“Renounce yourself in order to follow Christ; discipline your body; do not pamper yourself, but love fasting. You must relieve the lot of the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick, and bury the dead. Go to help the troubled and console the sorrowing.” (The Rule of Saint Benedict)

Dear Saints,

What does it mean to “love fasting”? For almost as long as I can remember, I have been acquainted with fasting, but it never crossed my mind that I should love it.

The Bible assumes that believers fast. Jesus didn’t say, “If you fast…” Fasting was normal behavior for devout Jews. He said, “When you are fasting, do not put on a gloomy look…” (Matthew 6:16) Even before I was much of a Bible reader, the Church taught me to receive Communion “fasting,” which typically meant eating no break-fast before going to church on Sunday morning. Or, if I knew I would receive Communion later in the day, not eating for at least three hours beforehand. (By the way, Jesus did not make these rules!) Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are fast days. On Good Friday evening, after the three-hour service of the Seven Last Words from the Cross, some of my family and I would break our fast by having tea and hot cross buns.

As soon as I decide to fast, to say “no” to my appetites for food or anything else, a debate starts inside me. Am I going to take orders from my body or the other way around? Do I take my signals from a culture that says no impulse should go unfulfilled? The discipline of fasting sheds light on my addictive relationship with food. Why, when I am under stress, do I look in the refrigerator for some kind of food to put into a body that isn’t hungry? What emptiness am I trying to fill? What wound am I trying to soothe? It’s not working out as well as if I’d taken my stress to the One who has the power to fill my emptiness and heal my wounds.

One thing that has persuaded me to continue in the discipline is the example of the early Church in the Book of Acts. In Chapter 13 it was “while they were offering worship and keeping a fast” that the Holy Spirit gave a prophecy to the Church in Antioch, setting Paul and Barnabas apart for a missionary journey. Then in Chapter 14 Paul and Barnabas pray and fast before selecting elders for the new churches they established. I believe that the first Christians never selected leaders or entered into a new stage of their mission without prayer and fasting.

For me fasting is a way of praying with my whole body – not just my mind, my emotions, and my lips – to be equipped for ministry or to meet some challenge. By fasting I put myself in a receptive posture; I “empty” myself in order to be filled with whatever the Lord is preparing to give. At certain periods in my life, I have set aside at least one day a month to fast. I usually fast in preparation for our healing services.

Jesus told us our fasting was to be known only to our heavenly Father who sees what is done in secret (Matthew 6:18). While I am fasting, I try to avoid telling other people about it. If someone presses me to eat and I “blow my cover,” disclosing that I am keeping a fast, I try to divert the focus from myself and toward the Lord Jesus. The reaction is interesting. Jesus warned against seeking admiration from people, but admiration is not usually the problem. “Pity” would be a more precise word choice. If people don’t think I’ve lost my mind, they treat me as if I’m physically frail.

When I’m fasting I don’t feel frail at all. I try to maintain as much of my normal routine as I can, including exercise, except that I don’t eat and I have more time to pray. While fasting, I would just as soon prepare food for others and serve them, and participate in the meal (the conversation and fellowship) - everything except eating the food.

Our rebellious natures and the Evil One have the potential to corrupt even a good thing like fasting. In Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth (1988), Richard Foster explained why fasting acquired a bad reputation in the late Middle Ages: “With the decline of the inward reality of the Christian faith, an increasing tendency to stress the only thing left, the outward form, developed. And whenever there is a form devoid of spiritual power, law will take over because law always carries with it a sense of security and manipulative power.” I have experienced the danger of practicing a form of fasting in a manipulative way, without relying on God for the spiritual power. I have gotten carried away with the length of my fasts, going for a “personal best.” As if it were about me, or food, or some work that I had accomplished. One time after a healing service I complained to the Lord: “Didn’t you see how long I fasted? I expected more to happen.” And then the Lord humbled me by making his presence and power known at another healing service, when I had been too disorganized to fast or even pray very much beforehand.

The length or severity of the fast is not the point. In the Benedictine tradition, the monks eat two simple but hearty meals a day (washed down with a pint of wine); on fast days they eat only one meal (without wine). Even skipping one meal that our stomachs normally feel entitled to is a way of praying with our bodies and quieting the appetites. There is a lot to be said for a fast that is long enough for us to go through the transition from a complaining stomach to actual hunger. But if you are not used to fasting, talk to your doctor before missing more than a meal. I don’t recommend fasting to someone with diabetes, low blood sugar, abnormal levels of potassium, or other medical complications.

Self-denial is one of the commitments included in the Franciscan Rule. Self-denial “is more than fasting. It involves your attitude, service to people, use of time, etc.” It is

…conversion of your life toward growing beyond those ideas and behaviors that negatively affect your relationships with God, others, and yourself… in self-denial we [try to rid ourselves of excess] interior baggage and behavior. This category is the area where we work on breaking down our barriers to wholeness… It’s really about learning to keep the first commandment: to love God with all your heart and soul and mind, and to love others as yourself.

Fasting from food might be easy compared with fasting from workaholism, recreational shopping, television, or the internet – or from envy, lust, grudges, vengeance, falsehood, and gossip. Jesus wasn’t telling his disciples to mutilate themselves when he said, “If your hand [your foot, or your eye] causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell….” (Mark 9:43-47) He was pointing out to followers like Peter, who had promised to obey him to the death, that there were things they actually loved more than they loved him. Most would be good things in themselves, if we loved them appropriately. But it’s amazing how much we love what harms us and draws us away from the Lord. As addictions, they become (by definition) the focus not just of our attention but of our primary spiritual relationship – our worship! I know people whose grudges have become their joy and their “food”; people who have held grudges for so long that they would feel diminished if they were cleansed of all those toxins... relieved of all that excess baggage!

At a church I used to attend, the congregation agreed during one Lent to read the Bible daily, fast once a week (one day or one meal), and donate the money we didn’t spend on meals to buy heifers through the Heifer Project for an orphanage in Uganda. In the same spirit, the Benedictine and Franciscan Rules (quoted above) join fasting and self-denial with justice, right relationships, almsgiving, service, and transformation. So does the prophet Isaiah, who (like Richard Foster) warns against “a form devoid of spiritual power”:

...Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer… (Isaiah 58:3-14)

Honesty to you (the reader) and before God require me to admit I am not very diligent about fasting. In this article I don’t want to make myself out to be a specimen of holiness. The Lord has blessed me through fasting, helping me with my listening and prayer, and has taught me many uncomfortable lessons. I have been slow to learn and grow. I should love fasting, but the truth is that I don’t yet, not as much as I should.

By the time you read this, Lent will have begun. Maybe you have given something up for Lent, or added something to your life. If you fast or practice self-denial, don’t turn it into something legalistic. Don’t do it to look better at the beach, or to be admired by people, or to get God to love you more. Do it for no other reason than to grow closer to Him who already loves you unconditionally.

Faithfully,