I got this in a mass email today, and really appreciated the quotes from Richard Foster's, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth. For those remembering Lent or any other practice of fasting, here are some quotes from the book:
"Fasting must forever center on God. … If our fasting is not unto God we have failed" (54, 55).
"More than any other Discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us" (55).
"We cover up whatever is inside us with food and other good things, but in fasting these things surface" (55).
"Fasting reminds us that we are sustained 'by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God' (Matt. 4.4). Food does not sustain us, God sustains us" (55).
"Therefore, in experiences of fasting we are not so much abstaining from food as we are feasting on the word of God. Fasting is feasting!" (55).
"Fasting helps us keep our balance in life. How easily we begin to allow nonessentials to take precedence in our lives. How quickly we crave things we do not need until we are enslaved by them" (56).
"This is not excessive asceticism; it is discipline and discipline brings freedom" (56).
"In many ways the stomach is like a spoiled child, and a spoiled child does not need indulgence, but needs discipline. … You are to be the master of your stomach, not its slave" (57).
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