A Hunger for God Post 7 of 7 | Finding God in the Garden of Pain
This is a special City Notes for Emmaus City Church in relation to fasting from the book, A Hunger for God. Here are some previous reflections:
Post 1 of 7 | A Homesickness for God
Post 2 of 7 | New Fasting for New Wine
Post 3 of 7 | The Desert Feast of Fasting
Post 4 of 7 | Fasting for the Reward of the Father
Post 5 of 7 | Fasting for the King's Coming
Post 6 of 7 | Fasting and the Course of History
5-Minute Reflection
"Is this not the fast which I choose, to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke? Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into the house; when you see the naked, to cover him; and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then your light will break out like the dawn, and your recovery will speedily spring forth; and your righteousness will go before you; the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard." – pg. 124, Isaiah 58:6-8
We will receive the water we need for refreshment, and we will become a spring of water that does not fail – for others – for the demanding, exhausting, draining ministry of urban self-giving.
"One of the greatest preachers of the first thousand years of the Christian Church was John Chrysostom, the bishop of Constantinople in the fourth century. He has left us one of the most sweeping statements I know concerning the value of fasting. He was known as an ascetic in an age of luxury in Constantinople. His lifestyle offended the emperor Arcadius and his wife Eudoxia so much that he was eventually banished and died in A.D. 407. Chrysostom therefore embodied, it seems, not only the discipline of fasting but also the commitments to holy living that, as we will see in a moment, are an even greater fast than going without food. 'Fasting is, as much as lies in us, an imitation of the angels, a contemning of things present, a school of prayer, a nourishment of the soul, a bridle of the mouth, an abatement of concupiscence: it mollifies rage, it appeases anger, it calms the tempests of nature, it excites reason, it clears the mind, it disburdens the flesh, it chases away night-pollutions, it frees from head-ache. By fasting, a man gets composed behaviour, free utterance of his tongue, right apprehensions of his mind.'" – pg. 125
"Isaiah 58 has awakened in me, and many in my church, a passion to spend and be spent for the good of those in greatest need. It has functioned more than once to give us our bearings as a church when we ponder what it means to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things in the center of the city." – pg. 127
"And if you give yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness, and your gloom will become like midday. And the LORD will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places (like urban Worcester) and give strength to your bones; and you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail (Isaiah 58:10-11). ... God promises to make us like a watered garden (not just a watering ministry, but a watered ministry). That is, we will receive the water we need for refreshment, and we will become a spring of water that does not fail – for others – for the demanding, exhausting, draining ministry of urban self-giving. This has given people a pattern of divine life that gets us through our crises and keeps us going for years more. The amazing thing we need to see here is that Isaiah calls this experience of being watered as a garden for others a kind of fasting." – pg. 129
"There is something very close to Jesus' heart in Isaiah 58. You can hear it coming out in Jesus' words in Luke 4:18 ('The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden') and in Matthew 25:35 ('I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me') and John 7:38 ('He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water''). The burden of Isaiah 58 pervades the ministry of Jesus – and more and more it should pervade our ministry as well." – pg. 131
"In the first three verses of Isaiah 58, God brings an indictment against his people. He tells Isaiah to cry loudly and declare to the house of Jacob their sins. But their sins are cloaked with an amazing veneer of religious fervor. This is what is so stunning and sobering, especially for us who are religious and who practice religious disciplines like fasting. Listen to the indictment: 'Yet they seek Me day by day, and delight to know My ways, as (that is, as if they were) a nation that has done righteousness, and has not forsaken the ordinance of their God' (verse 2). In other words, they act as if they are a righteous and obedient nation. And they persuade themselves that they really want God and his ways. This is a terrible kind of delusion to live in. He goes on near the end of verse 3: 'They ask Me for just decisions, they delight in the nearness of God.' But they are not sincere. They want God to intervene for them with righteous judgments, because things are not going well, as we will see in a moment. But they do not see the real problem. They love to come to worship. They talk the language of the nearness of God. They may even have moving religious and aesthetic experiences in their efforts to draw near to God. But something is wrong. ... The danger is that we will subtly slip from loving God in these moments into loving loving God. ... we begin to savor not the glory of God but the atmosphere created by worship." – pgs. 132-133
"The ethical, practical, relational accompaniments of fasting are the real test of the authenticity of the fasting. God lists the external religious forms of fasting: humbling or afflicting oneself (no food), bowing the head like a reed, spreading out sackcloth and ashes. Then he lists the (un)ethical accompaniments of fasting: you go after your own pleasure (in some other ways besides eating), you drive hard all your workers; you become irritable or contentious and stir up strife, and you even go so far as to get into fights. And God asks, 'Is this the fast that I choose?' The answer is No. ... we need to ponder these things. Hypocrisy is a terrible blight on the worship of God. Let us take to heart the long-term implications for worship in our lives and in our churches. No worship – no preaching, no singing, no praying, no fasting, however intense or beautiful – that leaves us harsh with our workers on Monday, or contentious with our spouses at home, or self-indulgent in other areas of our lives, or angry enough to hit somebody, is true, God-pleasing worship. Don't make a mistake here: true fasting may be a God-blessed means of overcoming harshness at work, and contentiousness at home, and self-indulgence and anger. But if fasting ever becomes a religious cloak for minimizing those things and letting them go on and on, then it becomes hypocrisy and offensive to God. " – pgs. 134-135
"Woe to the fasting that leaves sin in our lives untouched. The only authentic fasting is fasting that includes a spiritual attack against our own sin. Is our fasting really a hunger for God? We test whether it is by whether we are hungering for our own holiness. To want God is to hate sin. For God is holy, and we cannot love him and love sin. Fasting that is not aimed at starving sin while feasting on God is self-deluded. It is not really God that we hunger for in such fasting. The hunger of fasting is a hunger for God, and the test of that hunger is whether it includes a hunger for holiness. If there is an unresolved pocket of sin in our life and we are fasting, instead, about something else, God is going to come to us and say, 'The fast that I choose is for that sin to be starved to death.' The way he does that in Isaiah 58 is very striking." – pg. 136
"Fasting in America and other prosperous western nations is almost incomprehensible because we are brainwashed by a consumer culture. We are taught to experience the good life by consuming, not be renouncing consumption. As Rodney Clapp puts it, 'The consumer is schooled in insatiability. ... The consumer is tutored that people basically consist of unmet needs that can be appeased by commodified goods and experiences. Accordingly, the consumer should think first and foremost of himself or herself and meeting his or her felt needs.' That it might be more blessed to give rather than to receive (Acts 20:35) is almost inconceivable. ... Against this backdrop of the pervasive contemporary American consumerism, the fasting of Isaiah 58 begins to have a sharper point. That a lifestyle of serving the poor rather than consuming another commodity should be called a 'fast' is not so strange after all. Most of our life is a gorging of one artificially inflamed appetite after another. Any alteration of this pattern for the sake of ministry is a 'fast' – and one that would please God ... " – pg. 137, 139
"Isaiah 30:15 says, 'For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said, 'In repentance and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength.' The strength to do what God calls us to do does not come from us. It comes from God, and it comes through trusting him." – pg. 140
"In Isaiah 58:6-12, God prescribes that we set people free; that we feed the hungry; that we house the homeless; that we clothe the naked; that we be sympathetic, that we feel what others feel because we have the same flesh they do; and that we put away gestures and words that show a raw contempt for other people. ... Oh, how easy it is to become fed up with the arrogant poor! The fast God prescribes for us is to renounce such an attitude and go without it. This is not easy. I used to think that living among the poor would sensitize us to the need and break our hearts. It is not that simple. It can have exactly the opposite effect. It can make you hard and caustic and jaundiced. The pleasures of 'eating' such cynicism are tragically sweet. From this we must fast. ... The Lord prescribes that we not just give food, but give ourselves – and not just to satisfy the stomach of the poor, but the soul of the afflicted. ... ministry to the poor is not merely giving things. It is giving self. It's not just relief. It's relationship." – pgs. 141-148
"It is one of God's many paradoxes that there is more light in the dark places of the world for those who go there to serve. And there is more darkness in the glitz of the great cities for those who go there to escape. Jesus is the Light of the world. Living near him is the brightest place in the universe. To find out where he lives, read the Gospels and follow his path. ... (In Isaiah 58:6-12, the text says) If you want the clouds to roll back, start pouring out your life for other people. Maybe you're way too ingrown as a person, or a church or a small group or a family. Maybe your family has become so self-focused, nobody ever comes over. You don't know any of your neighbors. There's no family ministry. And you wonder why there's a cloud over the family. Take this promise in Isaiah 58:6-12, and pray hard about the gloom and light factor in your life, and see whether there's a prescription here for you – not a job description to earn anything, but a doctor's prescription from a Physician who loves you and wants you free from gloom. He wants light on you, and he knows the path that leads to brightness. ... Who knows how much weakness is in us individually and in the church corporately because we are not pouring our energy into the weakness of others? ... We are made to mediate the glory of God's grace to others. ... When we are busy doing what Jesus did, namely 'become poor that others might become rich' (2 Corinthians 8:9), and doing it 'in the power that God supplies' (1 Peter 4:11), then God moves in behind us and in front of us and surrounds us with omnipotent love and help and protection and care. ... God intends for us to call on him to help us because we are giving our lives to spread a passion for his supremacy in all things for the joy of all peoples. Prayer is not for the enhancement of our comforts but for the advancement of Christ's kingdom. When Isaiah 58:9 says, 'Then you will call, and the Lord will answer, 'then' refers back to verse 7. When? 'Then' – namely, when you join the forces to love to minister to those without food, shelter, and clothing. This is when the Lord will hear the wartime walkie-talkie and answer. He has very special frequencies apportioned to the territories of high-risk love." – pgs. 148-150
"God promises to guide us continually. 'And the Lord will continually guide you' (Isaiah 58:11). Oh, what a precious promise this is for us in the perplexities of life and ministry! I wonder how much confusion and uncertainty in our lives come form the neglect of ministry to the poor? It seems the Lord gives his most intimate guidance to those bent on giving themselves to the needs of others – especially the poor. The guidance of God is not meant for the bright paths of the garden of ease, but for the dark places of pain where we have few answers and paths have never been cut. How many times in the pastoral ministry have I been called to come to a crisis, as I go I say, 'Lord, I don't know what the solution is here. Help me. Please grant me your guidance. Bring to my mind what would be most helpful.' Again and again he has answered. Make yourself available, even for situations of need beyond your ability, and 'the Lord will continually guide you.' God will satisfy your soul. 'And (he will) satisfy your desire (your soul) in scorched places' (Isaiah 58:11). Our souls are meant to be satisfied in God. But we have learned again and again that this satisfaction in God comes to consummation when we extend our satisfaction in him to others. Pouring ourselves out for the poor is the path of deepest satisfaction. And note that this will come 'in scorched places.' In other words, in the service of others, your soul will become less and less dependent on external circumstances for satisfaction. More and more you will be able to say with the psalmist in Psalm 73:25-26 'Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And besides Thee, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.' God will make you a watered garden with springs that do not fail. 'And you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail' (Isaiah 58:11). ... there in one verse what we all need and want – both being watered and the power to water others: 'a watered garden' and 'a spring of water.' It is a pardoxical spiritual principle in Scripture: as you pour yourself out, you become full. As you give away, you get more. ... We can only stay green and useful for others if there is, as it were, a spring in our soul. And what is that? This promise comes to its fulfillment in the New Testament through what Jesus revealed in John 7:38, 'He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water' (a spring of waters that does not fail). But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive.' In other words, trusting in Jesus for all we need is the opening of the spring of the Spirit's power. And he bestirs himself more fully when, by faith, we spend ourselves in the path of love for the sake of the perishing and the poor. If we give ourselves to the poor, God will restore the ruins of his city – and his people. 'And those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will raise up the age-old foundations; and you will be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the streets in which to dwell' (Isaiah 58:12). How many ruined things may be repaired by the fasting of God's people for the sake of the poor! Who knows what miseries, what dysfunctions, what breaches, what afflictions and oppressions may be healed and restored by the beautiful fasting of Isaiah 58! Our is not to predict what the city or the church or the family or society might look like. Ours is to trust and obey." – pgs. 151-153
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