Today has been a long and productive day. Wednesdays are meeting days for me and it was fun for me today to see our staff energized to keep serving our family for God’s glory. The TV is off, Bren is working on her school work (she’s taking 17 credits this semester), Caleb is coaching his youth basketball team and I’m sitting on the couch reflecting. It just dawned on me that today marks the half way point for the fast. Depending on the moment I think that’s great or terrible. When I’m not hungry I think it’s great, when I’m hungry I think I can’t go another 10 days on only liquids. Most of the time, though, I feel fine physically.

The question that matters is not am I comfortable, but what is happening in my spiritual life. Fasting is about helping me remember that I’m not home, and that the real pleasures of life are not the food I eat or other conveniences I have, but my walk with Jesus. Brenda and I were talking last night on a road trip to watch Caleb play basketball at Dallas. She’s doing the Daniel fast and she said that it dawned on her as she was missing eating some trail mix that she really doesn’t typically deny herself anything she wants. If she’s feeling a bit hungry she eats some food. If she needs a mental break she grabs a soduku puzzle. If she’s thirsty for coffee we have this neat machine that gives you a cup of coffee any time. When you live in lavish circumstances like that life can become cheap. It can become simply walking from one little pleasure to another. You can get to the point that you think that life is about your hunt for pleasures. Then you start to experiment and tweak your pleasures. Your focus is on making your house just the way you want it to be, or a hundred other little things. That is very dangerous. I’m grateful for the fast, even though it’s hard because it is a gracious, glorious reminder that my life is not about the stuff that’s around me. My occasional hunger is a reminder that I’m not home yet, and that home is so far better than even the best of life here. That homesickness makes me want to talk to my heavenly Dad more. It makes we want to connect with Him and enjoy Him and define myself by my status in Him. If find myself searching the Word more. Rather than thinking about what I want for a snack or what I’d like to watch on TV I just grab a Bible and enjoy Dad’s love letter.

Being homesick changes the way I see everything. That alone is worth it.

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