On Fasting

Much has been written in many places on fasting. Read up on it. Jesus did it. The disciples did it. The Bible talks about it. 

I do not remember anyone at the Seminary encouraging me seriously to consider fasting as part of a regular spiritual discipline, but through the years I experimented with and expanded my practice of it. It is one of the most freeing things I have experienced.

Form of Fasting

There are many different forms you can use for fasting. You could eliminate one particular kind of food from your diet for a specified time. You could eat only bread and water for a day or a number of days. You could skip a meal or two.

I use a modified sun-up to sun-down approach. Once a week I do not eat anything after whatever snack I might have had in the previous evening until dinner time the next day. It works out to not eating breakfast or lunch or any snacks for a day. This takes place generally on Monday, unless some special food is being planned by someone (birthday of a fellow staff member, lunch with a member, family celebration), then my fast will happen on Tuesday or Wednesday. On a fast day I limit myself to water and coffee— there is nothing spiritual about caffeine withdrawal!

How you fast is secondary to that you fast. Fasting and its particular practice rests in the realm of adiaphora.

Purpose of Fasting

Fasting will loosen your grip on the world and tighten your grip on God. You will learn the truth of Jesus’ retort to Satan, “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” You will come to see “how little” a thing food is compared to the surpassing greatness of God.

Fasting will free you. Food controls our lives more than we realize. Food is to the body what money is to the spirit. Too easily we let these gifts from God become gods. Fasting serves to put food on notice that we will not be servant to it; we serve a living God not a table full of food.

Although it may help you to learn to control your eating the rest of the week, fasting is not dieting. It is spiritual discipline.

Make sure you intentionally connect your fasting with God. On your fast days spend extra time with God in his word and in prayer. Let the pangs in your stomach serve to teach your heart to yearn for the Lord.

Demeanor of Fasting 

Jesus teaches that fasting should be done in secret. It is between us and God. Do not wear your fasting on your face or make a big deal of it to others.

Actually, the fewer people who know about your fasting the better. If someone invites you to lunch, gently demur and see if there is another day. Don’t say, “I’d like to but this is my weekly fast.” If treats are out in the office, don’t bemoan the fact that this “always happens on my fast day.” Just walk by the treats.  

Jesus says, “Put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting.”  Your fast day should not be readily apparent to anyone else. Let this be a time of intimacy with God, a secret that only you and he share.

Reward of Fasting?

Jesus speaks about a reward when we fast. After he instructed his followers about the oil and the face washing, he continued, “… but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew 6:18)

What is the reward that comes with fasting?

Paul wrote a similar thing in his letter to Timothy. “For physical training is of some value (dieting), but godliness (fasting) has value for all things, holding promise for the present life and the life to come.” (I Timothy 4:8)

What is the promise that grows out of the godly practice of fasting? How does it relate to a life on the path toward significance?

There is only one way to find out….