[Written by Dr. Chris Peters]
As I type in these thoughts, I have questioned myself about the propriety of sharing them. After all, Jesus cautions us strenuously in Matthew 6 about fasting so others will see us and even urges specific concealment of our fasting. So it seems a bit wrong to talk to a friend or even family member about my particular fasting, let alone to publish about it.
Matthew 6 and Motives
But, unless I, and others more godly and knowledgeable than me, need correction on the matter, it seems Jesus’s concern was false motives for fasting and helping us protect against pride in religious disciplines. As Piper explains in his book “Hunger for God,” the people of God, both Old Testament and New Testament, participated in corporate fasts together. So each would know generally that others were fasting (Acts 13). More to the point, we would not discourage someone from urging other believers to see the benefits of the spiritual discipline of prayer or the practice of generous giving, which are treated in the same manner in Matthew 6. To the contrary, we expect pastors to lead in prayer, and in giving, and to urge congregations to the benefits of those responses to the Gospel. Yet, we tend to put fasting in another category.
Latent Hypocrisy
At any rate, I’m sure there is always some hypocrisy in me, whether I were to write about more acceptable subjects like prayer, or even giving. Such is the case to some degree with fasting as well, but as far as I’ve searched the matter in my heart, I write this for the benefit of others who are on the journey of fasting or might consider adding this “means of grace” to their spiritual growth pathway. In this manner, hopefully these thoughts are not aimed in the least at me “wanting to be seen by men” and therefore already having my “reward”.
My Fasting Journey
Perhaps it will further help to confess out of the gate that I’m not much of a fasting person. I did not really learn about fasting as a spiritual practice for believers until my college years and I don’t think I practiced it at all until seminary in my mid-twenties, despite several invitations earlier by my church. In seminary, I read Piper’s book and began to fast regularly one day a week, but only for a season of about a year or two. At the same time, only from the encouragement by some ministry partners serving with college students did I try a fast for 3 days (thanks, Jeff McCord). I found that greatly rewarding but when I went on staff for another church in my first ordained role, I don’t believe it was as common a practice for that body of believers, or others around me at the time, and I don’t recall doing much on my own to pursue it.
When my wife and I began praying seriously about a call to plant a church, I believe I pursued some more seasons of three-day fasts, and was likely further encouraged to do so through the prayer emphasis of Al Baker, in his role as Alabama Church Planting Network Coordinator. As our new church began we called for fasting around some key events including capital campaigns, missions endeavors, and other large decisions or special ministries. Perhaps twice a year, we pursue these fasts and have used Donald Whitney’s material on fasting as a guide. I’m thankful for church leaders who have always encouraged this and many times joined in the fast with me.
More recently, my wife and I have been reading Piper’s book together. She has grown tremendously in recent years in a heart for prayer, so it has been good to combine that passion from her with my fasting burden, and have some seasons together as a couple, outside of any called church fast.
Lots to Learn, Maybe a Little to Share
So I would not say I’m much of a fasting person. In that sense, I’m a product of my time and culture where it seems the spiritual practice even among seriously minded Bible-believing Protestant Christians in “the West” is not widely or deeply practiced. So I suspect I may have fasted more than some in our time, but probably greatly less than most serious believers around the world today, or in other branches of Christianity, and certainly throughout Christian history. So hopefully all of that introduction will dissuade any from feeling Matthew 6 is violated by anything I write below, and you will read this as just “one beggar trying to tell other beggars where to find bread.” – pun/metaphor fully intended!
Why at Three-Day Food Fast?
What I found interesting during a recent fast (really 2 ¾ day since it began after dinner Thursday and ended at lunch Sunday) as part of our church Missions Month, was slowing down to follow some of the “seasons” of such a fast – Or as I’ve tried to put in cleverly, the “take-outs” of the fast. I’m sure some key lessons could be gained when participating in just one day of fasting, and I bet there would have been more to share had I carried the fast further. Oh, and when I write of fasting, I’m talking about not eating any solid food and enjoying minimal liquid nourishment – coffee, a little bit of Gatorade in water, maybe some chicken broth. I understand people can fast in other ways, and children or those in poor health may need to modify, but I don’t think we get the full benefit the Lord intends from food fasting, without actually fasting from food.
Although I do not detail it here, prayer and fasting go hand in hand. Maybe I’ll write another blog after my next fast about prayer lessons. A benefit of fasting is the time we all normally spend eating each day can be allocated to special prayer, or prayer walks alone or with others. What I write below are lessons learned, not a full schedule of time spent in the fast.
Beginning the Fast
Every time I have called our church to fast or done any personal fast, I have experienced some kind of discouragement to pursue it as the starting point approached. “Mandatory” life events shift, or some illness comes along, or something, which threatens to derail the plan. I think anyone pursuing any fast should be prepared to encounter some barrier and be prepared to move past it. The devil does not want us to fast, any more than he wants us to pray or give.
My experience has also been that instead of joyfully anticipating how I will grow in the Lord during the fast, I often have a bit of dread as the actual start approaches. At that moment, the benefits of deferred gratification don’t seem at all worth it, the promises of Scripture seem rather irrelevant, and the end of the fast seems a long way off.
Key Take-Outs
Lunchtime First Fast Day
In some ways, this is the toughest “craving” time of the fast because even though energy levels are still good physically and mentally you may feel fine, the body wants its usual intake and it is noticeable. I also think it is pretty common later in the afternoon to feel some headaches.
For me this is the point where I have fresh cognizance of how “programmed” my body is for food intake and the first chance to look to the Lord for help. It is also a chance to remember our various bodily desires do not have to rule us and with God’s help internal drives that seem very strong can be tamed. Many others have written on this topic and how fasting provides a “practice field” for learning through hunger to surrender in many areas – anger, substance addiction, sexual lust, over-eating, worry, and other “impulses” do not have to rule us.
Bedtime First Fast Day
This holds true for the second evening as well, but a new dynamic that the Lord impressed on me recently was compassion for the millions who go to bed hungry all the time and who don’t have an immediate way out of it. This compassionate impulse merged with greater thankfulness for God’s provision – all 48 years of my life, 365 days of the year, I have always had access to however much food I would need, and healthy, safe food. I especially thought of children like the ones I have seen on mission trips to various Third World cities, who must scrape together sustenance and probably have the exact reverse experience I have had…they hardly know one night in 365 days of the year when they do not go to sleep with hunger pains, and have not ability to be confident in future food provision.
Depleted Second Fast Day
One of the reasons I have preferred in recent years to do occasional fasts for 2-3 days rather than more regular one day fasting is the spiritual benefit of what happens after the first day hunger pains fade. Generally by the time a 3 day fast is set to end I am looking forward to eating (see below) but I’m actually not hungry in the typical sense. I guess the way to put it is that by day two, the body is not seeking food to fill the hunger pangs, it is depleted and not maintaining energy or mental focus. At least in my case, on a one day fast, I never reach the point where my stomach is not really seeking food, but on day two and three I’m keenly aware that I am in a weakened state. There is a difference between feeling hungry and experiencing body and brain weakness. One is more in the realm of desire and the other in function or capacity.
When you get very drained going on a short prayer walk with your spouse, or can’t compose a thought for a work task like you would normally, and maybe even get a bit light headed if you bend over to get something or stand up from a chair quickly, you are not “hungry” but rather “depleted.”
I’m sure a lot of spiritual lessons could be taken from this but for me it is typically a time to realize that the only reason I’m alive at all is because God made me and sustained me. He could remove the sunlight and quickly we would all have no life because of no plant food. He could hold back his daily hand of mercy and some illness could not just make the price of eggs go a little high, but wipe out every animal. He could remove the oxygen from the air and our demise would be even faster.
More specifically, you and I can’t accomplish our tasks as mothers and fathers, as students at school, as employees in the workplace, if the physical engine known as our metabolism does not run. And our minds can’t work well either. This is a great reminder, just as a sabbath day each week teaches us that God is ultimate provider, not our ability to work.
And in many ways, this is the most humbling time of the fast, where I sense God is really helping me take a sledge hammer to that core sin that drives all other sin…my pride…self sufficiency…and giving me a special chance to root myself more deeply in core dependency upon Him.
As Christians in a society where our (very beneficial) capitalist system has allowed great material wealth, such that even the moderately poor among us lives like the upper class of old and in a country where our physical protection is secured by the most formidable military might known to man, and at a time when human innovation through technology and medicine allow us knowledge, connection and restoration not even dreamed of in past eras, and where we have rebelliously gone so far as to turn the rainbow symbol of God’s kind mercy for justly deserved flood of judgement into a cultural juggernaut championing human self-re-identification – we need humbling, and we need it badly – if we hope to be lifted up by the Lord.
Eternal Hope and Anticipating the End of the Fast
Regardless of how long a fast that an individual or group might choose, at some point the planned fast concludes. In my recent fast I was intrigued how refreshed I was to hit the afternoon of my second fast day, knowing that I was just one evening and one morning away from enjoying a meal.
In recent years I have had a general deepening focus on the new heavens and the earth. The writings of C.S. Lewis in “The Space Trilogy” and “Great Divorce,” as well as Randy Alcorn’s book, “Heaven,” have blessed greatly. But fasting with an eye toward eternity is a special experience because it reminds us that a key part of the Christian life is the “already and the not yet.” We see close friends in marriage turmoil, we see young people take their own lives and others running to gender modification to find an identity the Lord has already provided, and of course many with chronic pain, and all of us with recurring sin patterns that offend the Lord and affect others but also just leave us discouraged in this life (Romans 7).
Nearing the end of a fast gives fresh perspective on the joy of waiting and the blessing of anticipating. As with other aspects of fasting, we are essentially creating an “artificial” suffering, in which we can strengthen spiritual muscles for daily living and crisis moments. Just as knowing that meal is coming in 18 hours helps empower to the finish line of the fast, so too, the hope we have of heaven in all our spiritual journey.
Thankfulness When the Fast is Complete
In some ways the few moments before one takes a bite of food to end a fast is a mixed bag. Recently, I found I was both absolutely ready to eat and also a bit sad that the season of purposeful personal growth and empowered prayer was ending. I was both thankful for the special connection to the Lord I had received, and for the material provision to refresh my weary body. As a physical being, God designed me to run on food, and to enjoy the tasting of it and fellowship around the table with family or friends. What a joy that He provides something much higher than the enjoyment and provision of food, and He also provides the enjoyment and provision of food!
I hope in some way these “take-outs” from one short season of fasting will bless others as they decide to fast or seek out the Lord in their fast. Perhaps we can inspire one another to move from the most well-fed and least fasting Christians in history, to the most God-fed and more deliberate fasting believers.
