Finding Our Hearts (Fasting V)

Our bodies are connected to our hearts. What we do with our bodies matters. As Paul said, “I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you…This is truly the way to worship Him.”[1] You will notice, for example, that each of the three areas—food, technology, and buying—is connected to what we do with our bodies. As we fast, we train ourselves to live from our spirit and not from the varied impulses of our body, with its endless hungers and lusts. 

It’s not just about mastering the body; it’s about putting our soul in a constant state of trust in the “enough-ness” of God. It’s all about the posture of our heart. I have slowly been learning this reality over my lifetime and especially since meeting and marrying my wife, Rebecca. 

When she and I started dating, I committed to her not to watch pornography.[2] I kept the commitment, but I found that I was often looking to throw curve balls past my conscience. Okay, I won’t watch pornography, but is X (whatever X might be) over the line? Is reading a salacious article—text without any images—a violation of conscience? I’d be on a website that wasn’t pornographic, but the articles took my brain to a salacious place. I found that I engaged in all sorts of behavior which, while technically in bounds and “following the rules,” still violated my conscience. I was going to get away with as much as I could! So I had to keep making new guidelines for myself about what was in bounds and what was out. 

One night I found myself looking through the descriptions of a number of crude movies on Netflix which I could watch. Even if I wasn’t going to, the thought was alluring. The posture of my heart was hungry to indulge, full of lust and longing, and though I didn’t watch any of the movies, I realized later it wasn’t about the letter of the law. Though it was far better not to watch, it wasn’t simply about that alone. I violated my conscience simply by dancing toward an inner belief: I need this and I deserve this. Even if I didn’t technically break the rule, the posture of my heart had drifted deeply into the belief that I wasn’t going to be okay without pornography and, more generally, without having things on my own terms. I wanted the power of knowing I couldindulge if I wanted to. I wanted to dance with my entitlement and that I didn’t have to say “no” if I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to have to depend on God’s enough-ness. It’s always about the posture of our heart, and I violated the spirit without violating the letter.  

I have friends who watch shows with content I cannot watch because I know what it would do to my brain. But I don’t judge the posture of their heart, and I know and trust that they are walking according to their conscience.[3] Each of us must ask, Where do I not believe that God is enough? Again, the root of any temptation, including the first temptation in Genesis 3 and the three temptations of Jesus in Matthew 4, is that God is not truly good. The invitation of darkness is always to believe that God is not enough for our souls. 

You must come to know you will be perfectly okay.[4] We must come to the place of knowing I am perfectly okay without this food, this sugar, this having, this buying, this spending, this screen, this Facebook, this noise. As you fast, just as when you turn away from temptation, you have an opportunity to discover that your soul is perfectly okay in God. Fasting is about increasing this confidence, this capacity of knowing, that God is enough. Ultimately, fasting will increase our capacity for awe and wonder and our ability to live into that second discipleship question, “How can You be so good?” How can You be so good, God, to be enough for my soul? How can You be so good that I don’t need this, that, or the other to be content?

Fasting, then, is a way of living beyond a life of mere comfort into a life led, as Paul says, “by the Spirit.”[5] As we are led by the Spirit, God will free our hearts. We will become outposts of the Reign of God who can make present the love of Jesus for those all around us. The world needs people who aren’t overly rigid or overly indulgent, but who demonstrate the power of delight, restraint, and thanksgiving. Such people can reveal the joy of knowing God’s generous heart. 

May it be so in us.

For all of these readings in one place, order my book 'Learning to Live and Love Like Jesus.'

[1]Romans 12:2.

[2]A noble venture since pornography destroys the brain. See, for example, Hypofrontality: How Using Porn Destroys Your Willpowerby L. Gilkerson. http://www.covenanteyes.com/2014/02/28/hypofrontality [January 10, 2018].

[3]Romans 13-14, I Corinthians 8.

[4]I feel sure I heard or read Dallas Willard make some such statement, but I can’t find a source reference for it.

[5]E.g., Romans 8:9, 14.