04 Jul Debunking Fasting
Remember as a kid when your parents or youth leader announced that there was going to be a fast, and you didn’t even end up praying during the fast cause all you cared about was what delicious meal you will break the fast with? Truth be told, even as adults, many of us still fast like this. But this needs to change.
Most of us grew up thinking fasting is essentially giving up food only but fasting can be achieved when you give up anything else that would hurt you for a period of time. In this generation, social media fasting should be most advised because so many youths, adults and even children have gotten so attached to media that they cannot live without it. Day and night our phones, and other gadgets, buzz, ping, beep their way into our attention.
The reason we fast is also very critical, most of us fast because we were forced to, some of us fast and think about food during the fast, this mindset needs to change. The core of fasting is to focus all our thoughts completely on God; expressing our love and devotion to him and saying with our fast, “This much, O God, I want more of you.”
It is key to know that whenever we fast without a purpose, it’s not fasting. It’s just going hungry. The great and often hidden reward of fasting is God himself. “Open your mouth wide,” he says, as we empty our stomachs, “and I will fill it” (Psalm 81:10). God rewards Christian fasting because it attunes us to the very purpose of God in the universe: to magnify himself in our desiring, enjoying, and being satisfied in him. And what he rewards is not just what we’re asking for with our fast, but ultimately with who he is as our desire, enjoyment, and satisfaction. Christian fasting is not mainly about what we go without, but who we want more of.
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