Fasting is hard. There are so many stops and restarts before I can hit the rhythm in stride. It is not the physical appetite that breaks it up. No, it is the crashing of waves of the emotions involved, fears and comforts. Even when I seclude myself, I am affected by doubt and long to have the wisdom to do the right thing. But the thing that I find in work in me is that the mask I try to remove does not want to fast, while my true identity longs to engage deep into a fast: explore the soul; read the books of my spiritual forefathers—or my actual forefather August Hermann Francke; and become what Tim McGraw sings, "a friend a friend would like to have." Thus, I am faced with two options:

1. Stay safe where I am with the full panoply of what that means to reject the call and remain caged behind the mask. Just passively let things happen.
2. Choose to step out. Take a risk.

The second option seems obvious, right? With our tub of popcorn at the the movie theater, we want the protagonist of the movie to do just that. But, I am no blue-eyed, flowing blonde locks hero sealed into the schema of an adventure genre—or am I? Ephesians 1:11–14 I have lost so much, whether it was the death of my father when I was 25 and later, my mother when I was 36; or a fundamental disagreement where I have lost my sister and her family; or all of those people who I left behind or left me; or those friends lost down the corridors of time or by paradigm shifts. I will look deep into the night sky and love them all as the people I once knew or I will go out on a night drive and wonder if they are just beyond the reach of the headlight beams. I ache. And I know that I am taking such a short vision with respect to all of eternity. But, I still feel the ache. I know you do, too. When we strip away our go-to comforts, there is no escape. So what will I do?

It is funny: with all the investment we put into titles, whether careers and/or education, those things do not matter. For all that we care about what the letters are after our name or what is within our email signature or affixed to our office door, it matters to no one else. Is that where we find our identity? We sell ourselves far too short with these mud pies.

The miserable ruin, into which the rebellion of the first man cast us, especially compels us to look upward. Thus, not only will we, in fasting and hungering, seek thence what we lack; but, in being aroused by fear, we shall learn humility.

John Calvin