Confounded by Fast

As some of you know I chose to give up sugar for the season of lent. Sweet sugary things like candy, cakes, cookies(kryptonite) soda, etc... anything with large amount of sugar or corn syrupy stuff. A daunting task I might say and started out great but it is drawing to an end in a very disappointing fashion. Primarily because I think I forgot why I am doing it.

I have not broken the sugar fast, even after my wife made chocolate peanut butter bars for the fine people that god to our Wallenpaupack church service. But still where I am I feel I have failed in a way.

My primary reason for starting this fast in the first place was to replace my desire for sweeties with a desire for God. And it started out great. When I would face the temptation I would turn to my God and seek him, dig into his word and devour it like I would a Shamrock Shake. But now I find myself in a much different place. Instead of seeking God in my times of temptation I seek solace in the fact that Easter is only four days away and I will be able to eat whatever is in front of me.

This is the beauty of grace.

My pious actions do not gauge my salvation. My fasting may be a good measure of devotion to God, but it will not get me to heaven. I could eat a chocolate bar today and God would not reject me. Because the fact is, I devour that which would kill me daily. I fall short, trip, stumble, fall, backslide...separate myself from God in my daily life.

But God reaches out, he has reached out through his son. There is no cosmic scale on which my sins are weighed with my good deeds. There is only grace. An undeserved forgiveness for the times I have fallen short. I don't know that i could ever fully realized the value of that forgiveness. But I know that a long time ago a God-Man died so that I might have life.

I'll carry my fast through, and by grace I can refocus and start again with a clear mind about the whole deal. Because grace allows me to start fresh every time.