Why Fast?

It is common in our culture to indulge. To follow our appetites. To do what I want when I want…because that’s what Americans bled and died for! (I have my doubts to the extent of the freedoms assumed in such a statement…but that’s another post. Perhaps for Epiphany.).

Of late, though, there has been a rising trend in the health and fitness industry to promote intermittent fasting. Apart from the weight benefits, health gurus talk about the clarity and focus that happens when you forego eating for an extended period of time. Essentially, energy that would normally be spent on digestion can be allocated to other spots—namely, your brain.

Religions all over the world have practiced fasting as a means to deny the body so that the faithful can focus on their spiritual lives. Instead of time spent planning and fixing and eating a meal, and then digesting it (think Thanksgiving Turkey coma), we are able to pray or walk or think. The fog of life intentionally gets lifted with the intention of seeing God. Seeing him in the hallways at work. Hearing him in the conversations with neighbors. Feeling him in the breeze on your face, the warmth from the sun.

Because we aren’t prone to just deny ourselves, fasting affords us the opportunity to set aside time to deny our cravings. When we do this in little spurts, we are training ourselves for the bigger battles against temptations to sin. In essence, we train ourselves to endure discomfort so that when temptations to meeting a want in an unhealthy or sinful way comes we know we can push through the pain.

If you are new to fasting, don’t start with something intense. Ease into it. Try eating lunch a little later than normal. When you feel the hunger pangs, take note of how you respond to co-workers or your to-do list. After you do that, try going without lunch altogether. Then build up to fasting during breakfast. Then try fasting breakfast and then lunch. And then…you get the idea.

You can also fast from other things than food. But historically and scripturally, when speaking about fasting, it’s from food. I know it may seem ominous. But I promise, you won’t die. In fact, I can almost guarantee you after some practice, you will feel more alive than when you didn’t engage in this practice.

There is plenty of reasons to fast, but the most compelling for me is that the model is given in the lives of Moses, Jesus, Paul, and the early church. If these saw the need to deny food for a time for the sake of pursuing God and his will, then I should model my own devotional practice after them.