Overstuffed

My church is doing a week of prayer and fasting. Perhaps your church is doing something similar here at the beginning of a new year. We often use the first days of January to “reset” our priorities and focus ourselves on the Lord.

I’ve heard a lot of sermons on fasting, and I’ve even read books on it. But it doesn’t necessarily make the practice easier. Giving up what we enjoy—what we love— is hard, even when we are genuinely motivated to do so, even when we believe that it’s necessary and right.

This week I traveled from Maryland to Madrid returning from my annual Christmas pilgrimage. And my trips back to Spain generally have one thing in common: too much luggage.

Throughout the year, I order things to be delivered to my parents house, which I then pick up when I’m there in December, so I almost always have practically a full suitcase of stuff that’s just been sitting there in a pile in a corner waiting for me to arrive. And then of course ,there’s the Christmas gifts that I’m given, the things I buy on clearance sale at Old Navy after Christmas, and for many, MANY other reasons, I end up with too much stuff. 

I typically spend the last two days of my trip trying to pack it all in and incessantly weighing the bags to make sure that I can get them on the plane without paying astronomical fees. And then, there’s the reshuffling from back to bag and inevitably all of the things that are really heavy end up in my carry-on. My wheelie bag carries all the books, a huge bag of brown sugar, my technological devices, and more. And when that gets overflowed, the backpack gets filled next. More books, more snacks, more technology.

But that means that for the next 16 hours I’m carrying that load on my literal back as well as pulling it behind me, straining my arm muscles in an effort to drag with me all the things that I believe to be “necessities.”

I was reflecting on this this week as I lugged all the things through airports and prayed not to get stranded in the snow with multiple bags full of heavy things that I was already tired of dragging around with me. Even on my long layover as I tried to get some sleep, I had to wrap my feet and arms around all of my bags to make sure that nothing would get stolen or lost. As I wrestled with all the painful and burdensome bags, it occurred to me that I was really only sabotaging myself with my greed for things that I believe to be vital to my life. I refuse to let go or leave behind any of these comforts. 

I think that one of the great values of fasting is that it forces us to understand what is actually vital: God.  

For all the things that I believe are necessary to my life (coffee, food, Netflix, social media, and many many other things) there is only one thing that sustains me. Jesus recognized this in His temptation, when after 40 days, He was desperate for sustenance.  But in the face of the Devil’s tempting invitation, he declined to make stones into bread.  I’m pretty sure I would’ve added those stones to my carry-on, in hopes to turn them into bread along the way. It makes me realize how many things we add to the burden of our lives because we believe they’re necessary, and we forget that the only thing that we need for survival is God. Man cannot live on bread alone—no matter how much he packs along in his bag to carry. The bread does not actually sustain him the way that God our Creator and Sustainer does.

And fasting is a reminder that we don’t actually need coffee and Facebook and breakfast and chocolate and, and, and ...

We can walk away without the burden and lessen our dependence on the things we CLAIM to be essential and focus on the only thing that truly is.

Ps. 54:4, “The Lord is the sustainer of my soul.”