uninspired aspirations.

I’ve been struggling to find inspiration to shoot lately, letting my camera sit unused for weeks at a time. I finally broke it out a few days ago, but not due to inspiration. I think sometimes we need to do things even if we aren’t inspired to do them. There’s a part of us that is aspiring to create and that part of us needs to be fed even when we don’t feel like feeding it. Anyways, here’s some randomness from the past couple days of force-feeding that part of me.

fasting.

Fasting is the practice of abstaining from something, usually food, in order to intentionally replace it with seeking God through prayer, reading, and worship. It’s a huge part of the Judeo-Christian tradition and has been pretty much since the dawn of time. Throughout the old and new testament you can read about those who fasted (1 Samuel 7:6, 2 Samuel 1:12, 2 Chronicles 20:30, Ezra 8:21, Nehemiah 1:4 and 9:1, Psalms 109:24, Jonah 3:5, Joel 2:15, Zechariah 7:5 and 8:19, Acts 13:2-3, Acts 14:23, and 1 Corinthians 7:5, just to name a few references) and how it impacted them and those around them.

Late on Sunday night I really felt as though God was asking me to fast. Anyone who has fasted will tell you that it’s an incredible journey of learning and growing. Something beautiful happens when you strip yourself of what you deem necessary to get through the day. I’m fasting for five days, consuming nothing but water, juice, and tea. It’s been hard, for sure, but I’ve been able to spend so much more intentional time in prayer with my Savior and He has definitely showed me some things through this time that I would like to share with you.

In Matthew 6, Jesus tells us that “when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret.” I don’t want this post to come across as me screaming for attention and seeming like I feel holier than thou because I happen to be fasting. No. Please don’t take it like that. I’ve simply learned things through this time in my life that I would like to share with you…

I “need” too much.
As aforementioned, food is something that is deemed necessary to get through the day. This isn’t true at all. I mean, I’ve been without food for four days and there are plenty of people, including Jesus Himself, who have gone without food for forty or more days. This realization has opened my eyes to see how many other things I don’t really need, or at least I don’t need as much of as I think I do. I mean, if I’m okay with food, what else am I also okay without? I have a strong desire to live a simple life. Our society screams its arguments against that and makes it very difficult to live out in a practical fashion, but that desire is still there and this fast has only caused it to grow. Basically, I just don’t want to be controlled by the things of this world. Practicing intentional self-denial allows me to see what controls me.

I take too much for granted.
I think that every one of us would say this is true about them. The old adage, “you never know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone,” has never seemed more real to me than these last few days. Food is probably the thing I take for granted the most. Well, maybe oxygen, but food is a close second (and since I can’t very well fast from breathing, food will have to do). It is such a strange, strange feeling to not eat. I feel so entitled to the act of putting food into my body and it feels straight up wrong to not do it. Going without food has helped me become more thankful for everything else.

Not very profound thoughts, I know. I would strongly encourage you to try fasting and experience these realizations first-hand. I promise that you’ll have a much stronger connection and agreement with my thoughts than you do now. These things that I’ve talked about are only side-effects and byproducts of the much more important and realistic aspect of fasting, and that is getting to spend real, raw, emptied-of-yourself time with God. Brian Taylor puts it like this in Becoming Christ: “Self-denial is profoundly contemplative for it works by the process of human subtraction and divine addition.”

This is so true. When we empty ourselves, we are then able to be filled with God and what He chooses to place in us is so much greater than what we had placed there.