Fasting: A Journey to Spiritual Depth and Sensitivity

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Now, fasting is the voluntary denial of an otherwise normal function for the sake of intense spiritual activity. Now, there's nothing wrong with these normal functions in life. It is just that there are times when we set them aside in order to concentrate. Now, when we see that, we understand both the reasonableness of fasting as well as the broader dimensions to it. [00:02:08]

There are a lot of things to learn to fast from. For example, in our day, one of the greatest needs is to learn to fast from speech. You see, silence is one of the deepest disciplines of the spiritual life, simply because it puts the stopper on all that self-justification, all that managing of our public image. [00:02:38]

In fasting, we are not trying to trick God into doing something or to manipulate God. We're not fasting for political pressure, that is, manipulating other human beings. We're not fasting to lose weight or vanity. No, no. Christian fasting has spiritual purposes. First, we're learning something about balance in life. [00:03:06]

We're learning how not to be so consumed by the consumer culture of our day. We're, you see, fasting is kind of an inner alarm to catch us up, to understand the priorities of life. And then we also fast because it reveals the things that control us. [00:03:28]

In experiences of fasting, that comes to the surface. I remember in my first experiences of fasting, I constantly had this anger. Now, you have to understand, people would always say that I was such an easygoing sort of guy, nothing ever bothered me, loved to work under pressure. [00:03:56]

And I'd say, Lord, I'd so appreciate it if you'd teach me some of what's inside of me. And the Lord would say, delighted, how about a little fast? And pretty soon I'm exploding with anger. And at first I thought that I'm angry because I'm hungry. Now, I understand about low blood sugar and all of that. [00:04:24]

But then I realized I'm angry because there is a spirit of anger within me that I need to deal with. And so coming to understand that there are so many things pride. Do you have any idea how many religiously respectable ways there are for letting everybody know how good we are? [00:04:39]

These are the kinds of things we begin to deal with in fasting. And then, too, we learn to fast so that we might feast upon God. See, we learn by experience, experience that we do not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God. [00:04:49]

Now let me share with you a very early experience I had with fasting and two results that came out of it that were both unexpected and very different. Oh, I was so rigid in those early days, you wouldn't have liked me a bit. I decided I was going to go into this little room and I was going to fast and pray for three days. [00:05:46]

Well God did many wonderful things in that three-day experience. However, the woman crippled with arthritis continued to be crippled with arthritis, okay, until some years later God's friends, the doctors, came up with a new kind of operation that gave her some substantial relief and I'm delighted. [00:06:45]

By that time I had learned that it is helpful to listen and so I said Lord I don't know about these things very much but I'll do my best to be in a kind of listening mode and if you have anything that you want to teach me I'll try to learn it. [00:07:16]

You see what he'd done? He'd cleared the air so that this could be life and not manipulation. And I said, yes. And he prayed for me one of the deepest prayers I have ever experienced. I still remember it today, about 32 years later. [00:11:22]

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