Fasting started out being really challenging for me and I felt less joy and more disconnected from Jesus than I had previously and nothing in my life or circumstances had changed except for fasting, so I summed it up to spiritual attack. When Jesus fasted, Satan came and tempted Him, so I figured that was it.
But then I went to the beach with some friends who all stopped to get ice cream and candy, and I was internally struggling. “Maybe the store sells something yummy that doesn’t have sugar,” I thought to myself, and lo and behold they did. So I got the sugar free chocolate (which was still sweet and yummy) and ate two bites and immediately felt convicted. God showed me that I was being legalistic about the fast, but missing the heart of it. I immediately repented, threw the rest of the chocolate away, and moved on.
Fast forward a couple days and we are at community group and I just start munching away on chips, and after eating about six chips, I realized I had completely forgotten that I was fasting from said items, which was then followed by me berating myself for being such an idiot and how could I forget and so on and so on.
The rest of the evening and driving home, I felt like I was being pounded by shame and under major spiritual attack. As I was pouring my heart out to [my husband], I felt like the enemy was yelling in my ear, “Just quit. You’ve already messed twice, why even bother continuing? You might as well just give up or otherwise you’ll have to start completely over again and do it right this time. But you know yourself, you’ll never get it right, so really, just give up.”
“How do you think God will use this?”“I don’t know” I snarkily replied.“Well, maybe God wants to teach you about grace.”
Oh man, you know those moments when it feels like the Holy Spirit whacks you in the head and says, “Pay attention.” That was this moment. It’s such a simple concept and my mind understands it, but I really struggle to receive grace. I love that God gives it, but I spent so many years of my life abusing His grace that I tend to swing so far to the other side of trying to achieve perfection that I have a hard time receiving grace. Anyway, I spent some quality time with Jesus that night and realized that this fast was started out in my flesh (trying to be good enough to get some spiritual result for the lives of others) and what the Lord showed me was that fasting isn’t to get something (even if it is something good) or even become something good/better (legalistically following rules), but to just rest in Him and His grace. Jeff’s quote so perfectly sums up what God has been teaching me so far:
“Fasting is never about how faithfully we abstain from food, but rather how faithfully God breaks into our weakness if we will only give Him the chance.
So do this: Know that a call to fast is not a call to perfection, but do not take the fast lightly, either. Our flesh will fail, yet God is full of grace. He loves the simple Yes! toward Him that a fast represents. So if you have previously tried and failed, be renewed and return to your consecration in His strength. Learn from my mistakes: There is simply no such thing as failure in fasting—the whole purpose is simply to break into a realm of faith.” (page 84, The Jesus Fast by Lou Engle & Dean Briggs)