I was sitting at my desk in my office snacking on some health-food  snack called ‘Almond Granola Energy Blend’. I was enjoying the mix of nuts, raisins and chocolate granola, when I received an email from a fellow pastor in Ohio who wanted my opinion of fasting. Suddenly this swell of pride I had for eating healthy vanished in a cloud of guilt. The sticker on the snack package said it all: ‘Simple Indulgence’! Yes, I was convicted.

We Americans do get ourselves so much into comforting our bodies that we starve the spiritual, when we know better. If we want pleasures of this world, there are plenty. Food, thrills, sex, this world has it all. But if we want a spiritual connection with the powers of heaven, we’ve got to look beyond this ‘Simple Indulgence’, and toward something other-worldly.

Fasting helps to take us into that level of discipline that moves us upward beyond worldly indulgence into spiritual connectedness. I want more of God; how about you?

What are you hungry for?

Tags: conviction, fasting