Prayer & Worship
People at my church talk about fasting and I have never done it. What is it actually for, and how would I start without making a mess of it?
“So we fasted and besought our God for this: and he was intreated of us.”
Ezra was leading a convoy of returning exiles across hundreds of miles carrying a fortune in temple silver, having told the king he did not need an armed escort because God would protect them. Having said that out loud, he called the whole group to fast and pray at the river before they set out. The fast was not a technique for forcing God's hand. It was what people did when the stakes ran past them.
“As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.”
The church at Antioch was an ethnically mixed congregation with a leadership team from wildly different backgrounds. Luke says that while they were worshipping and fasting the Spirit spoke, and that they fasted and prayed again before sending Barnabas and Saul away. Fasting here is not private self improvement or a spiritual achievement. It is a group deliberately clearing space at a moment when they needed to hear something.
A path forward
Start small and specific: skip one meal on one day this week and use that time to pray rather than to scroll. Drink water, and keep it to yourself.
Decide beforehand what you are praying about during the fast and write it down. A fast with no prayer attached is just a missed lunch.
Do not fast from food if you have any history of disordered eating, or are pregnant, diabetic, or on medication that needs food. Ask your doctor if you are unsure, and fast from something else instead, such as social media or television.
Closing verse
“Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?”
- Isaiah 58:6
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