Share your experiences with fasting

Red-Curious · 2019-05-07T16:56:10+00:00

Fasting is great for losing weight, but I'm guessing that's not what you're talking about (and if it's not accompanied by broader concepts of diet management, the weight will come back anyway).

Spiritual fasting is something that's been contorted by the church to feed into the emotionalism agenda pushed by the mainstream church. Rather than a discipline, it's now a way someone can go about feeling "closer to God." This idea of "closer to God" warrants a broader look, but suffice it to say that the passages I can reference off the top of my head that use this type of imagery are usually talking about non-Christians. As believers, God is already indwelling within us. We are as close to him as we're ever going to get and it's just a matter of what we're going to do as a result of that relationship. The book of James is super on-point with this, as it's mostly written to address the situation of non-believers within the church causing confusion over what it means to be a believer.

So if fasting isn't about becoming "closer to God" what is it about?

OT EXAMPLES

1 Samuel 7 - Israel uses fasting as a means of demonstrating the sincerity of their repentance to God after serious idolatry and while they were in the middle of a terrifying war.
2 Samuel 1 - Fasting was a way for David and his men to express the sincerity of their mourning at Saul's death, even though he was their enemy.
Esther 4 - Esther asks Israel to fast for her, demonstrating the seriousness of what she was about to do in approaching the king against his law, and building a communal bond behind this purpose.
Exodus 34 - Moses fasted while getting the second 10 commandments, which solemnized the Mosaic covenant.
Joel 2 - God commands fasting and weeping as an expression of repentance at the threat of what the armies of the Lord can do.
Nehemiah 1 - Nehemiah fasts as an expression of the sincerity of his mourning as he prays for God to let him restore the wall of Jerusalem.

NEW TESTAMENT EXAMPLES

1 Cor. 7:5 - Paul commands us to fast whenever a married person stops having sex in order to make sure we don't fall into sin. [How radically would marriages and sex lives be changed if we all followed this imperative?]
- Note: the "and fasting" part isn't in all translations, but it does exist in the Young's Literal, so I include this one.
Acts 13 - Paul and other early church leaders fasted while petitioning God to help them understand their next assignments.
Acts 14 - Paul and Barnabas fasted before choosing which elders to appoint over the church.
Luke 2 - A prophetess and widow fasted constantly leading up to her recognition of Jesus in Mary's womb, prophesying about all he would do.
Luke 18 - A pharisee prays in bragging about how he fasts twice a week. This is the only example I see of fasting being a somewhat flippant thing that someone does just to do it, and it's condemned by Jesus here.
Luke 4 - Jesus fasts in the wilderness while being tempted by the devil. This immediately preceded his public ministry, and can be assumed he was fasting to prepare himself to go public. It's also the only recorded time we have of Jesus fasting.

There are lots and lots more examples, but these should suffice. Some observations and interpretations from these and other passages:

Fasting is never mentioned as something we do just because we feel like it or merely because it seems like a religious thing to do or because some religious leader (like a pastor or a pharisee) told you to do it. The only example of this is the Pharisee in Luke 18 and Jesus says it did him no good.
Fasting is always associated with a demonstration of our seriousness and passion behind a specific cause. If you don't have a specific cause you're fasting for, don't fast.
Fasting is often done in community with others, but it doesn't have to be. Fasting alongside others works in tandem with passages that talk about the power of praying in community rather than alone.
Fasting is often associated with a need for heavy repentance after a time of seriously nasty sin in our lives. If you've gone complete dark, it may be a good time to fast to get yourself reoriented - not that the fast is what reorients you; rather, it's what expresses the sincerity of your heart.
Fasting is often associated with seeking understanding. If there's something you really want to discern, especially if it's mission-oriented and life-altering, that's a great reason to fast.

None of this precludes fasting for dietary reasons. It's not sinful to engage in a secular dietary fast, as long as you're not passing it off as a religious exercise when your real goal is to lose weight. At that point, you're only trying to deceive someone when Jesus says in Matthew 6 that we shouldn't go out of our way to let others know we're fasting in the first place.

Personally, I fasted for 3 days and prayed for 6+ hours a day, totaling hundreds of hours in the few weeks before deciding to ask out my wife. While I appreciate her in my life today, all that fasting and prayer didn't change the fact of all our struggles for the first several years of marriage or all the serious lies she told me about her faith, interests, sexual interests, etc. while we were dating. That doesn't mean I came to the wrong conclusion after fasting and praying that much or that God was telling me wrong. It could be that God was looking ahead to all that would be accomplished through me because of her and decided it was worth it. I just don't know.

My point is simply to say that we don't see anywhere in Scripture that fasting will give us some magical answer or supernatural clarity over what we should do. What it does show, and what I have experienced, is that fasting is an expression of how seriously we're taking an issue, and then we go make decisions and act on them afterward and let God do what he will.

It's like when I was first learning to drive and had no clue how to get home. My dad was in the passenger seat. "Dad, should I turn left?" He stays silent. "I think I'm going to turn left up here. Is that okay?" Still silence. I start pounding on the dashboard, "I just want to make sure you're paying attention. I don't know where to go. You better not let me screw this up. Should I go left?" He still doesn't answer. I turn left. Turns out that was the way home all along.

Would my dad have stopped me if I started to turn right instead? Probably. Did my pounding on the dashboard change which direction would have led home? No. Did my pounding on the dashboard change my dad's mind about how I should drive the car? No. But it did help me - it was a way for me to express to my dad how serious I was being in wanting to know which way to go. It didn't mean I got my answer, but in expressing my sincerity, I somehow still had a better resolve that my dad wasn't going to let me go the wrong way, even in the midst of his silence - because I knew he heard me. "And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him" (preceded by "If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us") ~ 1 John 5:15.

That's my take on fasting. It's less about changing God's mind or doing a religious exercise, and more about expressing ourselves to God on a specific subject.

RedPlanetMan · 2019-05-07T17:56:44+00:00

It really helped me see how much stronger I was then I thought, how much I could do without, without falling apart or failing others or myself. I have tried IF for dieting/bodybuilding and water fasting, which I did for about 10 & 36 hours. It was an intense and amazing experience. Make sure to research as much as possible if you decide to do so. The gut is very sensitive when fasting and could cause serious injury if not done so properly.

Im_not_a_robot-yet · 2019-05-07T23:15:29+00:00

I saw this post and wanted to share an experience I had a few years ago when I was fasting. I had been a christian for many years and I had developed a bit of a drinking habit.

It began in 2015 [I think] I wanted to fast and pray for God's blessing and direction for my life. I had some time off work and so I began to fast and I only drank water, no food at all. After about ~35~ hours I began to vomit [mostly water] so I broke my fast because I was worried if I couldn't hold down water I would quickly dehydrate.

Fast forward 12 months and I again wanted to fast and pray as before. So I did as I did previously, and sure enough after about ~35~ hours I vomited most water. But this time I wanted to persevere, so my fasting and praying became mostly vomiting and resting at approximately 1 hour intervals. After about 4 or 5 episodes of vomiting I was wondering; how can I keep vomiting when I haven't eaten anything? And then it happened.

Again a wave of nausea came over me and I went back to the toilet, by now I had a towel on the floor because I had spent a lot of time there trying to vomit from my empty stomach. But this time I threw up something horrible I think it was my bile. The taste and smell was so bad it caused me to continue vomiting in a cascading effect. I just keep reaching and reaching and the taste! {{{{shudder}}}}. Anyways it eventually stopped. And I washed my mouth out, and broke my fast. [It must of sounded funny, because I was making horrible noises too]

Since that experience I don't drink much any more. A six-pack can last for weeks in my fridge. Praise God for doing a work in me in that area of my life.

SkimTheDross · 2019-05-07T20:08:02+00:00

I intermittent fast 18/6 everyday and about once a month go 24 hours usually due to schedule that day not permitting lunch. Those days are especially fun. Breaking a 24 hr fast with an 1800 calorie meal is eating.

Never fasted for spiritual reasons. I could see myself doing so if the circumstances warranted.

I defiantly can say I have more mental sharpness when fasted.

Title	Share your experiences with fasting
Author	ChadDownUnder
Upvotes	14
Comments	6
Date	May 7, 2019 3:02 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/RPChristians
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/RPChristians/comments/blrqw7/share_your_experiences_with_fasting/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/RPChristians/share-your-experiences-with-fasting.301298 https://theredarchive.com/post/301298