A 40-Day Fast (Bonus Episode)

Bethany Beal: Welcome to The Deep Well with Erin Davis! We’re in a series based on Erin’s book Fasting and Feasting. On this episode we’re going to take a break from Erin’s teaching and talk with her about a unique experience.

Erin, when you approached your fortieth birthday you went on a forty-day fast.

Erin Davis: I did.

Bethany: Can you tell us more about that?

Erin: Yes. That sounds crazy, doesn’t it? As I look back on it, it sounds a little crazy.

What I didn’t know was that my fortieth birthday was going to be in the middle of a pandemic, either. This was April of 2020 when I had already made this commitment.

Yes, as that big birthday approached—you’ve probably picked this up, and you know me, Bethany, because we’re friends, but I love the drama. It’s not rare for me to do birthdays big. It’s not rare for me to do something big to celebrate. But for forty I just had this thought in my head that, “I don’t want to make it all about me.” I mean, I did, in my flesh, but I wanted to do something that just showcases to myself, to God, and to my family, whoever’s watching, that I really want to dedicate the rest of my life to the Lord.

I’d had it in my mind for years that I was going to fast for forty days before my fortieth birthday. I’d done one previous forty-day fast. As that big birthday approached, I was like, “Okay, I’m going to do it.”

The practicality of it is it was a liquids-only fast. I allowed myself to have broths and lots and lots of water and some protein shakes. So, it wasn’t a straight fast, where I didn’t eat anything. But yes, I started that fast in March, and then the COVID virus hit, and the world turned upside down, and I was in the middle of that fast. At times I thought, Maybe I should abandon ship. Maybe I shouldn’t undertake something this significant when there’s all this chaos and stress going on. But actually, I feel like it was so anchoring to me as we all started to face that together, because I’d already made that commitment. I already had the time scheduled to be in prayer. I look back at that with such gratitude.

That was also when Revive Our Hearts launched Grounded, which is a videocast and a podcast that I get to be a part of, and it was a major, major undertaking at the time. We were daily, in the middle of a pandemic, when my kids were suddenly home, and it was wild! I look back at that and think, Wow, I was fasting in the middle of that, the Lord helped me to complete that fast. I hope it was honoring to Him. I do feel like He taught me a lot in the middle of it.

Bethany: As Revive Our Hearts launched Grounded and you were in the middle of that fast, you were in a unique position to call women to pray during the pandemic and lockdowns. Let’s hear what you said on Grounded during that time.

Erin (from a Grounded program): Really, the beginning two weeks of the fast were just the Lord talking to me through His Word and His Spirit about sins in my own life that He didn’t want me to carry into the second half of my life. So I was was dealing with that.

Then there was this turn in my heart, and it was like a flood in my own life and in the lives of the people I love, including the women who I’ve grown to love that I know are watching this broadcast. I felt us sort of settling into the crisis in ways that grieved me. It was little things. We were checking on each other less in my friend group. We just kind of all went in our own spaces, and I thought, Are we desperate? Are we crying out to the Lord? Is our hope in “normal” rather than a holy dissatisfaction that God has to be set apart?

Again, I’m talking about me first and others. If this resonates with you, fine, but I’m talking about what God was doing in my own life. My fear of the coronavirus was replaced by a very visceral fear that the world will come to the other side of these extraordinary circumstances and not see revival; that I personally would remain unchanged, and that I wouldn’t fully turn from the idols that had been exposed in my life that God has used these weeks to reveal.

But beyond this, I cannot bear the thought that the church would not be revived, that the lost would not return to Him, and that our Bibles will not continue to be the lifeline that God created them to be, and that they’ve been to us now, but will they not continue to be that when we move on from the coronavirus?

Bethany: I just need to know, what was the first thing you ate when you completed the forty-day fast? That’s important.

Erin: Carrot cake on my fortieth birthday, made by my Aunt Rhonda. It was the best bite of food I’ve ever, ever had in my life. It was so good.

Bethany: Some of our listeners may actually remember your fortieth birthday, because you celebrated on the Grounded videocast. Let’s hear some of that celebration. Here’s your cohost of Grounded, Dannah Gresh.

Dannah Gresh (from a Grounded program): Hey, Erin Davis, guess what? It’s not a day for fasting; it’s a day for feasting! Happy birthday!

Erin: How are you?

Dannah: Hi, I’m birthday-bombing you! And you know what? Jason and your boys are birthday-bombing you, too!

Erin: They are?

Dannah: Here they come!

Erin: This is the best!

Dannah: Cue the birthday cake and the cute birthday boys!

Erin: This is so fun!

Bethany: Erin, you had these big plans. It was your fortieth birthday, you were going to do this forty-day fast, it was going to be this incredible experience, and then, as you mentioned, COVID hit. How did that change your plans? It maybe wasn’t as whimsical as you imagined. Did that stop you in any way, make you question, “Is this the right time?” What happened?

Erin: I do remember going to Jason, who’s my husband. He’s always been involved, especially when I’ve undertaken a significant fast, because it has to become a family affair. I am the cook of the family, and when I’m not eating, they eat a lot more mac and cheese and pizza bites, and they’re fine with it!

I did go to him at one point and go, “Whoa!” None of us understood what COVID was going to do to our lives in the March that I’m talking about, March of 2020, but it did seem huge. I remember going to him and going, “Maybe I shouldn’t do this . . .” He said, “Erin, you made a commitment to God. You need to do it.” I love it when he points me in the right direction.

He also is so honoring. I don’t know if he’s ever fasted or not. I’ve never seen him do it, we’ve never talked about it. But he’s such a champion of me taking on that commitment and keeping that commitment.

For me it was really the after. My fortieth birthday I wanted to spend at Sequoia National Park, at the base of a sequoia tree. Well, on my fortieth birthday the world was locked down, and I didn’t see anybody. There was no party. My Aunt Rhonda did drop off that carrot cake. It was ring the doorbell, put it on the step, don’t see each other kind of thing. 

There was no hoopla of even coming out of that fast, so it was like, You know what? Did you do that for God or not? Did you do that for a private commitment or did you do it so that at end of it there could be some big party, some big celebration, and you could go right into that? I came out of the fast and there were no horns blaring. There were no sequoia trees. It was like, Are you going to continue to walk out that serious commitment in your life or not? And I did.

I do look back at the beginning of COVID, for me, knowing that I was under that forty-day fast, knowing it was a time of increased prayer, and knowing that the Lord was about to catapult me into the most intense season of my life. I feel like He was preparing me. I don’t know. He certainly would have carried me even if I didn’t fast, but I’m so grateful for that season of preparation.

I’m not Jesus, of course, I would never equate myself with Jesus. But Jesus fasted for forty days before He started His earthly ministry.

Bethany: Yes.

Erin: It was preparation. I do feel like He prepared me for the year of COVID, which was a really intense, hard year.

Dannah (from a Grounded program): Erin, the birthday bash is not over! We have another guest, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth (from a Grounded program): Good morning, Erin! Happy birthday! 

[I’ve loved] to see that you’re always growing, always pressing on, always available to serve, and rooted in the Word of God.

Erin (from a Grounded program): I wanted to wake up today and stand at the base of a redwood tree; that was my dream, because I wanted to start the second half of my life aware of my smallness. I feel like you guys have done that for me! I’m with great pillars of the faith, women I respect and admire, and so you’re my redwoods. You’re oaks of righteousness planted by streams of living water.

This morning I had a little bit of time to reflect, before Grounded happened, about what do I know for sure at forty? What I know for sure is that I have Jesus, and in Him I have everything else. The more I know, the less I know. I don’t have any grand plans for the rest of my life, because I don’t know what the Lord’s going to do, but I know I’ll have Jesus, and in Him I’ll have everything.

Whether it’s your fortieth birthday or not, that’s my blessing over you this morning, that you have Jesus, and in Him you have everything.

Bethany: Have you gotten to see or sit under the sequoia tree yet, or has that not happened?

Erin: No, never have. Sweet people that have listened to me say that before, a woman who I don’t even know, sent me a T-shirt from Sequoia National Park, so that’s as close as I’ve gotten. And since my birthday there was a terrible fire, and we lost hundreds of sequoias in that fire. But I’m going to get there someday.

Bethany: Yes.

Did you learn anything specific during that fast, something that really stood out to you over that experience?

Erin: Two of the major victories that the Lord did in that fast was one, part of the specific reason I wanted to undertake that was that I had a strained relationship with one of my children. I won’t say his name here, to honor him, but he knows this. I’m not talking behind his back. He had a really, really traumatic birth. He and I have very, very different personalities. As much as we love each other, we just struggled. I knew I did not want that to be true of my whole life and his whole life.

We’d tried everything. I mean, we had tried lots of other ways to get along. I just knew that I wasn’t going to settle for that. I wanted a tender bond with this boy. I didn’t want any more of my life to go by without it.

I did have some friends know, before the fast started, “Hey, actually, the heartbeat of this fast is a real healing of my heart connection with my son.” The Lord did that. I’ll tear up. That boy and I have the sweetest, most tender relationship. We’ve talked about it many times since. He knew that’s why I was fasting, and we’re both so grateful for what the Lord did in our hearts—it was supernatural—through that time.

The other one is, as I said, God was putting His finger, through His Holy Spirit, on lots of sin in my life. Honestly, a lot of it had to do with the way I was treating that kid. I just didn’t have eyes to see it. The Lord was putting His finger on a lot of sin, and that kid and I were having lots of conversations, and I was repenting a lot.

I got to the end of that forty-day fast and thought, Well, I don’t feel recommissioned. I’m glad the Lord did that, but I don’t know what that has to do with how I serve Him.

Months later, my littlest son, who was only one at the time, got temporarily lost. My youngest one doesn’t know he’s little, so he’s always up in a tree or in a chicken coop or somewhere. He’s a daredevil. For probably five minutes (it felt like an eternity) we couldn’t find him.

When I finally spotted him, he was just a speck in a field near our home. He’s one! He’d taken his little Hot Wheels down there. I ran down the hill towards that boy, and I started throwing things off. I threw my shoes off. I was wearing this long cardigan, I threw that off. I threw my earrings off; I threw my glasses off. I just needed to get to Ezra as fast as I could get to Ezra.

Bethany: Yes.

Erin: Later, I was sitting with my Bible open and processing the fact that the Lord had been gracious to me, that Ezra was okay. I just had this sense that, actually, the Lord did equip me through that fast, because He had me cast off sins that were hindering me, so that I could run faster in years forty-one through however many years the Lord gives me than I had in the years prior, which is what I had asked Him to do. So in dealing with my sin, my junk, my bad habits, my poor relationship patterns; He really was commissioning me.

Bethany: Wow. It sounds like so much more came of that fast than just the one goal of, “Okay, I want a restored relationship with my son.” It sounds like you changed so much.

I’m curious, did your relationship with God change and your view of Him change at all through the forty days?

Erin: Mostly, I think I just had a heightened awareness of His goodness and His attentiveness to me, both for good and for bad. I mean, it’s easy for me to think, God doesn’t really notice how snarky I am with that boy over the others, or God doesn’t care that I favor one child over the other child, because I am loving my kids pretty well.It was like, no, actually He’s paying attention, and that’s not pleasing to Him. But also, His mercy. The fact that He, at forty, won’t leave me in my sin, even so-called “little” sins or minor sins that I have justified; the fact that He won’t leave me in those is really evidence of His goodness. 

I think fasting does that. It makes you aware that He’s good, that He’s attentive, that He wants to work in your life and your heart, and He certainly did that in that forty-day fast.

Bethany: Amen! That’s beautiful. Anything that really helps us to see the goodness and greatness of God is worth it, right?

Erin: Amen! Right.

Bethany: Erin, you wrote an amazing devotional, Fasting and Feasting, and I’m curious, was your forty-day fast preparation for writing that book, or did that idea come after? Because it’s all so interconnected.

Erin: Yes. I didn’t know. I knew that I had wanted to teach on fasting for a long time—just my style. When there’s something where I’m like, “Guys, I see this all over the Bible, and I don’t hear people teaching about it . . .” It’s not that I think I’m the one to save every day, but I want us to consider our whole Bibles. I don’t want us to leave things undiscussed and untaught.

So, I had known for a long time that I had wanted to teach about fasting, and I had been teaching about fasting in my local church. I had been fasting with women in my own local church and continue to do that to this day. But no, it wasn’t like it was part of the writing experience; they were separate. But I think the end result was a book with more meaning. I think I learned some lessons, and to date I’ve walked what I talk, which is that I have fasted, and it is a part of my life. I hope that I continue to do that. But the book came after. 

In my imagination I try to picture what could happen if the women of God began to fast and pray, and I think things would really change. Things changed in my life, and I want to imagine the ripple effects of that multiplying over and over and over. So it was a result, not part of the research phase.

Bethany: It’s such a great resource for us, to help us know what to do, how to focus on God. I know you can actually get that right now at ReviveOurHearts.com/TheDeepWell. We can jump into that book and just enjoy the devotional.

Do you think that would be a good resource for someone who wants to start fasting? Is that a good resource for them to use to learn more and to dig deeper?

Erin: Yes. You’re going to get a lot of theory and not a lot of practicality. What women all seem to want is the practicality: “What do I eat? What do I not eat? When do I start? How often?” You’re not going to get a lot of that from this book, but I think you should start with the theory anyway. I think you should decide for yourself if you really think fasting is something that applies to us today. Don’t take my word for it, ever. If it is, if it’s something that applies to you.

I definitely think if this is something that you’re just interested in, pick it up, get the theory from Scripture, and then see what God does from there.

Bethany: Erin, thank you for your example in following the Lord’s calling to fast for a time. On our next episode we’ll get back to your teaching on the subject. Where are you going to take us?

Erin: Well, we’re going to go to the book of Revelation and consider the marriage supper of the Lamb.

The Deep Well with Erin Davis is a production of Revive Our Hearts, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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