Empty Hands

There is an old spiritual practice that most of us have quietly set aside.

Fasting.

It can sound remote, even a little severe. But here is what it actually is: an act of honesty.

When you set something down — food, news, social media, your phone, whatever has a quiet grip on you — something interesting happens. You feel the pull. The restlessness. The anxiety. And that feeling is information. It tells you something true about what you've been leaning on, what you've been using to manage your fear or fill your loneliness or avoid something you'd rather not feel.

A friend of mine was completely undone — overwhelmed by everything happening in the world, unable to sleep. He decided to fast from cable news for three weeks. And it totally worked. He began to feel better. He slept better. Not because the problems went away. But because he stopped feeding the anxiety. He created some space. And in that space, he could think. He could pray. He could breathe.

That's what fasting does. It doesn't solve our problems. It loosens the grip of the things that have quietly gotten a grip on us. It clears some room. And in that room, something else becomes possible.

Augustine said: God is always trying to give good things to us. But our hands are too full to receive them.

So here is an invitation. Just one day. Pick one thing that has a hold on you and set it down. And when you feel the pull — and you will — don't white-knuckle through it. Get curious instead. Ask yourself:

What am I actually hungry for right now?

Meaning? Connection? Peace? A sense that things are going to be okay?

And then bring that hunger to God. That's what Jesus did in the wilderness. He didn't turn the stones to bread. He brought his hunger to his Father. And he came out of that wilderness with clarity, with purpose, with power.

That's available to us too. Not just as a concept. As an experience.

Prayer: Lord, in the emptying, may we discover what we most deeply long for. And may we find — maybe for the first time in a while — that you have been there all along, waiting for our hands to be empty enough to receive you. Amen.

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