May 19, 2013: Fasting – Dave Neuhausel

We live in a culture of excess and wanton waste. If we want it buy it. And if you can’t afford it, charge it. We want more, we want bigger, we want newer, we want better … we want, we want, we want. Fasting, seems to work against this. But what if, fasting is not abstaining from our desires, but pursuing them with greater clarity?

When we give some things up, it produces in us the ability to understand our desires better. When we are without something, we then have the ability to know what we really need and what we really want. This is what the pious have known for years. They did not abstain from things because that is somehow “spiritual.” Nor did they abstain, because their desires were wrong. They abstained, because it allowed them to see their desires more clearly.