Break Every Yoke - The Law of the Fast

Fasting has always been one of those commandments that I never really understood the purpose of until recently.  I mean, I know all the things that they say in sunday school about fasting with a purpose and growing closer to God and calling down blessings for others, and I know that there is the practical part of fasting where we give the money we save as a fast offering, and I have heard people talk of the side benefit that it is healthy to hold an occasional fast, but it still always seemed a bit odd to me that God would ask us to give up food for 24 hours.  It seemed kind of unrelated to the spiritual blessings we would hope to receive from it.  Here, however, are my recent thoughts:

For the past three years almost, I have been either pregnant or nursing, and have thus been exempt from the typical rules of the fast.  Consequently, it is a commandment that I have not thought much about for some time.  A few months ago, however, I was attending the Gospel Principles class in our ward, and the lesson happened to be on fasting.  I don’t really remember what was said, but I remember feeling very strongly that there were blessings I was missing out on because I had been neglecting this commandment.  I was having some personal and family issues at the time, and it just struck me that there were a lot of tools that Lord had given me to solve problems in my life that I was not taking advantage of.  So despite the fact that I was still nursing at this time, I decided I was going to hold a fast .  I held my fast, and I didn’t necessarily see any concrete results, except that I felt like God approved.

More recently, I have been studying and thinking about the subject of addiction.  We live in a world where moderation is a fleeting idea.  We spend hours with our electronic devices, we eat whatever we want and as much of it as we want, be overspend and go into debt, and pernicious addictions to drugs, alcohol, and pornography are everywhere.  It just seems sometimes, that we have no sense of self-denial.  I believe that God wants us to be happy, and that he is happy when he find joy in good things, I do not believe in self-denial for self-denial’s sake, but I do believe that God expects us to be wise with the resources he has given us, including our health, money, and time, and that wisdom relies on the principle of moderation.  The problem with moderation is that the line between okay and too much is not clearly defined, and so it is often easy to rationalize our over consumptions.  Of course some things, such as drugs and pornography have a clearly set line off zero tolerance, but as we ignore the principle of moderation and allow ourselves whatever we want, even things that should be off limits altogether become hard to deny ourselves.  I believe that God gave us the law of the fast as a tool to help us learn and practice the principles of moderation and self-denial in our lives.  By taking something that every human being has a desire and need for, and asking us to practice purposeful self-denial, God gives us an opportunity to develop self control and remember that desires and appetites are to be kept within the bounds that the Lord has set.  I strongly believe that whatever struggles with moderation or self-denial that you may have, the law of the fast will give you an added measure of self-control and spiritual strength to overcome them.  If you have a spending problem, fast.  If you have an addiction to pornography, drugs, or alcohol, fast.  If you spend too much time with your video games or facebook account, fast.  If you have an eating problem, fast.  The Lord will bless you as you show him that you are willing to sacrifice by obeying the law of the fast, and you will find that your life has greater balance, and that you are healthier in body, mind, and spirit.  

Additionally, the fast can increase charity in our lives and help us to become more unified.  The times when fasting has meant the most to me have been those times when I have fasted with family and friends for the sake of a loved one going through one trial or another.  I felt a great sense of unity as we joined together in purposeful fasting, and I believe that it pleases God and brings down great blessings when we unite together in a righteous cause.  Furthermore, as we give up food, we become united with the poor and the needy, and those who have not, we cast our lot in with theirs, and our minds and hearts turn to those of our brethren and sisters who suffer.  A fast offering then becomes a willing and joyful sacrifice as we give of our substance to help them.  

I asked my father-in-law recently what his thoughts on the purpose of the fast were, and he had many similar thoughts about overcoming/avoiding addiction and vice and directed me to Isaiah 58.  I love this entire chapter, it is a wonderful passage about the blessings of the fast, and additionally about the blessings of keeping the sabbath day holy, which is another law that helps us to practice self-restraint and consecration.  Isaiah 58:6 states “Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?”  I know that as we practice the law of the fast, our lives will become more free as we “break every yoke” and so will the lives of those around us as we join with the Lord in “undo(ing) the heavy burdens” of the poor and the needy. I know that the fast was given for both the temporal and spiritual well being of God’s children, and that it has blessings associated with it that we will only become aware of as we practice it.

A Note on Individual Worth

You are not valuable because you can do things that others can’t do, but because you do do things that others don’t do.   Today I was in a parenting class where they talked about a study in which certain children were praised for their intelligence and others were praised for their effort.  The children who were praised for intelligence were less likely to take risks and try things that might be difficult because they were afraid of failure, whereas the students who were praised for effort were more likely to be persistent, and to try challenging tasks.  In this class we have talked a lot about giving children a sense of power.  Resilient children are ones that feel they have power over themselves and their lives.  We can give them this sense of power by giving them choices and responsibility, and allowing them to be autonomous and make mistakes.  Today’s particular class was about how to healthily praise your child, and it occurred to me that this idea of power also applies to praise.  Praising things that your child has control over such as effort, increases your child's sense of power because you are praising something that they can work on and change, whereas praising something that we tend to think of as inherent such as intelligence makes them feel as though their worth is dependent on an uncontrollable factor, and that if they were to lose this thing, or if it were proven to be untrue, or if, heaven forbid, someone else were more intelligent, or musically gifted, or athletic, then their foundation of self worth is compromised. We need to help people understand that their worth is not based on their talents or skills, but rather, what they do with those talents and skills.

Welcome Dear Friends

My best friend Sara has been trying to get me to keep a blog for sometime now.  I've resisted because I l really like paper.  I like being able to draw things or tape things, or color things.  I know, I know, you can draw and post and color a wide variety of things on a blog too.  It doesn't change the fact that paper is just more personal.  Every year, however, I have this dilemma about journal keeping.  Being more diligent in my journal keeping is a faithfully made, if not faithfully kept goal.  I make plans for scripture journals, gratitude journals, general journals about my life.  I start them and am diligent for about  month before my resolve dies and my journals join my running shoes and my unwritten birthday cards as just another momento of my unkept New Year's resolutions. The funny part is that I get a new one every year because I feel like a fresh start deserves a fresh journal. Consequently I have many journals of well chronicled Januaries which is unfortunate since everyone knows that January is the longest and most depressing month of the year.  In the hopes of chronicling some Junes, Julys and Augusts, I have decided to keep this blog, because, while paper is more personal, typing is more efficient.  I still have a paper journal of letters that I write to my baby girl, because I'm sentimental like that, but this will act as a more general chronicle of my life.
  The title for my blog comes from a series of musings I have had since having a baby last June.  Parenting being a new thing to me and all, I have tried to pin point exactly what it's all about.  At one point I decided that being a parent is all about carrying things.  Later I decided it's all about learning to do things one handed.  It's about learning to live on limited sleep, it's about losing your sense of sanitation, it's about learning to do everything while making silly faces and singing silly songs.  Of course it's really about many things chief among them being patience, sacrifice,  and love, but through all of it, I have found myself refining one very important skill.  I am convinced that successful parents and successful people are the ones who learn how to improvise.  Parenting puts a person in to some pretty messy situations, in fact, lets face it, life in general puts people into a lot of messy situations, and the sooner a person learns to take what they're given and go with it, the sooner they will find joy, contentment, and success. Our sticky situations become humorous, meeting life's challenges becomes a game, and we find ourselves enjoying the large majority of our days.  So to heck with perfection, and to heck with embarrassment, and here's to the improvisational life!