My dad used to tell a joke: ”At breakfast, the chicken was involved, but the pig … HE was committed!”

Are you a chicken or a pig? Do you like to write a check or get your hands dirty? Honestly, I used to be a “chicken.” I would be “involved” as long as I didn’t really have to do anything too personal.

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But now, I can, by God’s grace, say I am a delightfully happy pig. I love to really roll up my sleeves, get in there, engage and interact.

Related: Finding Your Spiritual Oasis

At breakfast, both chicken and pigs make a “successful meal.” But how, and why, can someone go from being a natural-born chicken to a very blissful pig?

We must experience a life-changing moment, a switch in our thinking, and see that true blessings can and will come if we actually serve and encounter God in others. When we give of ourselves — not just of our bank accounts, not just out of our excess, and not just to the “others” that are like us — but really give and make a true self-sacrifice, we are happy and blessed.

Take the back seat. Have the “last word” but let it be, “Sorry.”

How do you experience transformation, metamorphosis? How do you gain clarity and perspective on a subject? One way I have found very helpful is the practice of prayer and fasting.

Do you fast? Do you know how to fast? Do you know why we fast?

According to the catechism, fasting and abstinence “help us to acquire mastery over our instincts and freedom of heart.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2043)

Related: Gutting Our Gluttony

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While most of us are familiar with fasting, especially during Lent, and some throughout the year choose to abstain from meat on Fridays, in our modern world outside of the church, if people fast at all it is usually for a physical benefit. And while you can read about the multiple benefits of fasting, true biblical fasting always centers on a spiritual purpose.

Through it, we voluntarily refrain from something good, like eating, as a spiritual discipline designed to tame the body so that we can concentrate on higher things.

God can and will use the fast for his purposes if we are seeking him during the fast and offering up all that we are sacrificing to him. If we decrease, he miraculously increases. Personally, during a fast, I feel as if the tide of my soul washes out and I am left to see what “shells” are lying on my beach — some very beautiful, and some that are still in need of God’s handiwork — all tenderly shown to me by my loving father.

Related: The Faith Question Worth Asking 

There are many ways to fast, not just from food. Perhaps try one of these this week:

  • Fast from your pride. Take the back seat. Have the “last word” but let it be, “Sorry.”
  • Fast from complaining. Yes, bite your tongue and offer it up to God.
  • Fast from the radio or television, just sit in the quiet and turn your glance heavenwards or read a great spiritual book.

God loves you whether you fast or not. But just as we need to flex and stretch our physical muscles to break them down in order to build them back up, every now and then, we need to flex, by God’s grace, our spiritual muscles, and deny ourselves what comes “naturally” in order for God to show us new and better things that he wants to build up inside of us.

“If anyone would be a follower of mine let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)

Melissa Overmyer is founder of  Something Greater Ministries in Washington, D.C., and has taught the Bible for more than 30 years.