Athens Vineyard Church

My message a couple of weeks ago was on gauges.  I was trying to illustrate Jesus’ teaching that it isn’t what goes into our mouths that defiles us, but what comes out.  The main point was that it’s what we say and do that reveals the condition of our heart, thus our words/actions are like heart gauges.  Well, since then I’ve been reminded a couple of times of that message (yeah, I don’t get a pass just because I deliver the message.  He gets me too). My heart gauge was in the overheat zone.

I was fasting a couple of times recently (not that I’m talking about it) and I found myself having a really hard time getting along with this guy I was hanging out with.  Well, even a couple of months ago, I would have simply excused my irritation because I was fasting.  But I remembered something Richard Foster said about fasting in one of his books.

More than any other Discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us. This is a wonderful benefit to the true disiciple who wants to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. We cover up what is inside us with food and other good things, but in fasting these things surface. If pride controls us, it will be revealed almost immediately. David writes, “I humbled my soul with fasting” (Psalm 69:10). Anger, bitterness, jealousy, strife, fear–if they are within us, they will surface during fasting. At first we will rationalize that our anger is due to our hunger; then we will realize that we are angry because the spirit of anger is within us. We can rejoice in this knowledge because we know that healing is available through the power of Christ

Wow.

I grew up thinking that, of my parents 4 children,  I was the most like my dad.  Emotionally, Dad was very stable, controlled, kind, and gentle.  I never heard a cuss word pass his lips.   In order to meet the personal expectation to be like him, I have layered myself with external controls  to demonstrate my emotional gentleness and stability.  So, throught the years, whenever I have found myself struggling to control feelings of irritation or any other feeling that threatened the calm, it has both surprised me and shamed me.  “What?!?  That’s just not like me!  It must be because I’m fasting.”

No, I’m just not as perfect as I thought I was.  The fasting was just another tool to get at the real condition of my heart.  It was like opening the hood of the car so the heart gauge could be connected.  Or rather, fasting forced me to turn down the loud radio I had playing (my layers of control) so I could hear/see what was really going on.

For me, the whole experience has added to my desire to fast.  It helps me see who I really am, which is really important in my journey.  I need some transformation.  Otherwise, my presentation of myself as a Christian would be inauthentic, fabricated, based on a faulty heart.  I’ve already seen that one around.