Lent & Fasting

Each Lent, I wonder what I should give up or take on.  I rarely feel right with God for more than a couple days in a row and so Lent often seems a time to reach out to God more fervently.  This year, I was struck by  a passage in Isaiah 58 that calls into question our individual-focused routines of giving up chocolate, coffee, etc.  I suspect those small sacrifices are very good. Our heart needs them.  Yet, there is more to look toward.  Here's the passage:

Isaiah 58:6-10 NIV “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

This video then helped me along a bit further in understanding of the type of fast that is desirable to the Lord.



May we be strengthened to loose the chains of injustice this whole year and in that process, may our addictions be transformed and lost.