What we gain when we give up

“Do you wish your prayers to fly towards God? Give it two wings: Fasting and almsgiving.”

-Augustine of Hippo

As I type these words I am nearing the end of day 3 without food. Or juice. Or ANYTHING for crying out loud! (Sorry, that was my flesh speaking. Ignore her.) I recognize that lots of people fast this long, and much longer, and don’t whine about it. But I wanted to write to you now, before it’s over, because it’s all too easy to finish, eat a big meal, feel great, and then reflect back and say, “Oh that was so wonderful. I loved every minute of it!” Kind of like once childbirth is all over you look back and say that labor pain wasn’t that bad.

Don’t ever believe people who say that. They are crazy. Labor pain is always bad. 

And fasting food is always hard. Don’t believe people who say it’s not. 😉 Lest we have some silly notion of prolonged fasting being fun, let me remind you of the headaches, nausea, lightheadedness, fatigue, constantly feeling cold, irritability, inability to focus, just to name a few. God created us to need food, so when we don’t have it, we feel it!

But is it worth it? Oh my. Beyond worth it. Just as labor is nothing compared to the joy of a new life, fasting-discomfort is nothing compared to the joy of new spiritual vitality. And while this post certainly isn’t a definitive guide to benefits of fasting, this is what I gained by giving up.

1. Increased hunger for God.

During this fast I felt such spiritual hunger and desperation for Him and the burning away of the dross of my complacency, comfort-addictions, and pride. Dozens of times a day our minds meander to many different things to fill our emptiness, and food tops the list. So during fasting, we have countless opportunities to turn that hunger to God.

Nothing enables us to understand His upside-down kingdom more than practicing upside-down living. Get hungry to be satisfied. Get empty in order to fill. Give away in order to gain. Humble yourself to be exalted.  Lose life to find it. All the kingdom principles are exactly opposite of our natural inclination. Embracing weakness in order to experience power is the the way of the Kingdom. 

2. Power in intercession.

Of course I cannot see into the spiritual realm, but I will say that during the time devoted to intercession, I knew these prayers were effective. The hunger fueled my fervor in prayer, and the lack of meal-prep gave me several more hours each day that were free to spend truly seeking Him. Certainly fasting is not some sort of magic genie-in-a-bottle deal where you use fasting to twist God’s arm and make Him what you want. Exactly the opposite.

Through the weakness of fasting you surrender more completely to God’s leading, God’s will, and feel the desperation that characterizes effective prayer.  Scripture talks several times about our obedience and abiding in Christ being connected to answered prayer (1 John 3:22, Psalm 66:18, John 15:7, John 15:16). As Augustine said above, “”Do you wish your prayers to fly towards God? Give it two wings: Fasting and almsgiving.”

And speaking of almsgiving…

3. Solidarity with the poor.

I would lie in bed at night and feel SO hungry! And of course what filled my mind was that millions of mamas feel that way every single night, sacrificing their own food so their children won’t starve, or sadly falling asleep knowing their babies are hungry as well. Tears filled my eyes as I couldn’t help but praying for them. Of course I was praying! I felt just the tiniest (tiniest!) bit of what they feel. And I had the knowledge that this feeling would soon be over. They have no such privilege. Fasting enables us to identify with those we are praying for, and stand in solidarity with them.

And of course this type of identification with them leads to increased generosity. We ended our fast by together, as a family, by making a contribution for hungry children through World Vision. We had an increased love and compassion  for them because of identifying (in the tiniest bit!) with them. (More on this in Chris Seay’s book here.)

Lastly, I found that THIS BOOK became my daily food, along with the Bible. It is a powerful explanation at New Testament fasting and pushes us beyond narrow legalistic views into freedom, power, joy, and worship. Throughout the day, over and over, I found myself turning to this book. A must-read for anyone attempting a fast. (It’s a FREE pdf download here!)

Although it’s the last thing we naturally want to do, I pray for all of us, for a supernatural desire to embrace the upside down way of the kingdom.

To discover all that we gain when we give up.

{Thanks for reading.}