Wow, it is simply amazing to live out a fast. It is amazing to find out just how much control the stomach and our desires have over us. If you have never fasted then you just simply need to do so. Jesus fasted, Moses fasted, Elijah fasted, and Daniel, as did many people in the scriptures and many people have done since the time the bible was written.
Fasting gives new understanding to the verse which says in Matthew 26: 41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
I can honestly say almost 2 days into this fast that I am not nor have I been hungry. However, I have wanted to eat. I want to eat because of good and bad reasons. I want to eat because I know to some degree we need food for energy and I want to eat for bad reasons, because I love sweets and even though I know they are bad for me I eat them anyway.
I will soon talk about scripture and the fact that Jesus expects us to fast just as he expects us to give and to pray, check out Matthew chapter 6 for details on that. But for now I am just thinking about the sad fact that so many of us are controlled by our desires in this life. So many of us have desires that are wrong and we act on them because we like it or it feels good.
I can understand why God would have us fast. It is a means of taming the flesh, a way of saying to our wants and desires, this may feel good, this may taste good but it is not what is best for you. As a matter of fact what we eat can have damaging effects on us and cause us to live a shorter period of time than we were meant to live. The substances, foods, etc, that we put into our bodies often times are causing us to commit what I once heard termed “successive suicide”. We eat things that are killing us little by little, we drink things that are successively killing us and even before they kill us they are making us less than we really should be.
These are things we must think about. Have you ever fasted? Did you know that the average healthy person can live 50 to 75 days with nothing but water? It will not kill us to go without food for a few days and as a matter of fact it would be good for our physical health and especially good for our spiritual health.
I hope you will join me. Start with missing a couple of meals, turn it into a day and eventually God may lead you to do an extended fast. I am thankful for the lessons I am learning.
Ronnie
