Good Grief

And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail (Isaiah 58:11).

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst" (John 6:35).

**Author's note: The following post may contain caffeine-deprived drivel. Proceed with caution.**

I'm doing a 21-day fast of coffee and sweets.

Those of you who know me are having a heart attack right now. Never thought you'd see the day, huh?

Well, just so you know, I am not doing it to be healthier, so put those fears aside. It's really a mental fast more than anything. (If I stare blankly into space, don't blame me, blame Jesus. As a matter of fact, you can pretty much blame Him for any positive change that has ever occurred in my life. Ever. It's all His fault.)

Did you know that most online impulse buying happens between 9 and 10 pm? If you're surprised by that, you shouldn't be. When we're tired and feel like our day has gone wrong, we want a quick fix. At night, when we are programmed to seek intimacy and fellowship, we turn instead to the sterile glow of our computer screens.

Why? Because it's easier.

In the morning, it's a lot easier for me to pour a big cup of warm, sugary caffeine (mmmm....) to rev up my day than actually sit still in the presence of God and wait (patience, ugh) to hear what He has to say to me. At night, when I should be pleased to spend my last waking moments with the King of the Universe, I text my friends, because that requires less emotional energy than interacting with God (or even calling anyone on the phone, for that matter). When I feel tired, I know just how to manipulate my body's energy level with candy. When I'm angry, I shovel cookies out of spite instead of looking at the situation with perspective.

You see where I'm going with this. Fasting isn't an issue of willpower or health or religion. It's an issue of the heart. (Check out Isaiah 58 if you don't believe me.)

The pastor of my old church likes to use the term "false refuge" to describe those things that are easy, low-investment-high-return, and instantly gratifying. Emotional drugs. Like Oreos. Build-A-Bear Workshops. Vegging out to emo music. Leaning on your friends' affirmation and approval. They're the places we go when we feel down on ourselves, when we feel depressed or lonely, or we simply feel tired.

They're the places we go instead of going to Jesus to get splashed in the face with the ice-cold, refreshing living water of truth.

False refuge is false hope.

You knew some scripture was coming. Roll it:

We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 6:19-20).

Hope is the reason you get up every day.

What's your hope? Graduation day? Your future spouse? Key lime pie? Running a marathon? Your daily Coke can? That vacation? That friendship? Or even gratification of a sinful desire? Fill in the blank: "I really could make it if I just had _________ to look forward to...."

Let me tell you, my friend: we have a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. His name is not Caramel Macchiato. It's Jesus Christ.

Am I challenging you? Do you want to punch me in the face right now? Good. I hope I am challenging you. And I don't mind if you want to punch me in the face, since we have a nice cushion of cyberspace between us.

Several years ago, I went through a phase of serious doubt about God's existence and goodness. I was severely depressed, and I remember thinking that, if God wasn't real--if this eternal hope wasn't mine after all--I would rather just go ahead and die.

Because I came through that, circling back into relationship with Him, I know in Whom I hope. I am firmly resolved that He is the reason I wake up in the morning, and I will never swerve from that. But sometimes, other things try to distract me from my eternal hope. They seek to convince me that they are the reason I wake up every day. Things as small as a cup of coffee, or as impactful as close friendships.

One of my very, very best friends left the country this week. She'll be gone for a year. I used to seek refuge in her friendship, as well as the friendships and ministries that surrounded me in Virginia. But God told me He had bigger things in store than me just staying where I was with the people I was around.

In fact, He told me He had bigger things in store than me just staying me.

Now I'm coming around to the real point I'm trying to make.

When we live with the Holy Spirit, we live with the daily surrender of our hopes (as defined by the world or our experience or simply our physical desires) for the awesomeness of His reality.

So I had to grieve my friendship. I had to grieve the good times that I won't get to have with her this year, the fact that she will miss big parts of my life, even the ability to communicate with her at all for certain lengths of time. I had to go through some grief about my past year of life at large, the things I loved that I had to leave behind in my pursuit of obedience to Him.

But grief is never about what you lost, because the good things will always be in your memory. You can't lose those. Grief is about what you will never get to have.

At our basest, we grieve the sinful pleasures that we don't get to use to satisfy our flesh. But once you wake up and smell the coffee (or not, in my case), you realize that those things weren't so great to begin with; and then you begin to grieve even "good" idols: ministry dreams, godly relationships, marriage, even material blessings. It's not that we don't get to have those things. It's that we don't get to put them before God Himself. We don't get to place our hope in them, which is a painful thing to realize.

And He doesn't stop there.

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24)

We must continually surrender not just "what we want," but who we are. As Spirit-filled followers of Christ, we are always in the process of grief. Grief for a dead person. And the dead person is YOU.

Before you go nuts, let me say that God doesn't seek to destroy you or dishonor you. He made you! He does not seek to take away our dreams. He is the one who plants dreams in our hearts. No, He's after something bigger than our dreams: ourselves. He's out to change our focus to the only thing that never changes (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17) and that always satisfies (Psalm 107:9, Psalm 145:16): Himself.

So, whether I feel it at 5:30 a.m. or not, my coffee fast is kingdom business. Although it doesn't seem like a big thing, turning away from the candy bars in the vending machine at work changes my heart, bit by bit. I can't hope in my next moment of instant gratification. God won't let me settle for that. He's much too big.

So I'm not fasting just to fast, picking an arbitrary luxury to cut out of my life because my pastor asked me to do it for 21 days. If that's what you do when you fast, it's kind of pointless. It doesn't matter that you fast, but what you fast. It wouldn't help me to fast Facebook, since I rarely get on, or Chicken McNuggets, since I don't eat those. But it will help me to fast the things I run to for false refuge when I should be snuggling close to God.

I'm fasting to get closer to my Father. I am seeking to remove the option of doing anything but that.

I haven't seen any angels or had any visions (yet), but already (this is day #5) I have been astounded at both my own inability to cope with exhaustion (went to bed at 9:30 last night, holla!)...and His ability to sustain me in spite of myself.

Wow--the One who made the universe can give me strength, joy, and peace. What a shocker.

I won't say I haven't grieved. But the sugar and coffee grief is light (and mostly consists of me falling asleep). In the case of the forced fast of my close friendships, I have experienced the deep pain of loss. I know that the friendships I left behind when I moved will never be the same as they were. My relationship with my world-traveling friend will, of course, never be quite the same.

But that's because we will all change, for the better.

When God performs a coup d'etat on our hearts and dethrones the old, dead false hopes that have tried to reign there, we feel chaotic and sad; but when it's all over (sooner rather than later...#psalms30:5), what we receive in return is His living hope (1 Peter 1:3).

We receive Jesus, the bread of life. Chew on THAT!

In the Christian life, it's NEVER loss. It's exchange. We're going higher. If you open your hand to drop what's in it, you can reach up toward the face of the One who gives you life.

The Christian life is constant movement from grief to grace. That is the beautiful gift He gives us in His Son, Jesus Christ.

"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in rich food" (Isaiah 55:1-2).