Is Your Stomach Your god?

 

I awoke this morning with a question echoing in my mind, "Is your stomach your god?" 

It only later dawned on me the perfect irony that today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. I immediately grabbed my notebook and started writing down thoughts that I didn't want to forget. I'm not making this up, and I feel quite confident the Lord was speaking to me even while I slept. 

I had already made the connection to fasting but I thought this concept of your stomach being your god sounded familiar, like something Paul said once in one of the epistles... I looked it up and bingo. 

17 Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. 18 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Philippians 3:17-21 NIV

 

So, what does this have to do with fasting? I'm so glad you asked!

There are 2 ways to look at fasting and I think we should do both. 

1. How the ancient people of God understood and practiced it (Biblical and historical context).
2. How the themes and concepts apply to us today.

I'm going to keep this as a brief overview, you can do a more in-depth study of fasting if this sparks your interest to do so. 

For the first one, we know that fasting is in part a practice in self-discipline, denying yourself something you want and need. It is practiced as a personal act or in solidarity with others or even as a community (think Nineveh in the book of Jonah). It is often practiced as an act of mourning or alongside prayer in a desperate plea for help, a petition to God (shown in Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther to name a few).

The themes we see overall are embracing and (portraying outwardly) a feeling of weakness and lack (in mourning or petition). There's also the obvious implication of refraining from indulgence. We may also consider that for your average person who made their own food, before modern conveniences food preparation was all an all day thing. It took hours and hours out of their day. Therefore, if you are fasting then you suddenly free up a lot more time. Even those who don't prepare their own food (like queen Esther) are shown as freeing up their entire day to pray and focus on God when fasting. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

So, there's both a symbolic and a practical element to fasting. Practical things that free up our time or change our routines to help us focus on spiritual things. Reorienting ourselves, if you will. Consider also that food is highly personal because everyone has a unique sense of taste and people's bodies react differently to different kinds of food, in some cases with an allergic reaction. There's a very personal element to fasting in that sense. 

Here I think the stomach represents in a very basic sense your most foundational self care. It's one of the elemental ways we care for our own bodies —by feeding ourselves. Then fasting, when you're talking about food, is a practice in denying ourselves by removing a basic need, but one that can easily become an indulgence. The stomach, or some translations say "belly," also represents carnal needs and desires (as opposed to spiritual), a source of inner strength (as food strengthens our bodies), and our own pleasures. Paul says right in this passage that those whose stomach is their god have their minds on earthly things. But we are to have our eyes on a future, glorified body. Our current body is not the end all be all. 

Earlier in the chapter he says a few other important things. You'll notice he starts the section I shared above by admonishing the reader to follow his example, which he has been describing in the previous verses. The example he shares is to boast only in Christ and put no confidence in the flesh (v. 3-4), consider our physical gains as loss for the sake of Christ (v. 7-9), and that we should desire to know the power of the resurrection and share in his sufferings (v. 10-11). He then shares that we should forget what is behind and move toward what is ahead (v. 13-14) and that these are the qualities that are held by the mature in Christ (v. 15). 

As we enter into the season of Lent (it is past midnight now that I had the time to finish writing this, so most of you will be reading this after Ash Wednesday) perhaps we can challenge ourselves in new ways to seek God. Obviously Paul isn't talking about fasting in this passage and when he says their god is their stomach he isn't just talking about food, he's using it as a metaphor for a way of life. 

Is my stomach my god? How do I make my decisions? How do I prioritize my life? Is it based on what seems good to me? What feels right? Am I distracted by earthly things? 

Fasting is a beautiful practice that can be used as a way to reorient ourselves spiritually, and challenge ourselves in ways that can help us determine where we are doing well (seeking first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness as Jesus taught in Matthew 6:28) and where we are falling short and becoming too focused on ourselves or things of this earth. 

Maybe one of the things in my list of Paul's attributes of the mature in Christ stands out to you already. Are you struggling to leave the past behind and move forward? Is it challenging to think about sharing in Christ's suffering? Do you feel confident in the flesh -your own accomplishments or abilities? Is it hard to think about losing things or considering them loss for the sake of knowing Christ? Lay these things before God honestly and ask him to show you the way. 

Following are some different ways to approach a modern practice of fasting that (I feel) accomplish the same goals as the traditional practice.

WORSHIP: Fast something you love (perhaps too much?)
SACRIFICE: Fast something you think you need.
DISCIPLINE: Fast something that makes you feel strong or in-control.
TIME: Fast something that frees up time to do spiritual things. 

Many things will satisfy more than one, if not all, of these categories. Fasting is not about checking a box or being more "spiritual". It's about self reflection, self discipline, and surrendering to God - wants, needs, desires. It's about making God a priority in your life in order to realign your spiritual walk. You could consider it like a spiritual detox. 

I'm both dreading and looking forward to fasting the thing God has put on my heart to lay aside these next 40 days. I hope you will join me in your own way. The Lord has promised that "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." Let's be intentional about seeking Him as a community during this time and expect Him to show up and move in powerful ways.