A Practical Guide to Fasting

Erin Davis: Okay, we’re going to do a little group participation. Everybody stand up, or don’t stand up, depending on what I say. So, everybody is getting situated, that’s good.

Stand up if you’ve ever fasted! Wait, wait, wait, let me give this disclaimer. I’m not talking about fasting for weight loss or other medical issues. I am not your guide for that today. You can probably tell I have a normal person’s body.

I’m talking about fasting for prayer. If you’ve ever fasted for prayer, I want you to stand up. Alright, good, you can sit back down. Who has never fasted for prayer? Alright, smaller group but close enough!

Who fasts regularly as a regular part of your spiritual life? Smaller group. I’d be in that group. Who goes to a church that teaches about fasting? Okay, more of you than I thought. Who has never heard a sermon on fasting? Okay, yeah?

Who can think of at least one passage (you don’t have to give me the address; I always say the chapters and verses are not inspired, so it’s okay if you don’t remember them. We live in the age of Google.) But who can think of at least one passage of Scripture that addresses fasting? I’m not going to make you quote it to me. Thanks, you can have a seat.

Who feels like you don’t really have the first clue about what Scripture says about fasting? Anybody in that group? Okay, a few of us, good. You can be thoroughly confused! Absolutely!

Well, I want you to know that I think there is room at the table for all of us today. We’re going to talk some about why I think some of us are confused about fasting; I think you can trace that to a couple of things. I imagine you didn’t take this session because fasting is a regular discipline in your life, though maybe it is.

Maybe you’ve fasted a time or two, and maybe you’ve never fasted. What I’m learning is . . . I did just come out with a new book called Fasting and Feasting; we’ll talk a little more about it. So that means I’ve been doing a lot of media interviews and being on podcasts, talking about the subject of fasting. 

They almost open the same way:

“I really don’t . . .”

“I’m interested, but I don’t really know what it means . . .” 

“I haven’t really heard anybody talk about it.” 

I would not position myself as an expert, but I have been studying it. I’ve been learning a lot about it, and I’m excited! I’m excited that we’re going to have this conversation. 

I hope it is a conversation where you can just talk back at me. You can heckle me; you can ask clarifying questions, whatever you need to do. But I think we’d better start with a four-letter word (Don’t tell Nancy, I’ll get fired! I’m going to say a four-letter word in the True Woman ’22 breakout): FOOD! Okay? (laughter)

We love food! Who loves to cook?! Me, too. Who hates to cook? It is your least favorite chore. Just be friends with one of us who loves to cook, because I cook like army-size portions every night. I don’t know why. Well, I live with an army, maybe that’s why.

Wherever you are on that spectrum, we need to realize we live in an absolutely food-obsessed culture. That’s not all bad, but it is all true. It’s good for us to recognize the waters we’re swimming in.

We read food labels. We count calories. We keep lists of our favorite recipes. We used to keep them in recipe boxes, now we just have Pinterest lists, right? It’s the same idea. I love the Food Network! I’m currently watching the spring baking championship, and I just love it!

But I think it is kind of indicative of how our culture thinks about food. Here are some top celebrities and their food network. Guy Fieri (I don’t know if that’s how you say his name, but you know, spikey-haired guy) Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. He’s worth twenty-five million.

Ina Garten, I love her lemon chicken. If you don’t have that recipe, you need it. She’s worth fifty million dollars! And Bobby Flay, who nobody can beat, on Beat Bobby Flay. (I think I could beat Bobby Flay!) (laughter) He’s worth sixty million dollars. “He-e-ey, friend! How are you? You’ve lost a ton of weight! You could lead this class, probably.” (laughter)

So, you know, if we’re paying our chefs millions of dollars and our teachers tens of dollars, it’s indicative of this obsession that we have with food. Which is why food can be a really unique way that we live set apart lives for Jesus. It’s an everyday way.

So we talk about food a lot, we think about food a lot, we eat food a lot, every single person has to eat food everyday. It’s kind of this great equalizer—unless you’re at a conference, and then, I know we don’t eat, we just go. Maybe we eat all the time, depending where you are.

This is just an interesting tidbit: cave dwelling olms, they’re these little lizards that live in caves. They are blind. They only eat once a day . . . and they survive. Sharks eat like every six months. (That’s why they’re so hungry!) God could have made us that way. (Isn’t that interesting to think about.) But God made us to need food every single day, and then He meets that need every single day.

Why? Why did He make us that way? Why are we forever tethered to food? The result is in many of us—women especially or at least women uniquely—we have a very complicated relationship with food. 

What I would submit to us is that I think for most of us, food is an area where we’ve never let our faith intersect. It seems carnal, like, “Does Jesus care what I eat or what I don’t eat?”

“Isn’t He more concerned about my heart?” Well again, God made you to need food, and then made the food that you eat. So to have the idea that He’s unconcerned about it or that it’s not an area that needs to come under His Lordship is, I think, just a mark that we’ve really missed.

So again, I’m not a health expert, but I am someone who’s opened my Bible and said, “This is a pattern in my life. Okay, God, I want to know what the whole counsel of Your Word says about food. Because I don’t seem to be on the right track here.”

I’m kind of obsessed when I feel like the women in the church are missing something. I’m determined to figure it out and then teach it. So I have opened my Bible and said, “Okay, what does the living and breathing Word of God teach about food?”

Let’s think about that for a moment, holistically. I can tell already that you are some women with some depth. You could extract an Old Testament verse on food and build your food theology on it and you just wouldn’t be eating any pigs, and you just wouldn’t have a healthy understanding of food.

You could even extract a New Testament verse and build your whole food theology on it, and you would be missing the mark. So you’ve got to think holistically. Think of the whole Bible and think about where we see food show up—like Genesis, with the original sin, that was related to food.

I actually think the original sin was “exaggeration” (that’s a different lesson for a different day) followed quickly by food, right? There is Cain and Abel. There’s frustration over a grain offering—that’s food. There are the Israelites wandering in the wilderness and complaining. The leeks and garlic in Egypt were so good in their memory—that’s food.

Then there are the Israelites in the wilderness needing manna, that’s food. Then complaining about the manna and they get the quail—that’s food, right? Then there’s the Promised Land, where the grapes are so big the men carry them on poles—that’s food. 

There are the seven feasts (Leviticus 23) where God gives the Israelites their calendar, and it’s all about fo-o-o-d. “Well, that’s an Old Testament thing.” Right? Well, what was Jesus’ first miracle? It was turning water into wine—that’s food.

There are the many, many times that Jesus ate with sinners—not just walked with sinners (although He did some of that), not just preached at sinners (he did some of that). But what He did that infuriated the Pharisees was that He was always sitting down and having a meal with those sinners, right?

Then there’s what Jesus wanted to do with His disciples when He knew He was going to the Cross the next day. He wanted to eat with them . . . what we call the Last Supper. And then there is that beautiful gospel where Jesus told us He was poured out like a drink offering (see Matt. 26:28)—that’s food.

And then after the resurrection when He appeared to the disciples who were in the boat, what did He do? He made them breakfast, fish for breakfast (I don’t like that, but that’s what they liked). (see John 21:7–9)

Then there’s Revelation. I mean, I’ve missed some in there—the wedding feast of the Lamb. (see Rev. 19:9) What are we going to do in heaven? I don’t know, but we’re going to eat! So, it’s all over the Bible! When we look at the Bible holistically, what I see are two alternating rhythms: fasting and feasting. 

Now, God cares a great deal about our rhythms. Think about work and rest, think about sorrow and rejoicing, and think about fasting and feasting. The Christian life most definitely is a life of self-denial, picking up our cross and following Jesus (see Matt. 16:24), that’s the fasting piece of it.

But it’s also a life of abundance, of blessings, of gratitude! That’s the feasting. Now, I don’t think we need a whole breakout session on the feasting; we’re pretty good at the feasting. Am I right?! Some of y’all just feasted before you came to the fasting class! (laughter)

So, we’re going to focus on fasting today. Let me read to you; this is what I want for you today. Go with me in your Bibles to Psalm 34.I’m going to read verses 8–10, and I’m going to pray for you again. I know I already prayed for you, but unless the Holy Spirit shows up and does the heavy lifting here, you’re going to gain nothing of value, and I don’t want that.

So let me read us Psalm 34:8–10; this is my highest hope for you:

Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!
Blessed is the man [I would say “woman”] who takes refuge in him!
Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints,
   for those who fear him have no lack!
The young lions suffer want and hunger;
   but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.”

Jesus, I pray that these sisters of mine, these new friends of mine, would taste and see that You’re good and that they would lack no good thing. It’s in Your name I pray, amen.

Okay, I’m going to show my hand. (That’s a poker reference, Baptists. It’s okay. I’m not actually playing, and now I’ve been sold to the Baptists). I’m actually not here to change your thoughts on food; I’m here to change your thoughts on God. Food is going to be the mechanism I’m going to use to get us there, but I want to talk about Jesus.

When I say those terms “fasting” and “feasting,” you probably gravitate toward one of those more than the other. You probably feel some rather strong feelings towards the other. I was just starting to be interested in fasting. I teach a group of women in my home, and I said to the group, “Hey, would you want to study fasting?”

And one of my friends who loves the Lord, loves His Word, is otherwise a reasonable human being, stood up and said, “I do notwant to talk about that!” (laughter)

I was like, “Cool, I will just go to talk to strangers about it that don’t come to my Bible study!”

That’s probably the first time I’ve encountered that kind of reaction to talking about fasting, but it’s not the only time. I went to my pastor a few years ago and talked to him. I love him, great man of God, so faithful to the truth, has pastored my church for decades, very paternal toward me, has always been very reasonable. He’s like in his sixties. I think he wears Old Spice. It’s like, “Hmm, I want to be him!”

Anyway, I went to him and said, “Hey, Pastor Tim, would you consider teaching a series on fasting?”

He said, “No!” And he has never talked to me that way. He said, “Because I don’t fast, I’m not going to teach something I don’t do.”

So there’s like this response that rises up in some of us when we think of the subject of fasting. Now, you may not be in that camp, or you would not have taken my breakout. You would have been like, “Not that one!” 

But sometimes we do it with feasting. Sometimes the idea that food is good and that God intends us to enjoy it and indulge in it, that makes us feel a little bit out of control, because we’ve been taught that food is the enemy. So, we’re going to try and find some balance in all of that.

I want you to come just as you are, with your real experiences, your real approaches to food. I’ve called this A Practical Guide to Fasting. I’m not really going to build a huge theological case, but you can do that on your own. Start where you should start with everything . . .with Jesus.

Just read the gospels and see how Jesus approached food. He was fully God and fully man, which means He got hungry, which means He had a digestive tract. I have “road rat” so bad right now. That’s what I call it. When I travel, my stomach becomes someone else’s stomach. It just doesn’t want to digest anything anymore.

Jesus probably got road rat—I don’t know—but just pay attention. I’m going to talk about the “why,” the “when,” and the “how.” I’m also going to share some of my own experiences with food, which feels uncomfortable, and I think I know why. (I’m trying to teach you all and listen to whatever good thing might be happening in that other room. I need to not do that.) 

In Matthew 6 Jesus was talking about fasting, and He said a couple of interesting things. One thing He said was, “When you fast . . .” (v. 17). Okay, you’ve got it. He didn’t say, “If you fast . . . You might fast . . .” For Jesus, talking to the context He was talking to, it was a foregone conclusion that fasting was going to be a part of their lives.

I’m going to put it this way: for those of us in the New Testament, fasting is never a command. In the Old Testament it often was, but for us it’s a “get to,” not a “got to.” But what my experience is, is that for all mature followers of Jesus (God doesn’t usually start us here; He starts on milk, but when we’re ready to move to meat), there’s usually something inside of us, by “something,” I mean Someone—the Holy Spirit—who will say, “Hey, have you considered fasting?”

So, I believe God moves all mature believers toward this discipline, but it’s not a command. Anyway, after Jesus said, “When you fast . . .” He said “. . . don’t be like the Pharisees. They do it in public; they draw attention to themselves; they make themselves look sick.”

“You should go in your room, close your door. For what the Father sees in secret, He will reward.” That’s the Erin Davis paraphrase, but those are those big ideas. So, I think we’ve read Matthew 6 all these years and we’ve thought that what Jesus was saying was, “When you fast, you must never, ever, ever tell anyone.”

Well, here’s the deal: Jesus fasted, and Jesus put it in His inspired Word. So either Jesus broke His own rule—which He cannot do—or we’ve been misinterpreting. I actually don’t think He meant, “Don’t ever tell anyone you’re fasting.” 

He cares so much about the heart. He was saying, “They fast to get human attention, so human attention is all they’re ever going to get. If you’re fasting to get My attention, don’t do it to get other people’s attention.” So, because no one is talking about fasting, no one is teaching about fasting . . .then nobody’s fasting.

So, I’m going to talk about some of my fasting experiences. That’s not because I have a trophy: Best Faster in the World! No such trophy exists! This whole thing is about humility, so I’m not bragging on it. 

But I do feel like, “Man, if I could demystify this just a little bit, we’re all going to be better off.” I’m not here as the Queen of Fasting. I am here as someone who fasts, and considers it a tremendous gift that I left on the shelf of my Christian life for about twenty years, and I’m not going to put it back on the shelf.

So don’t take it in the spirit of bragging, please. A little sidenote (I just told this to another group): my middle school superlative (it’s in the yearbook) was “most conceited.” Then I came to know Christ and my high school superlative was, “most outgoing.” So I feel like it’s a redeemed version of the same thing. (laughter)

I’m not being conceited, I’m just being open. I hope you’ll track with me on all that.

I’m going to give you three good reasons to fast; note-takers, here you go. Reason number 1 to fast is that Jesus fasted. Close your books, head on out, you get a coffee break. Right? Jesus fasted.

I remember having a conversation with a friend once who was a follower of Jesus, but hadn’t gotten baptized. She said, “Why should I? It’s not tied to my salvation.”

And I said, “Well, Laura, because Jesus did!” And she got baptized. 

So, Jesus fasted. Most notably, of course, there’s that forty-day fast in Matthew chapter 4. And that forty-day fast preceded His earthly ministry. If you pay attention to the timeline, He went off into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.

Scripture seems to indicate He had no food or water during those forty days. He was tempted by Satan, then He came down and immediately started preaching about the coming kingdom, and healing the sick.

This is an interesting thought, because the whole reason Jesus came was to save us through His death on the Cross. Why didn’t He go straight to the Cross? Why did He fast and then have an earthly ministry and then go to the Cross? 

Well, I think there are lots of reasons, but among them is the fact that Jesus came to show us what it means to live inside a human body in a way that glorifies God. And part of that human experience for Jesus was fasting.

I encourage you to read that again, it’s Matthew chapter 4. What you won’t see is that Jesus was able to supernaturally bypass His own need for food. At the end of that fast He was very, very weak and very, very hungry.

If you’re like, “Uh, He’s the Son of God, of course He could fast for forty days!” Well, no, He felt everything that you would feel if you were to undertake a forty-day fast, and He wanted to do that before He took on what we consider the greater parts of His ministry, and I just question that. I think the forty-day fast is one of the most miraculous, amazing things that He did.

Jesus wasn’t the only one. Moses fasted at the receiving of the Ten Commandments. (see Exodus 34:28) David fasted, you remember, when his child was sick. He was fasting that the Lord would heal that child, and once word came to him that the child had died he got up, washed his face, and went and had something to eat. (see 2 Sam. 12:16)

Ezra fasted to mourn the sins of his people. (see Ezra 10:6) Esther fasted when that edict of death had been issued for the Israelites. (see Esth. 4:15) The elders of Antioch, they fasted before they sent out those missionaries that founded the church that we are now a part of. (see Acts 13:3)

If you need a good reason to fast, Jesus did it, Moses did it, Ezra did it, Paul did it, Peter did it. The heroes of our faith fasted, so let’s emulate them!

Reason Number 2: Fasting turns down the volume on the appetite of your flesh. News flash! You are a woman of flesh. I’m a woman of more flesh than some of you! (Some of us have more flesh and some of us have less.) 

I always say that my flesh is the first one on the scene. It’s like my flesh is an ambulance. It’s like, “Whooooo! I’m here!” My spirit comes slower, it’s under wisdom, but unfortunately this side of glory we will remain women of flesh. 

The early church must have had some discussions about this, because Paul said. “Well then, shall we just go on sinning?” (see Rom. 6:1) In other words, should we just say, “Ah, I’m a woman of flesh. I’m gonna just live in the flesh! Grace covers me!”

What did Paul say? “BY NO MEANS!” [she growls it out loudly] (Rom. 6:2) depending on your translation. Sometimes he’d call a name and say, “SEE, I’M WRITING IT IN BIG WORDS!!!” [she yells it out] Right?

No, just because we are women of flesh doesn’t mean we indulge the flesh. And, if you can imagine turning down the volume on your flesh by denying your what it wants, which is food . . . followed by food . . . followed by more food!

When you turn down the volume on the flesh, you will turn up the volume on the Spirit. I can’t explain why it happens, it just happens. It’s supernatural. If I could live in a continuous fast I would. I can’t. Fasting is feasting, ladies, because when you are fasting there is a sweetness in your walk with the Lord that isn’t there otherwise. Again, I don’t know why.

There is an attentiveness in your spirit that isn’t there otherwise. There is a willingness to run quickly from sin. Some of you I see are aggressively nodding, which means you’ve experienced this, right? 

So fasting turns down the volume on your flesh, which turns up the volume in your spirit. I will say that if you are fasting without prayer, you just have an eating disorder. And we all have disordered eating, because we’re all creatures of the fall.

If you just say, “Aww, I’m just not going to eat today,” and there’s no change in your spiritual patterns, you might be doing a kind of fast. You’re doing a health fast, but you are not doing a biblical fast.

It’s been hilarious to me the past few years when the health industry is like, “We’ve discovered this new tool—intermittent fasting. It’s amazing!” I’m like, “Yeah, the Ancient of Days has been telling us that that’s good for us since the dawn of time!” They’re talking about fasting for health, but what they’re discovering is, “Hey! God’s Word is true!”

But because we have disordered eating, we can really quickly get confused. It is not about the food. It is about turning up the volume on the Spirit. You probably already know Matthew 5:6; it comes from the greatest sermon of all time. I’m on a campaign to stop calling it The Sermon on the Mount—bleah. It is The Greatest Sermon of All Time!

And as part of the Beatitudes, Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” When we fast and when we feel hungry you say, “Jesus, help me to hunger and thirst for righteousness like I am hungering for food right now.” Our volume on our belly gets turned down and our volume on our spirit gets turned up.

Fasting is a tool in your spiritual arsenal, and what I need you to know is on like a front level knowledge, not a subconscious level knowledge, is that we are at war! And you are soldiers on the winning side of that war, but you do have to fight. And one of the weapons that God has given you is fasting.

[Not using this weapon is] the equivalent to having a sword in your belt, going up against the enemy and just leaving it sheathed. It’s a weapon. Second Peter 2:19 says that you are a slave to whatever controls you. That’s a pretty broadly brushed verse. Food controls us. It does!

In many ways it’s a culturally acceptable area of sin. I could hear your toes curling up, but we’re nodding. You were sweet about it! What fasting does is it is a God-given reset when our appetites are off.

It’s been really interesting as I’ve been promoting the book these past few weeks, I’ve been talking about fasting a lot . . . I feel like this was an area where the Lord has given me a lot of freedom. I still feel that way. He’s given me a lot of new patterns. But as I was day-in and day-out talking about our appetites, suddenly my appetite started to get off! I started craving all kinds of things I wasn’t craving and eating all kinds of weird times. It was like, “I’ve gotta walk out what I’m teaching here!”

When your appetites are off—your appetites for food, your appetites for entertainment, your appetites to be with the people of God, your appetites for Scripture (you have appetites)—fasting is a reset button that I want you to push more often.

Okay, Number 3, Fasting is an outward expression of an inward change. We have a lot of these in the Christian life, right? Baptism comes to mind. Somebody is above the baptismal waters, they go below the baptismal waters, and they come out . . . and they’re saved. Is that how it works? No. 

I met a woman once who got baptized before she came to Christ. She said, “I went in a dry devil, I came out a wet devil!” (laughter) It didn’t change her nature! So why do we get baptized, if that’s not what saves us? Well, because Jesus did it, and because it’s an outward expression of an inward change. 

Sabbath is the same thing. Sabbath doesn’t save you; there’s no sticker chart in Heaven—who had the best of rest times. It’s an outward expression of an inward change: “I believe Heaven rules, so I believe I can rest.”

Tithing is the same thing. I hope you don’t think that God has like abacuses and Excel sheets and He’s really paying attention to how much you give because how He feels about you is somehow contingent on that. No! You get to give. You don’t “got” to give. It’s an outward expression of an inward change.

So, your salvation does not hinge on whether or not you fast. Good news! You could never fast—ever, ever, ever—and you would be as saved as the person who fasts every week. But because of Christ’s work in you, if you want to find ways to express what He’s done for you—which I know you do—then fasting is one way you can do that.

And what do those things I mentioned—baptism, tithing, setting aside a day to rest—what would you say, other than the fact that they’re outward expressions of inward changes? What is something that those have in common? Sacrifice, good. What else? Spiritual discipline, good. What else? Faith. What’d I hear? Blessings. Yeah.Renewing your mind, yeah. Often done in community, you’re right. Humility is what I’m going for, but those were all good answers!

Humility, so good! That’s what I was thinking, right? I mean, Sabbath is an act of humility. “It is okay, I can rest; I’m going to surrender my to-do list.” I hate it! 

My family is always like, “Erin, come sit on the couch.” I’m like, “I’ve got seven thousand things to do, guys.” But it’s a step of humility. Baptism is a step of humility. Tithing is a step of humility, and fasting is a step of humility.

It’s a surrendering of yourself, of your comfort. It’s a surrendering of your most basic need, your most urgent need. I mean, when you say you need Jesus, do you mean it? Do you mean you need Him to satisfy your hunger? It’s a step of humility.

I think sometimes we feel like the only thing we can control in a day is food, right? And to let go of control of that area of our lives can put us in a free fall. It is a step of surrender. It is saying, “Okay, Jesus, I know I need food. I’m going to set it aside, and in humility I’m going to put myself at Your mercy and trust that You’re going to sustain me without food.”

So, as I’ve talked about fasting, some women have said to me, “I tried fasting. I got a headache! I must be doing it wrong.” I’m like, “You were doing it right!”

“I tried fasting. My brain just got so foggy! I don’t know how you do it! I just quit it.” Yeah.

To fast is to embrace the consequences of not eating for a spell, it is to not feel good. Now, you get to a point where you feel really good, actually. But it’s to take on those consequences. It’s to humbly embrace that part of our humanity, which is like, “I think I’m in control of the world, and I can’t go six hours without some protein!”

I’m not in control here! It’s an outward sign that I trust Jesus to take care of me. Those are the high level reasons. Scripture also gives us many specific reasons to fast. I’m not going to give them all to you because we have limited time, but if you head to ReviveOurHearts.com there’s a blog post that I wrote there that I think is comprehensive of the reasons Scripture gives us to fast, and there are a lot of them there. But I’ll give you some of them.

Acts 13:2 showcases the early church praying before they had to make a decision. By a show of hands, does anybody have to make a hard decision in the next thirty days? Anybody? Okay, there’s a biblical example that one way to prepare to make that decision wisely is to fast.

Isaiah 58:3–7 shows us that we can fast to overcome addiction. Now, I know we think addicts are not us. I’m not sure we’re right.

In 2 Samuel 12:15–17, this is fasting for God’s intervention. Does anybody need to see the hand of God in their life? Me, too. Scripture gives us an example that maybe that’s when we fast.

In response to grief or mourning, I’m going to give you two passages: Psalm 35:14 and Esther 4:3. Isn’t it interesting . . . I’m confident some of you in this room have experienced this, that when you come up against a period of intense grief (someone’s died), your body often doesn’t want to eat . . . or some of us eat whole pizzas and whole chocolate cakes!

That’s your body naturally kicking into something that Scripture teaches us is an appropriate response to grief. Isn’t that cool? Esther 4, again, verses 15–16 is to request God’s protection. You guys know that story.

The Israelites were going to be annihilated on a single day, and Esther sends word: “Have the people of Israel fast.” It was corporate, and of course, the hand of death was stayed.

Joel chapter 2, verses 12–15 gives us an example of fasting in repentance.I don’t know if you’ve ever been so grieved by your sin that you’ve entered into a fast, but I have, and there’s a sweetness to it.

Jonah chapter 3:6–10 is when a leader fasts because they want to see God move among their people. You know that story: Nineveh was full of pagans doing all kinds of things pagans do. God sent Jonah to share the gospel, essentially, with them, and the leader is flabbergasted, gobsmacked (because I want to be part British) by their sin. So he calls the whole nation to fast. Do we want to see God move in our nation? I do. Are we fasting?

Again, that’s not a comprehensive list, but I think those are some good reasons to fast. I would guess that those would touch your lives, every one of you, in one way or another. God’s Word makes a very strong case for the people of God to fast when our need for Him is very great. And my question to us is: “When isn’t it?”

Fasting is a gift, waiting for you to open it. It’s a “get to,” not a “got to.” It’s a delight, not a duty. You are not commanded to do it in the New Testament, but I’ll say it again . . . fasting is feasting, friends. Okay, so that’s the “why.” What about the “when”?

Let’s open our Bibles to Matthew chapter 6:16, it says, “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.” So what Jesus doesn’t say is, “Shame on them, shame on them; I’m mad at them!”

He says, “They got everything they’re going to get from the fast; they got attention.” But you want more, you want something supernatural from the fast, right?

Let’s jump to Matthew 9. I want you to know this is like a congruent narrative happening here between Matthew 6 and Matthew 9. It’s all happening together, so they go together.

Matthew 9, verses 14 and 15: “Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.’” Which I’m sure made John’s disciples go, “We don’t get it!”

But Jesus gives us here the “when” and the “then.” So, “when you fast” implies that God’s people are already fasting. And the “then”—when do we fast?—the “then” is in the sliver of history between His resurrection and His return.

Jesus was saying, like, “Why would they fast and cry out to me when I’m right here with them? But a day is coming when I’m not going to be with them, and then they’re going to fast.” And boy, did they! As Pentecost came, as the church was born, as the church faced persecution, as the brethren were martyred for their faith . . . then the disciples fasted!

And guess what? We are in that sliver! We are eagerly awaiting the moment—it could still happen today!—when the clouds part. Wow! And Jesus returns for His own! The Bridegroom comes for the Bride, and we feast! So, we are in the time when Jesus taught that the people of God were to be fasting. Are we? 

Now, it’s interesting that in this dialog the disciples of John said, “Well, we fast and the Pharisees fast.” You should know that fasting is not a uniquely Christian discipline. In fact, the other faiths that worship false gods out-fast us like crazy! They put us under the table in the area of fasting.

They are disciplined; they are dutiful. And we’re just like, “Mmm, we don’t really get it; we’re not going to do it.” We’re missing it! Here’s an interesting quote from G. Campbell Morgan (don’t try to write this down, you’ll be stressed out!).

He wrote: “I never lay my head on the pillow without thinking that perhaps before I awake, the final morning may have dawned. I never begin my work without thinking that He may interrupt it to begin His own. And every night before we go to sleep, we ought to say, ‘He may come tonight.’ Every day when we get out our tools to go to work, we think, ‘This may be the last day’s work I do.’”

We are in this uniquely small and uniquely significant sliver of history before Jesus comes back. He said, “When the Bridegroom’s gone for a little while, then the people will fast.”

I have this dream that thousands of women—it gives me goosebumps—maybe tens of thousands of women, maybe millions of women would begin to fast and pray.

And then I think, “What would God do?” And the better question is, “What couldn’t He do if we humbled ourselves in that way?” Now, there are not thousands of us in this room, but we’re a pretty good start. 

You know what’s crazy? Scripture seems to indicate that we can hasten the return of the Lord by our prayers, which are filling bowls in heaven. (see Rev. 5:8) Somehow, there’s impact. If we fasted and prayed like the return of Christ depended on it, what if it hastened the day? I’m willing to find out.

Try to imagine if this group . . . You’re from all kinds of different places, all kinds of different churches. You represent many children, you represent many families, you represent many communities. If this group began to fast and pray, something would happen. Things would shift.

There’s a little prayer, it’s only there once, that the new believers prayed: “Maranatha!” It means, “Come, Lord Jesus!” And if we began to fast and pray, “Maranatha, maranatha, maranatha!” what might shift? I don’t know, but I want to find out!

So, what’s the “when”? When you fast. What’s the “then”? Once Jesus has ascended, while you’re waiting for His return, so now is the time. [You might say:] “I thought this was a class on the practical application of fasting.” So, what’s the “how”?

That was just all the preamble. Here we go! Here’s the “how!” How do we fast? We want to know the nuts and bolts of that. Well, if you look at Scripture, what you’re going to find is a lot of variety. Sometimes people fasted in groups; sometimes they fasted as individuals. Sometimes they fasted for many days; sometimes they fasted for a single day.

Sometimes they fasted from sundown to sundown; sometimes they fasted from sunup to sunup. Sometimes they had nothing—no food, no water; sometimes they only had water. Sometimes God just gave them certain foods. 

Sometimes, like Daniel who said, “I’m not going to eat the delectable foods from the king’s table; I’m just going to eat meat and vegetables.” We would call what Daniel did, “Whole 30.” (It wasn’t their idea; it was God’s idea.)

“Well, that’s frustrating! Why doesn’t He just tell us how to do it!?” It’s not formulaic, it requires walking in the Spirit. 

Now, I’m going to tell you a few ways that I’ve done it and—again—I’m not bragging. I started fasting years ago. The Lord just put it on my heart and I said, “Okay, Lord, I don’t know what it looks like.” I thought I was going to fast on Fridays for my sons.

I grew up in a house where my mom was always dieting, so I’m very conscientious to not have my boys think I’m dieting. I would take them to school, and I would fast for breakfast and lunch every Friday. And the time I would have spent in eating, I spent praying for my sons’ salvation.

My two oldest boys gave their lives to Jesus during that year. Now, is that because my fasting discipline was so amazing? No! You do not fast to twist the arm of God. I cannot manipulate God, which I’m grateful for, because I would if I could! (laughter) Just ask my husband (who just reappeared in the room). Don’t ask him! It’s a trap. (laughter) 

But somehow something shifted and Eli and Noble gave their lives to the Lord and were baptized during that year. Well, I was hooked after that!

Then I had the opportunity to lead the women’s ministry at my church, and I was way out of my depth. We’d never had a women’s ministry before. 

There were a lot of people who didn’t think we needed a women’s ministry. I had my work cut out for me, and I just knew I needed the Lord. So I fasted for forty days at the beginning of our women’s ministry. I just had liquids—so I had chicken broth, beef broth. Everybody always wants to know how much weight I lost: zero pounds! (Thank you, metabolism!) But I wasn’t doing it for that anyway.

And then, Grounded. My Grounded girls, you’ve heard me talk about this some. My fortieth birthday was April of 2020 (I’m forty-two, if you’re doing math.) If I live to an average age, that was a halfway point to me.

Not because I needed to, I didn’t need to recommit my life to the Lord. But I just wanted Him to know, “The second half is all Yours! Whatever You want, You can have it.” So, I fasted for forty days.

Now, the pandemic hit, and I said to my husband, “Uh, there’s like a global pandemic. Maybe we’re all going to die. Maybe I shouldn’t fast.”

He said, “You told the Lord you would do it. I think you could do it!”

And then we launched Grounded in the midst of that, which was a really intense ministry outreach. Man, it was a sweet, sweet thing. But here’s the story I don’t tell often publicly.

One of my boys and I have a complicated relationship. We love each other very much; we’re either too much alike, or we’re too different, or we’re both. I don’t know.

He had an incredibly traumatic birth. We just struggled, and we’d tried everything else. I sure wanted to be a good momma, and he sure wanted to be a good boy. We had gone to counseling, and we’d read books, and we just struggled.

As my fortieth birthday came, I thought, I don’t want that to be there anymore. I want You to take it away.” And so that fast was really about healing the chasm between me and my boy. But it also is really sweet, and God did it. About partway through that fast, He did it!

That boy is now much taller than me, and he’s starting to get some peach fuzz on there. If he was here, he would come up here and just put his big ol’ head right on my chest. There’s nothing between us anymore.

Now, he’s a human; I’m a human, but God did something so supernatural in the midst of that fast. It was so, so sweet! I really thought that fast was about God giving me some big new assignment. It was about Him taking things off of me that were weighing me down, areas of sin in my relationship with my child so that I could just keep running the same race well.

Some of you are tearing up because you have a “that.” In Mark 9:29 Jesus calls it a “this kind.” Jesus says, “This kind can only be driven out by prayer and fasting.” And so, God did such a sweet, sweet thing!

Okay, so that’s some of the “how.” You can do it any length of days you want. You can do different things with the amount of food; that’s between you and the Holy Spirit. It can be a single meal.

“Does it have to be food?” I hear that a lot. Can it be fasting from social media?

Well, here’s a news flash: you could give up social media for seven days, ten days, seven hundred days, and you would not die. It’s not the same as food. In Scripture it is always food, with one exception, which is when Paul tells married couples they should sometimes fast from sex in order to pray. (So it’s either food or sex, I’ll let you choose.) So it’s always food or sex, and it’s between you and the Lord, and He will show you. He will show you.

So, what’s your first step? Your first step in any fast is to walk in step with the Spirit. You’ve gotta pray before you pray. 

So you go to the Lord and say, “Okay, I just heard this breakout on fasting,” or “In my personal time in the Word I keep bumping into fasting,” or “I heard this sermon on fasting,” or “I read this book on fasting,” or “I know this friend who fasts”. . . “And I feel like You’re getting all up in my business about that!”

Did that ever happen to you? Like, the Sunday sermon’s about a topic, then you turn on the radio and it’s about that topic, and then your daily devotional’s on that topic. Okay! That’s gonna happen, that’s not my fault! I did not prearrange it! That’s the God of the cosmos. [A lady in the room calls out, “Heaven rules!”] Heaven rules! There you go. It’s everywhere!

Okay, so, you feel the Spirit to confront you about this, and you’re willing to obey, and what do you do? You ask the Lord. He will show you, He will! It’s not going to be some mystical sign. You’re going to know in your spirit, it’s going to line up with the Word, and it’s going to be okay.

I would say, how I fast now most regularly is when someone I love is going through something challenging. As a step of solidarity, I will fast a single meal for them. And I will text them (because nobody calls anybody anymore, and I like that). 

I will text them and say, “Hey, I’m fasting for you Friday at lunch. I’ve set aside about thirty minutes to pray for whatever it is you’re going through. I just want you to know I stand with you.” Some of you, the Lord may call you to a forty-day fast, and can I tell you, it’s an amazing gift!

Some of you, it might be a year of fasting of a certain intermittent (intermit?—I don’t know, no, I made up a word). I don’t know, but I don’t have to worry about it, because the Lord’s going to show you, and I can trust Him to do that for you.

Okay, I’ve made a vow before the Lord. If you’ve heard me teach the Bible, you’ve probably heard me say this. (Don’t ever make a vow before the Lord unless you intend to keep it. That’s another interesting thing to study in Scripture . . . study the Nazarite vow, which is all about food and haircuts.) I made a vow before the Lord that every time I teach the Bible, I will make it very easy for the listeners to be doers, and very hard for you to be hearers only, because that’s our responsibility—to do the Word.

So this is not just a breakout on the theory of fasting, for you to just store up the knowledge of it. At some point, you’ve got to take what you know and turn it into what you do. And so, I’m going to issue a challenge to us. I will have no idea if you do it or don’t do it.

That’s another question I probably should have addressed. I get a lot of, “I can’t fast for medical reasons.” I would just propose to you that there is a fast that you can do. It might be a specific food, but there is a way that you could do it.

But I would challenge us, the women in this room, to fast dinner tonight before Cry Out! [the evening TW corporate prayer session planned]. Now, we’re not going to make a big scene of it. We’re not going to be in the hallway, like, [she yells out] “We’re fasting! That food looks good, but we’re fasting!”

And you know, you’re like, “Oh, you know, I’m eating with my group.” They actually don’t pay very close attention to you! (laughter) They’re paying attention to their food. Get a hot tea, play it cool, or you can say, “Yeah, I just got done a breakout on fasting and decided to fast this meal because we’re going to spend our night praying together.”

So, my challenge to us in this room is that we fast just one meal before we head into Cry Out! as a way of humbling ourselves before we humble ourselves. . .and then where the Lord takes it from there in your life is between you and Him. Let me pray for us.

Jesus! Man, thank You for knowing what’s good for us. Thank You for the ways You’ve put our bodies together. You’ve given us taste buds and stomachs. . .and so much good food . . .and then also this call to denial. I pray for the women in this room. Food can be such a difficult area to tame. I pray that any of us—me included—that if this is an area of our life that we have not submitted to your Lordship, that You’d make that really clear. 

And I pray that as we enter into this fast now, as a group in solidarity, we want to do the fast that gets Your attention. We don’t want to do the fast that is about us. We want to give You glory. So, help us to walk in humility. We don’t do that naturally, we depend on Your Holy Spirit to help us with that. Thank you for these women; they’re a blessing to me. I know they’re a blessing to You. It’s in Your name I pray, amen.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV.