Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:1-3
“Everyone knows that fasting is a different experience from missing your dinner by accident or through poverty. Fasting asserts the will against the appetite — the reward being self-mastery and the danger pride: involuntary hunger subjects appetite and will together to the Divine will, furnishing occasion for submission and exposing us to the danger of rebellion. But the redemptive effect of suffering lies chiefly in its tendency to reduce the rebel will. Ascetic practices, which in themselves strengthen the will, are only useful in so far as they enable the will to put its own house (the passions) in order, as a preparation for offering the whole man to God. They are necessary as a means; as an end, they would be abominable, or in substituting will for appetite and there stopping, they would merely exchange the animal self for the diabolical self.”
C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996) 112-113.
As you fast this Lent to create bandwidth for giving and sharing, shift your focus from earthly things to heavenly things. Set aside cravings associated with your “animal self” as Lewis describes it, but don’t become your “diabolical self” in the process. Avoid the trap of pride. Fasting is not about you.
An outcome of fasting is self-mastery or self-control, which is a fruit of the Spirit’s work in us (cf. Galatians 5:22-23). Allow fasting to “reduce the rebel will” in you and help you put your own house in order. Set your hearts and minds on things above so the Spirit can shine generously through you.