Book Review: 40 Days Without Food by Russ Masterson


 

When I first started this book I thought it wasn’t going to be worth reading, just being real honest. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere fast and if it doesn’t catch my attention pretty quickly, I often lay it aside, as I did with this one. I purchased this book several months ago and started to read it and it went to the side. However, in preparation for my upcoming fast I decided to take another look at it. I’m glad that I did.

This book is basically a 40 day journal of the author that gives you a play by-play of what he was thinking, how he felt, an a lot more. After I got to about day 23 I realized this is exactly how I felt on my first 4 day fast a couple of years ago. I was wondering if anything I was doing was any good. The author is real hones and shares his shortcomings and his frustrations with a 40 day fast. His was a juice fast with no solid food so don’t mistake it for water only which in my opinion is a lot harder. I believe that a person could literally go 4o days on juice and water and gain weight, especially if you were drinking processed juices.

I can associate very well with the authors feelings, thoughts, and moods shared in this book. We oftentimes go into a time of fasting expecting it to be magical, earth shattering, immediately life changing and for most of us, it isn’t. What it really is, it’s a time for us to grow closer to God, to depend on Him and His Word alone to sustain us. A time when we nothing more than to know Him better. And sometimes, in the midst of complaining and whining to ourselves or those close to us who know what we are doing, God comes along and reveals Himself to us. He reveals Himself in times when we least expect it, in the mundane, the ritual, the boring.

Don’t get me wrong, God is not a magician and fasting is not something where you do it and you are granted three wishes but it is magical, it is life changing.

You should just do it and by the way, this is a good book for you to read, just so you know you are normal and that there are no super Christians.

Ronnie

Leave a Reply