A Few Thoughts on Fasting

Recently, I had a friend begin a juice fast for his health. He told me about the documentary that inspired him, Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead, so I logged on to Netflix and watched it. The people in this film fasted for 60 days being sustained by vegetable and fruit juice, so he has started a journey of trying to go 60 days.

This got me thinking about the Christian Discipline of fasting. While this is being done for health reasons, I think that there are still some places of overlap where people who practice this kind of fasting will still gain the emotional and maybe even spiritual benefits of fasting. Here four things that fasting accomplish, and how even this health fast will benefit a would-be faster.

1.      Fasting Builds Discipline

Even if you aren’t fasting for spiritual reasons, it takes a lot of disciple. In the first week of a fast, your body revolts against you. You are weak and feel. Your hunger pangs are relentless. After that first week, however, your body kicks it into high-gear and you regain your energy and feel surprisingly good. There is, however, still a small nagging in your mind that wants food (after more than three weeks, my friend still occasionally mentions craving certain foods). But pushing through and remaining true to your fast builds discipline that will carry over to other areas of life.

2.      Fasting Cuts Off Your Dependence/Codependence on Food

This is like a mental reset. If you have the discipline to get to the point where you don’t feel terrible all of the time, you start putting food into the proper perspective. You evaluate and eliminate certain food addictions. Then when you return to normal life, you probably won’t have the same pull toward food that you had before.

3.      Fasting Helps Reassess Your Priorities

Although you have cut food out of your life, other parts of your life come into perspective. It’s a strange thing that you start questioning things like whether you need to have the premium package for cable (or have it at all). Do you need the best car available, even the best car you can afford, when your car is in decent working condition.  Richard Foster in Celebration of Discipline writes about a person during a fast realizing they don’t need to set the thermostat to such an extreme temperature.

4.      Fasting Breaks Down Your Defenses

You probably don’t realize it, but food helps you build the filter that you establish that keeps the real you from coming out. Allow me to explain, most people try to hide who they really are from the world, and when we are allowed to eat we have the comfort and strength to suppress the part of us we try to keep from the real world. Our insecurities have a chance to creep out. For example, have you ever gone to a restaurant for a late dinner with your family and there is an extremely long wait before you are seated. After you are seated, your stomach begins to growl as the waiter takes a long time to come to the table. The restaurant is very busy so it is an additional 20 minutes before your meal comes. Think back to examine what your attitude was in the time you were waiting. Were you more irritable than usual? Were you more impatient? Did your family members tax your nerves more than usual? Your hunger takes away the filter that you have built that keeps the world, and even you, from seeing the anger, impatience, and selfishness that is inside of you.