What Lent is

Wikipedia:

"Lent, in Christian tradition, is the period of the liturgical year leading up to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self-denial — for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ."

I am reading John Piper's A Hunger for God to learn more about fasting and this is what I find insightful from its first chapter:

All is eating is lawful, but not all is helpful.

While all this means for Paul is that he was free to fast or not to fast.

"All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything." (1 Corinthians 6:12)

The reason for this is that the act of fasting is not the essential thing. Doing it- or not doing it- for the glory of God is the essential thing.

"He who eats does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who eats not for the Lord he does not eat and gives thanks to God." (Romans 4:6)

Fasting gives glory to God when it is experienced as a gift from God aimed at knowing and enjoying more of God. God is glorified in us when we aimed our behavior at being more satisfied in Him. We may do this by grateful eating or by grateful fasting. His gifts leave a hunger for him beyond themselves, and fasting from his gifts put the hunger to the test.

I found a new purpose for fasting:

It challenges me to love God not for things He has provided me for, but to love Him just because He is a good God ! =)