UGH! This Fast is Killing Me!

Today’s Reading is from Proverbs 3:1-18 - My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; for length of days and years of life and abundant welfare will they give you. Let not loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them about your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.  So you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.  Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.  It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. Honor the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gets understanding, for the gain from it is better than gain from silver and its profit better than gold.  She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her.  Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor.  Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.  She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy.

It has ONLY been three days and I’m pretty sure you’re already feeling the burden of fasting. You’re hungry and bored of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches already. You may even be wondering if the fast is worth your time. Don’t worry. We ALL feel this way just as the fast is starting out.  It may not happen today, but it WILL happen sometime during Great Lent. Even the most experienced will suffer a bit of fatigue during Great Lent.

That is why I thought the reading from Proverbs was so helpful. “For length of days and years of life and abundant welfare will they give you.” Fasting if done with prayer and attention to the spiritual warfare in which we are engaged WILL give you great benefit. All you have to do is remain committed and “let not your loyalty and faithfulness forsake you.” Great Lent is a spiritual war, and like with all wars there will be successful days and not-so-successful days. The point is to push ahead for the victory at Pascha.

Today might be a good day to evaluate your menu choices for the fast. If you are feeling tired and cranky, you might need to make some adjustments for nutrition. Remember fasting is NOT supposed to get you sick, but there are alternatives to your menu choices that will provide for proper nutrition AND still maintain the fast. You just may need to put in a little extra effort. Speak with your Spiritual Father and other experienced “fasters” and seek their advice. One of the great benefits to fasting AS A CHURCH is to benefit from centuries of experience.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not exalt your own wisdom. Proverbs 3.5

As we approach the end of the first week of the Great Fast, this verse from today’s readings caught my attention. It is exactly what the Great Fast is meant for us to accomplish. So often people think fasting is about food, when in reality it is about our ego and selfish desires. I often think just how much more peaceful the world would be if this verse from Proverbs was dripping continually from our tongue. Each half of this verse is vital to a proper understanding of the Great Fast.

We journey every day from person to person, and situation to situation, placing our trust “somewhere” in order to maneuver through the waters of life. We trust the engineers who designed the bridge we cross. We trust the police to keep us safe. We trust our teachers to instill proper knowledge in our minds. We trust the neighbor to keep watch over our home when we travel. In each of these situations, though, trust was earned by direct experience; either directly such as our trustworthy neighbor, or indirectly through our city’s licensing boards. In each case we do not extend trust lightly but through careful evaluation, sometimes leaving us “burned” when someone we believed was trustworthy failed to hold up his end of the bargain. In fact, we’ve all been hurt or taken advantage of by someone who has then lost our trust.

So it isn’t without hesitation that we read this verse from Proverbs and doubt our ability to put its words into action. How can we test the Lord and determine His trustworthiness? With other people, we can evaluate them based upon direct experience, but how can we directly experience God? On the other hand, we have constant direct experience of our own wisdom, and while it may sometimes fail us, at least we know what to expect. At least when our wisdom fails, we have only ourselves to blame!

That is where the Great Fast begins to make sense. Through our fasting and increased prayer and Church attendance for the Sacraments (all three are necessary for a proper and balance Great Lenten journey), we are given the opportunity to, if not directly experience God, at least to build direct experience of scenarios is which we risk placing our trust in Him. If we can experience enough “successful scenarios” we could make an internal logical argument to build up the trust in God by slowly adding great risk.

For example: We “risk” hunger by fasting from meat on Wednesday and Friday. After experiencing that we “won’t die” just because we fast from meat, we learn to trust God with our hunger. After weeks of realizing we are no longer hungry, nor are we dead from not eating meat, we are willing to go a little further and trust God with other food items. Eventually, we find that keeping the fast hasn’t hurt us in the least, and may have even helped our bodies become healthier, so we extend the logic of trusting God into other areas of our life. We create a log of experiences in which trusting God has been a safe venture, so we are more willing to trust Him with issues of greater importance than just what to eat for lunch. Next thing we know, we have placed our trust in Him with all our heart.

Putting aside our own wisdom is most likely the single most difficult thing we are asked to do by God, not because it is impossible, but because we are most knowledgeable about ourselves. We know our strengths and failings, even if we choose to ignore both. When Jesus says, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me,” (Mark 8.34) He is challenging us to the greatest struggle of our life. He calls us to this challenge, not because He is on some ego trip, but because He knows our wisdom will eventually fail us. He knows that unless we are willing to trust in HIS wisdom, we will always fall short. We know this too but we’ve just learned how to tolerate the failure of our wisdom. Now it’s time to learn to trust in the success of His wisdom.

Engage the Great Fast! You’ll build a plethora of experiences of trusting in God. Eventually you’ll allow Him your whole heart.