Fasting: Satisfying Your Hunger

Why Should We Fast?

I think we can all agree that there are times throughout our days and weeks that we get a craving for some good food, and we set our minds to make it, order it, or buy it in order to be satisfied. We definitely have those moments in our family. We have memorable experineces of driving great distances to get the food we want, or memories of a scenic road trip around a restaurant we like to visit or a bakery we enjoy. When my husband and I moved across country from Pennsylvania to California 15 years ago, we specifally planned our stops around the "Man vs. Food" recommendations in the states we would travel through. We went alternative routes and added several extra miles to our trip in order to experience these foods. We, of course, laugh now about our extreme enthusiasm and the drastic efforts we made in order to accomplish this food adventure, but it was worth the exceptional food and the quirky memories we made together.

As I think of my physical desires and the lengths I will go to satisfy them, I can't help but be drawn to the scripture references that relate our spiritual hunger to physical needs. We all probably enjoy the verses that speak about "as the deer pants for water, so my soul pants after you, O God" or "blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled" or "the law of the Lord is perfect ......and like a honey comb is its sweetness." But the verses about fasting and giving up the physical in order to gain the spiritual might not be so enjoyed by us, myself included. There are times, however, when God brings us to a place in life where we become desperate for Him. We crave a deeper more intimate relationship with Him, we sense a need for complete dependence on Him in an illness or circumstance beyond our control, or we have a stronghold of sin in our life that seems impossible to shake loose. These are moments in my life where I've seen God call me to a season of fasting and prayer.

Months ago in our ladies Bible study we did a series of lessons on prayer. Among those lessons, we studied fasting. Fasting is not a foundational doctrine of the Christian faith, but it was a very regular practice of Jesus, his disciples, the early church and its leaders that has almost disappeared entirely by the Western modern church.

There are a few philosophical reasons why fasting has been discarded in practice in the last several centuries, however, the effect of fasting in prayer is so valuable to our formation as disciples of Jesus that it has been revived in Christian teaching in recent decades.

If you have never fasted you are not alone. A large congregation did a recent survey of their congregants and over half had never done a spiritual fast a single time.

So why should we fast?

The first reason we should fast is to present our whole self to Jesus. Romans 12:1 says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”

An overarching purpose to fasting can be described as John Piper said, “A whole-body hungering for God.” Jesus taught, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.” Matthew 5:6

Is there a yearning for God’s power and abiding presence in your life? Are you desperate for a relationship with Jesus that is real and vivacious? We do not fast to get more of something or to receive what we are petitioning God about although that may be the outcome after specific fasts. Fasting is actually where we just get more of God, more filling, more understanding, more communion with Him. We lay aside the natural for a period of time in order to take hold of the supernatural.  I love this explanation that Andrew Murray gives. “Prayer is the one hand with which we grasp the invisible. Fasting is the other with which we let loose and cast away the visible.”

Often my heart has been moved to fast because there is a yearning to be close to God and this can be exemplified by putting off my very human and natural desires and taking up a whole body dependence on God. Something significant and powerful happens in our lives when our very basic needs are not being met by physical food but by the spiritual food of being in God’s presence.

While the intimacy and closeness to God sounds amazing to you as you ponder the outcomes of fasting, some fears and hesitations are perhaps holding you back. Lay those fears and hesitations at the feet of Jesus and ask Him what He is calling you to do. Realize that fasting is not a Christian duty or standard of spirituality, rather it is simply an invitation to draw closer to Jesus in communion with Him. Offer your whole heart to Him and see if He would call you to begin this practice of fasting.

Next week, we will discuss another reason for adding this practice of fasting in our lives. My challenge to you today is to open your heart to what the Lord is speaking to you in regards to this practice.