Fasting and (not) Furious
Part 1 of 3: What is Fasting?
In an effort to learn and implement the spiritual disciplines of Jesus in our own lives, seven of us from our Thursday morning men’s group have recently spent some time devoting ourselves to the spiritual discipline of fasting.
Over the last eight months, we have committed to fasting once a week together (trying to anyway), we have read a book together on fasting and we started a group text thread to encourage one another and to discuss what we are learning along the way.
It’s been a great learning experience, and even though I still feel like an amateur when it comes to fasting, I thought it would be helpful to share some of what I’ve learned.
I had planned to just write a single post on this, but after I started writing, I realized that it would be easier to digest (← see what I did there?) if I broke this up into three separate posts. So, over the next three weeks, I will be sending three bite-sized (← still doing it) posts on the spiritual discipline of fasting.
Here’s the breakdown…
What is Fasting? (this post)
4 Facts on Fasting
3 Things I’ve Learned About Fasting
What is Fasting?
Fasting is choosing to not eat food for a certain amount of time.
Now that may seem like an obvious definition, but often you will hear people say things like…
“I’m fasting from social media.”
“I’m fasting from alcohol this month.”
“I’m fasting from sweets for Lent.”
“I’m fasting from the news until the election is over.”
Have you ever heard someone say something like this? Have you every said something like this?
If so, let’s make sure that we go ahead and clear this up.
This is not fasting.
You do not fast from social media, sugar or soft drinks. That is not fasting; that is called abstinence. That is choosing to abstain from something for a certain amount of time. Abstaining from things is a great discipline, but it is not the same as fasting. There’s a difference, and we need to make sure that we understand and acknowledge this difference before we get started.
Fasting is about not eating food. Any food (and sometimes water).
That being said, we also need to clarify that the spiritual discipline of fasting is not dieting (ie. a Daniel Fast, intermittent fasting, etc.). Jesus and his followers did not fast for the health benefits. That is a different thing entirely, and so again we need to make sure that we understand and acknowledge this difference.
The fasting that we are talking about is a spiritual discipline; not a strategic diet.
And so, before we say anything else, let’s just make sure we have a good working definition of what we are talking about when we talk about fasting.
Fasting is the spiritual discipline of not eating food for a certain amount of time in order to focus our attention on God. The amount of time may vary, but traditionally it is from sunrise to sunset (12 hours) or from sunset to sunset (24 hours).
Fasting is found in all the major world religions and philosophies, but unfortunately it is one of the most misunderstood and neglected spiritual disciplines among followers of Jesus. Hopefully we can help change that.
