Fasting

I've been trying to fast once a week for a day over the past few months. I'm trying to focus on this as a spiritual discipline to focus on my dependence on God and to try and retrain my body and how it controls me. Dallas Willard defines disciplines as this:

A discipline is an activity within our power--something we can do--which brings us to a point where we can do what we at present cannot do by direct effort. Discipline is in fact a natural part of the structure of the human soul, and almost nothing of any significance in education, culture or other attainments is achieved without it. Everything from learning a language to weight lifting depends upon it, and its availability in the human makeup is what makes the individual human being responsible for the kind of person they become. Animals may be trained, but they are incapable of discipline in the sense that is essential to human life.

I'd love to say I've been pretty consistent, but the reality is that I've been better at making excuses than actually doing it. It's not always fun, so I don't make it important. In the end, I know how good it is for me, and once I get some momentum, it becomes a good rhythm in my life.

When I get into a good rhythm of doing it, it gets easier. It's one of those things where it's easy to make excuses, especially with the holidays that went by and all of my travel for work. When I'm doing it consistently, I notice that I'm less driven by and much more aware of my urges in terms of what I eat, drink and respond to others. It starts to reprogram my reflexes instead of turning to something where I find comfort like food, dessert or a glass of scotch, I turn to God. I'm a guy who is very driven by my appetitites and fasting is one of the key disciplines for me to help retrain myself away from looking to the wrong appetitites to satiate my desires.