Fasting

Winter Holiday: The Final Installment

I would love to say that we had lots of adventures in Vietnam, but it wasn't so.  Aside from the projectile puking incident, the no-rooms-in-the-whole-city-where-are-we-gonna-sleep-tonight incident, and the mohawked Eastern European with the escape-artist cow, it was very relaxed.  We spent two weeks on the beach.  Connor played in the sand and water, made friends with some kids straight out of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang beach scene, and followed several big dogs around, giggling his head off.  We ate fresh seafood, had fresh fruit smoothies with every meal, and rode on a motorcycle, Vietnamese-style.
But mostly, we rested.  After a solid month of cramming a ridiculously difficult language in our heads, we were more than ready to do absolutely nothing.  So that's what we did.
And then we headed up to Beijing for Workshop.  A couple of my favorite speakers were there (shout out to John King and Mark Hooper!) who never fail to make a point or two that twists my heart and makes me rethink something.  Sigh.  A painful process, but great benefits.
This year, the two things that I took away and mulled over were about time management and fasting. 
Time:  it's a simple concept, but one that makes me wince.  If I say that I don't have enough time to do something spiritually important, what am I doing with my time that needs to take a backseat?  Example: facebook.  If I'm a religious facebook-checker but not a dedicated pray-er or meditate-er, my priorities are a tad screwed up.  Nothing wrong with facebook, but it's a matter of what comes first -- and if something is higher up than my Lord on my list, that could get us into a whole idolatry discussion...  I digress.  The point is, ouch.
So, I'm giving up guitar.  Been learning for the past year or so, but that's 30 minutes a day that could be better spent.  It's sad.  But necessary.  
And then we talked about fasting.  Traditionally, it's time spent without food, focusing on the Lord instead.  However, you can broaden it -- taking something "good" (not bad, not evil, not wrong, something harmless) out of your life for a period of time and using that time to focus on Him.  So, Justin and I talked about it and decided that we would spend one week a month TV-less.  We have just completed our first week of TV fasting.  It's been wonderful.
I'm not going to stand on a soapbox and tell you that TV is evil, the media is out to get you, and you should avoid all exposure to it.  I will tell you, though, that a TV-free week has given us more time as a family than we'd thought.  We had no idea how much that thing is turned on in the course of a day.  We've spent much more family time together and listened to the Bible on CD instead of watching an episode of NCIS or Top Chef every day.  Connor usually gets about 30 minutes of TV a day, which we figured was low compared to many children.  He usually asks for a show mid-morning and is antsy until he gets it.  After the first couple of days this week, he stopped asking.  Instead, we got plied with book request after book request -- Llama Llama Red Pajama, Gordon and LiLi speak Mandarin, Thomas the Tank Engine, Dr Seuss, Sandra Boynton...the list is endless.
Needless to say, this week has challenged our lifestyle quite a bit and made us rethink a few things.  I remember one time when I was maybe 11 or 12, my family did a month or so of no TV -- and it was great.  We kids balked at it, sure that our lives would end, but there were more family games in the evenings, puzzles to put together (and heaven help you if you put in the last piece on a section someone else had been slaving over, you credit-hog!) and books to read. 
I'm rambling now, a sure sign that it's time to end this post.  I just wanted to share the benefits of our week of fasting -- we are closer to God and closer as a family.  I highly recommend it, at least as an experiment.  I betcha you'll like it.
Blessings!