These lines from Isaiah 58 struck me a few weeks ago at Evensong: the Lord is not impressed with the showy fasting undertaken as a means to obtain the Lord’s favour and that does not alter the desires of those who fast.They still seek their own will, rather than the Lord’s. The Lord chooses another kind of fast, a fast that touches the heart of the penitent, a fast that draws them near to the hungry, the naked, and ‘the homeless poor’. Fasting is not an end unto itself. Doing without for the sake of doing without is useless, a feat of the will of the person who abstains. This Lent I will keep Isaiah 58 close at hand always, and try to remember the feast the Lord chooses.

This Lent I know I will not do perfectly. My daily posts will not be perfect–nor, it seems likely, daily. Fasting might make me irritable. I may look past those I ought to notice, grumble when I’d rather not abstain, and make excuses for myself. I will be tempted to give up on the things I have set out to do. But two things occurred to me this morning as I struggled through breakfast time without having anything to eat. First, it is bound to be awful sometimes. What sets Lent apart is that we choose to endure some awfulness for the sake of obedience to Christ. Second, the feeling that I can’t possibly do what I have set out to do is natural, appropriate, and true. I cannot, of my own strength and volition, maintain the Lenten discipline I have chosen. If I could, it would be a triumph of my will–not the fast the Lord chooses. If I succeed today, this week, or this season, it will be grace abounding in weakness, not an achievement of my own.