Fasting and Fulfillment

I will be covering the fourth session on March 5th dealing with how fasting can contribute to a fulfilling life. I think fulfillment sums up what the majority of us want out of life. Another word might be satisfaction. We are all hungry to be happy but it is so hard to get and even harder to sustain. The fleeting pleasures of this world are like Chinese food: it fills you up for about thrity minutes and then you're hungry again. We want to be happy but we want that happiness to stay. We want a kind of "happy" that isn't constantly stolen by our circumstances. We want security. but we want more than that. We don't want to believe that life is merely a party where you show up have a good time and then leave. No, we want believe that our life counts that it matters. That is why we long to share our happiness with others because deep down we know that we matter most when we matter to someone else. We want significance. I believe a happy life that is both secure and significant is the only thing that can really satisfy; and that kind of life can only be found in Christ Jesus. But since we rarely consult him on the matter we tend to settle for substitutes. We settle for the temporary over the eternal and the trivial over the truly significant. Our Father has given us all things to enjoy and the truth is we should enjoy them but it is when we substitute the giver for the gifts that our hearts become lean and souls begin to starve. All of his gifts are wonderful but they were meant to sustain never to satisfy.

That is why we ofter have to take these very good things and set them aside so that we can feed on Christ without distraction. In doing this we are able to lay our hands on the kind of life he has always intended for us. We discover a different kind of happiness that exists beyond circumstance. It is a life of eternal consequence. We find a life that is secure, significant and satisfied.

Brian