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Ten Tips For
a Successful Fast
Excerpt from FASTING TO
FREEDOM
The following provide some practical principles that will assist you in
fasting with the least number of distractions. They come from a resource of
personal experience of those who fast often and have been forced to learn
the hard way to find the smoothest path into the sometimes difficult
personal terrain of fasting. During a fast, focus is critical. You will
become painfully aware of how nosy, chaotic and cluttered your world has
become. This is because fasting will force you to slow down. Vacations allow
us to leave our busy life for awhile and escape to a quieter landscape.
Fasting is quite the opposite, instead of an escape, you will come face to
face with your life in a new way. It can be overwhelming, even unmanageable
when all the years of useless pursuits flash before you, demanding focus and
attention.
Here are ten principles which will help manage the chaos
and find victory and power over your life again.
1. Tell the least number of people
that you are fasting.
Fasting is an exciting event and it is
easy to blab off to everyone that you are on a fast, especially when you
begin to experience the incredible benefits. The problem is that you set
yourself up for failure and disappointment when you make your fast public.
There are two reasons for this:
First, most people will think that you are crazy. They
will not understand. And if you do not have any fear of fasting, they will
supply all the fear you need. Satan often uses those who are closest to us
to cause the most trouble.
You look like you have aids!
Youre becoming a fanatic!
Youre going to become protein deficient!
Times have changed, people dont fast any more!
Are you under a doctors supervision?
Fear, fear, fear, fear--the last thing you need on
your fast is fear. And, keep in mind fear does not come from God, it comes
from the devil.
Secondly, do not tell people that you are fasting as it
can cause the fast to become a law to your heart. When you are tempted to
break the fast, the thinking will be that, Aunt Myrtle, Uncle Ed, Dad,
Mom, and half the church know Im on a fast. If I quit now, Ill be
humiliated in front of all of them.
Your fast is between you and God and no one else. And
when you are being tempted to break, it is not Aunt Murtil you need to be
concerned with. You are fasting because you are in love with Jesus.
The key to a great fast is to stay fixed on Jesus, not people or
circumstances. Keeping your fast between you and God will help you stay
focused in times of temptation.
2. Turn off the TV.
Watching TV while on a spiritual fast
will become increasingly ridiculous. In every commercial you are being
tempted with food. Most of all, it destroys your Christ-focus. It is not
going to kill you to turn off the TV and radio, and stop buying the
newspaper. The world will continue happily along without your presence. Of
the many times I have broken a fast, I can usually root it back to allowing
myself some form of earthly distraction.
Even a short fast has many different stages. Fasting
speeds up emotional states to the point where one moment you will have a
sense of closeness to God with a feeling of well-being and the next moment
the bottom falls out and you feel empty and cold.
Remember, a tug-of-war is going on in the soul between
the flesh that is being inflicted, and the spirit that is being
strengthened.
You are the most vulnerable when youre feeling
deprived. That is the time when you must be aware of the temptation to find
an escape. Let God be your entertainment. Turn to Him when you feel
deprived.
Look for your Bible, not the converter!
3. Get alone with God.
Fasting and solitude have always gone
hand in hand. Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit away from the crowds, into
the desert. (Luke 5:15)
What kind of man would King David have been if he had not
spent countless lonely nights as a shepherd. Where the stars were his
friends and the harp, a way of expressing his heart to God. It is in
loneliness and the quietness of solitude that we learn friendship with
Jesus. It does not matter how large a ministry you have, you need to get
alone with God. Your ministry will survive without you--and if it doesnt,
it was built on the wrong foundation, you not Christ!
4. Feast on His Word.
Just think of all those lost hours of
time spent on radio, television and newspapers. Well, during your fast make
a diet adjustment. Saturate yourself in His Word. Use every available means
possible--tapes, books, videos, Christian television, but most of all, the
Bible.
But be careful, you might develop a renewed mind. You may
begin to think differently. Behavior patterns may begin to surface that
others will think fanatical. The Word will develop within you an
irrepressible enthusiasm that, you can do all things in Christ who is
your strength, and you are the righteousness of God. You
might have the nerve even to think that the only difference between you and
the apostle Paul is that he didnt have a cordless phone. In your spare
time, you may start a new hobby, like casting out demons or healing the
sick.
We are not ignorant of the power of media to change
peoples thinking. Can you imagine the power the creative Words of God
will have on your thinking if you begin to fill yourself with His spiritual
food.
5.
Meditate.
Christians,
especially in North America, have lost the art of meditation. In fact, we
almost consider it a pagan practice. But his delight is in the law of the
LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night (Psalm 1:2).
For the most part, our thinking, especially for the
undisciplined, has a mind of its own. We are victims of our own thoughts. Im
sure that youve experienced it time and time again. You could be driving
your car, and without any conscious decision you begin to worry. You
envision yourself in the worst case scenario and before you know it you are
embraced by a mood of melancholy and despair.
Through meditation we wrestle down negative thoughts and
emotions that plague us every day. Meditation is a discipline of the mind
where you take charge of your thoughts, directing them towards God.
We are a society of lazy thinkers. Television has become
an electronic imagination. It determines, with vivid stereo and full color
imagery, how we feel and think.
Try sitting down, closing your eyes and allow your
imagination to be filled with a single thought. You have been chosen by
God before the creation of this world, according to his good pleasure and
will.
Allow your mind to be filled with the implication of how
that single truth affects who you are, and your importance to this world.
This will be difficult because negative thoughts come easiest to the mind.
They are safe.
As you travel throughout your thinking, you will begin to
experience obstacles of fear and unbelief. Those thoughts will oppose
themselves against the Word of God. You will find that often your first
experience with meditation is like a wrestling match in the mind, instead of
an experience of peace and stillness. As you begin to experience the
authority you have over your own thinking, the floodgates of joy will burst
within you, maybe for the first time. You will develop an awareness of how
you and the Word of God are one in your thinking.
There may be fifty years of hardened residue built up
that you will have to come up against as you meditate to internalize the
Word. The Word of God is the single force in all of eternity that is able to
enter your thinking and recreate your character, mind and emotions,
conforming them into the image of Christ.
There is nothing spiritual about opening a Bible and
reading it. Christians all over North America do that in their personal
devotions and remain unchanged. Meditation opens the soul to the Word that
it may begin to come in and make great change.
We suggest that you take a scripture or a single nugget
of truth and meditate all day. Look at your reflex-thinking, see if it
conforms to that truth--and if it does not, cast it down as an evil thing
that hinders you from communing with God.
6. Go for walks
alone.
Clouds, a breeze
in the face, flowers, trees, sun, moon and stars. These are the expressions
of God to you--His creation, and as you fast, your five senses will become
sharp and clear, allowing the loveliness of God in all that He has made, to
impact your soul. Whether winter or summer, go for long walks with God.
Invite Him to come with you. Experience the beauty of what He has made to.
Feel the quality and vastness of His universe. Reach outward with your soul,
embracing God through what He has made.
7. Take a phone
break.
Clear your
schedule. Take a break from the phone. No interruptions! This is a period of
time to minister to Christ and your own spiritual need for deeper intimacy
with Him. Whatever ministry you are involved with it can survive without
you. If it falls apart without you, Gods not running it.
Withdraw from peoples lives for a time of intimacy
with God. Jesus did it often. He would wander the desolate hills and
valleys, the no-mans land of Israel. It must have been hard to leave
those who were sick and emotionally shipwrecked, those searching for some
meaning and purpose, but he left them repeatedly. If Christ needed to
refresh His spirit, then even more so do you.
Many have found escape by submerging in ministry. They
leave themselves behind by focusing on the needs of others. They draw people
like a magnet with kindness and compassion. However, what seems to be
selfless devotion is just a search for identity and purpose, a desperate
attempt to prove value. Men and women rise to large ministries, teaching
millions of people, through television and radio, yet have never quieted
themselves enough to meet their own inner terror. If only they knew that in
that quietness, they would find the smiling face of their God. A God who
does not condemn, reject or criticize, but accepts, embraces and loves us as
we are.
Dear friend, during your fast, find your peace. Pause
your soul. Deal aggressively with every thought of rejection, loneliness and
self-contempt. Tell yourself that you are fully accepted by God and that you
need nothing more. Christs blood paid for your acceptance. Are you trying
to give more than that?
Enter the solitude of loneliness. No ministry or throngs
of people, only God. A place of inner reflection to realign the heart. When
you emerge from the desert, your ministry will take on a depth which will
profoundly touch the lives of those whom you serve.
8. Be quiet.
Much dreaming and
many words are meaningless. Therefore stand in awe of God.
Ecclesiates 5:7
With pride comes many words. Tame the tongue. Bring it
into submission. Be silent. There is humility in silence. The literal
interpretation of the word fast is to cover your mouth. The noise of
words can cover insecurity, drowning the murmurs of a restless soul. What
vulnerabilities do our face show when we are silent? We use words for
boundaries, for protection, for meaningless distraction. Yet it is only in
silence that we can quiet the soul to experience the awe of God, an
experience of majestic greatness that transcends the emptiness of words.
9. Do not enter into needless
temptation.
The smells and sight of food can be
difficult during a fast. As you continue along the path of fasting, all five
senses will increase in sensitivity. When the next door neighbor opens a jar
of fresh peanut butter, you will know it. Every desire to draw closer to God
will be obscured in peanuts. All you can imagine is the smooth, delicious
flavors of peanut butter melting on freshly-browned toast.
During a fast, you will be surrounded with the hostile
world of food, especially in a country that has become addicted to eating.
Do all you can to separate yourself from temptations--the neon signs,
commercials and the golden arches.
You will learn that you can live quite happily without
food. God can supply all your needs emotionally for the trials and
difficulties of the day. Caffeine, fat and sugar are crutches that we depend
on to keep us moving when we feel emptiness. God will fill all emptiness if
we are simply willing to give Him a chance.
Take a risk. Get hungry! Explore the emptiness of your
own stomach. Of course, your children need to eat. Do your best to arrange a
schedule where your spouse is able to do the cooking. This also can be an
excellent situation for your children to experience a sense of
responsibility in the home. You can plan meals for the next five, 20 or 30
days or however long you decide to fast. They may not want too, but once
your family sees that your decision is firm and that this is important to
you, they will support you. You are displaying a powerful example of seeking
God that they will never forget.
10. Sleep.
If you are going
to detoxify you ought to do it on a good nights sleep. The last thing you
need during the difficult part of your fast is to be tired and overworked.
It is worth investing time and energy toward a fast, as if you were
investing in a vacation. We look forward to a vacation, saving money,
planning as if it will become a highlight of our year. Fasting is a
spiritual vacation with God, traveling to foreign parts of your character,
learning more about yourself. Breaking old patterns and developing a brand
new culture that will affect the rest of your life.
Most of us live on the edge, rarely getting the sleep
that we need to function with clear-mindedness. During a fast it is
essential that you get enough sleep. Come home from work, take a shower, and
allow yourself time to quietly and restfully meditate and pray.
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