Eating as the Anesthesia of Sadness, Part 2 (Fasting Edition #157)

Our fasting quote of encouragement today is from Alex Gee. He said: "Fasting is not about changing God. It is not a mystical exercise to gain God's approval. Fasting is not about changing my world, but about letting God realign my heart toward his purposes."

Our fasting devotional today is titled "EATING AS THE ANESTHESIA OF SADNESS" (part 2) from John Piper, author of the bestselling book "A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer".

Psychologically, eating to null pain or sadness is spoken of a lot today, especially in regard to people who have much pain in their lives. We would say they "medicate" their pain with food. They anesthetize themselves to the hurt inside by eating. But this is not some rare, technical syndrome. All of us do it. Everybody. No exceptions. We all ease our discomfort using food and cover our unhappiness by setting our eyes on dinner time. Which is why fasting exposes all of us -- our pain, our pride, our anger. Richard Foster writes in "The Celebration of the Disciplines":

'If pride controls us, it will be revealed almost immediately. David said, "I humbled my soul with fasting in Psalm 35:13. 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. And then, we know 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.'