Day 15: Chicken biscuits and coffee

I will admit that I am really lousy at fasting. Even in high school I couldn’t even do the 30-Hour Famine without cheating. (School pizza gets me every time.) So, when Jeff Henderson blogged that he wanted all of us to do a 21-day fast for the 300,000 people in and around Buckhead that still do not know Christ, I immediately said, “That’s not for me.” Then I watched the video Jeff made and I decided right away I was going to fast from something and really do it.

I decided that I would fast from two of my favorite things in the world: fried food and caffeine. These two things are just a part of my life. I love getting a Chick-fil-A chicken biscuit every Friday as a treat on the last day of the work week and I especially love my coffee in the mornings.

I immediately noticed that when you fast from something really enjoyable you think about why you are fasting…A LOT! I find myself thinking about those 300,000 people that live all around me in Buckhead and I wonder if they have a clue that I gave up my coffee and chicken biscuit for them. I find myself thinking about our campus pastor, Jeff Henderson and what great vision and courage he displayed in challenging us to undertake this fasting experience. I find myself thinking about my wife and praying for her as she is also participating in the fast.

My thoughts over these first several days, I think, are the point of this fast. A fast jars your spirit and it disrupts your daily routine. It causes you to focus on the 300,000 people out there in Buckhead that probably have no clue that there are hundreds of people giving up sweets, television, food, soda, or the internet on their behalf this month. They walk beside us at Publix, drive by us in the parking lot at Lenox Mall, and give a wave when we let them merge onto 400 after work. We are fasting for them.

One of the most interesting things that I thought was that Jesus Christ did much the same for us. He knew that we needed him before we were born. He sacrificed his life on our behalf before we decided to love him. He chose to jar his own spirit and disrupt his life for us. At Jesus’ last supper with his disciples, they broke bread and drank wine and he said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” I cannot help but wonder as he served the bread and the wine if he began to look around at his disciples thinking, “I am making this sacrifice for you.” As he hung from the cross looking at the Roman soldiers he thought, “I am making this sacrifice for you.” And as we go about our daily lives he thinks, “I made that sacrifice for you.”

I began to think about Jesus’ sacrifice for those 300,000 and how insignificant my sacrifice of chicken biscuits and coffee are in comparison to that sacrifice. If Jesus can sacrifice his life for those 300,000 people, I can make it 21 days without biscuits and coffee and I can be intentional to reach them.

Austin Lee