like fasting changes you, and you can’t be unchanged. It’s like I’m burrowing into some deeper reality and I can’t function on the same plane that I used to. I see now that it reveals what really is, and what is -is that I can’t be satisfied by anything but the Lord. A concept I have always been familiar with, and even spouted off to encourage others, but I am just now starting to actually understand it.

I remember when I was just entering middle school and some older high school kid came to youth group and shared a little bit about himself, I’ll never forget, he said: “And now I see, that God is better than any drug!” It was a powerful moment for everyone in the room, hearing this guy cry out in exclamation that there is a light that is greater than even the greatest darkness, and that he was choosing the light.

Food- I feel like is the great symbol here. I’m grieving the loss of all the things I’ve put my hopes in, found comfort in, and all the while missed out on God.

I am bring stripped down bare, to the very core of me so I can be rebuilt to desire the Lord. I am going through withdrawals of everything else I’ve used to numb myself. This is so painful but so good. 

“[The natural life] knows that if the spiritual life gets hold of it, all its self-centredness and self-will are going to be killed and it is ready to fight tooth and nail to avoid that.”
-C.S. Lewis -Mere Christianity

This is what I’m going through right now, I am skipping from team to team right now, fighting for what my flesh wants, food, company, to feel loved and get attention etc., and for what my spirit man wants, to please God.

I’ll leave you with one more quote, it was today’s (Sept 19th, when I wrote this) entry for the devotional “Streams In The Desert.” This book is always so timely, God is so good.

Doctor Vincent tells of being in a great hothouse where luscious clusters of grapes were hanging on every side. The owner said, “When my new gardener came, he said he would have nothing to do with these vines unless he could cut them clean down to the stalk; and he did, and we had no grapes for two years, but this is the result.”

There is rich suggestiveness in this interpretation of the pruning process, as we apply it to the Christian life. Pruning seems to be destroying the vine, the gardener appears to be cutting it all away; but he looks on into the future and knows that the final outcome will be the enrichment of its life and greater abundance of fruit.

There are blessings we can never have unless we are ready to pay the price of pain. There is no way to reach them save through suffering. –Dr. Miller.

This is my season, this is where I am. I have been cut back, pruned, and currently have no fruit to speak of. But my Father is the great gardener, and Jesus is the life giving vine. In time, I will yield fruition far greater than had I never been wounded. Amen, and Amen. Thank you Father.