Practical Tools for Fasting

 

Over the last couple posts we have been discussing fasting and its importance in our recovery and spirituality. It is an often-neglected discipline, but it is a useful and powerful practice in growing our relationship with God.

My first adventures in fasting were as an older teenager when I was in college. We were very much zealous for the ministry, and I wanted God to bless my efforts there. During my early attempts at fasting, I found it was nearly impossible to even go twenty-four hours. But I kept working at it and soon enough I had fasted up to three days. In recent years I have been able to do a seven day fast, which is the longest I have done. All that to say that fasting is extremely difficult at first, but the more we practice it, the easier it gets. Though it never really gets easy.

The leading cause of death in America is heart disease, and the majority of heart diseases are related to issues with weight. In America, we eat too much, and eat too much junk, and it is killing us. It is easy for us to come up with excuses not to fast. (A small disclaimer: if you have health issues, especially diabetes and hypoglycemia, fasting may be dangerous, you may want to check with a medical provider before you begin.)  But the vast majority of us can and should fast. There are many scientific studies that have shown there are a multitude of health benefits from restricting calories.

In recent days, my habit has been to fast one day a week. I skip two meals. I will eat dinner the night before around 5, not eat anything that night, skip breakfast and lunch and then eat dinner again around 5. That gives me 24 hours of fasting. I will drink some coffee throughout the day, but no other calories.

There are many variations on fasting. A popular one is the Daniel Fast, which you can find described in the book of Daniel in the Bible. Basically, it is a vegetarian diet focusing on unprocessed fruits, vegetables and grains, no meat and no desserts or snacks. This is a great diet to eat overall and is essentially how I eat most days. It can be a great place to start into fasting.

We can also choose to refrain from sweets, soda, coffee, bread, and so on for a period of time. Sometimes a juice fast can be effective, this is when we only drink liquids like juice or milk. This can be a good alternative for those who are hypoglycemic or diabetic (though, again, I am not a doctor!).

A while back, at the church I was attending, every year we would have a spring revival and the week prior we would have a community fast, and one of the ways we were recommended to fast was from media. I think in our culture this is one of the best forms of fasting, not watching any TV, streaming content, movies and so on. I think I recently read that on average, Americans watch 4-6 hours of TV a day. Imagine what a difference it could make to take that time to pray, study Scripture and connect with our families.

All of us would benefit from some practice of fasting. Many churches encourage a weekly fast of some sort on Fridays or Saturdays leading up to their weekly worship services. After the Twelve Step meetings I was going to on Saturday mornings in Virginia, we would go to a diner afterwards. A friend of mine would often order a plain bagel, no cream cheese. He was part of a Christian tradition that fasted every Saturday leading up to the Sunday service. He was allowed to eat bread, but no dairy or meat.

It is important to have a clear purpose in mind for our fasting. We should first and foremost want to connect with God. This does not mean that we do not have secondary, subordinate motives. We could want healing for ourselves or a loved one. We could be praying for revival for our church or country, or we could be asking God to bring a lost loved one to faith. We could also want to lose weight, look better and be healthier. All these are good intentions, but we should keep in mind that it is most importantly about nurturing our relationship with God. Keeping that in the front of our minds helps us as we go through the practice.

We will be hungry, and we will have strong cravings for food. Fasting is very much a mental discipline. We have to keep our thoughts centered on Christ. When we feel those pangs, we can turn our hearts and minds to the Savior and we can pray, making our request known. Reading and meditating on Scripture is a good way to encourage and strengthen our hearts as we fast.

Fasting takes determination and willpower and these are like muscles that we can strengthen over time. We may have many failed attempts at first, we may cheat and eat something in the middle of our fast. This is to be expected, but we should not let it defeat us. Just because we ate something early in the day does not mean the rest of the day is ruined. We can recommit to the fast and keep going. As we are fasting, we can also pray for God to give us the willpower and strength to carry on.

Having people to help and support you is a great asset. Jesus warned us that we should not make our fasting and prayer a public spectacle in order to make ourselves look more spiritual than we really are, but, inevitably, people are going to find out. It may be good to share with the people you live and work with, especially if you share meals and cook for each other, there will most likely be those who will offer you some encouragement and support. We may need to plan to have someone else cook meals, or have food prepared ahead of time if we are responsible for cooking in our houses. Having a friend to encourage you is helpful, even better if they will fast with you. It becomes easier to stick with it if other people know about it. Accountability and moral support are always helpful.

A couple more considerations. Keeping snacks and tempting foods out of view. If our goal is to lose weight, we want to be careful about binge eating when we break our fast. Choosing healthy, nutritious choices when we break our fast is best.

Feeling faint and lightheaded is common while fasting, but usually passes in time, or comes and goes. Usually, it is not something to worry about, but if this causes you concern, you may decide to drink some juice or eat some raw fruit or vegetables to keep you alert, especially if you need to work.

Fasting is a tremendous way to speed us on our recovery journey and strengthen our spirituality. Hopefully, we can take some of these tools and start or strengthen our fasting practice.