The Rule of Life podcast team with Practicing the Way has done it again. They released another series on a spiritual practice, fasting, that has challenged me. The episodes are filled with a good combination of information and inspiration. Here is my reflection and summary of my learning.
First of all, simply put, fasting is not eating. It is going without food. Many times, people will say they are “fasting” from shopping or electronics or some other activity. That may be a form of abstaining, but it is not fasting. Only in the West do we seem to confuse this point when we really know better. If your doctor tells you to fast before a procedure, then we all know they mean to not eat. You don’t show up at the hospital the morning of your operation and say, “I am prepared. I fasted from Facebook last night.” This basic and fundamental point is important because fasting only makes sense if we have a theology of the body.
Fasting introduces “whole body hungering” for God. The body is not just a shell. We are holistic beings and our bodies are temples for the Holy Spirit. In the West, we tend to overemphasize our mind in discipleship and spiritual formation (I am totally guilty of this!), but the harder reality to comprehend is that we also receive spiritual formation through our body, including our stomach specifically. This realization aligns with my understanding of a person as a whole and an integrated being. We are spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional, and social. (I often use the acronym S.P.I.E.S. to highlight this point.) The stomach, with its physical needs and desires, ties these dimensions together.
Fasting is the physical act of going without food as a spiritual practice of consecrating ourselves to God. It is, therefore, good for our body, mind, and soul.
I cannot skip over the fact that fasting is often unpleasant. Fasting humbles me precisely because it is physically challenging and exposes my limitations and weaknesses. As I offer my whole self to God through fasting, He can change me in a variety of ways. For example, He uses my regular biological processes, such as digestion and ketosis, to impact me. After a substantial time of fasting, autophagy begins to take place within the body. This word literally means “self-eating.” Autophagy is the body’s way of cleaning out damaged cells and reusing old cell parts. It is basically our “cellular recycling system.”
Having said that, a Hebraic understanding may mean that fasting is more of an affliction of the soul than the body. While a fast has physical benefits, our focus is on spiritual renewal to grow in holiness. God can show mercy to us while meeting the brokenness in our bodies. Fasting may humble us as it brings us to the end of ourselves in a very real way. It weans us off of the pleasure principle (“Just do what feels good at the moment.”), reveals and reorders our desires, and draws on God’s power.
Diet can change the way you look.
Fasting can change the way you see.
Next, fasting has been a common Christian practice throughout church history. It was the norm for the earliest believers to fast twice a week. (This was something I had never heard before!) Fasting unites me with others. One of the mindset shifts for me, while listening to this series, is that fasting can be much more communal than individual when I recognize the spiritual way it bonds me to others. There are literally Christ-followers around the globe fasting right now. This is true on any given day at any given moment. Fasting is a way to have a shared practice with believers who may be very diverse. It reminds me that I am part of a universal church body. Not only that, I am also building on the legacy of Christians who have gone before me. I am critical of so much of church history because of its misguided pursuit of power and domination in many cases, but the connection to previous generations of the church through fasting fosters humility.
Jesus felt the need to fast regularly.
Third, and most importantly, fasting can help me unite with God. This is the ultimate objective. Fasting and prayer must be understood in terms of relationship and formation, not transaction. Fasting is not “performed” to get God to do something for us as much as sharing ourselves with God to allow Him to do something IN us. It provides a tangible opportunity to have our inner being shaped by Him. What nourishment can my soul find in Him while my body is deprived of physical nourishment? When my flesh is in submission to my will by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, then is it possible for my spirit to be more alert and attuned to God’s will?
It is also important to consider a gentle warning here. Fasting is not about trying to work this out for oneself. Dr. Cook cautioned about the use of fasting to gain control of something in one’s life, almost as a form of self-help. Fasting is not a tool to make you a better you apart from Christ.
The enemy may not be able to possess you, but he can address you.
Fasting is another way, similar to prayer and worship, for us to partner with God so that He can protect and provide for us in ways that only He can. He can fight the enemy on our behalf. We can find forgiveness for sin and strength for holiness. This is especially true when we are down. In our society, when we have something go wrong, even the death of a loved one, we tend to turn to food for comfort. Strangely, the body often does not even want or need food while grieving. How many times does a person express they have no appetite while suffering, yet we usually hold up food as the answer? Scot McKnight is referenced in the podcast for making the point that “body grief” is one of the purest examples of what fasting is all about. Sometimes the first step in making something right is to lament or feel sorrow in the body.
Finally, fasting gives us a chance to uphold justice. Tyler Staton was interviewed in the last portion of the series. Tyler discussed the relationship between fasting and justice. “Justice is not abstract and cannot be done from a distance,” he said. Justice is not independent of righteousness. In fact, this raises another Bible translation issue for us because often the same original word is used for both justice and righteousness. (I have even heard before that entire cultural groups, like Hispanics and Latinos, have the word translated “justice” in their Bibles because they already have a social, communal perspective of life. Holy living is expressed through relationships. At the same time, many English Bibles translate the word “righteousness” because it carries more of an individualistic - between me and God - kind of feel to it. We overemphasize a personal, private relationship with God as the avenue for holiness.) The truth is justice flows from intimacy with Christ and it requires proximity to others.
Having a refrigerator full of food that gives us a choice of what to eat makes us a sociological anomaly.
In the end, I see the need to explore and practice fasting more, not because it will earn points with God. God will not love me any more or less if I fast. What I see, though, is that I can pray with my body. I can open myself to discovering more of what God can do and already is doing. I can heighten my sensitivity to the spiritual realm. And honestly, I need to re-evaluate my relationship with food anyway. I know it could be healthier and now I recognize it as a “trailhead,” an invitation to walk down a path of deeper exploration and healing.