Fasting

My church’s Advent practice calls on us to focus on fasting this week.

This week’s practice will focus on fasting. Fasting is essentially giving something up for a period of time to create space for God. So in the spirit of stepping away from the things that crowd out peace, here are some ideas of things to fast from during this week.

· TV/Netflix

· Shopping

· Sugar/Christmas treats that don’t serve our physical bodies well

· Social media

· Actual noise, by practicing 5-10 minutes of stillness. (Set a timer, sit quietly and focus on the presence of the God of peace.)

· An overfull schedule (Say no to an engagement that’s not necessary.)

I’m enthusiastic about this in theory.

As an actual practice it is harder. It’s easy for me to gripe and complain about all the things that interfere with the experience of God’s peace during this season. For me, anyway, it’s harder to make a commitment to excluding something that’s crowding it out.

My (clearly sinful) first thought is to “give up” something that I wouldn’t have done anyway, such as sugar & sweet treats (I already don’t usually eat such things). Praise God that He has already taught me that this would be a wrong response to this call for fasting.

I’m praying for God’s help in choosing how to fast this week – by giving up something that’s actually going to take effort and commitment to give it up – in order to step away from things that crowd out His Peace.