Do you fast? If so, why? How? To what end?

Fred’s sermon last Sunday turned my thoughts to fasting; Michael Oh’s talk at the Desiring God Pastors Conference, “Missions as Fasting,” deepened those thoughts; the booklet he recommended, A Memorial Concerning Personal and Family Fasting by Thomas Boston (1676-1732) took those thoughts yet further. Consider, then, why, how, and to what end we should fast.

Why Fast?

We can only fast to seek God’s face. Avoiding food or earthly comforts has no merit. The benefit comes only from drawing close to God. And for a sinner deserving of hell to seek God’s face requires searching one’s heart, confessing sin, believing the Gospel, and seeking God’s help in turning from sin. Consider these Scriptures and quotes from Thomas Boston:

• Psalm 27:8 You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, LORD, do I seek.”
• Such times are to be set apart from conversing with the world that we may the more solemnly commune with our own hearts to the state of matters between God and us.
• In vain will we fast and pretend to be humbled for our sins and make confession of them if our love of sin be not turned into hatred, our liking of it into loathing, and our cleaving to it into a longing to be rid of it, with full purpose to resist the motions of it in our heart. . . If we are indeed true penitents we will turn from sin not only because it is dangerous and destructive to us but because it is offensive to God, dishonours his Son, grieves his Spirit, transgresseth his law, and defaceth his image; we will cast away all our transgressions not only as one would cast away a live coal out of his bosom for that it burns him, but as one would cast away a loathsome and filthy thing for that it defiles him.
• James 4:7-10 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
• Joel 2:11-13 For the day of the LORD is great and very awesome; who can endure it? 12 “Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 13 and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.

How to Fast?

The way we fast must assist us in achieving the end of fasting: humbling ourselves and seeking God’s face. Such seeking takes time and requires focus. Avoiding food can be helpful; if we don’t eat we have extra time available, and the feeling of weakness that often accompanies not eating can lead to greater humility before God. But for many of us, there are other thieves of our time and focus that are much greater than food: Email perhaps, or the telephone, or text messages, or the internet, or the sports page, or television. Not eating will accomplish nothing if we lose focus and time because of answering our cell phone. Indeed, for many of us, fasting from these other distractions will be more vital for seeking God’s face than fasting from food. The best fast may require putting aside them all.

The time of fasting may last an hour or may last many days; what matters is focused seeking of God.

In my case, the various media are personally my biggest distractions. Therefore, my commitment after these reflections is to fast weekly for at least a half day from all electronic media and phones, and on occasion, to accompany that with a longer fasting from food.

What about you? What distracts you from setting aside focused time with God?

Fast to What End?

While all true fasting begins with confession, repentance, and appropriating the Gospel, biblically many different causes lead to fasts. Furthermore, we can infer from those passages that there are a number of additional valid reasons for fasting. Here are a few:

• When a major, difficult task looms ahead of you, such as we find in Esther 4:16.
• When a sin continues to recur. Writes Boston: Set therefore some time apart for personal fasting and humiliation on the account of that very thing that you may wrestle with God in prayer [about] it, and use this method time after time until you prevail against it; else that one thing may ruin you and you will be condemned for it, not because you could not help it, but because you would not use the means appointed of God for relief in that case.
• When a major decision is in front of you, and you need wisdom and direction.
• When threatened by dangers.
• When your heart is hard towards God.
• When tokens of God’s judgment fall on us or threaten us. These may be against us personally, or against our church, or our country. As Jesus says concerning the tower of Siloam (Luke 13:4-5), such instances should lead us to repentance and, like the Ninevites, fasting could well accompany that repentance (Jonah 3:6-10).
• In order to heighten our longings for Jesus’ return (Matthew 9:15, Revelation 22:20).
• When we feel far from God. In Matthew 9:15, Jesus says, “When the bridegroom is taken from them, then shall [my disciples] fast.” Surely this means the disciples will fast after His death and before his resurrection, and that we can fast longing for His return; but it also means that whenever we lose our closeness with Him, fasting and thereby seeking His face is appropriate.
• Prior to participating in the Lord’s Supper. Paul tells us to examine ourselves prior to participating (1 Corinthians 11:27-29), and such examination is a key part of any true fast. The point of examining ourselves is not so that we refrain from participating if our hearts are unrepentant; the point is to lead us to repentance!

So will you join me in fasting – from whatever distracts you, so that together we might humble ourselves, acknowledge that God would be just in condemning us all to an eternity in hell, acknowledge that we cannot fight sin or pay for sin on our own, seek God’s face, delight in our Savior whose death paid the penalty for our sins, and commit ourselves to walking in the power of the Spirit to the glory of our blessed God?