From Andy Flannagan
I am fascinated by the fact that the perfect man who was God needed to spend 40 days in the wilderness fasting and praying before starting his ministry. Surely he was already perfect? Was 40 days not taking it all a bit far? All this month at The Well we are thinking about fasting, and also doing some fasting. This story of Jesus in the wilderness has given me a new perspective. So often we focus on what our fasting is designed to achieve – the solution to a previously insoluble problem, or an increase in intimacy with our Father. What if our time of fasting is as much about what comes next?
When tech-type people (or in fact even any amateur computer users) catch a glimpse of the screen of my laptop, they groan. I usually have about 10 programs open on the task bar, and my browsers have 7 or 8 tabs active. The computer slows down. I complain. I open other things while I am waiting. It slows down even more. I complain even more. It’s a fairly accurate representation of the rest of my life too. There are many times when the only thing that will work is a total reset. I have come to realise while fasting this month that it is a brilliant way of doing exactly that. Fasting resets us in a number of ways. But what I have come to see is that more than anything, fasting resets what is ‘normal’.
The word normal comes from the Latin normālis which means made according to a carpenter’s square. Normality is needed to build a table which food doesn’t roll off. Normal exists. It is not a relative idea. The carpenter from Nazareth defines normal and we shouldn’t be scared of that. But we need a reset to remind us what is truly normal. Otherwise our actions and reactions are based on what the world would lead us to believe is normal. We will open far too many windows in our desire to be entertained, to be loved and to be respected. We will go for quantity, not quality.
Over the last 15 years so many things have subtly made the journey from luxuries to ‘just normal’. Expensive ice-cream, smoothies, smartphones. These are not necessarily bad things in themselves, but simply examples of how we sometimes need a ‘reset’. Our bodies only need between 1500 and 3000 calories per day dependent on our metabolism and activity. Advertisers would lead us to believe something altogether different.
When we join Jesus in the wilderness we are challenged to not give in to the visceral desire to be instantly satisfied. It’s that knee-jerk need-meeting that we have been trained to see as normal. If we are hungry, we eat. If we are sad, we eat. If we are lonely, red wine is there. If we are bored, we check cricket scores on our mobiles. (okay maybe not all of us). In the wilderness we might just win battles that leave us better prepared for what is coming. For Jesus it was a huge time of transition. It was a massive shift from perhaps 20 years as a carpenter to the sort of work he was about to do. He needed a very different kind of muscle memory. His instinctive reactions needed to be subjected to his Father’s will. The impact of this time is there for all to see. He therefore did not need the affirmation of those around him. He did not need to seek attention. Yes there were some God-ordained detours, but he knew his mission and he stuck to it, avoiding all the temptations to be distracted to the many other good things he could have done. Resetting your normal gives you clarity about why you are here. Resetting normal means you can say NO to all manner of things. It also makes the treats of life into real treats instead of something you assume you deserve. We are reminded that life is a gift, not a right. If we fast with patience, we are able to feast with real joy.