Fasting

My pastor is urging the entire church to fast during a three-week period. For those of us who are new to it, he said fasting one meal a week for three weeks would be OK. So I decided to do it today. I skipped breakfast. No oatmeal squares with milk today.

It's pretty weird to change your eating habits. I would say I'm a person who gets used to a certain routine and dislikes change, especially when it comes to eating and sleeping.

I think the fasting period had the intended effect, in that I felt groggy all morning. I watched with a newfound envy as my boss ate a banana during our morning meeting. It looked so good. I was afraid my coworker would offer me some of her caramel popcorn and I wouldn't be able to turn it down. But she didn't offer, which I suppose was good.

I usually take my lunch around 1:30 but by 12:15 today I felt lightheaded and like I might pass out if I didn't eat something. My body was going into that stage where it felt like it was eating itself. So I broke the fast and wolfed down my peanut butter and banana sandwich. I felt kind of bad about it, like I was caving in to the flesh while I was doing it. It's only a sandwich, not a sin!

I wonder how people don't eat breakfast. How do they function? I felt about 10 times worse than I usually do in the morning by not eating breakfast. I suppose you can get used to anything, though.

Did fasting bring me closer to God? I don't know. I successfully denied the flesh. I didn't eat for a specific purpose, and that purpose was not losing a few pounds. But I didn't have time to pray or read the Bible during the morning rush at work. I'm not sure if God appreciated what I did. I didn't hear a voice.

If I had the whole day off, maybe I could go through the whole fasting, praying and meditating sort of thing. But during a workday I just felt more hungry and tired than I usually do, not more enlightened. I think this time the purpose was more symbolic. I'm supposed to do this two more times. Is it terrible to say that I'm really not looking forward to doing it again?