Fasting for Easter: Aligning the Will

 

Is Fasting Still an Important Discipline for Christians?

I’m fasting for the Easter season. It’s just a partial fast for breakfast and lunch but I can’t remember a time I’ve done this for more than a day or two.

Meals break up the day for me so missing a meal makes me aware of my hunger, not to mention the time. With discipline though it get easier and you begin to understand why it’s important on occasion for spiritual health. Fasting aligns our priorities with God's by forcing us to set aside our needs in response to His invitation to go deeper in prayer.

Breakdown

The simplest thing anyone can say about a fast is that the Bible recommends it. Fasting demands we answer two questions before jumping into willful hunger pangs. First, what is the purpose of the fast and what are the examples of it in scripture. Not everything in scripture has a direct correlation to our current Christian culture. We don’t sacrifice animals on an alter to cover our sins. Nor do we demand farmers give 10% of their increase to the storehouse. Tithing is a principle many people still practice but it’s not obligatory.  

Examples

Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 days nights. Moses and Elijah both fasted just before big breakthroughs, the Ten Commandments and the anointing of Elisha respectively. Nehemiah fasted for his people, as did Esther and Daniel. Paul fasted for 3 days immediately after his road to Damascus conversion. In every case the Lord brings us to a place of deeper understanding of His plan or will. Often the fast produces an answer or a breakthrough or new phase. It might help to say it like this, we submit to God’s will by denying ours. A lack of food quickens the senses.

Rationale

Think of how you feel after a full meal, content? Sleepy? Relaxed? It’s tough for God to compete with a full stomach because our natural needs are met. But denying those needs, for a time, produces focus and determination. Fasting isn’t just a discipline we grudgingly agree to at certain times of year. It builds our faith by demanding we go a little deeper in prayer. Not only do we submit our will to God’s, we seek answers, ask for repentance and gain understanding.

Doesn’t God meet our needs whether we fast or not? Yes but fasting removes the distractions of life and makes us go to God with laser focus.

We Fast for Answers

We seek answers from God when we’re troubled. Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, called for a nation wide fast to seek the Lord. They were facing extinction from 3 separate armies, the situation was grim. But God sent Jahaziel to proclaim victory to them by singing and praising the Lord. God confused the enemy and they killed each other instead. Judah’s fasting was born of desperation and their deliverance was found in humility (2 Chronicles 20).

I’m mostly familiar with this kind of fasting. A few years ago I had a similar experience. I fasted lunch for close to a week and prayed during the day as often as I could. I needed an answer from God on a relationship I wanted to pursue. I read the scriptures more intently than I had in years. My whole being was focused on hearing from God. God spoke to me in a dream one night during my fast. I didn’t like the answer at first but I moved on, confident in the value that fasting provides.

We Fast for Repentance

Repentance provides us with another opportunity to fast. Ezra had such a moment when returning to Jerusalem to rebuild the city. Many of the Jewish rulers had taken foreign wives (pagans) and had children with them. It was a serious offense to God and Ezra was hurt by it. If you’ve ever gotten a job and found out it on the first day it was so much worse than advertised, you’ll sympathize with Ezra.

Jerusalem was destroyed precisely because of intermarrying and human sacrifice as worship to Baal. Here is Ezra’s lament “O my God, I am too ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to You, my God; for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has grown up to the heavens.” (Ezra 9:6) He goes on in a heart of repentance for continued disobedience. This is for the people already there, not him. This level of forgiveness through sackcloth and ashes is an Old Covenant practice that went away with the cross. But the fasting remains as a means of aligning our heart with the Father.

We Fast for Understanding

Spiritual battles often demand a fast. Daniel’s vision of the Glorious Man came after a time of fasting and mourning. A messenger of God told Daniel that the Prince of Persia halted the progress of Daniel’s prayer. “Then he said to me, ‘Do not fear Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words”. (Daniel 10:12)

The messenger was preceded by Daniels vision that caused him to go into mourning for 3 weeks. During this time he sees the glorious man that is likely a vision of Jesus. “His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like torches of fire, his arms and feet like burnished bronze in color, and the sound of his words like the voice of a multitude.” (Daniel 10:6)

Because Daniel set his heart to understand and humbled himself his prayer was answered. What was the evidence of his humble heart? The fast. In verse 2 Daniel tells the reader “I ate no pleasant food, no meat or wine came into my mouth…” His focus was on knowing and he cut out all distractions.

The Image of Fasting

From the outside looking in fasting appears to be a duty for acceptance into the club. Many religions have required sacraments and boxes to check for the faithful. Islam famously has Ramadan which involves fasting from sunup to sundown for nearly a month. The goal, prove yourself a worthy Muslim. There are practical benefits to fasting that run adjacent to any religious obligation as well. But if Christians see it as just another duty to an exclusive club, or a crucible of suffering to achieve holiness—they should stop.

We don’t fast for approval, recognition or promotion. God’s kingdom doesn’t operate on favors.

A Perfect Picture

A friend of mine went to a local baseball game with a large group. He noticed how little the fans actually watched the game they paid to see. Most were ordering food and chatting about TV shows, some were on their phones texting friends. As a lifelong baseball fan he was disappointed. It made him realize how constantly distracted we are with everything but what is in front of us. That weekend he issued a blackout for his family, no phones, TV or internet. They spend the entire week together, as a family, no distractions.

That’s a pretty good picture of the kind of heart that fasting can produce.

Understand that fasting is a way of aligning your heart with the Heavenly Father to understand His will. It’s a temporary break from the regularity of food. The emptiness in our stomachs reminds us that God is our source.

If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday. (Isaiah 58:10)