Fasting, the lost discipline...

The past few weeks I have been asking some young men to join me in fasting 1 time a week for 24 hours.  This fast has been a fast from food.  One would think that my stomach was a spoiled child not getting what it wanted during these recent fasts.  And honestly, that is what my stomach is most of the time- a spoiled little child.  In Matthew 6:16 Jesus says to His disciples, "When you fast..." The assumption He has for his disciples is that they fast.  This verb is a present subjunctive active. This means that fasting is to be done continuously not a one time event. Now, as I reflect on my 29 years of being a child of God, my life certainly has not been characterized as a continuously fasting one.  Fasting to me is like prayer. I get it. Christians are to pray and fast. I do not pretent to know how prayer or fasting works. All I know is that when I pray and fast God tends to work in my life.  So if you have not fasted recently, why not give it a try.  You could go from dinner to dinner and skip breakfast and lunch. Instead of eating, slip away and spend extended time in prayer and in His Word.  This week I actually did this and studied Matthew 5:6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."  I have read this verse many times in my life but this week, it came alive to me.  The verse means that we are blessed or happy when we continually hunger and continually thirst for righteousness. Now during my short fast, I realized how the only thing I really hunger and thirst for is my next meal.  So I was challenged to think about hungering and thirsting after righteousness. I realized that often I do not hunger and thirst after righteousness.  One of the reasons I don't hunger and thirst is because my spiritual senses can become dull without even know it.  Like the frog in the kettle.  One of the primary sources of my dulling spiritual senses occurs because I have watched excessive TV and lacked time in studying the Bible.  How is your hunger and thirst for righteousness today?  The last part of the verse is  the result of hungering and thirsting after righteousness:  "for they shall be satisfied."  This is what we all want isn't ?  We want to be satisfied. So we try all the world has to offer and it over promises and under delivers.  As I have fasted these past few weeks, I have been exposed of how little this is true in my life and as a result, my motivation for hungering and thirsting has increased. Why not give it a try?  Why not do a little fast this week?  Who knows, God just might work in your life!