Here are some encouraging comments/quotations about fasting as we get ready for the traditional time of Lent and the soon celebration of Jesus’ resurrection Life! May He guide us in how to draw closer to Him during this season.

"What forms might this fasting take in our lives? Choosing natural sounds or silence over incessant TV and radio would be a pertinent form of fasting for many. For others it may mean checking social media only at chosen intervals, or to abstain from eating over-packaged and over-processed foods. We might consider abstaining from lack of physical activity, but also from fitness mania; not only from compulsive eating but also compulsive dieting. Part of fasting can be to relinquish the temporary excitement the comes with spectacular achievement.
"One of the most difficult forms of abstaining today is from overpacked schedules, for both ourselves and our children. When we become exhausted, depressed, and short-tempered, when we have little energy left for family and friends, do we give glory to God? Here again we clearly see our desperate need for reclaiming the Sabbath. Indeed, honoring the boundaries of Sabbath time may strengthen our spiritual muscles for other expressions of abstinence.
"With so many ways to practice fasting, we will need to make choices appropriate to our character and life circumstances. Behind every fitting choice of abstinence lies the question: What do I do to excess? That reveals my inordinate desires, my compulsions, the attachments that have control over me. They are precisely the areas of my life that need the freeing lordship of Christ rather than my own ineffective control. Fasting is not primarily a discipline through which I gain greater control over my life, but one through which God gains access to redirect and heal me in body, mind, and spirit."
Image credits: Jesus in the wilderness from The Lumo Project via FreeBibleImages.org. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones via OnePlace.com. Gerald May by Gregory May via HarperCollins. John Piper via Wikimedia Commons. Dallas Willard via dwillard.org. Marjorie J. Thompson via Upper Room Books.
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