There’s been a revival in my spiritual life through fasting. Before, I’d been at best on “survival mode,” practicing here and there the spiritual disciplines of the faith. With the exhausting task of raising four little boys, the distractions and lack of energy left very little time for God. At best, I’d prayed and read my bible out of duty rather than obedience and faith. Sadly, I had lost my first love in Christ.
However, early this year I read a post on fasting that caught my attention immediately when it said “my hunger reminds me to pray…” I thought about this a lot and I concluded that if I had to starve myself to pray then that’s what I needed to do. Previously, fasting had been out of the question for I had been pregnant for a few years in a row and the rest of the time I was just trying to keep it together. As I watched parents struggling to influence their children to fear God and obey Him, I realized more and more that I needed to pray, and to pray with urgency as if my kids were going astray now. But I couldn’t fabricate those prayers; the need in my heart to pray that way just wasn’t there.
I knew fasting was to be done for spiritual reasons and reasons I had: The salvation of my children and others, and that really got me exited. I began to fast with what little I knew. But as time went on I had a sneaky suspicion that I needed to know more about it for I began to have all kinds of questions. One of them being; what was fasting in the first place? So I pulled out Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald Whitney and there it was plain and simple:
“…is a Christian’s voluntary abstinence from food for spiritual purposes. It is Christian, for fasting by a non-Christian obtains no eternal value because the Discipline’s motives and purposes are to be God-centered. It is voluntary in that fasting is not to be coerced. Fasting is more than just the ultimate crash diet for the body; it is abstinence from food for spiritual purposes.”
Though I still have three kids in diapers fasting has enable me to attend to their needs while meditating, praying, and interceding for others in prayer. Hunger has caused me to get in tune with the Holy Spirit, if you will, and thus grow me spiritually.
Please join me tomorrow as we learn more about WHY we should fast.
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3 comments:
Great post Esme. Keep them coming.
Thank you, Esme, for this post. I have been resisting this particular spiritual discipline for some time; I just haven't wanted to do it. But in the Lord's great wisdom and mercy, He has used you and this post at this particular time when I really need and want it. I have physical health issues, but I believe that with the proper attention to spiritual issues (submission to the Lord's leading rather than my disobedience/rebellion to not want to fast), I will be better able to deal with temporal ones. I am so appreciative of this post; it has been a huge encouragement and inspiration to me right when I needed it! No surprise there--we serve an awesome God! Praise Him!
P.S. "elsie12791" is Linda C. I made a new account for me, but can't figure out how to make it work with my comments. UGH!
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