I don’t normally fast for Lent because something in me — the slightly rebellious side, probably — doesn’t like doing something simply because it’s the religious trend or because I feel like I have to do it. I know that it's something God tells us to do in the Bible but I want to make sure it's with the right intentions and, until this past Easter, my heart wasn't ready to commit to it.
I don’t want my relationship with God to feel forced or pressured to be a certain way. I want to make sure that if I fast, I’m doing it for the right reasons. I found something to fast from that would drastically affect my daily life and was definitely not something I would choose just on a whim.
I don't want it to seem like I think that those who fast for Lent every year are not doing it for the right reasons, or that by fasting they are giving in to social pressure. I’m not in any position to assume anything about anyone else’s heart and I can only be accountable for my own.
Lent can make me get so caught up in comparisons between my fast and others' fasts, how dedicated we are to our fasts, how long we are able to go for … the list goes on.
I can’t stand myself when I get that way because I just want it to be about Jesus. He is the most important part of my life. I need Him to be the one urging me to fast otherwise my fast becomes purposeless and just another diet. If I’m going to care for my spiritual well-being I need to spend more time on my relationship with God.
One activity that really submerges me in God’s presence is surfing. I find freedom in the transference of energy from the ocean to my surfboard and then to me. It reminds me of the freedom I find when I let God take over the course of my life. I find wonder in gliding on the surface of the water, knowing I could pass right through but for a while, it allows me to glide along and I am reminded of the wonderment of a God so powerful and great, yet so loving that I would be allowed to have a relationship with Him. I find joy in staring at the beauty of the meeting place of sea and sky and not being able to tell where it ends. It is the same joy found in the fact that I can never comprehend the fullness of God but that I get to experience the fullness of His goodness nonetheless.
I wonder if Peter felt any of these things when he walked on water for a few moments (Matthew 14:22-32). I find so much peace in being completely surrounded and suspended by an element so foreign and mysterious yet so tangible and personal. And as I'm writing these things, I realize the same should be said of God, but to an exponentially greater degree....
So, despite it's positive presence in my life, I decided to fast from surfing because I felt it was becoming more of a distraction from God than the enhancement it had been in the beginning.
I had been noticing how much surfing dominated my free time, conversations and thoughts. Surfing in itself is a wonderful, rejuvenating lifestyle, but it is not the ultimate goal of my existence. It had become such an item of focus in my life that it was clouding my view of Jesus. Just like the effects of that fog that rolls in off the ocean in the mornings and afternoons, having a cloudy view of Jesus could mean a disastrous life-collision just waiting to happen.
All those qualities that I found and valued in the ocean and my experiences surfing are fully present in my relationship with Jesus. Not only are they matched, they are exceeded. Yet still I wasted those observations...squandering my time on surfing rather than spending it with Him. I was settling for partial freedom, joy and peace instead of the completeness and fullness that I could be experiencing with Christ.
I know God is present in the sport of surfing. I can see His power in the surging in the waves and see his grace in the hearts of surfers. But sometimes too much of a good thing can become a bad thing when it starts to take precedence over the things that matter most. Instead of being a beneficial accessory to life, those things can become a whirlpool, sucking you deep into darkness where the aspects of creation that mirror the Creator are made to be substitutes for Him and end up becoming a worthless shadow when it could have been a valuable addition.
For lent in 2014, I decided to temporarily remove the wave-shaped shadows in my life so I could give Jesus my full attention. If I could surf all day every day, I would, so it kind of sucked, but it was also really, truly freeing and one of the most beautiful, flourishing months of my life. I was starting to beome a slave to the waves, and then Jesus set me free to enjoy them the right way...In the context of my infatuation with HIM.
There are still a lot of other things clamoring for my attention and I may even need to fast from surfing again. I’m not looking for balance between my relationship with God and the things that I enjoy, I want Jesus to take precedence in my life above all other things. Surfing was simply the easist to target. Regardless of how good certain activities might be, they can never be greater than Him.
The creation could never out-do the Creator.