Episode 2: Why Can't I Drive This Out?

Bethany Beal: Erin, you’re about to talk about an irritate, riled-up crowd, and I have to know, have you ever found yourself in a situation where you were around people that are not happy?

Erin Davis: Oh man, this is a story. I’ve been in a couple.

Bethany: You always have a story!

Erin: I know, I just seem to find myself in the midst. But the one that comes to mind is when my husband was a youth pastor. We had taken our youth group to watch a concert, and I was in charge of saving the seats. So, I was at the beginning of the crowd. I was there early. I was right against the doors, with the thinking that when those doors opened, I was going to run and save some seats.

Well, the crowd starts pushing from behind, and people didn’t want us to save seats. Now, I didn’t say this was a Christian concert, but people were getting riled up about getting good seats.

Bethany: Aggressive?

Erin: Yes. I remember that feeling of, “There’s nowhere for me to go. These doors are closed. This crowd’s getting rowdy.” Then the doors opened and I ran. I did get good seats for our whole group. Then people were frustrated, you know, like, “You can’t save that many seats!”

I’m not sure it’s quite the same as the crowd we’re going to talk about here, but that comes to mind as a moment when I realized, “Man, a crowd can be a very intense situation!” That one was.

Bethany: Welcome to The Deep Well with Erin Davis. Is there some kind of issue in your life you’ve been praying about? Erin will give you perspective on that kind of situation as she continues her series, “Fasting and Feasting.” She’s going to alternate teaching on fasting and feasting, and today we’ll start to see the value of fasting.

Here’s Erin.

Erin: My life has been forever changed by a footnote.

In this episode we are going to open our Bibles and we’re going to be in Mark 9. Now, there is a lot going on in this chapter. As you turn there, you’re going to see it. It begins with the Transfiguration of Jesus, which is when He was transfigured, meaning He took on a whole new figure in front of Peter, James, and John. That’s His inner circle.

This new figure was a glorified figure. His clothes became unbelievably white, and Moses and Elijah (who had been dead for generations) showed up, and they started talking to Jesus. As so often happens in Scripture and in our lives, Jesus and His closest friends came down from that supernatural experience, where they had an unmistakable encounter with God, and they found themselves right in the thick of humanity.

Every text is part of a context. You’ll hear me say that a lot on The Deep Well. It is good to know the background when we look at a particular passage or verse in our Bibles. We’re not going to focus on the Transfiguration. I just want you to know what Jesus and His disciples were coming from. We’re going to focus in this episode on a demon-possessed boy and on his devastated father.

I want you to listen as I read Mark 9; I’m going to start in verse 14. “And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them . . .” You need to know who the “they” is. Remember, it’s Peter, James, John, and Jesus, coming down from the Transfiguration. 

When they came to the disciples [who were apparently waiting for them], they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him [the “him” is Jesus], were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. And he asked them, "What are you arguing about with them?"

I want you to really put yourself in this scene for a moment. Peter, Jesus, James, and John came down from the mountain where Jesus was transfigured, and there was a melee going on in the streets. The other disciples were in the middle of a large and irritated crowd.

I wonder if you’ve ever been in the middle of a large and irritated crowd. I have a time or two, and if you have, then you know just how volatile that situation can be.

Again, they come down from the mountain of Transfiguration, there is a crowd, and it is an irritated crowd, and the situation could go any direction. I’m sure the disciples were looking for Him. They see Jesus, and the crowd sees Jesus, and that stops this argument they’re having, just temporarily. The whole crowd shifts. They run up to Jesus, and Jesus asked them a question. “What are you arguing about with them?”

Someone from the crowd spoke up. Again, I want you to picture the tension of this moment. People might have had their fists balled up; maybe their anger felt palpable. Maybe they had some things in their hands ready to throw—maybe they’d already thrown a bottle or two. Then one person . . . We don’t know his name, but as we’ll see in just a moment, he had every reason to be the most vocal member of this mob. I think he was the ringleader, and he answered Jesus’ question, “What are you arguing about?” He answered that question with an amazing story. Let’s pick it up in verse 17.

And someone from the crowd [that’s this leader of the mob, in my imagination] answered him, "Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able."

You got the picture? The crowd is stirred up, and it’s because this dad has brought his tormented and traumatized son to the disciples, and they were helpless to do anything about his condition.

Okay, parents. I want you to try to picture not just any child, but your child unable to speak, and sometimes seized by a force you cannot see and you cannot control. That force throws your child down. I’m picturing Judah, my eight-year-old, who is as skinny as a rail, teeny-tiny; he would blow over in a strong wind. I’m trying to imagine something seizing him and throwing him onto the ground. That’s what this father and this child had experienced.

Imagine your child foaming at the mouth, grinding his teeth, having temporary rigor mortis, where they go stiff and they look dead. Wouldn’t you do anything to stop that from happening to your child? Wouldn’t you hurt all over again when you tried something and you got a glimmer of hope that it would work, and then your child was thrown into agony all over again. If we take just a minute to put ourselves in this scene, we will get empathy for this dad, who had to have heard about Jesus, had to have heard that He was healing people and casting demons out, and thought, “I’m going to try. I’m going to try and take my son to Him.” He goes to the disciples, and they’re powerless.

I want you to listen to Jesus’ response. See if His tone sticks out as unusual to you, because it sticks out as unusual to me. Mark 9:19:

And he answered them, "O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me."

Now, I’m going to read it again with the emotional tone that I think Jesus might have had in this situation. “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.”

I don’t know if Jesus really said it that way, but our attention is most naturally drawn to the description of the boy convulsing. But I want us to shift this story. I want us to look at it through a different perspective together—look past the drama of the Transfiguration, followed by this boy with a dramatic condition; look past that angry and exhausted father; look past the angry crowd. Look in the middle. Find the disciples.

Can’t you picture them standing there kind of sheepishly, maybe kicking a little pebble with their foot, dropping their eyes to the ground. Can’t you see them looking defeated as Jesus declares, “You unbelieving generation! How long will I be with you?” “How long must I put up with you?” I read between the lines of what Jesus said. Can’t you almost hear Jesus sigh as He said, “Bring him to me”? 

Why was Jesus so uncharacteristically exasperated in this dialogue? Was He mad at the boy who, if we look at the text, had been possessed since he was very little? It says that in verse 21. Was he mad at the dad who, just a few verses later, will whimper one of my favorite prayers of all time? “I believe; help my unbelief!” That’s Mark 9:24.

Could it be, instead, that the disciples—His disciples, the ones He was training to tell the world about Him—could it be that His disciples had tried to solve this problem in their own strength, thereby showcasing that they really were faithless, as Jesus declared when He called them a “faithless generation”? Did the disciples look for a quick solution that allowed them to bypass their desperate need for Jesus’ help? Did He want them to run up the mountain and say, “Jesus, we need help! We can’t do this on our own”? My own life experience tells me, yes.

Aren’t we always trying to solve problems on our own? Isn’t our default to only go to God when we’ve exhausted every other option that we can think of?

I want you to pick up the story. The crowd brought the boy to Jesus, and the boy had an attack right there in front of Jesus, because that force inside of him was a demonic spirit. Scripture tells us that. 

Listen, I have a lot of questions about what that means and what that looks like, but straight from the text we see that he was possessed by a demon, and that demonic spirit inside the boy knew who Jesus was. Jesus and the dad had an exchange about faith and God’s power. And that’s when that dad prayed that simple, honest prayer, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again." (v. 25)

Again, put yourself in the middle of it. The crowd’s fervor just gets amped up as this boy flops on the ground and starts foaming at the mouth. The dad is just saying, “I just have enough faith to keep watching what’s going to happen.”

Jesus talks not to the boy, not to the dad, not to the crowd, but to the demon, and tells the demon to come out. And the spirit obeyed Jesus. And Jesus took the boy by the hand, and Scripture says he arose. We’re left to wonder what the rest of his life, what the rest of his father’s life was like, post-deliverance.

All of that brings me to that life-changing footnote: verses 28 and 29.

And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, "Why could we not cast it out?’And he said to them, ‘This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.'"

Look again at the end of verse 29. Trace it down to the bottom page in your Bible. Do you see the footnote? Mine says, “Some manuscripts add and fasting.”

Older translations of Scripture leave those two vital words “and fasting” in the text, while the rest relegate Jesus’ mention of fasting to an afterthought at the bottom of the page. Now, this is not a podcast episode about the Bible translation process, so for the sake of time (and because I don’t always know the answer) I won’t pull on the thread that unravels why translators moved that to the footnote, or how this delineation happened. 

I want to focus on this: we all have a “this kind.” The little boy in this passage was controlled by a dark spirit that only responded to prayer and fasting—nothing else. Not the father’s fretting, not begging, not bargaining, not an angry crowd. No. Jesus was clear. “This kind cannot be driven by anything but prayer and fasting.”

I’m going to talk a lot about fasting in this series, which I hope means you’re going to think a lot about fasting and read a lot about fasting and pray a lot about fasting. Ultimately, my hope is that you will make fasting a part of your spiritual life, part of your own journey with Jesus.

For me, understanding and embracing fasting started with this story, with this footnote. Fasting is not just one more way that we can wiggle out of the trials that constrain us. It doesn’t work that way. God is far too good, He is far too sovereign to be controlled by what we eat, or when we eat it, or what we don’t eat, or when we don’t eat at all.

Fasting is really not about the food. Fasting is a step of surrender. It’s a way for us to declare, if only to God—nobody else has to know—it’s a way for us to declare that the “this kinds” in our life are beyond us. It’s an outward expression of our inner desire. Like so much of the Christian life, it’s a way for us to show outside what’s happening on the inside, that God can do what we cannot.

Really, if we look at fasting through the biblical lens, we see that it’s just an exercise in throwing our hands up to the Lord. It’s a way of saying, “I’m powerless here, but You are able. You’re God. I can’t move another step in this thing without You.”

I have to wonder if that was the attitude of the disciples as the crowd pressed around them. The boy was flopping on the ground and the dad was at the end of his rope. If the disciples would have just said, “We’re powerless! We need Jesus,” maybe Jesus’ reaction would have been totally different. 

Who fasted and prayed for this little boy to be delivered? If Jesus said, “This kind can only be driven out by prayer and fasting,” who prayed? Who fasted?

Well, the text doesn’t explicitly say. I think it could have been Jesus. Before He started His ministry, before He had any of these kinds of encounters, He spent forty days fasting and praying, modeling for us this rhythm of dependence on the Father.

It could have been the dad. Fasting was a really regular and normal part of Jewish life when this story was told. It could have even been somebody who was a part of that riled-up crowd. They’d seen this boy’s need, they’d fasted. Maybe they’d gone to the temple, they’d asked God to intervene, and He hadn’t yet. We don’t know.

What we do know is that this boy was sick and tormented, and that all human effort had failed to do anything about it. Right before Jesus delivered him, He said, “This kind can only be driven out by prayer and fasting.”

Today as you listen to this episode of The Deep Well, I hope you have your Bible open. I hope you’re following along in Mark 9, just chasing the threads of this story wherever they lead you. I have mine open.

As we sit together with our Bibles open, I wonder, What are the “this kinds” that you’re facing? I have some guesses. 

Maybe, like me, you have a relationship (or more than one relationship) that cannot be made right by your best efforts and deepest longings. You’ve tried everything. You’ve tried reaching out. You’ve tried going silent. You’ve tried saying you’re sorry. You’ve tried saying you love them. You’ve sent cards. You’ve given them space . . . and . . . you can’t drive it out.

Maybe you have a bruise on your heart that stays tender no matter how much time goes by. Time isn’t the healer of all things, and you’ve learned that, because you’ve hurt for a long time. I have some of those bruises on my heart.

Maybe you have a root of bitterness that is buried so deep, and you know that the Bible calls you not to be bitter, and you don’t want to be bitter, but your “this kind” you can’t yank out on your own.

Maybe it’s just a really practical need. Your finances aren’t meeting up at the end of this month, or you’re looking for a job and you’re not finding one. Your “this kind” you can’t drive out.

You can probably empathize with the disciples, who—you know, arms at their sides, shoulders hunched—when they got alone with Jesus they said, “Why? Why couldn’t we fix it?”

I’d love for you as you’re listening to pause and ask the Lord this question: “What am I most desperate to see driven out of my life?” Then, I want you to go back to our front-row seat for this beautiful, challenging story. Where do you fit? Who do you identify with? 

Do you identify with the tired father today? You’re just worn out from trying to solve your biggest problems in your own strength? That’s me. I just try to muscle through everything, and there are things that I keep trying to muscle through, and it’s not getting fixed, and it just makes us tired.

If that’s you, consider this: Have prayer and fasting been your first and most-often-deployed weapon? Or are those two tools which God has given us through His Word, prayer and fasting, are they relegated to the footnotes of your life? You’ll know, because you’ve never even thought about fasting for that thing before. You’ve prayed about it here and there, but you haven’t dedicated prayer and fasting to saying, “Jesus, I cannot fix this thing. I need You to come down off the mountain and intervene.”

I also really relate to the disciples. You know, they tried! I’ve rubbed plenty of elbow grease into areas of weakness in my own life, thinking, Surely, I can just try harder, do better, and get stronger. I find that I can’t. I’m still just as weak. I search my own heart and ask a version of the same question the disciples asked. “Why couldn’t I drive it out? Why can’t I fix this? Why can’t I be better? Why can’t I do better? Why can’t I overcome this?”

If that’s you, then I have the same question for you: Have prayer and fasting been your first and most-often-deployed weapon, or are they still just a footnote?

You know, we all have “this kinds.” It likely isn’t demon possession that makes us flop down on the ground and have seizures, but we have things in our lives that we need God to fix. Maybe this side of heaven we always will, but Jesus will always be able to drive out what we cannot. That demon responded instantly to Jesus, because Jesus has the power to drive out the “this kinds.”

As we talk about fasting in this series, and as I hope you begin to consider fasting in your own life, what it looks like in Scripture, and what it might look like for you, I want you to know that this is why we fast. If you’re fasting to lose weight, that’s not the kind of fast we’re talking about here in Scripture. We fast to let go of our strength and to tap into Jesus’ strength.

I have some “this kinds” in my life right now. One, as I mentioned before, is a broken relationship, and I’ve tried so hard, and all of my best efforts—everything I know to do to heal broken relationships—it’s not sticking. It’s not working.

The other ones that I think of as I read this story are some chronic illness issues that I have in my body. I’ve seen lots of doctors. I’ve seen the best doctors I know to see, and none of them can fix it. I really have tried everything I can think of (and everything anybody else can think of) to solve these two areas of need—in my own strength, with my own resources, and it hasn’t worked.

So, right now, in this season, I fast on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I know it’s a little strange for me to talk about my own fasting rhythms. We’ll talk about why that feels strange to us in a future episode. But I don’t know, for the past three or four months I’ve fasted on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I save those days to pray for desperate needs of the people I know and to pray for those two specific areas of need: that that one relationship will be restored and that my body will be made well.

I’m not telling you that to sound super spiritual. I’m not super spiritual. I’m super needy. I can’t fix this. Like I said, I’ve tried! I have that same question in my heart that the disciples asked: “Why? Why can’t I drive this out?” I don’t know the answer, but I know God can, and I trust Him.

I feel a lot like that father. “I believe; help my unbelief! As a showcase that I believe, God, that You love me and that You can care for every aspect of my life, I set aside a couple days a week and I fast and I pray.” Fasting is one of the ways I am showing God and I am showing myself that all of my hope is in Him in this season.

I want to pray for your “this kinds.” Wherever you are, wherever you’re listening, I want you to hear my voice and know I sincerely pray for God to intervene in whatever came to mind for you as I was reading that story. As I pray for you, I want you to consider if fasting and prayer is a right response for you. That’s between you and the Lord; I don’t ever have to know about it. But I do want you to consider: are fasting and prayer central to the way you respond to need, or are they footnotes?

Let’s pray.

Jesus, You are the same God who was transfigured on that mountain, the same one who healed that demon-possessed boy; and we’re the crowd. Every one of us has a “this kind,” something we cannot fix, something we’ve taken to somebody else and they cannot fix; something that we feel frustrated by, hurt by, devastated by, Lord. I pray for every woman listening, that You would intervene in her “this kind.” If fasting and prayer is something You could use in her life, Lord, I pray by the power of Your Holy Spirit that You would speak to her really specifically about that right now. We love You; we give our “this kinds” to You. We believe; help our unbelief. Amen.

Bethany: As Erin described some of the ongoing struggles she’s praying, maybe a similar situation came to your mind. One resource that can help you get perspective as you pray is Fasting and Feasting, a forty-day devotional. You can grab a copy right now at ReviveOurHearts.com/TheDeepWell.

Erin Unscripted

Erin, as we jump into one of my favorite parts, Erin Unscripted, I want to go back to that story of the father whose son was afflicted by this demon. I wonder—we’re talking about fasting and feasting—what drew you to this story?

Erin: I think that’s one of the things I love most about Scripture, is you can look at it from a different angle and see something unique there. I don’t know when, but at some point I was studying Mark 9, and of course we all want to think about the Transfiguration, because that’s wild. But what happened right afterwards? I just became so drawn to that story. Of course, I’d heard that father’s prayer before, but I don’t know that I’d put it all together in context.

It’s just dramatic. I mean, it is just a drama story. But I did get kind of hung up on, why couldn’t the disciples drive it out? If you read all the Gospels, they do perform miracles, even when Jesus isn’t within earshot. So it’s not that they were incapable. But in this case, they couldn’t. What did Jesus mean when He said, “This kind can only be driven out by prayer and fasting?”

So, I just think the whole thing is fascinating. Honestly, I have more questions than answers about this passage, but I always like to extract, “Okay, what can I know?” What can I know about God from this passage? What can I know about how He’s called me to live from this passage?

I think what we can know is that God gives us prayer and fasting as a tool on our spiritual toolbelt, and that started this whole journey for me of exploring fasting—fasting for myself, wanting to teach about fasting, wanting to talk about it more often. So, to me it’s just fascinating. But it’s not the go-to story that we might think of when we think about God and food, which I love. If I get you thinking about your Bible in a new or unique way, I’ve done my job.

Bethany: You mentioned the verse—you talked about it a couple times—Mark 9:24. You were talking about how the father was crying out, “I believe; help my unbelief.” I think we’ve all found ourselves in a place where we just feel like, “I want to believe, but this is really hard.” Has there ever been a time in your own life where you have cried this prayer to God, where you’ve felt like, “Yes, I want to believe, but help my unbelief”?

Erin: I actually think that is our true state. I mean, we believe enough to know there is a God, we believe enough to know His name is Jesus, we believe enough to cry out to Him; but we have all of these other questions. For me, the question is not, “Is there a God?” or “Is He listening?” or “Does He care about me?” Those things are settled in my heart. But is He going to answer this the way that I want Him to? Is He going to answer it when I want Him to? Is what I’m praying for even His will? How can I know if it’s His will? Those are all my unbelief addendums to every prayer that I have ever prayed.

So I think every prayer, honestly, is that for me. “I believe in You, God. I trust You, God. But I’m not sure what You’re going to do here, and I’m not sure I’m going to like what You do here. How can I know what Your timeline is?” I mean, all of those questions are real. That’s my Christian walk. This prayer could pretty much just describe the whole journey. “Yes, I’ve put my trust in You, but there’s a lot I don’t understand.”

Bethany: I love this story, because it showcases Jesus’ power and how He is the one that has the power. He has what we need. I know I’ve been in that place, and I’m sure our listeners right now, many of them feel that way: “I am so weak. I’ve exhausted all my options, and I feel like I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

For the listener who’s feeling that way, the sister in Christ who’s feeling like: “I’ve exhausted all my options; I am broken; I need Jesus.” What is the next step? Do I just start praying? Do I just start fasting? What in the world do I do at this moment of brokenness?

Erin: Oh, that is such a beautiful moment, and I think it’s a moment that the Lord really honors. Scripture tells us that He’s honored by a contrite spirit, which is kind of an old-fashioned way of saying when you’re at the end of your rope, when you are at the end of your resources, when you know, “I cannot handle this. I am out of my depth here.” That’s what that means. I think absolutely, crying out to God in whatever way you can is the right next step.

That could mean praying, but you know, we’ve probably all been in times—I’ve been times where I don’t even have any words to pray. If someone were to say to me, “Well, just pray about it!” I’d be like, “You might as well just tell me to build the Eiffel Tower out of toothpicks.” I mean, I just can’t. I don’t have it. But I can sing. I can ask other people to pray for me and with me. I can just pray this beautiful prayer that the dad prayed: “I believe; help my unbelief.” He didn’t say anything other than that.

Jesus and the demonic forces that tormented that man’s son responded to that simple prayer. So you know what, don’t muscle it up. Don’t pretend you have something that you don’t have. Just turn yourself to the Lord in whatever way you can.

One thing I have said and thought before when I can’t hear the voice of God, is I need to listen to the people of God. There are times when I just can’t hear His voice. There’s nothing wrong with Him. He’s speaking through the ages. It’s me. I have my ears stopped up. But the people of God can, in that situation, speak hope and life to me. So, a great next step for today is to get yourself to a woman who loves Jesus and can just speak life-giving words to you.

Bethany: That’s beautiful.

You talked about “this kind” in that passage, how “this kind” needs prayer and fasting, which is obviously what we’re focusing on, that footnote. That’s really enlightening, but I want to know, for you, have you ever had a “this kind” where you felt like, “This is big; I need some prayer and fasting for this situation”?

Erin: I have many “this kinds.” One that comes to mind from a few years ago is my own children’s salvation.

Bethany: Oh wow.

Erin: I mean, kids don’t come into the world knowing Jesus, and I desperately want all of my children to know Jesus, to follow Him, to be very devoted to Him. I’ve done what I can, but that ultimately is not a decision I can make for them. My older boys were coming of the age where I thought, Okay, I want to see them make that decision. I don’t want them to have to be drinking from the pig slop like the prodigal son. I want that to be an early-on decision. But me wanting that to happen doesn’t make it happen. So I set aside a year and fasted every Friday for my sons’ salvation.

Bethany: Oh, my goodness!

Erin: The Lord did a lot of cool stuff in that year, but my two older boys both gave their lives to Jesus and were baptized in that year of fasting. It wasn’t because of anything I did; it’s not like, “Oh, because I skipped some meals my boys have eternal salvation.” No. But I think God does respond to our prayers, He does respond to our humility, and He just worked in a way that I can’t really even explain.

That was a “this kind” that was just beyond me. My boys weren’t demon-possessed, but they weren’t followers of Jesus either, and the Lord did it.

Bethany: Wow. I think in my own life there are those sorts of situations, even now, where I’m like, “Maybe this needs some prayer and fasting,” but fasting sounds a little bit scary. What even is fasting? Does it mean a whole day, a whole week? Is it just skipping meals? Can you give us a mini deep dive into exactly what fasting is? Could it mean just taking tonight and skipping dinner and praying? Is that okay? What exactly are we talking about when we say fasting?

Erin: I wouldn’t position myself as an expert, so we’ll be learning together. Those are good and right questions. I mean, there is a practicality to this. We can talk about fasting in theory all day long, and at the end of the day you have to decide, “Am I going to eat or not, and what am I going to eat or not?” Right?

Bethany: Yes.

Erin: I will just say a couple of overarching principles. One is that in Scripture it is food. Somebody challenged me on that once on social media. I said, “Well, it could be TV, or it could be social media.” 

They said, “Actually, in Scripture it’s always food.” 

I was like, “Oh. In Scripture it always is food.”

I do want to say that there probably are different kinds of implementing this, but if we’re talking about a food fast, we see lots of different lengths in Scripture. They’re not all forty days—thank goodness! A forty day fast can be really hard. They’re different. Some are sunup to sundown, some were collective, some were individual. So there’s not a rule-book, because fasting isn’t a rule. We never see it mandated. I think that’s a beautiful way to start.

I will just emphasize that if you’re fasting and not praying, you’re just on a diet. You have to have both. You have to have, “I’m going to set aside this time to fast, but I’m also going to carve that out as a time to pray.” For me, when I’m fasting, when my belly will start to rumble and I’ll get hungry, that’s like ding! time to pray. I almost always start with, “Lord, just as my body is hungering right now, help me to hunger for You in a new way.”

I don’t think you need a big on-ramp. I don’t think you have to talk to forty-six people about their fasting rhythms. I don’t think you have to know everything Scripture says about fasting. I think you can be confident in knowing that fasting is a tried and true rhythm God gives His people; it’s all throughout Scripture; and start where you can.

Bethany: That’s really good. I know for me, I’m a real journal, actual book kind of person. So having a journal out when I pray . . . because my brain goes everywhere! I start thinking about everything.

Erin: Me, too.

Bethany: That closet that needs to be organized that I literally could care less about on a normal day, when I’m trying to pray and have devotional time, it’s all of a sudden like, “I have to clean the closet! I have to organize it!” So I know during prayer and fasting—even if it’s just for an hour—our minds can start to wander everywhere. I know for me that’s been super helpful, just having a journal out and actually writing my prayers out. Writing things kind of helps my mind focus.

Do you have a specific prayer strategy or something that you do that helps you to focus when you’re trying to focus and not be distracted by the closet that needs to be cleaned?

Erin: Well, I’m also all over the map, so either you and I are alike or everybody’s that way, and I think everybody’s that way.

Journaling is so helpful to me for that focus factor that you mentioned, as is walking and praying. If you were to drive by the Davis farm on any given morning, you might see a crazy woman outside walking and talking out loud and nobody is by her; that’s me. There’s just something about my feet moving and my mouth moving. I’m praying out loud, there’s rhythm to it. I’m not looking at the dishes that are in the sink, I’m not looking at the other things I need to do. It doesn’t have to be for a long time. I can take a ten-minute walk and just, “Lord, thank You for this tree that I’m seeing and this sun. Lord, this is my need . . .” He’s taking the walk with me.

Those are the two tools I think I use most often.

Bethany: Yes.

Erin, what are we going to hear in the next episode?

Erin: I’m going to tell you about a breakfast that feels like it saved my life.

Bethany: I can’t wait!

We’ve actually released all seven episodes in this season at once, so you can hear the next episode right now.

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

All Scriptue is taken from the CSB.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.