Can't Fast, My Stomach is too Bossy
by Jahan Berns
(Birmingham, Alabama)
Someone once said to me, “I know I am not a glutton but why is fasting so hard? The day I set out to fast is the day my stomach grumbles the loudest and bosses me to the point where I just have to give in. Indulging my appetite seems the most natural thing to do when I am hungry, I want to fast but it seems like such an impossible task. I really love God and I want to sacrifice by fasting but what does one do when their stomach sometimes talks louder than God?”
One of the key aids in pursuing God is the practice of fasting. Fasting is when you generally humble yourself to seek the face of God concerning different aspects of life. In the Bible, different people had different styles of fasting; some went for days without food, while others restricted themselves to a certain kind of diet. What remained common in all kinds of fasts however, was the fact that God’s people undertook a fast to humble themselves before God and ask for his direct intervention in their lives.
Actually, I have never come across a single person that has delightfully confessed that they love fasting and find it an absolute breeze. The reason why fasting is so hard is because it is a discipline. It takes a lot of effort to discipline your flesh and submit your will to God. Once you are able to overcome this hurdle however, you will actually find fasting a very rewarding and fruitful time.
From past experience, I have found that I have had to pray and ask God to give me the strength, will and discipline to fast. If you fast in your own strength, you are bound to suffer a lot of frustration and failure. Much as we would like to, we cannot fast in our own strength, we have to ask the Lord to lead us and guide us into a time of fasting. When the Lord impresses it upon your heart to fast, not only will He show you what to fast about, He will also guide us into how to do it.
There are many times in the bible when the Lord commanded his people to fast, and when He did this, He also explained why He was asking them to fast. There are times the Lord would tell Israel, “Repent of your sins by fasting and praying so that I will forgive you of your great sin and heal you.”
We see in such times that when the people heeded God’s word, their sin would be cleansed, their grief and disease would be healed and their land would become fruitful.
An example of this was when God sent Jonah and told Nineveh to repent. Otherwise the city would perish. The people of Nineveh, led by their King, repented, put on sackcloth and fasted. God heard their prayer and spared their city from destruction.
In this present age, the Lord sometimes lays it upon our hearts to repent of our sins and fast so that we can be cleansed. Fasting coupled with repentance is such a powerful tool because it unlocks God’s forgiveness.
In different places, like some African countries, where human atrocities like genocide have taken place, God has led the people to repent and declare national days of fasting for forgiveness, cleansing and healing of their land.
There are so many times when I have personally repented and fasted for cleansing because of my sins and what a deep cleansing was poured out on my soul when that happened.
We fast in order to seek God’s will and to submit ourselves to God’s sovereignty. Fasting isn’t one of those things we do to twist God’s hand to do whatever we want Him to do. If you fast because you want God to do what you want, you are starving yourself for nothing.
We have this misconception that fasting will force God to give us anything we want. God already has our best interests at heart, we do not need to fast to twist his arm, rather we do it so that we can know and accept his will for our lives.
In Acts 13, the Disciples fasted and committed themselves to God and it was during this time that the Lord told them to set apart Saul and Barnabas. When we fast, we are able to prefer God’s will above our own. That is why it seems so much easier to hear God when you fast. In essence, we are telling God, “Not my will but thine be done in my life.”
Jesus fasted while on earth, it helped Him submit to his father’s will. He was able to resist the devil’s temptations. Fasting strengthens us to fight against temptation because it helps us to submit to a higher and better cause.
Jesus told the disciples that some demons can only be cast out by fasting and prayer. There are certain problems and obstacles that require us to fast so that we can see God’s intervention. Some aspects of healing and deliverance require us to fast and listen to God’s direction so that we can be set totally free.
The neat thing about fasting is that it always produces positive results. It is a win-win situation. It is one of those cases where you cannot return empty handed when you seek God through fasting. The next time your stomach growls louder, persevere a little more because fasting produces a life time of rewards.
