Friday Five: Front and center

Fasting can cleanse our thoughts, our bodies, our souls. We know about fasting from food, but others suggest fasting from media (TV, radio, recorded music) or from digital connections (internet, email).

The point is not the denial but the focus. Where do we place the spotlight of our life? If food is our god, then focus elsewhere. If email threatens to own us, then push it back onto tamer ground. What claims our mind when the storm clouds of challenge threaten? That often reveals our gods, the places we go for comfort.

On fasting….

So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.

Dan 9:3

'Even now,' declares the LORD,
'return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning.'

Joel 2:12

But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Matt 6:17-18

Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.

Matt 9:15

When I weep and fast,
I must endure scorn;

Psalms 69:10

So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

Acts 13:3