F: Fasting attacks distractions, but first it makes them worse:

F: Fasting attacks distractions, but first it makes them worse:

The dilemma can be that the discipline of giving something up can reveal so much to you about your level of dependence on it, that at first it becomes a massive distraction.

When you want to study/pray on your own, what's the first thing you do?

Put the kettle on!

So if you cut that out, it can at first reveal the strength of the temptation that you don't normally notice because you don't normally bother resisting it: The 'NEED?' for caffeine.

That can play on your mind ... especially in something as basic, normal and not wrong as hunger pangs!

That means that to fast effectively, you need to go through a learning process that involves fasting badly and feeling useless, and feeling like giving up.

This is normal,
and we should fight through it and learn.

I would say that most of us don't. My job is to challenge us, me included, to try this again, or for the first time.

So, all this means that Fasting is normally defined as giving up food, but it can also involve giving up other things that distract us, or things that we place wrongly above God's presence in our order of priorities.