The lost art of Christian fasting
Our church is in the midst of a 40-day fast of consecration. We’re not promoting a book, we’re not starting a new ministry; there is no reason to fast other than experience more of Jesus in our lives. Biblically, we are called to fast so that we may draw near to God. We remove that which distracts us and fill our human soul with the Divine.
Members of our church family have given up many things in this season: movies, internet, sports, food, eating out, to name a few. As is Biblical, we replace the time and thought spent on these things in devoting ourselves to the things of God instead. This is one purpose of Christian fasting. First, it shows us what controls us. Once that thing is removed, it allows us to instead fill that emptiness with God.
Most of us have no idea how much we are controlled by our appetites until they are removed. Try to go a day without eating. Or a week without coffee. How about a month without television? Don’t visit your “favorites” on the internet for a season and see what happens. Are you having withdrawls? Yes – you are addicted. And the frightful thing about this addiction is that it has more control over us than God does.
Fasting combats our medicated mindset. John Piper says that the simple pleasures of life are often more detrimental to our love for God than the poisons of evil. Biblical followers of Jesus are called radicals, aliens, strangers; we are the pilgrims on this earth. We live with a “homesickness for God”. Yet this simple mark of eternity upon us is threatened by our appetites for things that make us feel quite at home here on earth, if not numb and apathetic to the things of eternity.
To go without internet, movies, or football for any length of time is, to most Christian people, a foreign and even offensive notion. Yet fasting these things reveals the measure of mastery they have over me. It is very easy to fill my waking hours with as many distractions as possible – anything to conceal the weakness of my hunger for God. I have nibbled long at the table of the world; my soul is satisfied with small things, and there is no room for the great.
So this is the journey – an intentional embargo of the world, and an open, loving embrace to Jesus the Christ. Come into my life, Lord, and may my heart beat with these words of David Brainerd penned centuries ago: “God was so precious to my soul, that the world with all its enjoyments was infinitely vile.”
As I try to grasp more of GOD during this fast, I have come to realize that I have such a tiny grasp on Him to begin with. My comprehension of Yahweh is the size of a grain of sand compared to the expanse of the universe. What if I fasted all of these things for the rest of my life? How much more could I grasp the glory of GOD? And how much more trust would I have?
Adding to what Pat said, I have been wondering the same thing myself… Have the little distractions in my life become something more? If I find that I am serving myself through these distractions more often than I am serving God, could I go so far as to call it idolatry? If that is the case, then perhaps there are things that I need to remove from my life permanently.
In Genesis 35, Jacob and his family buried all of their idols, and set out to serve God. I think this is a good example as to what we should be doing. I have begun examining my life much more closely, to figure out just what exactly is holding me back and keeping me from being what God has called me to be.
Man I have been thinking the same thing as both of you. If it’s so clear and unfettered now why would I go back to being hindered? Then I think “well then just how far could I take this?” I suppose someone like John the Baptist is an example of someone whose whole life was fasted – in that his life was a fast from pretty much everything – entertainment, food for pleasure, sex, relationships, comfort. I don’t know that we’re all called to do that – I certainly can’t nor do I feel called to – but I am challenged in the same way as you guys. I am travelling light, and as 11/1 rolls around I don’t plan to re-encumber myself. If anything, this has not been a 40-day journey, but rather merely the prologue to a journey for many years to come.
Gee, I am fasting (food) today for the first time in years. I found this post and I am sorry to say I got almost nothing from it. Where is the Bible? Surely there are fasts in the new and old testaments that teach us what a fast is and why God wants us to do them. Please write some thing about that.
Thanks!
In response to the last post on this article, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Richard Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline. There is a simple yet profound chapter in the subject of fasting there that will be of great assistance.