Fasting: a spiritual exercise

I once used to reject fasting as starvation, as I often ended up spending the hours without prayer and without food. I used to tell myself that unless I am also able to pray while I am abstaining from food, I am not fasting but merely starving. I had probably considered Isa 58:3,4 - "'Why have we fasted', they say, 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves and you have not noticed?' ‘Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please . . . You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high'" - while coming to this conclusion. Hence, over time, I stopped fasting. But today, I begin to see that fasting by itself is a spiritual exercise just as praying is.

I now see Isa 58:3,4 not in isolation but within the context of the whole chapter. God is not displeased about the fact that they carried on their work while fasting. Rather he is displeased about the fact that their hearts were not in right alignment with him. In fact, their hearts were set all out against his tenets of justice. Their fasts were acts of hypocrisy, hoping to please God with their outwardly righteous acts while their hearts were far from him. They hoped to impress God and keep his eyes away from their quarreling and exploitation, so he could bless them. But our God is a flaming fire who examines our heart and searches our soul. He therefore called their bluff.

Just as prayer itself may be offered either sincerely where one is fully focused on God or lightly without much thought to what is being said and to who it is being said, a fast too may be offered sincerely to God or offered without any thought of God. The fact that one is working while fasting should not make it inappropriate. The human mind is capable of doing several things together and over time one should be able to learn to focus on God even in the midst of work, especially when he is fasting. Charles Spurgeon writes on Exclamatory Prayer in his book The Power in Prayer, "The mind can be praying while it is studying. It can be looking up to God while it is talking to man. One hand can be held up to receive supplies from God while the other hand is dealing out the same supplies that He is pleased to give." Just as we do not advise people to stop praying because they do not pray the right way when they begin to, but rather to grow in prayer by focusing their thoughts on God, even so, a weak attempt at fasting should not be discouraged but one should rather be encouraged to make his fasting more meaningful and effective.

How is a fast that one offers in the midst of a busy day, an act of sacrifice? To understand it, let us first look at what any act of sacrifice to the Lord signifies and accomplishes – be it prayer or praise.

Firstly, we honor God with our sacrifices. Pro 3:9 tells us to “Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops". In Heb 13:15, Paul exhorts us to “continually offer to God a sacrifice of Praise – the fruit of lips that confess his name”. Just as we honor God, when we do not take the firstfruits for ourselves, and instead consecrate them for God, we honor God when we forego what is by default ours. In India, when we have guests at home and do not have enough cots for everyone, we honor the guests by giving them the cots for a good night’s rest and settling on mats on the floor ourselves. In the same way, when we give away the food that is rightfully ours, to focus on the food from heaven, we honor God. It is not that God is honored because he has the firstfruits; God is honored by our giving hearts.

Secondly, we humble ourselves before God. Ezra tells us that when he had to lead a large group from Babylon to Israel, he was ashamed to ask the King for soldiers and horsemen to protect them from enemies on the Road, and instead chose to ask God for a safe journey (Ezra 8:21). There was a great hazard on the way and he needed protection. He could have deceived himself by thinking that the King's supply will make him self-sufficient. But he chose to humble himself before God through fasting, together with the group he was leading, knowing well that it was not wise to trust man. By going to the Lord fasting, we declare that we are not self-sufficient in ourselves and the resources at our hands, and we are totally dependent on the Lord. Fasting expresses humility, self-denial and submission to God.

Thirdly, we express our regret over our sins. We find Samuel leading the Israelites to fast and mourn for their sins, and he himself interceded for them and cried out to the Lord on their behalf (I Sam 7:5-9). Elsewhere in Neh 9:1-3, we find the Israelites who had returned from Babylon, having revived worship in the temple and rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem, assembling to fast wearing sackcloth and with dust on their heads, to confess their sins and the wickedness of their fathers.

Fourthly, we show repentance and make way for God to change his declared intention of judgment. When David sinned and God warned him through Nathan that he will have to pay with the life of his new-born son, he fasted and spent the nights lying on the ground until the child died. He explained it later, “When the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ ”(II Sam 12:22)  We find elsewhere how Ahab tore his clothes, fasted, lay in sackcloth and went around meekly, when he was warned by Elijah of the coming judgment on him (I Kings 21:17-27). The Lord took notice and told Elijah, “Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day”.

We know that it is important to feed on His Word and listen to what He has to tell us. We know that it is important to seek God's presence and speak to Him in prayer. Therefore, irrespective of where we stand with regard to reading and meditating the Scriptures and praying, we always yearn to grow in these disciplines. Let us realize that Fasting too, is a very important discipline that the Lord has made available for us to grow closer to him, and begin to exercise it in our spiritual walk with God.

Do I need to fast ?

Jesus responded to the query from John’s disciples about why his disciples did not fast with a question, "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?”. He then went on to elaborate saying, “They cannot, so long as they have him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.” (Mark 2:19,20)

Jesus did not say fasting was not necessary. Rather, he anticipated that they would fast at a later point in time. But before they could be expected to fast, he was at work in them. He was preparing their hearts so that when they fast they would not do it as an obligation to keep the law. Instead, they would do it for the right reasons. Jesus conveyed this through a metaphor. "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins." (Mark 2:21,22). He was giving them a new robe of righteousness. He was transforming their hearts that were old wineskins into ones capable of being home to his Holy Spirit. With his righteousness, they would then fast so that they are with the Lord even as their bodies are away from Christ. With fasting we seek him and draw near to him.

Today, some people fast as the pharisees did. They do it for all the wrong reasons . . . to be seen to be holy by others, to earn brownie points with God, or to wring God's hands into acting out what they desire. There are others on the other extreme who reject fasting as mere observance of the law that is no longer required, or as a dead tradition that yields nothing good. Jesus did not consider fasting to be an inconsequential and unnecessary practice.

In fact, Jesus thought and taught ‘Fasting’ to be an essential part of a child of God – putting it in the same league as praying and helping the poor – as can be seen from another passage in the Gospels. In his sermon on the mount, he preached saying, "When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Mat 6:16-18)

Why should we fast? If we know why we should pray, we would then know why we should fast. Fasting can be considered as an intense form of prayer. When we pray God often works changes within us though at times he additionally works out changes outside us too. Anyone who spends time with the Lord is transformed by his presence. In Exodus we find that whenever Moses returned from the Lord’s presence after speaking with him, his face was radiant (Exo.34:34,35). On most such occasions, his prayer was also accompanied by fasting. Prayer and fasting bring such glorious transformation. Fasting helps one to humble himself before God in order to experience God's intimate presence and more grace.

How is fasting an intense form of prayer? In prayer, we fervently petition God. In fasting, our prayer is all the more fervent and potent. A poet wrote “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of”. It is all the more true of fasting. In Mark 9:17-29, we find Jesus rebuking and driving out a deaf and mute spirit that also threw the boy it possessed to the ground, making him foam at his mouth, gnash his teeth and become rigid. His disciples wondered why they could not drive the spirit out. Jesus had a short reply, "This kind can come out only by prayer and fasting." Fasting is needed to save people from bondage to evil.

In the early church that got established soon after our Lord’s ascension, we find the apostles and the early Christians praying and fasting. In Acts 13:2 we find that while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." As they reaffirmed their consecration to God through fasting, he set out to do wonderful things in their midst. In verse 23 of the next chapter we see that Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust. Here, when they set out on a new task, they fasted to seek his grace for the task, even as Christ himself fasted ahead of his ministry (Mat 4:2).

Jesus fasted. His disciples fasted after he was taken up from the earth, true to the words he spoke while he had been with them. The early church fasted. All this should certainly encourage us to fast more than we do now, even as we are driven in our hearts to increase and abound in prayer.